My Cup Runneth Over

SUNDAY, MAY 11, 2008 - Gravida Hills, CA

...In other news, a Southern California suburb received a special Mother’s day gift this morning. Eight of them, in fact. At 6:36am, Gravida Hills resident, Ava Pleonexis successfully gave birth to octuplets via cesarean section at Gravida Hills General Hospital. Doctors present commented that the mother was surprisingly calm and composed during the 45 minute procedure.
A behavior not unprecedented considering Miss Pleonexis has been a frequent guest of the Gravida Hills delivery room, having visited for the births of six preceding children including a recent set of fraternal twins.
Now a mother of 14, 32 year-old Ava says she’s grateful for the blessing of so many healthy children.
Now turning to the local-

BZZZIP

Sally scowled sourly at the blank screen as the last static hum of color and image receded into the dark grey television tube.
“That bitch is going to make millions,” she thought to herself as she pulled her large frame from the wooden rocking chair, “and she’s probably not even a real Christian.”
Tossing the remote haphazardly over the back of the couch, Sally ambled into the kitchen where her husband Richard was sitting at the counter reading the Sunday paper. He was still wearing his sport coat while his favorite tie fell in a lopsided wilt where he had loosened it upon returning from church.
“Hey honey, did you see this article about the woman with the eight babies?”
Sally cringed visibly at his question as she retrieved a box of snack cakes from the cupboard above the sink,
“It was just on the news,” she replied with the enthusiasm of a recently crippled cheerleader, “I don’t think it’s fair! I’ve been wanting a baby of my own for years and she just gets eight all at once?!”
Her exclamation came out louder than she’d intended causing Richard to put down the paper.
“Sweetheart,” his tone was almost as deflated as her uterus, “I’m sorry I haven’t been able give you any children.”
“Well it would help if you actually tried every once in awhile!” she snapped while unwrapping the creme-filled cupcake.

They had the same argument every Mother’s day. When Richard Wiltington had first met Sally Baron the two of them agreed on one thing: Children. And lots of them. However, as a result of their strict adherence to premarital abstinence, neither had been given the opportunity to realize that Richard had a serious problem until after they were signed, sealed and committed.
Their wedding night had been nothing short of a travesty. After hours of coaxing, frisking, and multiple attempts at soggy felatio (she was desperate and she felt God would understand), Sally eventually went to sleep telling herself it was just Richard’s nerves. Richard went into the bathroom and cried.
With every following wedding anniversary and Mother’s Day, Sally and Richard’s hope for offspring diminished faster than Richard’s sperm count. As a means of filling the awkward void left by their painfully lacking sex life, Richard turned to various publications of the men’s study Bible while Sally turned to food. Richard’s avid studies eventually resulted in the publication of his own men’s devotional while Sally’s avid consumption resulted in her weighing over three hundred pounds. And now in their seventh year of being the only couple from their small group without a maternal excuse to miss the usual Sunday evening meeting (everyone else was having Mother’s Day brunch at Denny’s then doing something family-ish like picnicking or watching Veggie-Tales) the two of them felt ever more despondent over their shortcomings as good Christians.

“I’ve tried everything I can, dear,” Richard’s dejection was made all the more palatable by the cracking in his voice, “you know I have.”
Sally had to admit Richard’s efforts had been nothing short of valiant: prayer, counseling, and even a small amount of *gasp* masturbation (again, God would overlook it due to Sally and Richard’s honorable intentions).
“Oh, Richard,” Sally said through a mouthful of greasy chocolate cake, “I didn’t mean to come off so critically.” She had begun to feel terribly cruel for blowing up all over Richard when he was all but desperate to do the same for her.
“It’s just that we’re running out of excuses for the Quiverfull group. What are we going to say the next time they ask us what we’re doing to contribute to God’s army?”
“We can always say just what we’ve said before: we’re waiting until God tells us it’s our time,” Richard offered.
“I don’t think they’ll accept that much longer,” countered Sally, “and soon they’re going to ask us to leave the group. You know sometimes I think I ought to just...”
Sally’s voice trailed off.
“What,” asked Richard somewhat urgently, “you ought to just what?”
After a pregnant pause, Sally spoke, “I’m just saying that it might be a good idea for me to visit Dr. Foreman and discuss my options.” Sally neglected to look at what she knew would be an expression of dented pride on the waxy brow of her now crestfallen husband.
Long ago they had mostly ruled out the option of artificial impregnation. Richard said it felt emasculating. But Sally was desperate.
Another pause allowed Sally a fresh mouthful of frosting while Richard fought the building indignation that threatened to squeeze its way out of his well-used tear ducts. Sally swallowed and then went on, ignoring his display of weakness.
“If only I could just find a baby and bring it with us next week.” Richard shifted uncomfortably on his barstool.
“Don’t you think they’d be a little suspicious if you and I just showed up to group with a baby when you haven’t been pregnant at all up until now,” he asked.
“Not if we tell them we’ve been keeping it to ourselves,” Sally responded with an odd glint in her glassy eyes, the last of the snack cake now framing the corners of her chomping mouth. She continued while reaching for another cellophane-wrapped snack.
“We could say that we weren’t wanting to bring attention to ourselves and we could just tell them I don’t show easily!”
Her excitement was so thorough at this point that the still-wrapped snack cake had been squeezed to a nearly unrecognizable pulp.
“But where are we going to get this surprise baby,” Richard inquired without shielding his incredulity.
“I don’t know,” continued Sally, still elated by her strange plan, “that woman in Gravida Hills has fourteen kids! I’m sure she could do without one.” Sally’s gaze was now straight ahead looking at nothing in particular as she tore off the corner of the once decorative confection and proceeded to shovel the decimated morsels into her plump face.
Richard was beginning to feel slightly alarmed at his wife’s fervor and tried to think of a way to calm her down before she did something brash. The last time she had tried to scheme up a child she had proposed volunteering at the local Zoo’s lost and found and taking home any “leftover babies.”
It had taken Richard nearly two weeks and countless boxes of snack cakes to curb Sally’s “brilliant idea.” And as much as it pained him to suggest, Richard knew that the only way to convince Sally of an alternate course of action was to give her something she wanted.
And he was pretty sure that snack cakes wouldn’t do it this time.
“Why don’t you make an appoint with Dr. Foreman first thing tomorrow?”
Everything in the room stopped for a moment. Richard looked at Sally. Sally looked at Richard. A hefty squeeze of white filling dripped from the corner of Sally’s mouth and onto Richard’s paper.
“Really?” Sally’s inquisitiveness softened her slightly.
“Really,” responded Richard, relieved to see her calming down, “I mean, we don’t need to make any final decisions right away but it would be a good idea to know our options.”
“Richard, I- I-” Sally struggled to think of a way to express her gratitude to the waifish little man in front of her, “Thank you. With everything in me, (“and everything I hope to have in me,” she silently added), thank you.”
With that, she bounded from the room heading to her closet where she hoped to pick out the perfect muumuu for her visit to the Sperm Doctor.
Richard turned back to his paper, wiping the creme off of the photo of Ava Pleonexis adjacent to the article he had been reading.

* * * * *

Sally had arrived at Dr. Foreman’s office twenty minutes prior to her afternoon appointment. Having called just after dawn, she’d left several massages requesting to be put on the wait list in the event that any of the doctor’s Monday appointments happened to cancel stating that she was “very much anticipating him getting her pregnant”.
The receptionist called her just after 9am, immediately asking rather dryly if she knew that Dr. Foreman was a fertility specialist and not a male escort. Sally laughed a gooey and shrill staccato guffaw, informing the woman that she was fully aware of the doctor’s profession. If there’s one thing Sally was never called, it was quick.
The receptionist grudgingly proceeded to make an appointment for Sally in the early afternoon and then promptly hung up, bringing the call to a curt close by hurriedly informing Sally that the doctor would answer any questions she had during the appointment.
After two sizable breakfasts, a donut break, lunch, and an early first dinner, Sally didn’t have any other meals to distract her before the appointment so she ate some snack cakes and then drove herself downtown to the doctor’s office.
She busied herself in the waiting room by looking through the baby magazines she’d purchased along with her box of chocolate covered donuts from the gas station on the corner.
By the fourth time she approached the receptionist’s desk to ask about how soon the doctor would see her, the receptionist refrained from responding in speech and simply handed her a tissue from the box on her desk.
Sally took it gratefully, using it to noisily blow her nose. The receptionist had intended it for the donut crumbs on her cheeks.
Just then Dr. Foreman stepped through the door behind the desk and Sally’s already overhauled heart went into turbo as the anticipation overtook her massive form.
“Sally Baron-Wiltington,” his voice was immediately drowned out by the overzealous noise made by Sally. What was originally intended to sound something like “yes” or “here” came out as an elephantic trumpet blare of thrill and exuberance.
Dr. Foreman looked over his clipboard first at Sally and then at the receptionist with whom he shared a “what in the bloody Hell is this monolith doing in my waiting room” look.
He then escorted Sally with a saccharine smile into the first examination room where he stated that he would be with her shortly. Sally was so elated that she couldn’t sit still. She then decided it better if she get ready for the doctor before he returned in order to save time.

Dr. Jorge Foreman was an average man. Five foot ten, just under 190, full head of greying brown hair, and a job he really hated. With every new day he came into contact with more and more people so mindlessly oversexed and hopelessly irresponsible that he wished he could just diagnose them all as infertile and feed them cyanide tablets. If it weren’t for the fact that these greedy breeders paid his way to Hawaii and back twice a year, he would have quit years prior and tried his hand at acting.
No amount of acting could have disguised his reaction upon entering Sally’s room.
She stood in the middle of the white-walled space with her arms out stretched and her legs spread like a Staypuft marshmallow version of DaVinci’s man. And she was completely naked.
Jorge wanted to shut his eyes and turn around but it would have been no use. The ghastly image of Sally’s gargantuan form would be forever burned into his memory. He wanted to vomit.
“Miss Wiltington-”
“It’s Baron-Wiltington. There’s a hyphen,” interrupted Sally with an eager smile. Jorge was surprised she knew what a hyphen was.
“Miss Baron-Wiltington-”
“Misses Baron-Wiltington. I’m married. See?” She said, gesturing toward the ring on her left ring finger. Jorge noted that it was the only article she’d kept on. Most likely because she couldn’t remove it from her pudgy finger.
“Misses. Baron. Wiltington,” Jorge tried to maintain himself, “please put on your clothing. This is not a physical examination. I’m simply administering an intake.”
Sally’s whole demeanor shifted and it seemed like the cheer drained from her and she appeared to momentarily sag a bit more than usual. Jorge stepped out in order that she might sheepishly redress. Once she was finished and he reentered, the remainder of their interaction was terse and brief.
“Have you ever seen a fertility specialist before?”
“No.”
“Are you having a regular menstrual cycle?”
“Yes.”
“Does your family have a history of infertility?”
“No.”
“Are you presently sexually active?”
Silence.
Jorge looked up from his notes and realized that Sally was staring quite intently over his shoulder. Checking behind himself, Jorge noticed that the chart where she was looking depicted a cross-sectional rendition of a penis penetrating a vagina.
“Miss-” Jorge caught himself, “Mrs. Baron-Wiltington?”
Sally started slightly and looked at Jorge as if he’d just woken her from a light nap.
“I’m sorry, I must have gotten distracted,” Sally laughed nervously following the excuse and immediately began fumbling through her purse, retrieving a candy bar.
“Look,” began Jorge, “why are you really here?”
“I’m here for the same reason as anybody,” replied Sally overly cheerily as she focused on tearing open the wrapper, “I want to have a baby!”
Jorge thought carefully before responding, “Sally, have you thought about just why you want to have a baby?”
“Dr. Foreman,” said Sally with a tone of familiarity (he had seen her naked after all), “I don’t expect you to understand this but God wants me to have a child- well, children, really. We’re all called to have children in order to add to His holy army!”
Jorge was dumbfounded. Sally continued, “In the Bible, God calls us to have a family like a quiver full of arrows. Always at the ready to uphold His name.”
The contrast between the gravitas in her voice and the smile on her face made Jorge mildly uncomfortable. What had originally been meant as a heartfelt line of questioning had now become a venture into yet another form of the twisted psyche that made abortion clinics across the nation install bullet proof windows and escape tunnels. And Jorge was no longer interested in playing audience to an obese fundamentalist’s views on the holiness of parenthood.
“Well Mrs. Baron-Wiltington, that’s all well and good but I’m not sure if you’re at a point physiologically where it would be wise to attempt pregnancy. I’m recommending you receive a full physical- and psychological assessment from your family physician before I take you on as a prospective patient.”
Sally’s smile disappeared completely. She shoved the partially opened candy bar back into her purse.
“What do you mean I’m not at a good point? Are you saying I can’t get pregnant because I’m fat?!”
“Of course not,” Jorge responded quickly, “I’m simply stating that your body would be put through a great deal of additional duress if you were to conceive and it would be a good idea to understand how ready you are to sustain such rigors.”
Sally stared at Jorge’s face, blinking in surrender.
“I’ll have my receptionist make you a followup appointment for a month from now. Visit your personal practitioner for a check up and have him compile your results and send them to my office.”
Jorge removed a small set of stapled sheets from his clipboard.
“Give this examination sheet to your doctor and have him fill it out and send it back to my office. It will let me know whether or not I ought to continue with this procedure.”
Sally took the stack of paper cautiously and was about to place it in her purse as well but thought better of it and tucked the sheets beneath her arm instead.
“Thank you Doctor,” she said crisply as she stood to leave, “I can assure you that I am in excellent health and I’ll look forward to seeing you in a month.”
And with that, she left. Jorge sighed heavily and then went promptly to his desk to look up flight schedules to Hawaii. Just after he instructed the receptionist to have calls from Sally’s home number blocked.

* * * * *

Arriving home, Sally felt humiliated. The dream doctor she had cooked up in her head was nothing like the hateful little prick she’d just experienced. Not at a good point? Who the Hell was he to tell here whether or not she should have a baby? His job was to give her one and then step off. At present, she felt he had failed on both counts.
The real truth of the matter was that she knew her physician would say just what he had been saying for the past seven years: “You need to stop the compulsive eating, do some serious cardio, and embrace your sex life.”
Embrace her sex life? She might as well have been telling Sally to go buy a vibrator (something Sally had seriously considered on multiple occasions but never gone through with on account of God’s frowning on the idea). And that made Sally think of Richard. What would she tell him? She couldn’t bear to admit after all of the nagging and pleading that finally visiting the fertility doctor had yielded little more than a much needed membership to Weight Watchers.
As it was, she was home and so was he. The men’s devotional had garnered them a series of handsome royalty checks which permitted Richard to work only part time while spending the rest of his week hunched over the computer composing his next brilliant gem of Christian self help literature. She would need to tell something. Preferably something impressive.
“I’m pregnant!” She squealed.
It just popped out.
“You’re what?!” Richard nearly fell over from standing so quickly.
There was no going back now, Sally was stuck in this one.
“Yeah, pregnant! I, uh, I need to, uh, go in for a, um, series of hormone treatments over the next few months. Yeah, and, um, well...” Sally was unsure how to continue so she just decided to stop there.
Richard slowly sat back down, lowering his head into his hands. Neither spoke for several minutes. Richard just kept raising his head and opening his mouth like he was ready to say something only to close it and lower his head again. Finally, he spoke.
“How could you do this without me?” There were years of hurt and volumes of disbelief in his disparaging voice.
“Oh, Richard,” Sally was caught somewhere between comforting and conniving, “it wasn’t without you. I, um, I felt like I would have your blessing on this. It’s for our quiver.” She finished in what she hoped he would take to be a complimenting and fulfilling tone.
“Whose sperm was it? How do you know for sure? Why do you need more hormones? What about my hormones? Will it even be my baby?” The questions flowed out of Richard like bathtub faucet water.
“It was an, um, anonymous donor,” Sally began to realize that she was in way over her head.
“An anonymous donor?!” Richard’s volume shot into unpracticed heights, “how in the world could you accept the seed of some man you’ve- we’ve never met?!”
“Doctor Foreman assured me that it was a good choice!” Sally knew she was going to need to do some fancy footwork to get out of this. And for someone who had difficulty navigating stairs due to sheer tonnage, the prospect was daunting at best.
“Doctor Foreman? I’ve never even met this Doctor Foreman. What’s the number to his office? I’m calling to talk to that sonuvagun right now!”
Sally suddenly saw the end of her pride (and possibly her marriage) in shockingly close proximity and began to panic.
“But- but-” Sally knew her number was up. Sighing, she resigned to imminent defeat. She handed Richard the stack of papers from Doctor Foreman’s office and he snatched them from her with the passion of a man on a mission.
Riffling through the stack, he quickly found the page with the office’s contact information and tore it out allowing the remaining sheets to fall on the floor.
As he dialed Sally held her breath. There was nothing she could do now. She was so worried she didn’t even want to eat. Richard waited with the receiver to his ear, his face scrunched into a vengeful grimace.
He waited.
And waited.
“There’s no ring,” he finally said. Sally let the breath she’d been holding out. She was safe for a moment.
“I’ll try again,” said Richard with determination. And once again Sally was rocketed into the tension only someone caught in their own trap can experience.
And again there was no ring. Sally knew better than to think it was all over just like that. As Richard reached for the received to dial a third time the digital tone of an incoming call startled both of them causing Richard to actually fall down this time taking Sally with him (no easy task considered her weight being twice his).
While Richard struggled to snatch up the call, Sally had begun to pick herself up when something caught her eye. What was left of the stack of papers from the doctor’s office laid in a disheveled pile just beneath the chair Richard had been sitting in. Sally overheard him standing above her speaking with some level of returning calm and realized that the caller was Andy Watersworth, the leader of their Sunday small group. Neither Richard nor Sally could afford to have their church group know they had been fighting, much less about pregnancy. What would the group think?
Sally was temporarily relieved, assuming that the men would be talking for awhile. This allowed her to direct her attentions to the papers on the floor. As she reached her husky forearm through the legs of both her husband and the chair, she made sure not to disturb him so as to cause his attention to be drawn downward.
Pulling the leaves of wrinkled print to where she could better decipher them, she saw that there was handwriting on the back side of the second sheet from the top of the stack. As she read over it she felt a shiver of excitement and disbelief all at the same time. The writing read:

Ava Pleonexis
1649 SW Clearhaven Ct.
Gravida Hills, CA 91341

* * * * *

(To be continued)

When one makes oneself lonely

I'm tired of banishing everyone and everything to Hell.

I feel like a heinous and critical bastard.

I'm realizing with each new day that I'm seeming like more and more of a hateful and judgmental fiend and I'm begin to reap the crop of self-sustained bitterness I've been sowing.

This is something that I've always feared.
This feeling that I'm unintentionally pushing everything away from me at the behest of my disparaging review of the world at large.

Why can't I just shelve some of this incredulity and be happy?
But even when I pose such an open ended question I'm reminded that I don't want others in my age to "just be happy", I want them to be incited!

I want them to be angry with the contorted way in which this country is being operated and the idiotic priorities we've all been bred to embrace.

And yet I don't want to be miserable.

What the Hell do I do?

A short, short story

Claiborne wanted nothing more than to eat.
But he couldn't because he was allergic to most sugars and a number of wheats as well.
He was also destitute.
When he happened upon either money or moderately fresh dumpster foods he was doomed to the leafy boredom of mixed greens and the occasional dance on the wild side with a bit of tasty (although gas-inducing) cheese.

One day he found a marvelous hunk of lavender bread in the wicker garbage bin behind the local boulangerie. And although he knew full well that it would be a nearly suicidal thing to consume, he raised the slightly crusty baguette to his lips and was shot in the back by a passing policeman who thought he was strangling a snake.

He died in a pool of his own blood.
But not before eating the entirety of the lavender loaf with what little life he had left after the negligent and trigger-happy officer did him in.

The End

Oh, the (strange) cleverness of me

I've only just arrived from a thrilling walk home from work.
I say thrilling with every intent of corroboration.

I was alone. Truly alone.
I had my music and the knowledge of a warm, secluded space of my own to comfort me as I fought the bitter cold.

And step after step, song after song,
I arrived safely at my perch.

Here I sit, realizing with a warm gratitude, the things I have to be incredibly thankful for.
I have a home, a wonderful, perfect home with a loving and trustworthy best friend.
I also have a comfortable bed and glorious IKEA sheets that always remind me of Michelle.

On that note, I have Michelle.
She's kind, caring, full of honest and uninhibited love, and she's so heartbreakingly beautiful.

Following in like manner, I have Sean.
He's in every way the man of my dreams.
(Don't scoff at either the cliche nor my unhindered fawning).
He's so understanding and patient. He's so bravely vulnerable and willfully thoughtful.
He's humble and witty, handsome and sweet.
And I love him.

So much.

Sometimes, when I'm alone and all around me still seems to be in the midst of chaos, I just think of the times we've been asleep on each other's limbs. The calm and quiet of lessened bloodflow can lead to a queer and riveting sense of euphoria.

And to think we've only just begun to discover it.

And what a journey it promises to be.

Goodnight.

Round 1b

After having bumbled my way through the intake assessment at the PSU Center for Student Health & Counseling (or SHAC as it is commonly referred to) I have to say that I felt a little trepidatious about going back for a second appointment with a new counselor.
The prospect of re-introducing my self-diagnosis as a bitter misanthrope was less than appealing.

However, upon stepping into the SHAC waiting room I began to feel the knots in my shoulders loosen a bit. Little did I know that the soon-to-begin session would provide an even grander denouement.

I was greeted a few minutes after my scheduled time by David, a shorter graying man with a light beard that resembled lambswool. He had crystal blue eyes that revealed a youthfulness and honesty which I immediately found welcoming.

He seemed like one of those guys who kind of always knew that he was cool even though no one necessarily nominated him for prom king. Like he didn't even think of needing anyone. He even swore a couple of times during our session which only added to my collective liking for him. And yet throughout the entire interaction he maintained such a patronly and available nature.

He was like salted caramel: sweet and soft with a savory, serious edge.

After our greeting, David and I strolled down the open hallway between the various offices and potted plants until we reached his door halfway down on the right. He had a geometric rug and two comfortable but subdued chairs in a well lit office with vaulted ceilings and a sizable window. I was glad to have the natural light.

The session itself commenced with David asking me to describe to him why I decided to request counseling at this time.
I was off like a shot.
I spoke of school's innocuousness and the belabored efforts of making enough money for rent and bills in light of this purportedly problematic economy and then transitioned into my underwhelming impression of the United States as a whole.
After continuing on in like fashion for the duration of the hour-long meeting (punctuated consistently by David's polite interjections and reflections) I realized that I felt incredible.
Everything in me was opening up and breathing and I felt fully porous, like air could move through my entire body cleansing the built up residue of anger and indignant dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Granted, it's not all gone just yet. However I feel a strong sense of optimistic and anticipatory potential about this guy, this process.

In hopes of gaining still more of said optimism, I plan on maintaining this counseling relationship and writing about it along the way.

At least something in my organic life is interesting enough to garner my attentions and written reflection.

Photo Flashback

In a surprising and cheerful recent instance of serendipity, I happened to come back into contact with the woman who played witness to the valiant reclamation of my absconded bicycle last Summer.

She is mentioned in the entry where I detail the event because she happened to take my picture that day and, since it was something of a random request, it stuck in my mind gaining placement in the formal storyline.

Well it just so happens that this charming and lovely woman still had the photos she'd taken of me that day and was kind enough to send them to me in order that I might document them for all cyber-eternity.

These skimpy shorts are what allowed me the speed necessary for abducting the thief.

This look of prideful
charm and boyish confidence
is actually farcical
considering that just behind
me is a neglected bike about
to be made off with by
some drunken crook!

And once again,
hubris incarnate.

I promise I did learn
not to be so ridiculously
full of myself as a result
of the trauma sustained
from this adventure.

The Sad Case of a Much-Needed Separation

Judy Peal never really believed in God. She played church so well that she married a preacher and lasted a whole 11 years with him before she ran out of energy and will. You can imagine what a depression might come with the realization that you had just divorced the self induced-poison of faith in false conventions such as prophecy. She still managed to get herself through a dark phase of loneliness and confusion with the determination of someone whose prophetic faith in nature could trump the status quo.
It was like being a non-weight bearing beam in a frivolously gaudy steeple and cross; you ran a thorn of pointless venom through the otherwise elegant and necessary structure. And one might only imagine the drawings of such wasted plans to be a thing of sheer squalor and deeply set ink from a lengthy and belabored concocting of such shameless indulgence. Judy tended to think of herself as shameless and indulgent, too.
The idea that she was leaving a man and a marriage which were both rooted to an unwavering piety soaked through her like spilt coffee through a thin cloth napkin.
There would be metric weight for a guilt of that inescapable magnitude. In fact, the ripple effect that such a sensation would wrack upon the surface any mistaken perception would issue tremors of the the most thoroughly unfamiliar and puzzling new kind. It would be a masochistic thirst. Like stealing a firm press on a dark bruise just to feel alive. So alive that it might be called thorough. What a beautiful detail indeed.

And in this was found the moment outside of a moment...




...but not really.

A Magnificent Death of Perfection

There’s a childish romance to be had of the world. If not us then who? If not now then when? The beauty of such immediacy is in its drive. And from that we derive our daily enthusiasm.
Why have we pushed so far away from the simplicity of innocence and naivety? The answer would seem simple- “we wanted to” - but there are some things that just beg for explaining.
Yes, we wanted to. But it’s just not as cut and dried as all that. Why did we want to? If you’re growing weary of all of the open ended questions I’ll do my best to put them at a halt from here on out.
Back on topic: We wanted to because the idea of imperfection was enticing. It was juicy and annoying like your fingers just after eating an orange. But we always thought we could just lick our hands cleaned and they would dry soft and dexterous just like before. We didn’t know, we’re at present having a hard time understanding, that none of this bland and massive stress is actually as overbearing as we’re permitting it to be with our greed, selfishness, and misguidance.
We wanted to because we thought that breaking status quo would in some way paint our lives just a little brighter instead of being placated by the peace of normalcy.

Now is not normal.

Now is when we do have to start making an effort to break trends and stray from our current path. We do have to rebel against the conventional. Because conventional as we know it is in an irreversible state of entropy and painful decay.
Stray from material things. Stray from a need for money. Stray from the idea that you’re better than someone based on your belongings. These are the ropes that lash us to our downward spiral fate. We must act out and cut ourselves away with the blade of a keen new vision.

We must return to a state of community and cooperation. This is quite a euphoric notion and yet I assure you, for some it is quite possible. Likely, even. But right now is our final stage of struggle before truly embracing peace. Be intentional about your contribution to the convalescence of our age. Love and cherish. Be free from the weak yet blinding constructions of a scared and enmeshed worldview. Open yourself to the fresh air of critical thought and thorough examination. We are a future of change and progress.

If only we choose to be.

How did I know?

Whenever I feel like things are getting so terribly rotten that I won't be able to stomach eating my way out of them, some random happenstance affects my whole perspective and I'm allowed to let go of the ever-present tension in my stomach and just relax into the normalcy of life.

And then something poisons that and I'm flung into despair all over again.

And then I'm happy.

And then I'm sad.

Are you seeing the same innocuous pattern I am?

I guess what's becoming so overwhelming is the idea that this rise-and-fall roller coaster won't ever stop. And once you've been on the same ride for, oh, I don't know, let's say 47 go-arounds, it sort of loses its thrill.

I'm at the point where the sharp drops and dizzying spins no longer hold any anticipatory excitement for me.
I just dread the next nice day for whatever horror will doubtless follow.

This is getting silly.

Just one more day

I'm heading to bed after a full day and evening.

Following yet another lengthy session of discussing just how much garbage we all ought to be filtering to try and maintain a generally balanced idea of the world at large, I came into a somewhat comprehensive sense of exhaustion.

Thus, I stopped by work to bid Matt a farewell (yes, I feel like a big person for having done so) and then I kissed and hugged Sean and made my way home.

En route I stopped at Safeway where I procured a number of necessities such as several cans of tuna, two gallons of discount ice cream, and a plethora of avocados.

No, I'm not planning on eating them all at the same time.

I then hiked the 10 or so blocks back to my apartment, laden with the trappings of school and nourishment (a heavy book bag and an equally heavy paper grocery sack).

Upon arrival at my home, I unloaded the unnecessaries and set to work in the kitchen making myself some delicious chicken noodle soup with dill dumplings.
As much as this might sound like the title to an episode of Little Rascals, it was actually quite sumptuous and I drank my weight in water throughout the course of the day so I rushed to slurp down the last few doughy blobs before jetting to my semi-archaic (two light bulbs burnt out) bathroom to relieve myself.

Once THAT was done I continued watching Stardust which I had started when I first sat down to my oh so filling dinner. And then Tommy showed up with his own entertainment contribution: Zach and Miri Make a Porno.

I was expecting something quirky and a bit mediocre and I'll note that I was neither impressed nor disappointed.

Now, following the completion of the dishes and a thorough bout of oral hygiene, I am slowly fading into pre-sleep which I will further strengthen by reading Watchmen.

God, I miss reading.

Right around the corner

Having just finished perusing NPR's article on the drastic lows in Wall Street, I have to say I'm growing more and more worried about the state of my current inability to garden effectively.

I feel like I ought to have been fostering the growth of a smattering of nutrient-rich vegetables and perhaps even raising some chickens what with the soon-to-burst balloon of debt this whole country seems all too blithe to keep inflating.

I'm just waiting for the day that I wake up to find that there have been countless runs on the banks and all of the numbers in my online bank accounts are simply that: numbers.
Meaningless, valueless, pointless numbers.

Then again, maybe that's just my problem: I'm just waiting.
Maybe that's all of our problem.

Seriously though, when I ask myself what it is I'm actually doing to counteract or at least prepare for these declining times I come up with precisely squat.

This is simply not acceptable.

Sitting in a class where we talk about media

I'm finally jumping into a class that compels me (just a little).

Me and a small cadre of my die-hard Speech Comm friends are currently sitting in our favorite basement dungeon classroom getting ready to embark on a weekend crash course in journalistic bias and contemporary media literacy.

This may sound like a mouthful but the truth is that it's an amalgamation of many topics we've all already addressed in individual form via various and sundry other courses.
Needless to say I'm very much anticipating what these next three days are going to have in store for us.

For once I'm excited about school.

And just when things couldn't get any bleaker

In the last week I've spent a few nights battling insomnia, a few mornings battling anxiety, and an afternoon or two wishing I could just ditch this conventional little life and run off to Barbados.

Seeing as how that's not likely to present itself as a realistic option at any point in the near future, I've decided to stop being unhappy for awhile.
Lord knows I deserve the break.

Not to mention I'm less than 5 months away claiming my hard earned degree, I have a beautiful and enriching group of close friends, I'm in an incredible relationship with one of the most handsome and adoring people I've ever encountered, and I still have all of my fingers and teeth...unless you count the curiously named wisdom molars.

All in all I don't have it too bad.
Sure, I have some debts (who doesn't and no, I wasn't asking you Amish people), I have a less than ideal job, and my iPhone freezes up sometimes.
Boo-hoo, I'm a such a martyr.

The fact is that I allow myself to become entirely too ensnared by the complications of wanting something I don't have, not wanting some I do, and wishing that I could gratify my desires in the blink of an eye.
I'm pretty sure prolonged attitudes like these will give you cancer.

I don't want cancer.

I like my hair.

A lot of people like my hair.

Like senior citizens.

And I would feel horrible disappointing them.
They lived through the depression.

I'm simply stating that I need to stop being such a wet blanket and live a little more fully.
That said, it's time for me to sleep.
Pleasant dream, me.

Sitting in a class where we talk about beer

I'm getting really tired of how much class time we spend just for the sake of filling up a period.
If there is anything I really cannot stand it's unnecessary use of time.

Why waste my effort, attention, and valuable time? (Yes, I would consider my time to be a very valuable thing.)

I'm not saying that what we do with the nebulous time is always of no value whatsoever, and yet I feel as if I ought to be allowed to choose whether or not I am willing to partake in the non-salient discussions.

I'm almost finished for God's sake.
I'm tired of merely meeting criteria.
My college experience is supposed to be saturated with learning new and innovative ways of thinking by being presented with scintillating concepts.

This is inanity.
(Ever notice how that word is one "s" away from "insanity"?)

Perhaps I'm just jaded.
Scratch the perhaps.
I am.

In a time of trial and apology

I've received two rather noteworthy apologies today.
And after spending the last several months constantly being the one doing the apologizing, it's a very refreshing and enlivening position to hold.

That said, I just finished a response to Maekol's ex-boyfriend, Sam's note of apology for some rudeness on his part during last week and I felt it warranted placement in my blog along side my other documentings of time's passage.


Sam,

I accept and appreciate your apology.
I'll admit I was made slightly uncomfortable by your insistence on coming over the other night mainly because I don't ever like being put into a situation where I have little to no choice in the matter.
I just find it to be without consideration on the part of the one making the demand and it is quite rude.

That said, I wanted to extend my own apology for saying that you were drunk. I must have misunderstood you during our phone conversation that night. There was a point in the discourse where I believed you to have mentioned that you were "trashed."
You very well might have said something like "trapped" or been commenting on everyone around you. Whatever the case, my misunderstanding led to me conveying an untruth to Maekol in my discussion of the situation.
For that, I am sorry.

I'm happy to know that you're looking to be civil and can see it in your message. However, considering the present situation in regard to your talking with Michaela about Maekol's and Tommy's frustrations with her, I must admit that I have begun to consider you with a moderate amount of wariness.

I'm glad to hear that you apologized to Tommy for speaking out of turn but at the same time, Michaela is still refraining from speaking directly with the boys as a result of your unnecessary input and that frustrates and disappoints me on behalf of all 3 of my friends who are now hurting because of the complexities of the situation.
This is not meant as a roundabout way of placing some kind of blame on you by any means. This is me making sure to let you know why it is I have grown more standoffish toward you of late.

I haven't harbored ill will for you in any fashion previously and this time period is more sensitive because of how much I am seeing what's conspired as a result of gossip hurting Tommy and Maekol.
As you are well aware, Maekol is my best friend.
I love him very, very much and hate to see him hurting.
Thus, when he is hurt, I am very protective and defensive against those involved in inflicting the upset.

Unfortunately, in this situation you happened to be a part of the source of that upset warranting the raising of my guards.

I, too would like to be civil in this but simultaneously I think it's understood that while we are able to get along, we've got conflicting positions with regard to what's best for this group of friends.

I understand that you're in something of a strenuous time of life what with relocation, joblessness, and a general sense of lacking direction. There are numerous external factors contributing to your difficulties right now and those things are acknowledged as being out of your control.
And yet, in lieu of working out a definite plan of long term action for yourself, I would advise that you focus on the small victories.

-Find some kind, any kind of employment (I know it's incredibly difficult to do so in the current state of things but it's not impossible and the ability to support yourself will be rewarding and maturing.)

-Find housing outside of your present situation (From what I've been told by both you and those around you, you're far from happy there and the people who reside with you sound as if they're heavily detracting from your ability to find success.)

-Assist in the diplomatic repair of Michaela's relationship with two of her closest and dearest friends (Whether this means re-couching the things you imparted about Tommy's and Maekol's opinions or simply stepping out of their triad long enough for them to clarify and heal everything solely within themselves.)

These things will each provide you with an individual sense of completion and accomplishment. Thus, you'll find yourself working toward realistic goals and ensure your own growth of inward peace, self-satisfaction, personal security, and maturity of behavior.

Considering the fact that we are all on the same path toward these common goals, understand that I'm not singling you out by advising these things. I'm doing the same for myself, as it Maekol, as is Tommy, as is Michaela.

Be intentional, be considerate, make a point of thinking carefully about the ways in which your actions consequentially affect those around you. And avoid inflating anything to a higher level of sensationalism than necessary. Just take everything you encounter with a grain of salt and focus on the essentials as opposed to making light of the frivolousness of gossip and melodrama.

I think you'll find yourself in a much happier place.

I have no qualms about being your friend but you must understand that I've made a decisive point of surrounding myself only with people who edify and encourage me and those I love.
If ever a person begins to detract from the well being of those I care about and/or myself, I hold them at an arm's length until they either make amends for wrongdoing or prove their integrity consistently improving their behavior.

I know I've left you with quite a lot to consider.
Just think on it.

Please feel free to ask me any questions you might have.

Sincerely,
Noah

The end of a very long day

Here I sit in somber dejection.

I told myself that today would be surprisingly productive and that I would feel surprised by the fact that I'd accomplished so much.

Well, I got my wish...and I missed the concert I've been looking forward to for weeks.
Granted, I did get a fair amount of random shit dealt with and finished.
None of it was terribly well done, but at least it's done.

So bleak, the revelation

I came to a solid conclusion this evening:
I've set unrealistic goals for myself and they are bringing me down.

In perusing the scraps of information I have concerning my future, I'm constantly gripped with a paralyzing sense of suspension.
It's like I'm dangling in some transparent vacuum space above and between all that I want to be and do, and yet without ground or walls off of which to propel myself I am left to unceremoniously look at everything I hope for without any conceivable momentum toward its obtainment.

One would think that making this statement about my own future would damn me to a self-induced sense of victimhood, and yet that's just the answer.
I would be the cause of it.
In this same vein of thought and flow of logic it would only be sensible to think that I could just as easily be the cause of my own success, of my own attaining of high merit, my own victory.

I long for championship.

And now, as my own propellant I can release myself from the arbitrary bonds of flawed plans rife with expectation and obligation.
I can be free to redefine my goals and ultimately myself.

This is a time for shaping and shaving.
Chipping away the larger portions of my accrued worry and self-doubt, I'll then begin to sand my new shape into smooth satisfaction by means of the sanding of flexibility and will to accept all that is unchangeable and a hope to discover just what can be altered.

Limits only exist where failure is perceived.

That's my new maxim.
Get it tattooed.
Just credit me.

In bed under the covers at 11:06am

Morning.
A time for worry,
when the dog's weight on blanketed feet feels so confining.

No amount of pulling will
raise the neatly tucked sheets
over my head.

Yes, my eyes are open.
No, I am not awake.
But I am not sleeping.

I am worrying.

Worrying over my worrying.
A vicious cycle.
And I am pinned beneath the comforter
like a teddy bear who is missing his button eyes.

I can't feel my fingertips

I've just resigned my keys to the house on Clinton.

It's a strange sensation, knowing I'll never go back there.
Then again, who really knows?

Perhaps some metaphysical element of that space as my home will one day ask me back, like when people drive by their childhood homes just to get their fix of nostalgia.

I rode my bike today for the first time in months. I can't feel my fingertips. My stomach feels like it's wrinkled and shrinking. My throat is lines with rigid tissue paper.

And now to work.

Posted with LifeCast

The morn of my 23rd year

It's official: I'm 23 years old.

There is something particularly unremarkable about this age, I think.
23 is a nice enough number, I guess.
But it lacks va-va-voom.

I guess that means that this will be the year during which I learn to more deftly provide for myself in the area of excitement and sensationalism.

I see this as a good thing.

This is the year I intend on doing a few things.

-Graduate from PSU
-Write a collection of short stories
-Finish the first installment of my memoirs
-Delve more passionately into professional modeling
-Grow out my curls
-Go to France
-Get out of the service industry
-Get married (kidding)

Here I am with this new list in front of me and it's the first thing I'm doing with a set intention in my newest of anniversarial endeavors.
I think that means I'm setting goals for myself rather than expectations.

This is the year of accomplishment.
And with that, I bid you all a good night.

Here I am, once again.
It's too late to be awake and too early to be asleep.

My mind is in such a messy turmoil.
Sure, I'm conniving and manipulative and jealous and angry and indignant and vengeful and bitchy and sad and buried and ugly and mean and judgmental and tired and bored and antsy and impatient and brilliantly prideful and painfully stupid.

So what?

Everyone really is, deep down...


...at some point.

Spirals aren't always pretty and graceful

I'm beginning to feel that I need medical attention.

As much as I used to criticize and riddle the notion that a person might need some pharmaceutical substance to balance out their moods, I'm at the point where I feel like every moment I'm cognizant is a guessing game of how I'll feel.

It seems like I have no control over my emotions.
I'm on this cruelly bucking wave of misty, cresting highs followed by plunging and darkened lows.
And the sad truth is that every time I reach the lowest part of the tidal dip, I take on a bit of water.
And I've been so up and down lately that I've accrued a dangerous amount of additional weight in my vessel of self.

I'm sinking.
I'm growing more and more reticent to rise to the top of the rolling water's peak.
Sunshine is growing to be more and more of a stranger and I'm feeling the salt water sting of the ubiquitously blinding brine of angst.

I don't want to see anyone or be close to anyone.
I don't want to be kind.
To others or myself.

I think I need help.

I can't seem to find sleep.

I thought I'd captured it a little earlier in the evening but somehow, between brushing my teeth and finding the perfect lullaby, it eluded me once again.

And after a day filled with mandatory accomplishment I felt it only fitting to write something of my own volition.

I caught myself scouring Craigslist for jobs again today.
It's moderately upsetting that I can't just find contentment in what I'm doing for longer than a brief season or two.
It's as if I'm hardwired to behave as if life's would be definites are little more than lily pads.
I hop from one to the next and the next and so on.
Occasionally, I land on a fresh and undulating floating green to discover that it plays home to a burst of gradient fuchsia petals resting in the soothing cradle of the serenely rippling surface.

I've always loved floating lilies.

But coming back to my metaphor, these lilies seem to wilt and fade causing me to jump to the next pad in hopes of finding a new blossom.

Whether that blossom be a kinder boss, a more appealing living space, or a better relationship, there is still an itch in my lengthy limbs telling me it will only be a matter of time before the vulnerable petals of each of my newly discovered blossoms will eventually suffer the mercilessness of entropy.
And once again I'll bound to the next green berth in hopes of discovering a stronger, more beautiful beauty.

But what of the argument that my presence might just be the cause of my discovered flowers' destruction?
Perhaps my arrival saps from the existing loveliness whatever life force it might have held sans me.
Perhaps.
Or perhaps I might offer an opportunity to play the botanical gardener, providing love and attention to the stillness of organic blooms.

Life is funny like that: so full of mutable things that seem to fall away from focus and/or importance.
And funnier still is that fact that so many of us just accept that the failure of said aspects to persevere and live on with us is a natural thing.

Could it not be said that our investment in those natural elements might sustain them?
And the practice of providing care to those things that are outside of us, could it not be that which best sustains ourselves?

I wonder if this metaphor has grown murky or perhaps stagnant.

Even so, I tire of leaping.
I'd rather rest in the open arms of my budding life.

Wipe that silly plaid off your lips

Perhaps there's something to the idea that we all think of our relationships as too special, too independent of contemporary problem and strife.
Those common issues that "regular couples" face aren't applicable to us because we're just too incredibly unique to be bothered with the riddling doubts and confrontations of the everyday dyads.

Maybe the answer to all of the discomfort, the sour stomach, the unmet expectations is to behave with an assumption that in at least a general sense we're just like everyone else.

Blending with the crowd might actually prove to be an element of saving grace.
This whole idea stems from the notion that too much of the time individuals craft for themselves a sort of "personal fable"; some people believe themselves to be living a life completely outside of the norm and in accordance with that belief think of everyone around them as being able to see the blatant contrast between their puny, regular, vanilla lives and the bright, shiny, one-of-a-kind lives of those with this misconception.

Perhaps that last paragraph didn't make much sense.
Perhaps it's just because I'm so different than all of you.

Well now I'm just making an example using myself.

But this whole issue seems to be so obvious and yet so arcane.

The Town Crier: A Short Story in 26 Sentences, A to Z

I just completed a writing exercise that one of my author friends told me about.
The function is mainly to exercise both an attention to short story plot while simultaneously developing flexibly creativity within a limited set of options.

Here's the skinny:
-Write a short story in 26 sentences.
-Beginning the first sentence with the letter A, each progressive sentence must begin with the following alphabetical letter (2nd sentence B, 3rd sentence C).
-And as a final push, one of the 26 sentences must be exactly 100 words long. No more, no less. It doesn't matter which one, just so long as one of them has that precise count.

This is my first try but I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

Enjoy.
And feel free to give it a hand yourself and send me the result. Maybe even post it as a comment!


THE TOWN CRIER

Already the people around had begun to hiss and whisper at what they took to be quite a spectacle.
By the time the rumoring crackled through the crowd Hans was up on his feet brushing the dry khaki dust off his clothes and hair.
Center of attention was never his place of preference.
Delighted by the sight of the freshly pommeled boy rising from the pile he'd just been left in, Hans' hound pup was quick to come and lick his master's wounds in some unwelcome offering of comfort.
Everyone began to break out of the tight circle that had formed around the youths wrestling in the streets.
Fights rarely occurred in the small town of Xylophone Springs.
Granted, the berg's name garnished plenty of public attention, attracting the drunk and over-sexed teens from the nearby suburbs to canvas the downtown streets with trouble in their lazy eyes.
Hundreds of people flocked to the unremarkable little populace to chance hearing a "musical trickle".
It happened that the tiny river running through the town (appropriately names the Xylophone after is matron spring) ran so lightly over a section of stair step layered shale that whenever fresh silt or tiny pebbles washed down the feeble flow over the stones, their sprinkled impact would create a tart and hollow resonance very much like a quiet Xylophone, bringing different musical tones out of the variously sized shelves beneath the water's sun-dappled surface.
"Just get off of me," Hans shushed sternly as the pup persisted in trying to salivate the bruises and abrasions now covering the boy's dirty legs.
Kids in Xylophone Springs were always known to be quite polite, well behaved, and well kempt.
Lately the cleaner, louder children (the ones whose parents clearly had an excess of means) had begun to heckle Hans for his shyness and dowdy wardrobe.
Mostly the harassment consisted of little more than the occasional jeering comment or ditty, ("Hans the hobo, Hans the hobo", "Hey trashcan", and "Are your pants sewn from a burlap potting soil sack?" were the most popular) but there were still the more aggressive and menacing attacks like the one that had just ended where Hans was either made target of whatever object the offending kids could obtain as a missile or actually directly accosted by the more proactive children who would pin his limbs and tickle him to the point that he began sobbing or crying for his mother.
Not that much about the present day's cruelties strayed far from the established pattern where the physical abuse at school was concerned, but this time the town brats had started their bullying in the middle of a crowded street full of the town's working adults and elderly crones.
Obviously it would seem a bit public for such a childish sin and yet the kids beat up on Hans with a particular sunny abandon that Sunday afternoon.
People around the kerfuffle did nothing.
Quiet perturbation and maybe even a little bit of spite tainted all of the proud citizens, looking on as "that dirty little boy" received what they took to be his just comeuppance at the hands of their bright and shiny offspring.
Rarely did anyone step in to defend Hans.
Several times a number of the surrounding playground children had thought very seriously about just how unfair it was to gang up on their sad and quiet classmate.
Thinking wasn't ever the same doing.
Usually, Hans would submissively weather the bitter abuse and then sneak into the backstage of the Primary school's auditorium to conceal himself by sitting cross-legged between the floor-length heavy felt curtains.
Veiled from sight, Hans would silently talk to himself confirming that he was still a good boy no matter how all of those people treated him.
Wiping rebellious tears from the corners of his eyes before the hot salt had a chance to stain his cheeks, he would calm himself and then walk out onto the blank stage in front of 220 empty seats and take a bow, imagining the freedom of knowing that the beautiful audience in his head would always be giving him the standing ovation he craved so intensely.
Xylophone Springs Primary school was currently thirteen blocks from Hans' blood and muddied shins, and so were the empty auditorium, the curtains, the stage, and his adoring and thunderously approving audience.
Yearning for the safety of his secret cocoon, Hans felt the expected tears fighting their way to the rim of his lower eyelids and, for the first time, didn't raise his hands to keep them from marring his countenance, instead allowing them to fall freely, tracing brownish pathways down his smudged cheeks.
Zipping his ripped jacket all the way to the top of the collar, he stood in the middle of the street and cried liquid release for all the town to see, pausing as the last of the hot water spouted from his Xylophone Springs...

...and then he bowed.

Checkmate

That's it!
No more moves for me.

And yet unlike Chess, I'm happier knowing that no amount of strategy I possess will counter this state.

I have yet to put everything away, I have yet to transport the last of my belongings from my prior residence, I have yet to figure out final bills, but I am here.
I'm living here now.
And I happy.

This is an incredibly welcome change and I couldn't think of a better person to be sharing this with than my dear friend, Maekol.
We spoke about how it kind of always seemed like this situation was going to come about at some point. And here we are: roommates.

I think I can confidently speak for both of us and say that we're both thrilled at the good luck of having landed one another as living partners.
And here we sit, side by side on my old leather couch, sipping french press coffee and listening to Sufjan.

Life is beautiful.
And the sun is shining.
And we are free.

And then there was more

Everybody seems to have their own idea of Heaven.
For some it's the empty countryside on a clear, warm day.
Others might say it's complete silence.
And still others might say Manolo Blahnik.

For me it's Powell's Bookstore.

Walking through those impossibly spotless glass doors into the literary mecca of old, new, used and never been cracked volumes upon volumes is enough to calm me in even the most doomsaying mood.

Having just come back from one of my many trips to my own version of paradise, I sat down with my book bag and removed each of the new purchases (none of which I really should have made but all of which are completely necessary). I carefully placed each of my three new pieces of verbal candy on the desk top in front of the computer with careful attention to my need to see each of their title and author. It's just this thing I do.

Adding to my library are Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life, and Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse.

I couldn't seem to keep from pawing through my canvas sack as I walked from the book store and ended up pulling out the Atwood novel, beginning its first few pages as I walked.
I wish I could say I narrowly missed an offending telephone pole, walked across a busy street against the signal and caused a number of near-collisions, or ran headlong into some other booky with their head buried in someone else's words but none of those things actually occurred. I simply read until I reached my destination and then climbed a set of rickety, oily, dangerous and skewed steps to an over noisy office so I could make a point of recording the otherwise uneventful happenings of my last half an hour.

This seemingly pointless endeavor might go unnoticed by any number of people who don't relate notions of Elysium to gargantuan book stores but for any of you who might have some sort of slight connection to my present excitement, simply insert your own experiences.
Think of running through that open field with your eyes closed, not worrying at all about tripping or running into anything.
Think of hearing the echo of a single drop of water as its muted staccato is quelled by breathy nothingness.
Think of obtaining the last pair of a limited edition heel in just your size...for half price.

This is how I feel right now.
36 minutes and 20 dollars later, I'm happy.

a title that is in all lower case

People everywhere have strange habits.
A lot of times those habits tend to inflict a minor amount of damage on the person but typically that damage is counter-balanced by some new skill, growth, or achievement.
Take coffee for instance.
It's moderately good for you where nutrition is concerned but the sheer quantity by which some people choose to saturate their minutes, hours, days and lives is enough to be considered dangerous no matter what the substance.
And yet the invigoration of caffeine combined with the social culture built around obtaining coffee (going to cafes, supporting local roasteries, feeding the limp and pallid economy) is enough to balance out what little harm an overdose of java might inflict.
The basis of justification is in the even trade off.
However, when that trade is at an imbalance in favor of the self-damaging side of things the habit poses a large threat to the person's well-being. It can do little more ultimately cripple and challenge them by means of an overdose of self-medication.

My job rides on just such an imbalance.
I feed into people's abuse of alcohol and profit from their selfishness, stupidity and baseness.
No, no, no, not everybody's abuse, only some are abusers. But it's the abusers that cause me to pause and reflect on the morality of the situation.
When it comes to people who are crippled by their bad habit I blind myself to the eventual negative energy and anti-production that my provision of alcohol will ensure.

Or should I say I used to blind myself.

I believe I've come to a crux.
I've reached an important juncture in my travels through the jungles of philosophy in my own developing and still-learning mind. I've come to better understand my misplacement of misanthropy on many by locating the few who really deserve. The frustrating part is realizing that I've been playing a vital role in what makes them so deplorable to me.
It's completely Utopian...the book, not the concept.

It's as if I make drunks and then punish them.

Hmmm...This thought alone brings me to a place where I just have to stop and consider all that I've made out to be so worthy of my disdain and if it's only because it somehow relates back to me.

Am I saying I hate myself?
No, I doubt it. (I'm too much of a narcissist to actually hate myself.)

I believe I am a perfectionist.
I hate when I see people behaving similarly to the way I behave because I want that behavior to be just right and if it isn't then it's a poor reflection back on me (since we're ostensibly of the same personality/character). In other words, I don't like people who are like me because I think they're going to screw it up.

Wow.
Do I have a big head or what?

Seriously, I'm curious now.
'Cause now I'm going to hate people with big heads even more.

I'll find some reason they're not doing it right.

Houston, we have a problem. Right?

There are moments in our communal lives during which we recognize an overarching sense of dissatisfaction.

We're not happy to simply accept whatever people have dictated as blatant and true.
We want to know more.
I am wont to be happy.

In that my happiness is based mostly on being comprehensively overcome with newness, with something other than the common.

I guess you might call it progressive bourgeois.
Even so, I am wanting.
Wanting and waiting.

A woman sat across the small coffee shop engaged in a phone call to which she had no idea I played the unwitting eavesdrop.

"How much longer can I safely work?" The woman's voice had the burnt, deflated sound of wind brushing past crackly dry grass. The question itself harbored the emotional remnants of arduous labor.

"Well I've still got a lot to do," she said, answering some unknown question, "I've been at this for three hours and I've still got so much to do I'm just waiting for some kind of implosion." Her tone seemed like it should be coming from a misanthropic switchboard operator.

The tale woven by the words and noises of the solely auditory aspects of the situation would have made me think the woman was copying the Bible, curing cancer, or digging a ditch in the sun. I decided to actually look directly at the wall facing speaker and more particularly, at whatever exceedingly gravitational activity she might be engaged in.

What I saw puzzled me: she sat facing a mostly empty table top with a few stacks of purchased Christmas cards, a smattering of pens, and a single white sheet of paper with one and a half columns of names listed in a ten point font.

She was filling out Christmas cards.

Now, I don't know about any of you but I really don't think that this temporary, self-induced (and apparently Holiday-obligatory) stress warrants such a level of reproachful exasperation. It's CHRISTmas, not some inescapable rerun of a Richard Simmons holiday themed workout.

Indiana Jones does less intentional self-injury than these holi-crazed Susie Homemakers and he makes a habit of brushing with death. And to top it all off he's kind of clumsy!

It's just a DAY!

And in addition, the fact that you feel that kind of obligation when contemplating Christmas as opposed to any notions of family, togetherness, or tradition means that you most likely don't really even get Christmas.

So in surmise, you're killing yourself for some socially mandated trend that you don't really even understand!

You're doing this to yourself and you're proliferating the problem in those around you who suffer from the same misguided sense of celebration.

JUST GO GET SNOWY!

GET CAROL-Y!

GET JOLLY AND WHATNOT!

Money and time are both valuable for different reasons to different people but in the end they both have to be related to you to matter in the long run.

So Merry Christmas! You're Awesome!

Now get into the season and start helping everyone realize it about themselves.

And all is set to rights once again.

Failure

I've decimated my fingernails.
I'm all dry skin, sour aches, and a dreadful feeling of empty lacking.

Once again I've come into contact with the part of me that so palpably experiences lost causes and failed attempts.

Saint Jude and I have a meeting today at four.
I've decided we should break up.

But drat it all, that Saint Jude has this insufferable ability to convince me we should stick together.

This is all drivel.
I write garbage. (Thank you E. Iguana)
I am writing more of it now.

I have zero motivation because it's all going to be the same.

Fuck everything.

Past Scribbles

I found this page from the beginning of the year and I felt it appropriate for adding to my log.

1/9/08 - Neuberger Hall, Room 59

My stomach won't release whatever tightness it seems to have become so friendly with in the last several days.
I have no doubt that the bowl of cinnamon Puffins and mil along with the reheated (and let it be known overly large) portion of last night's lemon, cilantro, tofu and shell pasta have some part to play in the present exacerbation of this discomfort.
Damn appetite.
But the altruism in me tells me that if pain and my stomach have become amiable I really have no place telling them to stop being friends.
I would hate to be told not to continue a new friendship.
I feel like a parent and my stomach is my child. The pain is that little boy with dirty hand and the mismatching shoelaces who eats more than one cookie without asking or saying thank you.
But my child is home-schooled, afraid of people I don't personally introduce and thus he cannot continue a friendship with pain sans my direct involvement.
I kind of have to be friends with pain too.

Pain left and now my stomach is mine again. It seems almost Oedipal, our relationship.
Perhaps that's why my stomach has seedy friends from time to time; to keep me from being too completely attached. To make friends with other stomachs.


Going back even further still, the following poem is off of a napkin from Whole Foods leading me to believe I wrote this during a break from serving at P.F. Chang's.

Consideration - 8/18/07

While rude people are annoying,
those who don't realize their rudness
tend to be so much more aggravating.

In a city where only the rich can afford to
be healthy and the careless can access
fashionableness I find myself scrounging
for bits of propriety.
What should be said at what times?
How should one look for an occasion?
And yet love rises about what is thought
of as appropriate or acceptable.
It supersedes the trends and vogue of
any culture.
It cannot be stopped except by the hand
of ignorance.

Perhaps a smile plays on both sides of
the fence. It can be loving or ignorant.

The nature of a smile notwithstanding:
What of kisses?
What of hugs?
What of gifts?
What of fucking?

Can all be one or the other,
loving or ignorant?
Or perhaps just rude.

My Foreign Counterparts

And thus you see that I do, in fact, aspire to be yet another international man of mystery.


Like these gents.

When Humoring a Hypocrite

Last night Joel told me that he didn't want to speak to me anymore.

Having read a memoir piece I posted about a former relationship poisoned by infidelity and observed pictures of me embracing my boyfriend, he accused me of being "inconsiderate, tactless, intentionally hurtful, and over-sensationalizing."

"You knew when you were doing this it would hurt mom and dad's feelings," he spat with brusque force.

Yes, Joel. I maliciously wrote a story without either of them as the subject and posted pictures of me with my significant other...like almost everyone else on Facebook who has a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Are you truly that misguided?

Throughout the course of his condescending and judgmental bout of talking at me he made several blatant conflicting statements. Statements which showed not only his irrational and over-passionate zeal for being "right" at any cost but also his incredibly misguided sense of Christianity.
First Instance:
During the hour and half conversation he made a point too many times to count of seeing to it that I understood that he didn't know me.

Noah: "But you don't ask about me. You just take it upon yourself to assume that what little of me you're exposed to comprises the whole of who I am."

Joel: "I don't need to ask you, I'm your brother."

So, you "don't know me," and you don't feel the need to ask me about what you don't know because "you're my brother" which I take to mean implies that you know me? Pick one.


...hmmm...


...You know what, I'm through with this listing of offenses, for now. Believe me, I have plenty more. But what I've realized is that I'm bigger than this. I'm bigger than him.
And I refuse to attempt to make myself feel better by pointing a finger at him.

Instead I'll serve him the same just dessert he's attempted to force down my closed throat: Pity.

I pity his misanthropy and lost sense of justification.
I pity his obsession with a lazy belief system that answers most of its questions using the circular logic of "faith works for what I believe but not for what you might."
I pity his tragic sense of piety as it deteriorates his ability to love others and truly love himself. God would never want that now would he?
I pity his running away from the real world in an attempt at staying safe and warm inside his Bible School Bubble.
I pity his confusion and double standards.
I pity his passing judgment on me for being someone who is actually and truly free while he subjects himself willingly to the bondage of an invisible authority translated by condescending, pontificating men.

And above all,
I pity his willingness to cut off a loving brother in an effort to demonstrate his disgust with someone who is unobtrusively different in behavior and mindset.

I'm not injuring you, Joel.
It's like I said- over and over- what I do is arbitrary in that it's my action, my choice. And while my actions and choices do have consequences your reactions are your choices.
If you're hurt by my disagreement with you (when I merely disagree, I do not judge) then you're allowing a hurt upon yourself. You're choosing it.

And while we spent nearly an hour and a half on the phone during which he pointedly criticized, demeaned, and berated me and my mindset and behaviors, calling me any number of derogatory names, I stand by the fact that I refrained from calling him a single name other than his own and engaged in no kind of disagreement other than debate.

And for all of the times you called me "ridiculous" and told me that you had the right to judge me for your perception of my having changed friends, personality, morals, and position, I never once brought up any of your faults or projected some number of equivocal shortcomings.

For a "sad, lost little boy," I seem to be much more grown up than you.

Of Casuists and Mutiny

A part of me will always hate Alaska. Having spent the summer of 2006 as a tour director for Holland America Cruise Lines, I learned a keen bitterness towards the largest state in the US. A bitterness that broadly encompassed lost luggage, room complaints, and thousands of miles in the front of a tour bus filled with demanding senior citizens. When it comes to mind, many regard the place with a sense of naturally inspired awe while I am temporarily crippled by an arresting spite as my mind struggles to subdue the saturating weakness of betrayal. I was a restless 20 years old when my Christian boyfriend turned Bathsheba.


Christopher Stewart Keith. We met a year before going north at our private Christian university in Langley, British Columbia. Like all students, we had signed a behavioral contract with the school which banned drinking, smoking, sex, dancing, and “homosexual activity,” to name a few. I remember the first night we kissed when he told me how each of his three titles could act as first, middle and/or last names. At the time I found such a mundane fact endearing. At the time I was endearingly mundane. I had altered a thrift store plaid shirt for him and he had baked a strawberry rhubarb pie for me. It seemed like a fair trade. That night, we ended up taking a long walk and then broke into the campus music room where we watched a movie on my laptop while cuddling beneath a grand piano slip cover. I told him that I liked him and wanted him to be my boyfriend. “Alright,” he responded, “I’d like that.” We wouldn’t end up sleeping together until eight months later. It was awful.

I have slept with some very unattractive people. They weren’t all so bad to look at when we met but even the moderately handsome individuals seemed to wilt and gnarl with the time’s elapse. In the instances where I actually reached orgasm I still slunk away from each encounter with a feeling of hunger, of lacking fulfillment, like when someone hands you a stick of gum and your trusting fingers close around nothing more than an empty wrapper.

The night Chris first fucked me we were in a drafty cabin behind an expansive Alaskan resort in Denali National Park. The employee housing space, furnished with two creaky, sagging twin beds (little more than naked mattresses but for the faded. threadbare sheets that reeked of one-night stands and cheap detergent), rivaled Alaska’s finest honeymoon suite, to be sure. The whole situation was so stark and obligatory. We didn’t speak. We didn’t kiss. I let him inside, he came, and it was over. He turned to face the wall and fell asleep while I showered and resigned to the second bed. The sporadic, muffled drumroll of the leaky showerhead thudding lazily against the fiberglass floor beating my eyelids apart, forced my gaze to fall on the patchy moonlit pattern across Christopher’s dormant form.
“How did we get here,” I silently asked the lurid ruby numbers on the bedside alarm clock face (tour directors were not afforded tardiness). “11:59” blinked casually to midnight.


Christopher had a face reminiscent of a child playing house. All too-big suits and light pecks on tightly pursed lips. He always seemed to be reading life from a script he’d compiled from what he saw real adults doing. He cared fiercely for everyone around him in a way that cried out for recognition without words. On campus, there were three things he was known for: he offered well-worded advice, he provided patient back rubs, and he knew Mario Brothers by heart. Even the secret levels. I thought it so selfless how he wanted to become a children’s counselor. Now I realize it was due to the fact that he was still mostly a child himself. Then again, so was I. I remember the secret pride I felt when Chris’ dorm mate told me I had given him the best massage he’d ever received. And the sense of victory I greedily savored when Chris received the email from Holland America notifying him that he’d been reconsidered for hire and they’d like to offer him a summer position after all. (I had contacted the tour company following Chris’ rejection and requested their further attentions to his application and resume, both of which I had written).

We both longed to be necessary. We both worked fastidiously to become so. For me that meant being available, flexible, convenient. For Chris, that required independence, distance, and feigned maturity.

I can still remember with crisp clarity the first time we called off our relationship. March 12, 2006. Two days before our three-month anniversary. Two days after he had been denied the job in Alaska. I was the one who made the final call so Chris wouldn’t have to. I felt so big and small at the same time. We barely made eye contact. My pajama sweats felt lumpish and unattractive and the vinegary stains beneath the sleeves on Chris’ white undershirt posed an unavoidable cynosure. Long prior he had begun intimating that he was afraid of people finding out about the two of us. I said I cared too much about him to be the cause of fear or worry. We gave each other an extended hug, the phlegm dripping from my nose adding new stains to his garment. And then he left my dorm and mostly avoided me for the remainder of the semester. I grew increasingly torpid, vacating my room less and less. I told myself it was because I wanted to be there in case Chris happened to stop by. One of the few times he did actually make a brief visit was to inform me that he had been offered the summer position. I intentionally avoided telling him of my efforts to that end. I merely saw it as convenient. He saw it as something he was entitled to.

Three months later we would be in Alaska, separated for the first time in the two weeks we had been in training. Chris would call me, asking me what I thought of the future and I would transparently relate my hopes for the two of us to finish school together and move to Seattle after graduation. He would admit that he wanted the same and we would reinstate our relationship just before what would have been our six-month mark. Less than a month after he would kiss another boy.

We were in Dawson City, Yukon Territories, just east of the Alaska/Canada border. Our tours had serendipitously overlapped and I had finagled a swap in order that Christopher and I could share a room during the one night we were there simultaneously. We had just gone to bed and Chris was avoidant, terse, and brusque.
“You’re acting all detached and sulky. What’s the matter? Are you angry with me,” I asked the questions without needing an answer. Christopher’s behavior was all but incriminating. The weekend before, while I was on layover in Skagway and he was in Anchorage I had spent 3 days trying to get in touch with him to no avail. I lay awake all three nights with a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. By the third night I had memorized the flaws in the ceiling and counted the brass rungs on the bed frame with my toes to the point of sheer panic. When I finally reached him the phone conversation lasted a distant and inconclusive four minutes and 28 seconds. His voice was dull and labored and each of my inquiries was followed by an excruciating pause. He wasn’t talking to me. He was obliging me.
“I’m not angry. I’m just tired. Can we just go to sleep?” His last question sounded accusatory and immediately I felt like a child being swatted away while tugging on a busy parent’s pant leg. I left him be. After a half hour I knew neither of us was sleeping and turned to kiss his shoulder blade. He cringed as if my lips were acidic. Then he shifted his form so that he was face down in his pillow as if to smother what he was about to say.
“I allowed myself to kiss Lee.” Even though I was already anticipating this disclosure I still felt the knife of infidelity in my duodenum. All I could ask was why, why, why. Chris kept his face buried in the pillow. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. His sobs combined with the plush down made his words even more unintelligible.
We made love urgently, the sweat and salt water swilling together on our angry bodies. The room stank of perspiration and deceit by the time we went still from exhaustion. The next day he left early and I proposed that we not talk about it ever again.
“We’ll act as if it didn’t happen,” I pled with all of the pathos I could muster.
But it did happen. And I later found out that it happened again and again only this time with a different partner.


I met Scott in August, three days before Christopher kissed him while I slept next to them in the king sized bed in our Anchorage apartment. I knew immediately that I was attracted to him and wanted to be close to him in any way I could. But a part of me was still forged in brassy determination to recovering the feelings Chris and I once shared.
I felt that introducing him to Christopher would ensure my own loyalty while making Scott aware of my commitment to the relationship I was currently weathering.
I knew I was smarter, better dressed and more confident than my boyfriend but I still had my worries. And rightfully so. Scott was also in a relationship floating on stale bathwater and he spoke often of its dizzying spiral toward the drain. This gave Christopher and me opportunity to counsel, advise, and encourage this chiseled, six foot two, Mormon boy in the struggles of his love life, an opportunity that became a constant point of silent competition. Which of us could offer the keener insight, the better suggestion, the warmer shoulder.
It therefore came as no surprise that the day I had to leave for tour preparation I put Chris at a decisive advantage. That night, when I returned home, the three of us, Christopher, Scott and myself, ate dinner and settled into a movie in the large bedroom. Scott lay between Chris and me and before the opening credits had finished their infiltration of the unfolding plot, my eyes were closed, my body still, allowing the two of them unhindered access to one another.


September 1st Christopher and I flew south to prepare for another school year, him in Canada and me in Portland (I had transferred following the school’s discovery of my “homosexual activity”). By the time we had returned home our interactions had become elaborately maintained melodramas. And while we had planned on my staying with him the week after returning, our exchanges consisted of little more than laconic bouts of rehearsed speech.

Christopher: I’m going to the coast with my sister for the weekend.
Me: I’ll just head home then.
Christopher: You should call your brother to come and pick you up.
Me: He’ll be able to get me by tonight, I’m pretty sure.
Christopher: I’ll call you when I get back.
Me: Whenever you have time.

I would later be informed during an international phone call that “going to the coast with my sister” actually meant “flying to Utah to see Scott.” But just like before, I already knew.


I fucked Scott the morning of Chris’ birthday (May 2nd) the following year. January of 2007 Chris had moved in with me in Portland after running out of money in Canada. We played house for five months while I grew less and less invested and finally exacted my childish revenge, successfully destroying our relationship along with Christopher, Scott and ultimately myself.

Scott was driving from school in Utah back to Alaska for yet another summer in tourism and had called to see if enough time had passed since the previous summer’s offenses for a reparative visit. We had been talking off and on (unbeknownst to Chris) for a few months and I said I would need to ask my boyfriend. Chris was reticent to say the least but eventually agreed in what I took to be an effort at testing the fortitude of what he thought was a refurbished intimacy between the two of us.

When I broke it off for the second and last time I did it because I wanted to. It had nothing to do with Chris’ feelings. And the night I related my shameful behavior I spoke with uncharacteristic aplomb and little to no remorse.

Five days later I moved out leaving only a few dishes and the old leather couch I had bought at Goodwill. A few weeks later I took that too.

In some ways I felt relieved, as if a complicated and painful tumor had finally been sliced off of my body. But the scars from the operation were many and the residual clash of reason and justification clouded my perspective. The last thing I remember throwing out in the move was my box of pay stubs from Holland America. I would return to Alaska once more the following summer for a brief two week tour to help out the company at the end of a busy season. While there I would sleep with Scott one last time and then vow never to return.
I’ll most likely always hate Alaska.

When She Gave Me Lemons

Hello Lauren Williams,

It certainly has been quite some time.
I will say that our last real conversation of any consequence was more of an ultimatum on my part than a dialogue. That being the case I guess I ought to see to it that this time around I let you know right up front that I'll be doing a lot of the talking.

(This IS a message after all and I guess it goes without saying that that simple fact predicates it being one-sided).

First off: I owe you an apology.

I know.
It's crazy, out of left field, unanticipated, and so on.
Nonetheless, it's true.
Whatever the circumstances I should not have publicly exploded on you the way I did that fateful afternoon in the cafeteria.
I'll be forthright in saying that while I wish to make amends for how I said what I said, I don't mean to take back what I said.

Truthfully Lauren, I was very hurt by what happened those months and years ago. I felt as if I had been deceived and then betrayed.
And by two beautiful women who I considered friends, no less.

And yet, in having had these past seasons to ponder just what it all meant and how it was all meant to be, I've come to some very enlightening realizations: your actions were not inspire by spite or punitive intention; you had limited options; and you were surrounded by people and an institution influencing you to do what was "right" according to an arbitrary set of human-set ethics.

Clearly, to make you out as some sort of villainess would be not only inaccurate but also hypocritical.
Much like myself, you were doing only what you could with what you had.

And while the topic of my sexuality is an unavoidable and integral aspect of my person as a whole, it is minimal in comparison to the overwhelming beauty that is you and me and everyone we know.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if there was ever any question about it in your mind, Lauren, know that I've let it go.
It's forgiven, it's over, it's past.

And you're still you and I'm still me.

And really, what more could either one of us ask for?

I wish you happiness, peace, and the presence that comes with them.

Namaste,
Noah C. Buck

And now it's the next time

We've hit one month.
Today is the day.

Right about now is when I start wondering whether or not history will repeat itself.
I certainly hope not.

I'm terribly happy. I can't comprehend the entirety of the gladness I'm feeling right now.
And there's this fiery romance and desperate creativity and care.

Whatever might I have done to deserve this?
Let it be.

My left is in its happiest state.

Reminiscing

Riffling through an envelope of old scraps and sundries I was pleased to come across this poem I scribbled on a napkin more than a year ago.

I felt it deserved a place in this, my online annals of pondering and prose.


"Consideration" - 8/18/07

While rude people are annoying, those who don't realize their rudeness tend to be so much more aggravating.
In a city where only the rich can afford to be healthy and the careless can access fashionability I find myself scrounging for bits of propriety.

What should be said at what times?

How should one look for an occasion?

And yet love rises above what is thought of as appropriate or acceptable.
It rises about the trends and vogue of any culture.
It cannot be stopped except by the hand of ignorance.
Perhaps a smile plays on both sides of the fence. It can be loving or ignorant.

The nature of a smile notwithstanding,

What of kisses?
What of hugs?
What of gifts?
What of fucking?

Can all be one or the other,
Loving or Ignorant?

Or perhaps just rude.