you might want to turn your volume down.

burning bright

there is a fantastic novella written by john steinbeck by this name. it’s actually more of a play in novella format, to be clear.  you should pick it up.  it reminds me of a lot of things, this novella. particularly it reminds me of a poem by an altogether different author.

welcome to 2010, the year of the tiger.  the year of this tiger.  the year that this tiger counts her scars alongside her stripes, the year this tiger protects the incredible quarry she stumbled upon quite by accident.

i will keep you updated. i will keep you in my life. i am remembering myself.  i did love, and i loved very well and very strongly and truly, but to the detriment of my own heart.  such is the nature of love, yes? yes.

without you:

i would be playing too much xbox 360.  my life would be more exciting, more involved, more bloody and more significant, but all because i could change it at the touch of a button. in the morning, i would still be me, without a controller.

i would be drinking too much.  i would swing upon the pendulum of my heart breaking and my fists pounding, thinking about how much i missed your face, your hands, your voice, whatever emotion those three beheld.

i would be lonely. i would only feel the hollowed part of each evening, regardless of how many, how few, would sit or not sit next to me. i would only feel, if i felt at all, the absence of you.

i would be far too tired. i would sleep without rest, and rest without any peace. fifteen minutes between lying next to you and waking the same is worth fifteen fifteen times the same amount of sleep with eyes closed but heart racing, racing racing.

tramp-o-line.

we’re playing pokemon platinum edition. it’s reminded me about a thousand times over the past 48 hours how much i fucking love this woman. thank you, God. you truly are a good god.

S is practicing her cello tonight. i’m also taking an extra dose of my pain meds and washing it down with some tecate since i’m out of the xanax. are these two things related? who can say!

thanksgiving is coming up. and coming fast. i have to figure out the logistics of the two meals i’m going to be making, the main courses, etc. but i love thanksgiving. i love the brine thing, i love making the turkey and the stuffing and figuring out the gravy and the potatoes, everything else that goes along with it. i just love the whole holiday. i love Christmas too, but not as good as this one.

and of course, i love my brothers coming home. that’s better than the turkey.

okay, fine, i’m full of shit, whatever.

let me tell you a little something about being alive.

it actually is exactly like they tell you in the books. i’m proving my own “original” (ha!) literary theory of the difference between literature and books. being alive is about moments you will forever spend attempting to tell other people about: why it was so something, the reason it was so significant, convicting, amazing in the truest sense of the word. this is why we need to keep writing, even if we know it is futile. it’s not, actually. you cannot be the reader as you write, not at all. i read the blog of my brother in Africa, i see the work of my girl at home, and i know for a fact it is not futile.

being alive is about being able to appreciate shit. don’t you want a shirt with that phrase on it? but seriously, it is. it’s about being able to look at something and laugh because you know it’s ironic, or funny, or meant in the spirit it was said. it’s about enjoying someone for what you can enjoy them for—and not in THAT way, you dirty-minded ruffians—a good laugh, a nice talk, a juicy bit of gossip, a good cry. it’s about realizing someone truly IS great, and why they are, in fact. it’s about learning how to do it on your fucking on, for once, God, it took you long enough! it’s about compromise and trust, not only with your partner but with yourself and your own emotions.

it’s about the feeling and not feeling—i started this sentence, this paragraph, with “it’s about the feeling, finally, actually FEELING,” but then i realized i wouldn’t have any idea what that actually meant if i hadn’t gone through a period of time knowing what it’s like to unplug and completely disconnect. so okay, it’s about the feeling and the NOT feeling. knowing what it’s like not to care (caring all the time), not to have an opinion (judging all the while), that’s the trick that makes you really understand how to be alive.

of course, what do i know. it’s probably the cough medicine with the codeine in it (and who the hell knew that word had a sneaky E in it? wow!), but still.

i’m RUSTY, okay? damn. better said next time, promise.

A Story, in its Parts.

i am, perhaps, completely and totally ill-equipped for this adventure.

i thought i was really well-equipped. initial shock of realizing that gee, i’m actually just searching for tools that don’t even exist yet in my repertoire, tools that need to be found or bought for a priceless price, tools the handles of your fingers are accustomed to already, tools that i desperately want to slide into any loop of my belt but can not yet visualize…the initial shock is wearing off.  naturally, with that confidence you have told me about and those words i cling to, i am surprised to be so at a loss.

but i love this adventure, despite these well-deserved, much-needed blows to my overwhelming ego and pride.  if i was asked to abandon it, i would cling to any thread of a threadbare blanket (blank-ette, musical reference, see: bells for her) and be satisfied with the enormous wealth of warmth contained in even the strings from the end of your cloak.  i would tuck that string into the deepest, darkest recesses of my heart, behind that organ, so when it dies that string is still there, against the bone.

this is a story, the story of how a very spoiled, very self-important child and drug-afflicted, anger-addicted, painfully self-aware woman met (finally!) the one person in the universe that made everything else insignificant: every acceptance, every rejection, every everything.

when the world ends, or so they say, the ruler of the sky and wisdom and the spirits that inspire philosophies epic in proportion, will come down from the heavens to meet the ruler of the earth, over passion and rage of all manner and make, over historic courage and physical human fallacy, and because they cannot be apart, will end the world.  the dragon will meet the tiger, and the tiger will, only for this occasion, abhor her stripes.

let me into the sky, how can i get there?  and if i can never get there, continue to let me climb the mountains, the cliffs, to get to you, meet me where you will, my dragon.  you wrap yourself, and protectively, around my weakest, most tortured limb, and it is a reminder i want to be a part of your sky, the vast and beautiful place in which you live.  i am bound to this earth for just this moment, my dragon.  please let me come to meet you at my high places: your low ones.

i only have my words, for this second, you who can do anything at all, my one, true girl.  forgive them, but they are a beginning.

i continue to climb, and willingly, and hopefully—not for any action but for my own steps—with eyes sometimes squeezed shut as a Leo Bloom and sometimes wide open as a Stephen Dedalus.

i shall (and have) returned.

“….occasionally, I have these thoughts that are different than my facebook thing, and they’re actually interesting, and I want to write them down…….”

see, this is why I love M.  one of the MANY enormous reasons that words are perfectly suited/completely inadequate for.  indeed.

you know what I hate? the fact I double-space shit.  that only happened because I went to law school.  I know I should have done that, clearly (thanks God. Damn. ha. GODDAMN!), but come on now.  double-spacing?  really?  alright.

fine.

here i am again.  a white space, and……man, I’ve missed it.  here i am again.

ah! the lowercase ‘i’ returns, and triumphantly!  i shall (and have) returned.

good title.

i get very frustrated with someone i work with (not in my office) everyday.

let’s talk about a lack of experience for a moment.

parameters: experience in life, to wit:

having your heart broken, being so angry at the person you love you want to break things, losing a loved one suddenly, being arrested, being in a car accident, not having any money, not having a job, not even knowing how to get a job, knowing how but not caring, being able to work the system so you don’t need to get a job and still live an existence that by your standards isn’t bad at all, not being equipped to succeed, being equipped but getting derailed, being abused, having an addiction, getting into a verbal screaming match, making a mistake without meaning to, hurting someone and meaning it, getting to the point where you realize nobody believes what you say, being racist, telling-half truths to yourself, not graduating from high school, experiencing failure no matter how small, not being able to pay a bill because you did something fun instead that was frivolous, feeling lost and isolated, being scared, et al.

the temptation is to say: everyone has felt at least one of these things to some degree. yes, that is not my point.

point being: the feelings are the same, the intensity and duration are different. personally, be willing to put yourself in not only the position of someone else, be willing to put yourself—feeling those things—in the position of someone else.

shorter: there is a reason we still have two words—sympathy and empathy.

dictionary.

it’s happened before.

do you think orange, lime green, and yellow enjoy being “hipster” colors? brown and eggshell blue had their day, but now it’s time for brighter hues to go with your pretentious and unrelenting sarcastic outlook on life and culture.

i haven’t read any good books lately. mainly because i haven’t been to the bookstore. the last book i read was before we moved, which was about two months ago.

my job is much more fun than the previous one. when i wake up on monday morning, i don’t feel instantly exhausted, stressed, or out of control. jury trials will be fun, though i don’t know what kind of jury attorney i will make. i’m pretty good to the bench, all things considered, we’ll see what happens when i have more of an audience.

one of the attorneys in my office told me that she writes her closing argument before she prepares anything else for a jury trial.  i don’t know if i will adhere to that policy or not—i have an immediate distrust of writing down speeches and memorizing them, writing a series of questions and memorizing those—it always seems to come back to bite the speaker.  things move very quickly in trial, reactions and answers come in shapes and sizes altogether unexpected, and your brain has to keep up.  memorizing questions seems less important when compared to studying the person who will be giving the answers, or visualizing the event you are asking the person to relate.

maybe i’m wrong.

they go on sinking…..

M: You have two computers, and both of them are in the kitchen. That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.

I have two brothers. I technically have four. Do I love them the same? Does any set of parent love their individual children the same? Of course. Do I like them the same? Of course not. And ditto.

But two of my brothers, well, I acquired. And two, I was born with, and lost, and maybe I never had to begin with. The two I acquired, I like the most. The two I acquired, I worry about the most. Think about. I would like to help them.

Do I even need to?

Regardless, they go on sinking. Not permanently, just immediately. I miss them. I wish I could make things better for them.

There is a helplessness in sincerity.