an odd sort of welcome

there is a strange kind of vulnerability that comes when you realize that you know-know the people who are reading your little written ramblings. it's been a long while of not admitting that this blog exists, especially to people who i deal with on a daily (or semi-daily) basis.

a vulnerability, and an initial urge to run through with an eraser and tidy up. or to post more things that make me sound more important/better/whatever than i really am. however, a recent resolution to be more of myself, sans the influence of other people's opinions, has kept me from doing that. 

other than taking down all the naked pictures. just kidding, there weren't any naked pictures. 

maybe.

so, to my few new readers - or my new skimming-through-while-i'm-bored-ers - i would say welcome, however, this blog isn't really for you. and that's the thing, mainly, that i wanted to say here. mostly to myself. nothing's going to change because of a public admission. 

i think the only thing that will really change is that i will update this more frequently than only storming in here when i'm in a bad mood to rant something out instead of yelling at an actual person, or when i'm so terrified of being cornered by my own thoughts that i have to escape through fingertips instead of lying awake and miserable. 

and not all of this blog is angry and miserable. at least, i hope it's not viewed that way, despite most of the posts so far being products of the apex of some emotional upheaval.

honestly, for me, writing - in general, but mostly this sort of writing in particular - is meant for that. it's an exorcism of whatever thoughts i've got clattering around inside. i write because it's easier to sort through everything that's going on in this wild jumbly jungly head when i can throw it all out on the floor and then pick through it, than trying to organize it all while i'm holding it in my hand. i write because expressing brings more clarity to myself. 

i've been thinking a lot this week about taking on a new project. something more productive than my usual hobbies of gaming, or music, or jewelry-making, or soapcraft, or schlubbing through netflix trying to find something to watch. i want to write a book. have wanted to for years and years, and have started it so many times, but it's never the right one. the premise, or the diction, or the characters, or whatever tiny semblance of plot i've managed to wrestle out, just never...fit...right. and not having a book completed already doesn't mean that i haven't been trying for one, doesn't mean that i haven't always been writing one. lord knows i have more half-begun stories sitting in the little book folder in "my documents" than i've ever bothered to count.

it's just... do you ever feel like you've got something epic in there, somewhere, that you haven't quite figured out yet the right way to grab for it? that impending doom of destiny-shaking possibility which makes the littlest things significant and seemingly important ones so easy to ignore? 

ah, possibility. i am in love with you and terrified of you all the time. i feel that way about everything (since we're being honest) but especially about possibility. he's just so dapper and imposing, but when i get that one raised eyebrow and the sly side smile, well. 

forever fascinated by the endlessness of the particular.  

that's what this blog is about. possibility and the endlessness of particulars. mostly in how they relate to me. also, music.

for being a post telling people i'm not writing for them, this one sure said "you" a lot. oh well, i'll never admit that i know where i'm going in here.

anyway, song of the day: "inhibition" by dot hacker

dot hacker is an experimental rock band from california formed in 2008 by josh klinghoffer, before joining red hot chili peppers as guitarist in 2009. klinghoffer is the band's songwriter, lead singer, guitarist and also plays piano.

erryday

doing
the write thing.
just not sharing.

gotta do it now
or i won't get it
done today.
not much to say.

feeling kinda cold
and rude.
low, slow mood.
can't eat food.

tired of all
the relentless
devouring,
attitude scouring to
stave off
bitter souring.

you try too hard with
the rhyme,
sometimes.

gotta get all the grime
out in time
to get out something fine.

to leave something
beautiful, good

behind.

erasure

my feelings and emotions the past couple weeks have been an ant trapped in the amber of depression and anxiety. sometimes they just sit, and sink. sometimes there's a short burst of violent struggle to be free that only results in faster suction from below, fevered sinking. mental panic while the body goes numb.

it's not that cancer beat me, although someone was blunt enough to phrase it that way. that i'm letting it beat me. it's the anxiety about the future of my cancer or not-cancer that's beating me. give me a solid answer, doc. don't give a neurotic what-if's. that's like handcuffing an alcoholic to a seat at an open bar.

i'm sitting in a giant mesh of blood, and meat, numb nerve endings and overloaded synapse circuits. my brain has been burnt out, the fuses blown, the bare wires snapping when anything moves them. it feels like autopilot. or, like piloting a plane with all the instrument panels gone dark, the wheel snapped off in your hand, your air-traffic controller popping on every hour for a minute to tell you things are fine, you're doing great. hang in there and try not to hit anything. do you see any signs out the window? we'll find you when you crash, so you're not lost.

caffeine sets it off. the electric flash through the wires, sparks and then black nothing. those are the short violent struggles. family sets it off. mom worries about me, and since she can't fix cancer, she helps by trying to fix everything else in my life that's wrong. i got a $5k loan approval to get a car. i can pay it off in 18 months or so. and what will i do with my car when i get it? probably still sit at home, for all the big talking i do. there aren't any relationships in my vicinity worth having. i want to go see faces, but they're all far away. i want to fall in love, but i just work, and come home, and work, and come home, and work, and come home, freak out at my family, work, come home. i gave them 28 years and i feel like they were a waste.

tonight i just want to be deleted. i want select all, backspace, type it again. get it right. what can you do with 5 years? i may have more than that, i may have less. i don't know yet. i used to think 5 year goals were for pretentious assholes who were so boring they knew where they'd be because spontaneity was a disease they hadn't caught yet, would never catch. born with the antibodies for it. now i think 5 year goals are for selfish, optimistic morons who can't hang on to just the moment they have in their hands, they have to grope for more because their moment now isn't enough. can't enjoy your mouthful because you're already thinking about the next one.

and i'm sitting here at the end of all the moments that have happened up until now, and i don't even want the one i've got. those five-year-goalers can have my moment. they'd do something better with it than i have. the introspection of nothing is only more nothing. holes within holes. i focused on them so much they manifested. i grew a hole that could only be fixed with a hole. and someone else filled the hole with something holes can't happen in anymore. but holes are all i've been good at. they let the rocks through. or they held all the rocks in. i can't be sure.

someone said we write to get a second chance. if you're born to be a writer, all you want are do-overs. my need for erasure is only fulfilling my destiny. you can scrub ink with an eraser long enough, that the paper comes too. sure, the paper comes too, but the ink is gone.

and isn't that what mattered?

Paul Auster says:

Becoming a writer is not a “career decision” like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don’t choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you’re not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days.

If you stuff yourself full of poems, essays, plays, stories, novels, films, comic strips, magazines, music, you automatically explode every morning like Old Faithful. I have never had a dry spell in my life, mainly because I feed myself well, to the point of bursting. I wake early and hear my morning voices leaping around in my head like jumping beans. I get out of bed to trap them before they escape.


RAY BRADBURY