At Least I’ll Be Full When I Get There

I met a man
Handing out pamphlets titled
“The Ticket to Heaven”
He offered me one,
With great zeal,
As I passed by,

I had to decline

For I was carrying my dinner in one hand,
And my laptop in the other,

Guess I’m on my way to the Deep South


*More observances and diatribes on the way provided I can pry myself away from my studies...

Wasting Time Until the Apple Conference or Something About Achieving Your Goals, or Something, Whatever

Sometime ago I found myself having a glass of CC Reserve and cola at a friend's condo in an area of town smack dab in the middle of some type of gentrification effort. This condo was the first of its kind in this undeveloped and rundown part of town, presumably with more towers coming in the months and years to come. At that particular moment, this condo stuck out like a sore thumb among the older stores with their years of history and hundreds of stories. You could tell the condo stood as the harbinger of all things trendy and fashionable and before long all of the smaller shops would be pushed out, steamed rolled over, and eventually forgotten. I enjoyed hanging out there, however, with my friend and his roommates, mostly because it gave me an excuse to get out of the house. I also took some interest in the “sprucing up” of the surrounding area. Every time I visited and I wondered when I would finally see the first of those filthy hipster coffee shops, a true sign of impending doom.

This particular night, a Saturday as I remember, I was just getting off of work and decided since I didn't have to work the next day I should pass by and have a drink and discuss whatever would waft into our minds. My friend's roommates were away this night which meant we would have to shoulder the burden of the increased rations of rye, but that was a burden we were more than happy to shoulder. Tonight's discussion revolved around my friend and the decisions he was weighing about his new girlfriend. To give a bit of background to this story, and this posting, my friend met this girl on a poetry forum some time ago and they started talking as people on the internets tend to do. Casual messages turned into web chats, which led to phone calls, which ultimately led to a face to face meeting. This girl lived in another country. She came to our country on her own dime to meet this guy because they had fostered some type of connection over the thousands of miles and through the advanced fibre optics that is the internets. She seemed like a normal enough girl, ten fingers and ten toes, two eyes, curves in the right places, the normal sort. She, like my friend, was an English major aspiring to the starving artist dream but I found myself treading lightly when I met her for the first time since SHE CAME FROM ANOTHER FUCKING COUNTRY TO MEET THIS GUY. Therefore, by default, there had to be something off-kilter with her. Things continued, and it didn't take too long before their mannerisms and personal interests became mutual interests. In fact it helped to foster his palate musically, and further evolve his urban-folk style of music. On this night, he had just gotten back from visiting her hometown, on his dime, to meet her friends and family and spend a holiday together. During his recollection of the excursion, and the point that made me worry a bit, was the fact that this boy was almost dead set on closing up shop here and moving abroad to follow this girl and to live the dream, if you will. He had a distinct vision in his head that put him in this foreign land a couple of years removed from where we sat that night, going into grad school and trying his damndest to cut out a life with this girl.

We were getting deeper into the night and deeper into the bottle of rye and as we got to that sweet spot in the night and the rye where thoughts and words now flowed freest and every statement is presented with such emphasis by the speaker that it is meant to resonate and stick to the very depths of your soul and make you question everything you've heard prior. My friend was readying such a statement. He turned to me asked me, “XxXXxX, Am I insane for going through with this? Am I right in the head for thinking this way? Does this make any sense at all?” Part of me wanted to say, yes, you're a god dammed fool, cut this woman off and go get laid locally, and in fact I know a few girls. But part of me saw some logic in this man's raving: he had desire and drive and he wanted to see this through to some thought out end. He felt he was good enough to get into grad school in another country, and he felt that this was the woman that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Despite being a bit naïve, he had put some serious planning and thought into this and wasn't simply following the sweetest piece of ass. This was his ambition so who the hell was I to knock him off of his cloud? Frankly, if he made it work, I would have been the first person to congratulate him. I told him that if it was in his heart and the fates willed it, he would make it, just not to disillusion yourself from your surroundings and move your mind abroad before your body. This question has stuck with me since that night.

Fast forward a few years. By assumption we've all become a little older if anything else wiser, and the same friend and I happened to be hanging out again and, quite possibly drinking rye again. The room mates have since married and moved out of province and I can only imagine that the condo now houses some shallow yuppies. He now lives in another area of the city but the companionship is the same. He's still someone I can vent and throw ideas off of, and I try to reciprocate as much. At this moment in time, I stood a year removed from the day that I left my job to venture back into school, the leap of faith that I wrote about so many times. I asked him point blank, in a fashion similar to the one he asked me that night, the same question he posed to me years before, Am I insane for doing this? For going down this path? For trying, even though I'm so many years removed from the game? Could this actually work? Am I that good enough to cut it? The answer was similar to the one I gave him years earlier and he told me to keep going for I still had much to do.

And I guess as of today, I wasn't insane for taking that leap.

In a few hours I go into my first lecture. Where I go from here I haven't decided, but I've confirmed, at least when it comes to academia, the risk is certainly worth the gain. And while I wouldn't necessarily recommend going off on such a tangent to any one, it certainly is a character building experience. There were several reasons that that led me to create this space in space almost a year and four months ago to the day. One of which was to chronicle my journey to get back in to this rhythm. I go now to study something that will eventually lead me into a profession that I'm happy with and that will allow me to sleep soundly at night (I doubt that since I've never slept soundly in my life). So after much bullshit, bad advice, second guessing, bad choices, faltering, and failings, I can now let them freely drift into my past. This day will start with me on my path toward my next goal.

And this day will finish with me playing that new Beatles game with my sister.

Wordplay Before Foreplay

Atonement

A
Tone
Ment

At
One
Me
N
T

Non Me

Meet on
a
Note

"Moet?"

Eaten
Teem
Moan

Meant

Omen

Anon

I Miss the Drew Carey Show....

But I miss Craig Kilborn even more....

Why Everything Sucks

Heavy Rain

I can hear it all the same ten feet underground as if I was standing outside in the middle of the street,

There is no rhythm or reason,

Just what seems to be a constant attack,

On any exposed surface,

On my mind,

On everything.

I try my damnedest not to think about it, to block it out and just continue writing, since there is much work to be done this night,

Though after a while, I get used to it and it becomes almost…relaxing.

I feel my mind start to wander, images cascade my head and pull me away from my work, for what seems like just for a moment.

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1.

An old man limps through the city streets oblivious to the commotion that surrounds him: the speeding cars whipping up water that pools in the already full sewer grates, the constant drip of rainwater off of his nose as the downpour slams into his balding head and slides off every which way, the slimy feeling of his wet socks inside his wet shoes that is only made worse as he walks through another puddle. He’s making no effort to avoid the puddles either. Instead he is replaying the last five minutes of his life in his head and trying to understand what he was just told

Cancer

Inoperable

Six Months

He’s been going to this doctor for twenty-six years now but that doesn’t lighten the blow, in fact he feels that this man has let him down. He didn’t do his fucking job, was the last thing he said as he left the office. But this rage and sense of mistrust will pass in time. He thinks about his wife and her retirement party two days earlier and how they were set to leave in three days time to warmer, drier, sunnier surroundings for a long needed vacation. He thinks about his daughter and her boyfriend and how he is probably proposing to her at this very moment. After having a long conversation with her boyfriend the week before, he was humbled that this man would ask for his blessing to marry his daughter. He always liked this one. A good catch as he once said. He thinks about the other daughter that he lost before she was even born, about how she never had a chance. He thinks about the cigarette that presently hangs from the side of his mouth and how it now feels like a noose getting progressively tighter. He thinks about how he started smoking back in college and how he used them to calm his nerves. He always thought they were vile, but they became a much needed diversion from all of the school work. What he doesn’t notice is the truck that is going through the intersection with the right of way when his light clearly says to stay where the hell he is. He won’t notice it though, he’s thinking about how to tell his wife.

2.

The rain has been falling since before the sun came up but they are determined to go to this festival. Besides, it says rain or shine on the tickets! The two of them are only going for one band, the last ones to perform, of course. They still decide to go early; they figure they should to get their money’s worth. Fifty bucks is a lot of money to a teenager when the money is coming out of their own pocket.

Rain

Or

Shine

Today, it’s mostly rain. Eventually, they can’t take any more and find cover under a tree to shield them from the downpour, at least, far a little while. They forgot their rain jackets on the table at his place. They aren’t cold since the day is hot and the rain is cooling. The two elements almost balance each other out. They hold each other and laugh about the whole mess. They move closer, they kiss, they forget about the fact that they are soaked to the bone or that they can barely make out the sound of the band over the loudspeaker they are so far away from the stage. She can feel his heart beat, he can feel hers. This day isn’t about seeing the band anymore. It’s a day that they eventually want to tell their kids about.

3.

‘I’matthestationbeatthestopintenminutestopickmeup…bye.’

And with that she gets ready to leave. She does this out of responsibility, to ensure that her mother has one less thing to worry about. Her mother is already asleep; she’s worked herself into exhaustion again, partially from the job she wants nothing more than to quit, and partially from making sure her children are taken care of: fed, clothed, and happy. Their happiness is her happiness. Arming herself with an umbrella, the young daughter leaves to pick up her brother at the nearby bus stop in the young hours of the morning. He’s returning from the seeing a movie across town. The rain this night is more like mist and the wind causes it to whip around in the air like loose snow and it’s just as cold, too. It doesn’t help that she’s wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, a sweater, and some sandals. The umbrella is not doing a very good job of providing relief from the elements either, since the rain is cleverly dancing out of its canopy and falling on any piece of bare skin it can find. She gets to the bus stop first. The wind begins to pick up and causes the mist to whip around in the air in an even wilder fashion. This night just keeps getting better, she thinks. She goes into the shelter for some relief but finds little of it since the mist is craftier than it lets on. Every bead of water that lands on her bare legs seems to sting and she tries not to think about the cold that is seeping into her bones. She hears a cat moan in the distance and wonders how it’s coping with this horrible weather. She thinks about how happy she was in her warm blanket watching a movie back at the house. To add to her pleasure the bus is now late, so she mutters a few obscenities under her breath to pass the time. After waiting for what’s seemed like an eternity, the bus finally arrives and her young brother stumbles out unsteady in balance. She doesn’t have to inquire any further about his present state and ponders how she should tell mom about this fiasco tomorrow. They walk along the street towards the house, side by side and silent since he is not feeling very talkative right now. She doesn’t bother to tell him to hurry up on account of the cold since she’s decided that a hot shower is now in order when they get home. They reach the door and he mumbles something about being sick and runs up stairs to reaffirm his love for his toilet, while she goes to take a shower, all the while trying to stay as quiet as possible so she doesn’t wake their mom. She hears the wind gust outside but no sound of the rain. Tonight the rain is felt not heard and it chills to the bone. She decides not to tell mom about her brother’s drunken escapades, it’s one less thing for her to worry about, she concludes. She gets out of the shower, goes upstairs to her room and falls asleep wondering about that cat she heard earlier and how it’s coping with the elements this night.

4.

It’s the middle of the night and he finds himself lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. AGAIN. This is the tenth time in as many nights. In fact he hasn’t slept well in over a month now. He just seems to be in a pensive state all the time. He moves cautiously out of bed to go use the washroom while trying his hardest not to wake his new girlfriend who’s decided to spend the night. He fumbles around in the darkness to find his housecoat. It’s unusually cold for July he thinks to himself. He peers out the window and notices the downpour of rain and chuckles to himself that the last time he’s had a decent night’s sleep was around the last time the weather wasn’t crummy, and that was sometime in May. A streak of lighting illuminates the sky to give detail to the gloomy scenery, if only for a brief moment. Sunshine in the dead of night. The clock on the wall says 4:47:13 AM but it is still pitch black because of the clouds and rain. He staggers down the stairs to the washroom to relive himself and then to the kitchen to get something to drink. The open fridge with its piercing bright light presents to him his options: milk, some expired orange juice, and half a bottle of gin. He opts instead for water. Glass in hand, he lurches back up the stairs into the bedroom. His girlfriend is still asleep. He picks up his pda/phone/source of about half of his current stresses and taps out a grocery list since he doesn’t feel like sleeping right now. The device buzzes and beeps in his hand as he gets an e-mail: his partner won’t be back as planned tomorrow. He scored a corporate box for the Yankees/ BoSox series and has decided to take the rest of the week off. At least the guy’s honest he thinks. He replies that he thinks he’s an asshole and asks him to bring back a case of wine from upstate. He figures a few good bottles are fair compensation for the amount for the work he’ll have to tackle tomorrow. After finishing his water, he rests the empty glass on the window ledge and stares out again at the rain while his thoughts shift to the woman presently fast asleep in his bed. Even though he’s known her for a short time, she means the world to him. And while he realises that he could be rushing things, she is the one that he wants to spend the rest of his life with. Amazing what can happen in six months, he thinks. He then realises that it is almost five in the morning and that he should get some rest, for tomorrow will be crazy at the office. The turbulent life of an investment banker never seems to stop. He gets back into bed and lies next to her; he can still smell her perfume hours after their dinner date. In all of his worry and excitement with his job, with his life, this woman is his one source of stability. He calmly falls back to sleep thinking about the possibilities that lie next to him and hopefully ahead for the both of them but not before wondering about what he should make for breakfast in two hours.

5.

All he’s been able to see from his one window is the sky and a row of razor wire bordering the bottom. He’s forgets how long he’s actually been here and for what for that matter. He forgets the man that he killed some thirty years ago in a booze induced stupor. He doesn’t remember the comment that he thought he heard the guy make and he doesn’t remember smashing in the poor suckers head with a rock until a chunk of his skull fell off. He remembers the verdict though, plain as day

Guilty

Life

And eight months later

Death

This prison has become his home. He hasn’t had a visitor in ten years, not since his mama died and his kids don’t want anything to do with him. He’s lost track of time. He just knows time is moving by the arcing sun that passes by his window on a daily basis. If someone were to tell him that they were playing a video tape loop on the outside of his widow to mimic the sun’s cycle, he’d almost believe them. There isn’t even a change in the seasons since there aren’t any seasons in South Texas. Just hot and damn hot. After a while everything just seems to blend together. He’s endured prison beatings, rapes, contraband drugs, sub-par food, and even a couple of shivs. But he fought back in the kill or be killed setting of maximum security to ironically be killed at a later date. He’s indifferent; he feels that he died long ago. Reality however, will catch up to his imagination in about fifteen minutes. His final meal digested, he picks at the meat stuck in between his teeth and sips on remains of the first beer he’s had since he entered prison. He never took to religion while on the inside but he finds himself sitting on the edge of his bed, half heartedly listening to the priest administering the last rights. He nods every so often to feign some type of interest. He is fixated on his window, and the rain that is presently slamming into the glass, almost as hard as he slammed that rock into that poor sucker’s skull. As he gets up for his final walk down the corridor to his final “resting place”, the rain begins to fall harder. He can hear the thunder as he walks down the hallway choosing to keep his eyes forward and not acknowledge any of the on lookers. He’s strapped into the chair now, machines attached to his body monitor his pulse. He seems calm, like he’s about to fall asleep and shows little emotion when the warden retells him why he is here and what is about to happen. A curtain is pulled back and facing him is about twenty people that he has never met. He assumes that they are all related to the man that he killed, in some form or fashion. Some scowl back at him in disgust, some begin to cry and look away. With the priest finishing up his responsibilities for the night, the warden asks if there is anything final that he would like to say. He quietly mutters to the warden to get this over with. While he is looking in the direction of the crowd, he is not looking at them; his eyes seem focused on an imaginary point a hundred miles away. It’s as if the crowd isn’t there, he just sits there focused on something. The constant and heavy patter of the rain has almost lulled him to sleep and he doesn’t notice when the gas is turned on. As the poison fills the room and he begins to lose consciousness, there is one more loud crash of thunder, louder than he has ever heard or will hear.


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I come to no further ahead than when I dozed off. But it feels like I’ve been half way around the world in thirty-six minutes.

I’ve got about five hours to finish this work.

I finish up what’s left of the coke next to me and continue to write.

It’s still raining, as heavily as it was before.

It serves as my erratic pendulum now

As well as inspiration.

No Love, No Hate, But Complete Respect

No matter what anyone says, at one point or another we've all sang "Billie Jean" in the shower at the top of our lungs and in the process became his bitch...



He was just that smooth,



Rest, Respect

Looking for Answers to Life’s Important Questions, Like How Many Dead Hookers Can I Fit in the Floor Boards of My Loft Before People Notice the Smell?

Some weeks ago I found myself many a mile outside of my usual stomping grounds celebrating the birthday of one of my brothers-in-arms, where many a joke were shared, many a song sang, and a few passersby watched the Detroit Red Wings beat up on the upstart Pittsburgh Penguins in the opening game of the eighty-third Stanley Cup Finals. But we needn’t get into the particulars, since this story begins as the party was ending. As I was saying my good-byes and giving my thanks to the homeowners for allowing our band of paupers into their home, feeding us with good food, and filling us full of good drink, I stopped at some white and black haired mystic to offer my good-byes and shake her hand. When she took my hand she looked me in the eyes and asked me what my name was. To which I replied that my name was Xxxxx X Xxxxxxx. She replied that my name was strong and befitting and I thanked her in turn for the compliment. Still shaking hands I told her that I needed to take my leave for I had much work to do the following day but not before she left me with this final observation. She said that I had the look of someone who has given up many things to get to where they are. At that point I really didn’t think much of it and faintly remember snickering something along the lines of her not knowing the half of it. I said my final good nights and left.

On the ride back to civilization and its boundless miles of pavement I thought more about what the black/white haired mystic said to me before leaving while this one asshole I know was passed out in the backseat with two ladies and this other asshole was manning the wheel and had the forethought to throw some Nick Cave b-sides into the tape deck to provide background noise for the drive. Now that I think of it those two assholes could probably spend hours talking about nerd-stuff. But that begs the questions, what the hell type of stuff am I writing and to whom for that matter? Who is my Muta Persona? Or, do I write by the power of some unknown muse, dancing in my head fuelling my weary fingers to keep typing or to keep my hand steady as I write and offer a soft and reassuring, “Keep Going,” when I’m at my lowest?

The mind wobbles…

So after parting ways with those two assholes who were still talking about nerd stuff, I spent the next several hours lying in bed hoping that Hypnos would grant me release after a day that was much too long and grant me rest. As the minutes turned into hours and the inky black sky slowly melted into a calming violet to usher in a new day, I kept returning to the words the white/black haired mystic uttered to me and I started to think of all that I had “given up” to get to “this point”. I thought back to my time in high school and my first high school relationship that lasted, funnily enough, all of high school. I thought about the depression I went through in my final term and how it culminated with me shutting everyone and everything out, and how we broke up a week after graduation. I had given up on myself and squandered the love of those closest to me. I thought about the kid I was in elementary school, overweight, bad skin, bad eyes, and forever playing off that my background was far more ethnic than it actually is. I think about the people that were my friends back then and how close we were and how one day I just seemed to splinter away from them and how I see them now and the differences in our lives, some better off than me some far worse. I had left my childhood knowing that there were just as many lies as there were truths. I think about the missed opportunities and the emotions left unsaid that have left me second guessing myself and thinking, “Don’t shit where you sleep. It’s not worth it.”

And then I thought to myself, well if I have lost all of this, what did I gain from all that I had shed? What were my achievements, where did they take me and what did they make of me?

I look at the time that I was a video-game schleper, all of the late nights, the physical pain, the politics, and the bullshit. I rose up from the trenches and ran shit better than anyone and left of my own accord gaining everyone’s respect along the way. I look at my foray back into school and how I had to go back to the scene of the crime to resume the pose, or the position if you will. I walked in with nothing but utter contempt for that place and walked out with an 86% average fuelled by a desire to succeed and a desire to see the entire school burn and to one day have the opportunity to use that school as the brunt of my jokes as I present my thesis on the literary movement of the 1920’s and how the decadence of the era moulded the psyche of the authors of that time.

So was the white/black haired mystic right in saying that I had given up a great deal?

I guess.

Maybe.

But at the same time, if I didn’t give up all that I did, I wouldn’t be in the position that I am now, better or worse depending on how you look at it, and I probably wouldn’t have the perspective I do. Hell you could argue that if I didn’t give up those things I wouldn’t know the people I know or been given the opportunities I’ve had.

The risk is worth the gain; I just have to keep reminding myself that.