The initial sting of a cigarette inhale. The heat. The smoke. The inherent knowledge that life is a joke. The menthol cool really does rule. On my deathbed, I will choke.
I don’t like cigarettes.
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Smoke
Opening Day, Deux
The Yankmees will be on in 3 hrs. I don't know about y'all, but I'm preparered with pizza, chicken fingers, Diet Coke, Xanax and chips. Go Devil Rays!
Opening Day
What a strange opening day. At
Monday, March 29, 2004
July's Hazy Motives
July’s Hazy Motives
So, on one white hot day,
shelled by enduring haze,
I elicit one last coherent breath.
A sweet peace breeze duels my lungs
as I fall deep into simmering apathy.
On the silent evening of a white hot day
cool tension flies with the wind.
Hazy convincing glances offer clues of a place to seek.
Quietly, I careen through another day.
Did someone else write this, too?
Screaming demons are in my soul
I can’t control the rock and roll
Eventually it will take a toll.
A Glitzy Void
Ok, I’ll get right to the point
Let’s wear funny hats and be vague tonight.
You bring the suspicion,
I’ll bring the head games.
When I decide, then you can tell me what to be.
Listen…
Shhhh….
Listen to those magpie feathers
Splashing into the placid pond.
Listen to my teeth grind.
Release me and be vague
Send me to my destiny.
Crush
Crush as far as I know it: 1. To squeeze or force by pressure so as to alter or destroy structure; 2. Hug, embrace; 3. To reduce to particles by pounding or grinding; 4. To oppress or burden grievously; 5. To subdue completely; 6. An unusual and passing infatuation.
At least one of them fits, if not all.
(Webster's 9th)
Sunday, March 28, 2004
Pie
A slow melody evolving into a groove line with grace. A pretty girl hiding behind a tree, but not who'd you think. A common photo op. A new one wants to enter the picture. She does not have this link, and she will not get it (She will). She is movie star status from Edison. Go fig. I'll be in Westwood in a few weeks, Tara. If you're lucky. Leave me alone.
Songs
I wish I could link ya'll to the music I listen to. It's the best of what I have. And even if you've never heard of it, you'd like it if they played it on the radio.
Delusion
I was backed into a corner because I felt hurt. Rather, I was trying to shield myself from being hurt. I felt betrayed. I should have told her more about me and the history. Perhaps I was deluding myself. Whatever the interpretation, it was a snap reaction to profound disappointment. Not an expression of hate or violence. I wanted to rip up all the words I wrote about her, which were many. I used a bad noun, box cutter, to express that weak sentiment. I paid. The box cutter is still here. I am throwing it out. I used it sometimes to open packages from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and CDNow. I can use a letter opener to do that. I once had a girlfriend who physically tried to stab me. I caught her arm before the knife hit my heart. She kneed me in the balls and punched my stomach. I hugged her, settled her down, layed her in the bed with her favorite stuffed animals and gave her a kiss. I slept on the couch. The next day, she was on a plane to
Saturday, March 27, 2004
Molting
I’m a snake in the process of shedding its old skin. I’m blending the killing of and the birthing of personalities. The overlapping of the two is where the contradiction, the difficulty, the dissention, the abrasivity is. Obviously. Sometimes it’s more intense than other times. It happens to me every 5 or 6 years. Look at my history. I transform. I'm ever in flux. Look at photos of me. It’s all there. That is what I need to fix. Hopefully, the new is better than the old. How can it not be?
4/8/94
I just remembered. April 8 is the 10th anniversary of when we heard about Kurdt’s suicide. That went slow. Imagine if he were still alive, all that we would have to enjoy and read into and share. I had that day off, and listened to Matt Pinfield interview Greg Dulli on the radio, 106.3. That night, I went to see the Afghan Whigs at
Friday, March 26, 2004
Fix
Fuck drugs, fuck drugs, fuck drugs. I’ve been so fucking fogged out for the past week that I need to read this blog to remember what I wrote. I regret some of it. Shit. That is wrong with a capital G. I used to be lucid and mellow and easy going and effervescent and endearing. Now I’m just about ONE FIX. JUST ONE FIX. I’m worse than I was at work two weeks ago. I’ve digressed. My “doctor” gave me government-warned, concurrent-contraindicated anti-depressants (Not supposed to take both at the same time.) LOL. I waited all this time to go see a fucking shithead of a doctor (Read the Top 10 List.) Tomorrow or Sunday is going to end up being withdrawal day. Send flowers, Skittles and Gatorade, please. If you're in the area, ice chips would be nice. Fuck. Jesus will not be building my hot rod this weekend.
Vision
Bare bones alone with nobody home
No one to talk to but me
I lie in my bed
And think what I said
Is truly not what I see
The Stigmata Drama Dali Lama
Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you and you and you and you. This sucks like you have no idea. This is pain with juice. This is white bone tearing through pink flesh. This is the heart skip shock instant of a break up on a defibrulator for 5 weeks. This is agony. These are tears. This is sleeplessness. This is a loss of faith. This is cold sweat and heaving breath. This is a Zapruder film. This is your hair on fire in the desert. These are your lips sliced off in the middle of a kiss.
This is getting Howard Hughes-ish.
B side
The two sides: One wants romantic love and sex while the other tends to overvalue and adore. Inching toward crescendo fakes me out every time.
(Apologies to Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth)
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Natal
Sleep can’t sleep can only think
shut down the mind please put myself to sleep.
Mommies to meet children to cherish
I beseech you beseech you imploring imploding in the very now of now I’ve yearned and doubted.
I can sing and laugh and run and breath deep fleeting moments and exhale eternal desire and moments of spark touch blanket warmth natal dance.
Inching toward crescendo fakes me out every time.
Sorry my mistake.
Top 10 things not to say to your psychiatrist. (Which quote is fake)….
10. I go from big-eyed bunny to slit-eyed wasp in a parsec.
9. I’m in advertising. Pharmaceutical, as a matter of fact.
8. The color of my car? White, no, black. I mean red.
7. Is there anyone else in your field who is nice that you would recommend?
6. No, really, I don’t mind coming to a smelly clinic.
5. Are those your real degrees, or are they from Kkhatxizstan?
4. Are those your real degrees, or are they silicone?
3. Why does Xanax make me smile?
2. Sure, I know Jeffrey Hicken.
1. What box cutter?
.
Ambiguity of K
She was sexy, she was cool
Whatever she did, she would rule.
She was loving, she was nice
Whatever we did, I wanted twice.
My favorite quotes from the 3/21/04 NY Times Book Review
“...the wisdom of the body in rapture...”
-- Andrew Miller (Flesh in the Age of Reason, by Roy Porter)
“The most devoted of lovers can also be petty, jealous and unattractively needy at times.”
-- Jeff Turrentine (Dive, by Lisa Teasley)
Brace Yourself
Tugging at the truth, she turns red roses brown.
Ambiguously brown.
But we needn’t stare.
That dame don’t know she’s nothing but a poster.
Brace yourself.
She sets a fire in your hair.
The neon frost sings with one roaring spark.
She puffs the flame with a planet smashing blink of her expressway eyes.
Go ahead. Be a fading Magdalene. I will have none of this.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Monday, March 22, 2004
Revalatory
How does something evocative of such emotion, and so revlatory of the human spirit come from one person?
Non-sidewinding sweetness
Sweetness Follows
What would you care if you lost the other?
I always wonder why did we bother,
Distanced from one, deaf to the other.
Oh, oh, oh but sweetness follows
It's these little things, they can pull you under.
Live your life filled with joy and wonder.
I always knew this altogether thunder
Was lost in our little lives.
Sidewinding Sweetness
Sidewinder:
This here is the place I will be staying.
There isn't a number, you can call the pay phone.
Let it ring a long, long, long, long time.
If I don't pick up, hang up, call back, let it ring some more.
If I don't pick up, pick up... The sidewinder sleeps, sleeps,
sleeps in a coil
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
Every body hurts:
When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on.
Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. (Repeat & fade)
River
This is the same passion that makes me emotional, bold, and, sadly, feeling entitled to the world.
Yet it almost hilarious how predictable I am.
Reassessing the indigo days.
An infinite number of events progressing at the same time without time occurring, passing, existing. If true, how would the concept of time be perceived? Identified? Invented? How could anything but infinity exist?
Tiss
PK:
You have to cleanse your mind of this woman and your body of all the shit the doctors and you have been putting in it to mask your misery. I was thinking about you yesterday as I was driving to
You should have called me back yesterday so I could have soapboxed you live (just kidding).
You will be okay. Hang on, hang in there, climb up. There are many people who care, I am certain of it. Turn to your family for support, turn to your friends. If I were there I would try to support you in any way I could, but I wonder, are you shutting out all of the people who want to help you and looking to the person who is causing you pain to support you? It seems so logical, if only they loved you they would make everything better, but turning to her for that answer when she is the one causing the pain is completely convoluted thinking. I speak from experience PK and I don't mean to be harsh, but it "ain't gonna happen".
Look my friend, I hope I am not being too harsh. I am far from perfect and I have one issue in my life I have to let go of then I know I will be completely free, and I for some reason cannot seem to get to that place, but I know I will. I am in no position to judge and I shouldnt, but it pains me to see someone, as I have said many times before, with the potential for unlimited joy be somired in misery, especially someone who I had a personal attachment albeit a strange one that I had at a distance. Your issues run far deeper, but you will be HAPPY.
K
You tried to help. But you barerly accomodated. You touched my leg sweetly and tried to rememember words the psych told us. I was the one in question and remembered them. You kissed me.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Beautiful
The one thing that my sister Kerry said, and I hesitate to bring my family into this: the word I said doesn’t define you any more than it does me. It might take me a long time to understand my act, for I know how much it must have hurt. But I said it not out of feeling, but out of an irrational feeling.
The word she was talking about was horrible. Kara, you were the most beautiful woman I had met in 20 years. You made my heart jump, you were so beautiful. The night before I cursed that word, I showed my absolute, resolute, true honest feelings for you, in the best way you allowed me to. The next morning, we went to the diner and ate eggs and talked wonderfully and were fresh out of bed lovers. The next night I let my mouth slip in a disgusting way. But that doesn’t characterize me. I slipped because of a horrible misconception on my part. I thought you liked chat room whores more than most girls. Chat room whores as in guys who prey on chat room girls. I was so wrong. Any girl who would look into my eyes and say what you said before we ordered Chinese, before we trapsed out to get the movies while you wore my warm coat did not deserve that. Who kissed me as we walked the plates for out Chinese food out from the kitchen? Who kissed me unconditionally on the couch and held my hand as we continued our acceleration into the bedroom? Who still deserves beds of roses every day? You do. We had such great meaning that night. And a gentle intimacy. The person you looked into the eye and said you liked so much not gone. He is what’s left over.
I expect no response. I deserve none. But I want you to know that I feel terrible and that I did like you like you more than I ever expressed. I’m sorry. You do deserve better.
Marc
A man, a bar, a satellite dish and a high-speed Internet connection – Marc spends Thursday in heaven.
Resolution is an illusion
The only thing that feels neglected and lonely in this place is my shower. I think it’s time I spent some quality time there.
Friday, March 19, 2004
Sex
There is still a pack of rubbers that lay unused on the floor
If I had you back someday, I'd like to unuse them some more.
Puddle
The funny thing about life is that there is always sorrow after joy, but rarely joy after sorrow. Just less sorrow. Eventually. I had my knees knocked out from under me in the middle of a mud puddle. There's no such thing as a happy puddle.
Heather
Heather is 22. She took a picture of her eyeball for me. And another of her mouth. A creative, inspired spirit if there ever was one. The best one, however, was of her beautiful, beautiful face. She is heart-stoppingly pretty.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Burnt
CafeGirI [11:26 PM]: I told you not to play around with Matches. Playing around with Matches is a goddamn way to get Bernd
Concussion
The last time I led a vampire's life, I ended up with a concussion washed up on the beach in Long Branch.
Abs
There are but few precious ways to make your abs look ripped like a 6-pack than by fasting for 25 days. Nowhere to go from here but up.
Lava
Words and thoughts flowing like lava. Nature’s future remnants born of the past, poison to all while burning fresh. Fertile to all after having cooled.
Sanctuary
If she sold Sanctuary for a million dollars, I’d buy it.
But I’d ask her to put a nurse on me while she cruised chat rooms. Only fair.
Jogger
Smoking leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth. But I barely notice it. A month ago I was a jogger. Today my mouth has a nicotine burn. My rewind button lives in
25
I never realized how many words she left me. I only listened to my messages last night. 25 messages in about 12 days. 12 days before I called her a name. It was nice to hear her voice.
26
This hurt is in day 26. 26 days of a hot burning stone of regret in my stomach. Live with that. You earned it and had it coming bastard.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Glaucoma
OK, here's a joke... Guy calls into work one morning, says he can't come in. Says he has anal glaucoma. Secretary says, "What's that?" He says, “I don't know, but I can't see my ass coming into work tomorrow morning.”
LOLOLOL
Minutes
"Months can be years, days can be minutes. It all depends upon how big the takeup reel is, doesn't it?"
CafeGirl
Reticent, cold, distant, aloof, introverted, and yet...funny sometimes
My conveniently taciturn id. Preferring radical silence over raucous, obnoxious banter in strategic and inviting situations.
Monday, March 15, 2004
Massive
This girl I know needs some shelter
She don't believe anyone can help her
She's doing so much harm, doing so much damage
But you don't want to get involved
You tell her she can manage
And you can't change the way she feels
But you could put your arms around her
I know you want to live yourself
But could you forgive yourself
If you left her just the way
You found her
- Massive Attack - Protection
Protection
"I'll stand in front of you, take the force of the blow. Protection"
Massive Attack
If you don't already own the song, buy it. It is sexy, seductive, groovy, writhing, pounding, smooth, natal, nurturing, primal and comforting.
St. Patrick, I
Dr. G decides that I no longer belong with heaven’s banished, but with hell’s exiled. I’m deported to the first floor, where three of the prettiest girls you’ve ever seen are withdrawing from heroin and bonding. Three Angelina Jolie clones are introduced to me, Mr. Self Destructive Maniac. Fucking magnetic attraction.
Three Angelina Jolies. Model-tall women with model-quality hair, eyes, cheekbones, noses, lips, chins, necks, clavicles, breasts, hands, hips, asses, thighs, calves, knees, shins, ankles and feet. Not arms, though. They were uniformly bruised and sporting dull red blotches. Needle marks, duh. One had ankles like that, now that I think of it. Women who look devastating without a shower in 5 days. Women who look devastating up-close without make-up and a low-res camera. All shivering and puking and shitting and cursing and ranting and wandering and, of course, socializing.
St. Patrick, II
One of my visitors smuggled in some candy for me on night two. The models and I sat in the hallway and sucked on Jolly Ranchers till the wee hours. Watermelon sweet was the best. Apple sweet was second. Cherry sweet a distant third. Grape sweet was the street shit. When we got to lemon, we were desperate. We talked about concerts from the 90’s. Bands from the 80’s. Our fave beaches on the
There was a Karen, a Tara and a Laura. I called them all K at least once in a Thorazine hazy blaze. It was funny, or at least they thought so. Well, now that I think of it, maybe not all thought so. Laura cried. She had never had a “real” boyfriend. She told us about being abused. That’s when I went into Phase II. Practically catatonic. The shock of being here was over. The reality was on.
St. Patrick, III
After days of hunger and starving it hit me again why I was here. After days of hunger and starving it hit me again why I hated myself so much. K was abused. And I said those words to her.
This is why I stopped eating. This why my body failed me. This is why my mind finally revolted against me. This is why I have simultaneously caved in and flipped out.
This is why, still to this moment and for as far as I can see ahead, I am in a penultimate act of contrition. It will not stop, for I cannot be forgiven.
I have compounded the pain of a scarring sting. I am sick with shame.
St. Patrick, my ass.
Low Resolution
“I looked at the profile of your girl because I was curious. Seriously Dude, you can do FAR better. Nothing like a ton of pancake make-up, a low-res photo and pursed lips to make the guys swoon.”
“No, she actually is pretty in person.”
“You’re on crack.”
“Close. Thorazine.”
Ticking
Ride sun seagull sounds.
Tossing breeze and washes of an excellent, precise boom.
Open to that rhythm. I am ticking inside.
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Thorazine
Brown shoe,
Brown shoe,
Brown shoe,
Shoo be doo,
Shoo be doo,
Shoo be doo,
Shoo be doo,
Skooby Doo,
Skooby Doo,
Skooby Doo,
Skooby Doo,
Doobie Brothers,
Doobie Brothers,
Doobie Brothers,
Doobie Brothers,
And it would just go on….
Thorazine
This is how I amused myself by mantra while confined, on Thorazine, at MMC:
Bow weevil,
Bow weevil,
Bow weevil,
Bow weevil,
Bo Jackson,
Bo Jackson,
Bo Jackson,
Bo Jackson,
Jackson Brown,
Jackson Brown,
Jackson Brown,
Jackson Brown,
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Park
It wasn’t any kind of breakup that hurt – hell, the same thing happened the week before and it was a relative walk in the park. It was what I said that made me sick. Absolutely disgusted with myself.
Friday, March 12, 2004
Fault
Still to this moment and for as far as I can see ahead, I am in a penultimate act of contrition. And I know exactly why. I struggle with the inclination to email the unfolding to her. The monster speaks.
"Tonight I go to hell for what I've done to you. This ain't about regret. It's when I tell the truth."
Afghan Whigs - Debonair
Jail
“Lonely? Maybe or maybe not at all.
Depends
On your idea of a friend.
If what you’re shoveling me is company
Then I’d rather be alone.
Resentment always goes much further than it was supposed to go.”
.
Band: Afghan Whigs
Album: Gentlemen
Song: What Jail is Like
Status: Flat out best album of the decade. Unless you consider…whatever, nevermind.
Tug of War
Taciturn days and nights
My sinister side laid bare
Skin peeled back by the jaws of life
Raw flesh, sinew, muscle, organs, tendons, bone, marrow, pulsing veins
My own bare hands pulling at my heart,
pulling it like wet rope through my own rib cage
My body pulls back
An epic tug of war
Tugging, drugging, slugging, hugging
It's not about me. It's about my crime.
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Acceleration
To accelerate is to dissuade return, eternal return and the concepts involved. To accelerate is to advance. To advance is to leave something behind, namely a past of some sort. Acceleration is a biased release of unpleasant bonds, a metaphysical motion, a movement into uncharted pleasures free from the ropes of nostalgia.
Mything Something
Life heart libido, Eros and Amor. Agape, the impersonal lover. Eros, the biological urge. Agape, the religious impulse to love, to love thy neighbor. Amor, the highest spiritual existence. Eros—seizure. Amor, the personal ideal, the meeting of the eyes. Recognition of identity in the other, physical union, the sacrament in which this is confirmed. The spiritual impact of love—Amor. A narrow path is a dangerous path, the razor’s edge.
The eyes are scouts of the heart. Why only one and not others? The electricity and the ensuing agony. The only one who can heal the wound is the one who dealt the blow. Libido, the impulse of life coming from the heart. But what does the heart do? It is also the impulse to life—an animalistic quality. Libido…Amor…the human quality.
(With apologies to Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth)
OLDER ENTRIES
To those who have been kind enough to ask, older entries can be found by clicking the link at the top right and bottom right of the page that says "Older Entries."
I have a feeling this won't be the last time I write this....
Dead Milkman
Let us all have a moment of noise for Dave Blood, bass player for the Dead Milkmen. R.I.P., dude.
List of the best concerts I ever saw at the Green Parrot in Neptune:
1. The Dead Milkmen/Mojo Nixon
Um, I think that's it. The rest were probably at the Fast Lane, now that I think of it.
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Ambien
Ambien doesn’t sneak up on you like a more subtle drug might. Ambien has a key to your skull door and walks right into your brain with a polite, methodical confidence. Ambien doesn't fluff pillows in your head. Ambien goes to the control panel up there and systematically shuts down your typing skills, and as kind of a joke, lets thoughts worth typing run amok. (Ambien has a sense of humor.) Then Ambien unleashes a chemical component that makes you feel both lethargic and spazzy. I picture Ambien as a tiny R2D2 droid flying inside my head, shooting out jets of pharmaceutical concoctions over my frontal lobe and all along my cerebral hemisphere. It works its way in to my thalamus and pituitary gland, spraying like a cropduster. Ambien then leaves with a courteous, “Ta Ta!,” as it shoots a rhino dart into my cerebellum. Sweet dreams, till sunbeams find me.
Precarious ego
“Honey, I’m not sure what you did, but I bet you looked good doin’ it.”
-- Nurse, 3rd floor, MMC.
I'm trying to explain to her why I need to be discharged immediately (at 4:00 A.M.). She gave me a little cup of pills, made a mark on her clipboard, winked and walked away.
I think she said that because I was the only patient there wearing shoes.
In like a lion
I’m in a semi-hallucinatory dream of falsetto flower petals preening in the glory of a kaleidoscoping meadow. Suddenly there’s flash flood of blood. I awaken to find a nurse slapping my arm to get a vein pumping.
Vampirella finally got me.
I have a thing about needles and had resisted her best efforts for a blood sample. Took her two days, but she figured me out. Get him at
Blue Swan
I’m channel surfing last night and I come across a commercial for the Blue Swan Diner. This was a happy place just three short weeks ago. There I was, spread out with my newspaper in a booth, talking to K on the cell as she pulled into the lot to meet me for dinner. She entered and I saw her in soft focus slow motion. I heard violins, but I think it was really a John Cougar song.
She sat, we ordered, we talked. Food came. She taught me all about gyros and some kind of yogurt sauce. She reminded me that fries were supposed to come with my turkey club. She could have told me yak pee was supposed to be my side dish, and I still would have summoned the waitress. We ate and finished and lingered and kissed in the parking lot…
Suddenly I realize that I’m watching a commercial and it’s three weeks later. Tormented again. I sink and think, “When the hell did the Blue Swan start buying cable ad time, anyway?”
LEFTY, CUT IT OUT!
Lefty, my 20 lb. cat, is a frenzy of senseless scratching, running, leaping, attacking. A mad tide that roils in and quickly abates with a coy ferocity. A blur of fur and fuzz abuzz.
Favorite words
My two favorite words today are “comport” and “Velveeta”.
From dictionary.com:
v. com·port·ed, com·port·ing, com·ports
v. tr.
To conduct or behave (oneself) in a particular manner: Comport yourself with dignity.
v. intr.
To agree, correspond, or harmonize: a foreign policy that comports with the principles of democracy.
It’s one of those light but heavy words that people will soon be saying a lot. I just have a feeling.
As for Velveeta….
I know Velveeta is just a word — a trademarked word at that. But if she were alive in life-sized, mascot-like Scrabble tiles, shy as a wallflower at a crowded cool-people party, I would be the first to ask her to dance. And Velveeta — all eight letters, 16 legs of her and I — would dance a hip-hugging, heart-thumping tango. And all would stop to watch us, envious of our flowering, cheesy love.
Friday, March 5, 2004
Shoes
Words burn in my belly and daylight beams from my eyeballs. I hurt the one I love the most and now my life might as well be toast. Five days in the hospital with God's saddest stories. Pumped full of some of the strongest drugs know to mankind. And I'm still sad. I remember that she had the prettiest shoes when she met me in the hospital.
Metaphysical
Metaphysical movements and the compelling essence of a soft dilemma
The silence of a long wait, a wait too long. Blistering leaps into pathetic days and nights of insolence. Relinquish and extinguish thoughts of the exterior, the recent callings and the former pushes to powerful scenes. A long groove into a day spread upon a beaming savannah.
Sign on and sound off.
A cryptic myth, an essence of rhythm and sweet juice falls, crashes within. Bubbling in warm, wet logic, physical stimulation and simmering reactions. Ooze into the heart in hand and reclaim life as it may be. Disguised as countless other feelings with roots in eroticism, intelligence and mail line grunts.
Xanax
Another essence, a time for addictions and a cleansing elixir. One, a sweet peace breeze, a naked warmth, a natal setting. The other dry, baking and stark. Clean and excellent. Two worlds of light and whispers unto their own. Regardless reflections into a central core, molten and forever illuminating.
Easing into position. Hissing, groaning in claustrophobic silent pleasure.
Openings into different savannahs, noises, sensations.
Settling into a soft dilemma. Settling deep into a bed of pleasures and warmth. Future recollections of pleasure assured. Settle deep, recline into bliss and security.
Be content and talk about it.
Heed all warnings and accelerate into the future clutching someone vital, new and possibly fulfilling. Open your eyes in the middle of this long kiss, slile, delighted, continue.
Want
Touch, figure, adapt, initiate, explore, create.
A unique crash into self-reflection and submission to souvenirs of promise and perfume. Too late to feign, Naieve, stylish and commanding. Heed words suggesting nothing otherwise.
Daylight, perhaps, will not break soon enough. Do not drop the brittle. Clutch, rescue, save and comfort. Ignore the snarling factions. Push for space and territory. Expand.
Establish a situation of elation, bliss and agonizing want.
Just do it.
Contrition
There is no contrition profound enough to express the depth of this angst. I hate the word angst.
Tailbone
I think I broke my coxis last night. You know, the tail bone part of the ass? I slipped in a puddle of Lefty's water. That actually sounded funny. This is the first time I've laughed in over a week.
Thursday, March 4, 2004
Sun
Our last act was beautifully prophetic, profoundly epic, and sadly resolute. We listened to “Here Comes the Sun” together over the phone. I use the word together in its loosest sense.
Leap
I have hazy, hazy motives and project cool, convincing glances. A hip nature comes to mind. Sometimes it’s time to be the savior doctor, sometimes it’s time to recklessly accelerate with determination. Sometimes it’s time to listen to you whisper and breathe and imagine you four seasons into the future.
I refer to old chart pages of Rolling Stone for nostalgia. I burn memories like others burn dinner. I establish myself today, I live for tomorrow. I get serious about not getting serious.
Are you experienced?
Experience and memory give us nothing but the fuel we need to leap confidently into an uncertain future.
Rumors
Periodically, I make a coordinated effort to resurface from the silt of frozen tides. I do not break the ice. I melt the ice. I breathe tonal fogs and dream of feathercats to feed my inspiration.
Our generation, despite rumors to the contrary, is not lost. We segue into newer kisses. We touch, figure, adapt, initiate, explore and relax. We can be slippery and be seen while being the scene.
We can go underground and dance with dozens, then alone. Then walk away.
Blood
You should not judge harshly; you should not judge at all. Seduce, not over minutes or hours, but over weeks, months if necessary.
My blood is the color of a strong improvisational glance.
Match it, I assure you, we’ll soon someday dance.
Yours should be of similar hue.
Pray to the god of mega.
Be the god of you.
Temptation
I am the bad guy. I groove temptation.
Advice to those of you in my boots:
Are you experienced?
If so, be like fire, be a progressive, devouring, emotive force.
Prey on the day.
Demand that damned pleasure. Eat up the new in the day. Why? Because memorized moments of frozen freeze hold keys to the future of you. Die to live.
The past made you what you are now. It’s time to cultivate those feelings long plowed under. Bring your dreams to life. You have feelings buried under years of incremental silt that deserve the beauty of daylight, let alone the brightness of my revelatory smile.
Atoms
She hates every atom in my soul. If atoms had sub-atoms, she’d hate those as well. She despises my very existence. If I were dead, she’d pee on my grave. Cool. Just found a pack of cigarettes.
Addiction
I think the thorazine has fully left my body and this makes me sad. This was the chemical the doctors gave me to shut my system down and quell my I.Q. And I just ran out of cigarettes. I'm on my own now.
Herculean Task
When I write my book, these will be the last words:
Tensions simmer. Suburban lawns glimmer. And another dewy day is born.
Curtain Rod Basketball
It’s 4 o clock in the morning. A day of yet more vacant stares and a night of further insolence is fully upon me. Now is neither today or tomorrow. I tried to play curtain rod basketball, but it got boring after two hours. Then I called Kara. I probably should have kept playing curtain rod basketball. She hates every atom in my soul. I’ve never been this broken up over a girl, especially one I’ve only dated for a month. Hilary was bad, but that was three years. Natalie was bad, but that was two years. This one is bad not because time ticked out, but because I fucked up.
Wednesday, March 3, 2004
An ode to Tom Davis, Deux
Illuminated by the Broadway streetlights and with the inlet fog horn bellowing behind us we hatched a plan. I’ll QB, drop back and count to three. We practiced the timing in the huddle 1….2…..3. At three, Tom was to turn around and see the nerfball in his face.
I dropped back counted 1….2…. and threw. At three, Tom made his cut and turned his head my way. Jerry Rice couldn’t have run a more perfect pattern. Not being too shabby myself, Joe Montana couldn’t have thrown a more perfect pass. The ball hit him in the numbers. Tom cradled it and tore to the end zone. Fucking touchdown. Just like we mapped it. Perhaps the most glorious moment ever on the sand at the Manasquan inlet.
I’ve ridden hurricane waves within inches of the rocks. I’ve gone skinny dipping with go-go dancers after shots of sambuka. I’ve swam the inlet from the Pt. Pleasant side to the Manasquan side and taken a cab back to Point. But nothing – nothing – matches the exhilarating timing of Tom Davis catching that pass, turning on the jets, and hitting the end zone unchallenged.
An Ode to Tom Davis
There was a stretch of time in the very early 1990’s when it would have taken a yet to be invented kitchen utensil to separate myself from Tom Davis. We had a common friend whose name may or may not have been Bill Borden.
One memory strikes clearer than all others. We were playing football on the beach. It was Tom and myself vs. Bill and Cousin Dave. First team to score wins. Sizewize, I knew we were out matched. Our only chance was speed. We stopped Bill and Cousin Dave on their first offense with incredibly spasmodic coverage. On their third and long, Tom swatted that nerfball half way to
Now it was our turn.
2/28 a.m. part 2
I am devastated. I actually thought I was going to be set free. I had visions of my big fat cat, Lefty, sitting on my chest and trying to claw my eyeballs out. I had visions of me watching college basketball all weekend in an orgy of tortilla chips, chicken wings and beer. I had visions of me sleeping in a room by myself without crazy people screaming about nicotine patches and lesbian rape.
Dr. Gellar saw this and threw me a bone. “I will transfer you to a voluntary floor, if you’ll agree.”
“Agree to what?” I dared.
“To get the care you need,” was his quick answer. “Maybe Monday I will discharge you. Not before then.”
My head fell into my hands and a million suns burned in my head. But for the first time in five days, I didn’t puke.
2/28 a.m. part 1
Dr. Gessler greets me with a handshake and a smile. He knows that I’m causing trouble in the ranks. I can just tell. That, plus the chart nurse told him I was difficult. His first question is a tough one. “You wanted to kill people with a box cutter?” he says in a thick Russian accent. I fended it off with the “No” argument combined with the “That’s crazy” line of reasoning. Apparently he has heard this before.
“Fuck,” I think to myself – or so I thought. I actually said it out loud. But he agreed with me.
“Why would you want to do something so messy.” he said. He was right. I hate seeing blood. I told him it was only a theatrical flourish of words, and any due harm was only pointed at me.
“Why do you want to hurt yourself?” He asked.
“Dude,” was my witty retort.
Let me explain. I’m not exactly quick on my feet at this point. I’m so pumped full of pills I can hear my eyeballs sloshing in their sockets. The world is moving at normal speed, but my brain is going 50% at best. I’m like the Mad Scientist in the Bugs Bunny cartoon saying “Come back here you rabbit” in a slurred, slow baritone.
Dr. Gessler asks me a battery of questions that hit way to close to home. When it seems that he’s done, I ask him flat out, “Can I go home now?”
He looks up and smiles. “No. We need to watch you here for a few days.”
Tuesday, March 2, 2004
Add comments. If they're too wordy, split one into two.
Some of my hall of fame best friends have responded to this, and I love them for it. But their responses are too long to be contained by this current state of AOL. I want all of your comments posted for the world (me) to see on this page. So if it's 1,000 characters? Split it into two 500 character comments. That's 2x more space for my fragile ego to be boosted and 2x more space for you to spread your intellectual horizons. See, we both win. As Special Ed would say, "Yeah!"
So far, Tom Davis and Mike Flematti get my vote to be the next ruling party in Iraq. I vote myself to be the drooling party wherever there's a few coconauts and a canoe and some lithe Tahitian girls. Coconaut? Is that like an astronaut going to Columbia? Cocoanut. Duh. Where is the absolute clairity of Xanax whe you really neeb it?
Padlock and key...2/28 a.m.
Again, I have no idea where I am when I wake up. It's not my bedroom -- much less charm. Is it a walk of shame night? Nope. Way worse. I'm still in AP3, the most extreme of extreme outposts for God's suicidal and homicidal maniacs inhabiting Monmouth County, NJ. This thought immediatly drives me into action, for I would be neither of the two if not for one overtly dramatic and yet to be told remark.
A 300 lb. man in the room next to me moans desprately for nicotine. A woman down the hall screams about lesbian rape. A 45-year old retarted woman a doorway away is on the bad end of a violent bath from two innocent volunteers. Nurses chatter and giggle. I am here. This is real. I am fucking here. I am a piece of this soft violence. Thursday's hydrating I.V. dream is far distant in the rearview mirror. K is way a mile away. She burned rubber and I can't blame her. No cell phone battery. No change. I have to deal with this. The only way out is straight through the middle. Time for a bum rush. Mosh pit experience finally comes in handy. I rise out of bed, lower my head and make a straight path to the bathroom to puke. I catch a glint of sanity in my doorway before I get too far to turn back. "If you're Patrick, the doctor wants to see you," she says. I hold my cookies.
25 years ago I was eating Cocoa Puffs and watching School House Rock on Saturday morning TV. Today I'm splitting hairs with God's disappeared and thanking the almighty that a man wearing a tie wants to talk to my dirty, gritty, strung out face. Thank god I had the forethought to bring the ever versitile baseball cap to make me almost automatically presentable. This is my most important meeting ever.
Wacko Ward Deux...2/27
Thorazine is my fuel now. I'm supposed to utilize its indication for protracted nausea, but (wink, wink), its also used in the treatment of disorganized and psychotic thinking. State makes me an addict to stay in their throws, to remain a non-threat to myself, and even less of one to others. I'm literally drooling bliss and having hysterical conversations with cups of cranberry coctail juice. I can't figure out if I'm playing checkers with a tic-tac-toe board or tick-tac-toe on a checkers board. Perhaps I'm just watching ESPN2. I hope that's the case, 'cause Kit Hoover is really pretty.
In a span of 10 minutes I'm accused of being a white father-in-law, a cracker, and a nicotine patch thief. I plead grinning to all charges and wait for Johnny Cochran to interceed. As if. My head barely spins and I smile at all, and all smile back. Suddenly, I'm accused of stealing a birthday and I giggle. The house folds and we're all put to bed. I'm given permission to shave, but only if I have a chaperone. Razors are dangerous on this edge of the night. My beard sinks without incident and I sleep with glorious floating dreams void of love, life, and anything everlasting.
Time stand still
I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
Time stand still
See more of the people and the places that surround me now
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away
I turn my face to the sun
Close my eyes
Let my defenses down
All those wounds that I can't get unwound
Summer's going fast, nights growing colder
Children growing up, old friends growing older
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each impression a little bit stronger
Experience slips away...
The innocence slips away
Music by Lee and Lifeson. Lyrics by Peart.
Wacko Ward....2/27 a.m.
After hours of Thorazine-influenced interviews with mind doctors and after anxious anticipation of release, I'm put in a wheelchair and taken to a place called AP3. The song playing from a hidden cubicle is "The First Cut is the Deepest". I thought of blue swans* and the moment froze. My defenses opened for a second to allow in a ray of reality. Apparently, I used the word "box cutter" in the wrong context (admittedly so, but in a theatrical sense - not literal.) That earned me a spot on the non-voluntary wing of the hospital - the place where mother nature's mistakes are banished for a someday to get better. I howled at how I did not belong there and called K one last time. I poured coins into a pay phone as U2's "The Sweetest Thing" played pervertedly in the background on a cheap clock radio. My time was ticking down. My last nickel hit the bottom of the slot as I heard her say "Hang in there....." A needle hit my ass and I was dead.
*Diner in Eatontown, NJ
Emergency Room....2/26
LET ME OUT!!! I arrived looking for an I.V. to relieve physical symptoms manifested by anger and deceit. After five days without food or water, somehow I got conned into buying rubber room real estate. K was there hugging my leg, then smiling, then hugging, then gone barely a mile away burning rubber all the way as a nurse had me taking a fistfull of pills.
The funniest moments came in my early captivity when counselors, social workers, security, and all were ROFL at K's secretely admitted (to a counselor) ambition to sustain multiple affairs and get a "real" job. We imagined exaggerations on previously used excuses (that I divulged) she would play out, which lightened the mood a bit. Sardo said it best..."Get it over with now and marry a portly rich man."
I laughed as hard as the rest, thinking I'd be out by morning and free as a bird. The joke was on me.
By morning the shift had changed and the only constant in this particular wing of the hospital was me. At first I couldn't figure out where I was when I woke up. When I got to figuring, I was mortified, then angry. I used the last few seconds of cell phone power to call into work and tell them I was in the hospital. I was indeed, and I knew this was serious. I'm locked in a rubber room with my own words of terror boomeranging me back in the face. I hate karma.