Mistakes Maken...

19th Century Russians Got It

2009-11-04T11:42:00.000-08:00

Shine a light, blind the terror.
Lead me from the darkness of error.

We all suffer in our own little ways. Some of us are doomed to those universally awful events in life that the rest of us try not to think about as we agonize over some triviality. I haven't lost much of extreme consequence. I lost my job. But I didn't have a mortgage payment to make. I lost my car when the axle snapped in the middle of the freeway. But I am alive. And yes, I am upset all of the time. I am upset that I can interview with a company nine times and not even get a call back to tell me I didn't get the position. I am upset that it has been two days since I sent a follow up email just to make sure that I didn't get the job I already know I didn't get, and no one has the decency to even reply. And it upsets me that without that job I most likely cannot get the car I want. And it upsets me that I cannot move into my own place until I get a job, a job I cannot get to without a car, a car I cannot buy without a job, a job I cannot get without experience, experience I cannot get because I lost the job I had, which is the very reason I need a new job at all. All of this upsets me. And I suppose this is one of the worst times of my life and that I am very capable of making it better. But it hasn't gotten better yet...

Except for you. I have wanted you since the moment I saw you. And failed. Failed and waited years trying to forget you. Trying to go to sleep just one night without thinking of you. And every single time I thought I would finally be able to you would talk to me. As much as I wanted it to, you never let my hope die, and I suppose you didn't even know it. And now, all these years later, at the worst time of my life, now you give me another chance? When I have even less to offer? As if you knew I needed just one thing to go right in my life to even have hope to fix everything else? I don't know why. I don't know how. You've always made it better, and I don't think I've ever let you know that. Maybe it's because I'm terrified at not being able to do the same for you. But for once, I am not afraid to try.

A Long Wait (Happy Birthday)

2009-10-22T17:52:00.000-07:00

In a lonely place, between where Elysium and earth collide,
A pale sunlight bends in the rain, and broken colors rejoice upon your face.
But maybe that place is in my mind, and its galaxy inside,
Perhaps you only drift throughout that space.

In a parallel world and in another life, with bounds that no one knows,
Until an ancient, angry sun swallows the world and I burn,
Or I escape to the hollow darkness of the cosmos,
I hear the resonance of your being, humming through my nocturne.

Here and now in a life ephemeral, I feel my faith begin to wane,
But there, oh there I hope for you.
In each particle of light that passes through each drop of rain,
I hope to shine on you.
Where the sea and the sky are azure lovers, dancing to the Siren's refrain,
I hope to cast away with you.
Where dinosaurs roam the earth, and I look at you and feel no pain,
That's where I wait for deliverance--from myself and my hope for you.

To Fools with Lengthy Ropes

2009-10-22T17:45:00.000-07:00

If they ask you how you cope,
Or why you do not sulk and mope,
Or why you're such a happy dope,
Tell them you're victim to the scourge of hope--
You wash your dread with sanguine soap,
And tie more rope to the end of your rope.

2009-08-13T18:07:00.000-07:00

I think that maybe the greatest flaw in capitalism is that it does not promote your best effort. It promotes an effort that is or at least is seemingly better than the effort of the competition. This leaves room to improve something later and make more money. Consequently, we will never have the best we can have. We'll probably have better than before, unless that company is a piece of shit and knows there's no alternative, in which case we'll have slightly shittier than before, but we'll never have the best anyone can offer because everyone who offers the best they can do goes out of business after everyone who is going to get it gets it.

are you getting the best roads? no. you get a cheap ass repaving job every couple of years. are you getting the best internet speed? of course not, look at the rest of the world. are you getting the best cars? i don't think i need to even address that. nothing is the best. even your kobe beef cattle could be drinking better beer.

2008-09-04T21:07:00.000-07:00

i spent the entirety of 2007 working for a company that on most days afforded me ample time to partake in nothing. a lot of that free time was devoted to finding assassins i could employ to snuff out the prime of my life. sitting and staring at the wall. napping in my car. i suppose i don't need to tell you that it was exactly what i had expected from life.

at certain points i would write, in much the same way i am now. a page or two at a time detailing whatever tragic ordeal i had to endure on that particular day, or just some thought that was plaguing me because i had let it ferment for too long without forgetting about it. i wrote on notepads that i stole from the supply room and in pencil because nothing is ever good enough the first time around. but i started to get tired. i might have said it once before: i am of a shiftless disposition. it was easier to read things that more talented and interesting people had written. i bought a few books, borrowed a few others, and spent a lot of time at work getting paid to read.

i would still write once in a while. one day, after i had finished reading Heart of Darkness, i wrote a paragraph in what i thought was Conrad's vein. it was not. i have a tendency to put big words where they don't need to be. why? i've always thought that if we have to learn them, if they exist, why the fuck is it unnecessary or bombastic to use them? so I used a bunch and it was going nowhere.

on a whim i wrote a sentence that changed the whole story. i wrote that it was the introduction to a story that a fictional character had been writing while he had some free time at work. pretty much on a lark, i created a fictional character (who is the not so fictional me) who spends his time writing memoirs and short stories at work. it was devoid of plot, which meant I could heinously compare it to Seinfeld. my story was the story of a fictional character based on me and the stories that he wrote (many of which I had already written). I got about a hundred pages in over the course of several months. early in 2008 the laziness caught up with me and I started to put it off. i haven't touched it in months.

it was going to be a story of basically everyone in my life. i could stretch out minute instances into pages. every mistake. every heartbreaking, soul crushing moment accounted for. and i was making a comedy out of it because i survived on the little things that went my way, even if i had to create a situation just to get a good result for once.

a part of me thinks it's close to the best thing i've ever done. that is misleading though. i haven't done much. in reality the best thing i've ever done is donate blood. the times i have donated blood are the only times in my life that i have been of real use to someone other than myself. i'm not writing the book anymore, at least not for now. there's too much to put in it and in my terribly woe is me life i can't seem to find the will to get back to it. writing here is the best i can do for now. and surely, it will get better, like it was in the book, but don't get on my case for my morosity. i smile all the time. tomorrow i'm going to a bachelor party and no one will be able to wipe the smile off of my drunk ass. not in the limo, not at the baseball game, not at the bars, and definitely not at the strip clubs. but anyone who feels the need to get on my case for my somber outlook isn't looking at life hard enough. forget the problems with the entire world. start selfish. i start with myself. nowhere near enough ambition to escape a life in cubicles, analyzing god knows what, knowing that each passing hour is an hour of my mid-20's lost to a cause not entirely hedonistic. don't tell me to enjoy what i've got and i won't break your heart outlining everything you don't.

2008-09-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

i'm of a shiftless disposition. you'll get to know that...eventually...when i have the energy to write more than this introduction.