8.11.11

Snow fall in October...

It snowed on my birthday.  It was kind of nice, sitting at home, watching it fall on my car, and checking in on facebook of the electric glow of my friends' warm wishes.  Then the undercurrent hit.  Around noon, really.  A lot of the kids I knew from high school started posting things about "Ian".  I went to school with two of them - one I had known from childhood, and the other...well, I knew two versions of the other.

And it was the other one who had died.

I don't know the details beyond Ian, his friend Mike, and their car hitting a tree near where I went to middle school.  That's all I really know.

Here's the two Ian's I knew: High School and Slightly Post, and Mid-Twenties.

I fucking hated him in high school.  I say that without reservation - I didn't like him.  I know much of it was out of the same envy I felt towards anyone who seemed to mesh easily with others, who had that effortless effort about them when it came to inter-personal relationships.  But, more than that, dude just rubbed me the wrong way.

In our mutual mid-twenties I remet him a few times.  At bars.  Run ins at gas stations.  Maybe I had matured, or he had, or both of us.  I didn't know the shit he had gone through, same as he didn't know what I had gone through.  But we were civil.  Had we moved in similar circles, I suppose we could have become friends.

All that's as maybe.
The other Ian, my childhood friend, wrote about him as a friend.  I post the link to his writing here, and hope you'll take the time to read it.
I didn't know he was a teacher.

I hope he and Mike are at peace, wherever they are.  I hope the families and friends comes to terms.






Damn shame.

10.10.11

Long night in late October...

I love autumn.  I love the world going quiet, and people staying indoors more.  I love the sensation that, slowly but surely, I'm becoming the only person outside.  I love the sound a leaf makes when it falls off a tree - a muffled pop followed by a soft swishing.  Even when it dive bombs down.  I love the smell of the bonfires.  This Halloween I'll be seeing the World/Inferno Friendship Society's Hallowmas show - probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing for me.  One of my favorite bands playing on what used to be my favorite holiday, and seeing them with some of my favorite people.

Having come to terms with the fact that the road trip keeps getting pushed back into the reaches of "You're Chicken Shit and It's Never Going To Happen", I decided I would take a vacation for my birthday.  My big birthday plans were pretty simple.  I was going to get a hotel room at some beach in New Jersey, and just take a few days to sit and watch the wave roll in and feel like I was the only one in the world.  I wanted to watch the stars rise over the Atlantic.  Little light pollution.  Nothing to keep the wind at bay.  Everything feeding my hopes of an alien abduction (hey, we all have dreams).

No real noise.  No real problems for a day or two.  Just me, my laptop, and the whole world over.

I've always wanted to live near a large body of water.  Something I can see - not "it's only a mile away" - you know, step out the back door and, boom, large body or water.  Fuck, even a lake or something, Great or otherwise.  Granted, I'd prefer not to be able to see the other side on a clear day, but I'm willing to compromise.  Or resign myself to it.  Really it's just a matter of degrees.

But that's my idea of Heaven.  A cosmic beach in mid-autumn, bare feet, jeans and a hoodie, feeling equally small and infinite.  The metaphor of endings and beginnings being one and the same, the ouroboros still circling.  And no fucking loud mouthed "Lookatme!" assholes around.  It's too cold for them.  At fifty degrees, it might as well be night's Plutonian shores at high noon.

But I'll go for the once-in-a-lifetime show, and be with people I adore.  I can always cast my eye back there later.  True, it will be November, but that doesn't bother me.  I'd prefer October, true, but that's because all of the things I like about October are things I liked about my childhood.  People get quieter, the world is going to sleep, and I feel like I'm waking up.  All of the people I knew were old and in various stages of dying, and yet they never felt that far away, because around my birthday (on my father's birthday inpointoffact) some folks believed they came back and walked around once more.

In Buddhism, the west is the land of the dead.  But every western ocean arrives on an eastern shore.

6.10.11

Theme song for nothing...

I've been having a few talks with Runner (name changed, clearly) recently.  Covering everything from kids these days - ye gods, are we getting this old this fast - to Shakespeare to various story ideas, punctuated by gallows humor.  As we're born around the same time (and that time is coming soon) we seem toe be experiencing a bit more pathos than usual.  The pallor of our dreams mingling with our utter bewilderment at how fast time seems to go now-a-days, and then added to the feeling we have looking around that we've got no/every reason to feel as damn old as we do...

I'm getting ready to turn twenty seven.

My two major concerns are my hairline and keeping my number of tweets about the number of people I follow on twitter.

I'd hang out with my friends more (yes, I have friends - few but good) if it wasn't for my creeping sensation that they are trying to castrate me (long story, but 70% of the times I hang out with people ends in groin injury...so I have a reason for my reluctance).  Besides, they're all getting married/having kids/doing "adult things" (make of that what you will).  Which makes me glare at my socio-biological clock while gesturing in a reassuring manner with my cricket bat.

Ultimately, the conversations with Runner have helped spur on my writing.  While I'm hoping it's not too infused with the current free floating nihilism, I am hoping it will get me out of my current rut.  It's rather deep now.  Really a nook.  Add a table, and you could put on a fancy meal here.




2.10.11

Male Pattern Body Issues...

I'm out of shape.  For a guy with next to no body fat, this is a serious problem - from health issues to generally not falling into a depressive state when I watch action films. The phrase "skin and bones" is really pretty apt - it really seems like I have nothing beyond those - well, ok, hair too (more on that a bit down).  But also I smoke, so in general I look like a skeleton that's been dipped in paint that wheezes during jogs.

I've stuck with it enough to discover that - addictive personality aside - the body image thing really bothers me.  Sure, I want to be healthy, but I also think there's a problem with how I currently am.  But, really, there's no reason for me to feel this way.  I don't take in as much visual media as the average Statie, I'm not trying to attract a mate/partner/warm-body-to-wake-up-next-to.  It's not insecurity, at least, it's not the normal insecurity.  I'd want to pin it on being afraid of how I'll look when the EMT arrive and find me on the couch, but as I'll be dead, I doubt I'd really care.

Part of it, I know, is the fact that I now work in an office, sitting down all day, and my crippling desire to sleep once I get home - having spent an exhausting day of...dealing with people...from the "comfort" of my chair.  But looking at my co-workers, I have a dread of what can easily become my repertoire of comments (aches, pains, and dieting to relieve said aches and pains and "You know, really start living" - actual quote for a forty-three year old in regards to their joining Weight Watchers).

All fine and well, really - and I've been able to stick to my plan about four to six days a week.  And I honestly do feel better, both in general and about myself - although that may just be the endorphins talking.

The thing that I cannot control is my hairline, which has decided to enter a war of attrition with my scalp.  And since follicle revanchists don't happen, I'm a bit stuck on this count.  My hair was one of those things people always commented on - from family members to friends of the family, to girls I was courting.  It was the one thing I knew wouldn't disappoint.

Now, though, I have have the creeping suspicion that I can measure the distance lost as a solid centimeter, maybe two, and it's only a matter of time until I have the dreaded "geographical patterns" - with a tiny grove of hair forming Australia, and the Asian subcontinent in a horseshoe around the side with the might pacific of a chrome-dome filling in the rest.

I shouldn't worry about this, but I do.  I like my hair, and I never obsessed about it until I got the office job and realized that I had no hope of ever showing up to work with the beginnings of a bear ever again - those days were gone, and stylistic blandness is hear to stay.

So what can I do?  My evil plan for coping with it is, once the geography settles in, I'm going to grow a goatee and Fu-Manchu mustache.  Then I'm going to shave me.  Everything but the properly started facial hair and the eyebrows.  The facial hair I'll try to cultivate into the long and wispy style, so that I'll look something like a Celtic Dr. Lao.

Which I much prefer to look like a midget version of George "The Animal" Steele.

27.9.11

FML? No, just FU...

I'm crap with headaches - I've taken large bit of metal through the torso, been hit by cars, bricks, book, bottle and once a small child and solider through them all.  Even went to work a few hours after being impaled by a crowbar - literally, the thing went through through me, and then there I was folding pants and cursing under my breath.  It's in the police report.  But headaches lay me right out - I think it comes from the fact that I think my brain, deficient though it is in a great many regards, is the part I like best.  I hate hearing people talk about their headaches, but then then I always assume mine are worse because, well, it's my head.

The thing is, though, I don't tend to tell people when I'm in pain.  This is because my father's spine is in constant agony - and has been since I was a child - to the point that telling him I have a headache is like telling a blind person the lights are off and you aren't sure where they are.  They can pity you, but sympathy is impossible.

So, forgive me when I say this or don't, this is pretty much my reaction to people constantly whining on their websites.  I know I'm guilty of this, too - but next to no one reads my blog.  On social media sites, though, it's another story - you get mass puling about the various and sundry, usually one tab over from my world news reading about child soldiers in Africa, the U.S./Mexico drug wars, or the Middle East (how sad is it that I don't have to say "or something happening in...", just put the place name and we all nod?).  Oh, your significant other left you or yelled at you or your job sucks?  Click tab - there's a kid getting peppered by a belt fed chain gun.  Yup, "FML" indeed.

Perhaps this is a sign of both our good fortune, and our doom.  True, most of us who don't live in Detroit or East St. Louis rarely worry about which type of street sweeper is turning the corner, but we also ignore those who do.  Yes, I was fairly well shell shocked when my basement flooded, taking a lot of my childhood (and a few bits of future) with it - then I saw how Vermont, remembered what happened in Nashville (just to name the bits in [very] recent memory), and shut up right quick.

But it won't do to get self-righteous about it - as I said, scroll down a post or two and there's me going on about how life is a disappointment.  But that's just it - I'm disappointed and frustrated, not one of the various forms of -cidal over those events, and I know it.  I know it's not the end of the world - and even if it was, it would give me a reason to get out of my high school reunion in two years.

I would be fine if it was just my teenage acquaintances, but it isn't - people upwards of forty on my feed are there, acting as though it's the days of fire when their car runs out of gas on the freeway.  Well, it's not, it's you missing a day of work - if that.  It's all just new information, things meant to aid you the next time life go for the groin with a steel toed boot.  Repeatedly broken heart?  Maybe it's you.  Problems with the family?  All families are psychotic.  Friends ditch you?  FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YOU'RE ONLINE WITH PEOPLE - MAKE NEW PLANS.

Why sit there and sulk?  There's a chance that it's all meaningless anyway - go to the fucking movies, and don't think about how odd it is that you're alone, think about the movie.  Read a book, take your mind off of the problem so your brain can work it out because: it's not that bad.

Unless you have a headache.  Then it is that bad.  Just find a nice quiet place and have a lie down.

Twits...

So, there's a new "widget" (which I thought was to "wedgie a midget") to your right for my twitter feed.  I'm rather glad that it doesn't fit properly, as I feel it makes it pop.  But I've found myself rather taken with Twitter - for one thing, it might be the apotheosis of Internet interaction - you are streaming into the void, anything you want, and interacting with people you have decided to stalk (well, "follow").  I prefer it to facebook, where everyone seems to pick a few days every month to whine (see next post), and myspace (which just became a massive ad), and google+ (which is too new to really be effective).  I like this blog, but I usually turn to it when I feel like spewing bile that I hope is entertaining, but I know is really just wankery.

The threat of wankery is always there - it's easy to slip into the general blah-ness of life and then start bitching about how nothing exciting happens or your lover used way 26 to leave you.  But there seems to be less of a chance of the social orgy of abasement and self-flagellation.  You have 140 characters - the normal facebook whiny post takes a bit more than that, and each @NAME makes it less and less.  I have to evilly chortle every this happens...so I've yet to evilly chortle, but I've been gearing up for when it's time.

Yeah, voyeur that I am, I'm also reading the thoughts of others.  I really dig Joe Hill (who...really is currently the best writer in his family [sorry Mr. King]) and Neko Case (her voice is sex, her tweets are delightful), and Roger Ebert (one of the few critics I respect).  Do I feel any closer to these people?  A bit.  Closer than I would about the normal twitter celebrities, who tend to be people that helped me decide to avoid television like the plague.  But there is something wonderful about sitting in on how people's day went, like being invited to dinner and listening to snippets of conversation around the table in between lamenting the lack of carrots in the salad.

So, will I be sticking to the haiku format of twitter?  I suppose so - I've yet to see a twitter war, but the people I've been following - be they friends or famous people I wish I knew.  Not because they're famous, mind you - I just want to be at the dinner.


25.9.11

I am where it takes me...

"It's really just the passing of these days / That's gonna leave us all set in our ways"
-Dear Landlord, Three to the Beach

A year ago I swore I wouldn't have work this Monday.  I'd be taking the whole week to say goodbye to people on the east coast, take in a soccer game with my brother, and then start driving that Friday to the west.  I'd be crisscrossing the country, taking side streets and detours, and finally arriving at the Pacific before I turn twenty-seven.

Not the first time I've broken a promise to myself.

Hell, I probably won't even follow through on the "quit smoking" thing.

During a conversation with Teagan she pointed out that the change I'm looking for might not be the change I need.  That the whole trip is really just an expression of my desire to "live", but that said desire is still not strong enough to combat the sense of duty/fear that I have - a thing which over-rides everything else, from nightmarish frustration, sexual repression, and general dislike for my stick-in-the-mud lifestyle.

Knowing that she's probably right annoys the hell out of me.

I've taken some steps - embraced more of life and randomness that I have in years.  I've visited friends, hung out, gone on mini-adventures.  I've been trying to avoid a lot of negativity (which for me is quite the feat), but that's because I can no longer let the anger out in it's accustomed manner - namely hurling insults and curses at the cause and then breaking for lunch.  I feel this life, this current phase of being Sean, hardening into a solid form...and I'm not happy with it.
And I've known I'm not happy with it for quite sometime.

The dangerous part of it, of course, is that I can see it staying this way.  I can think about staying in the rut for awhile more - a while that could turn into me at fifty looking at the cube wall.

It might take a major even to nudge me out.  But then, the universe has always preferred my life to be interesting from time to time.

Brace for impact.

24.9.11

We Gather Together to Pawn Our Crap Unto Others...

Normally, the last Saturday of September is Hulmeville Day - a three town wide flea market where you can buy everything from children's clothing to military grade civilian vehicles.  But, as we're currently still experiencing a slow motion monsoon, it's been pushed back into October, which suits me fine, as we're still checking the "to-be-sold" piles for mildew and water damage.

There's also a looming "problem" to our yearly undertaking - the "our" here being the family McGovern as opposed to the town at large - namely, we're running out of crap.   It's been five years of heavy lifting, but we're damn near out of furniture, the book selection has gone from twenty crates of books (per year) to ten (beginning last year).  Most of the tech got sold off last year to strange people in white vans who had a lot of twenties and flannel.  Most of the clothing goes to the shelters.

Still, though, that's our look out.

There's still the normal insanity of "things lodged under the couch since 1974," humidifiers shaped like the ranch from "Dallas", decommissioned jeeps from the Korean war that still have the bracers for mounted ordinance, and sword canes (yes, I bought one, don't act like you wouldn't have done the same).  There's miniature ponies walking around firehouses, and the smell of bar-b-q everywhere (even in the port-a-johns...which is an interesting experience that I won't go into further).

It has become a minor fixture for folks across bucks county, parts of middle-south Jersey.  It clogs the streets of the town, rips the carefully manicured lawns of suburbia, and pastes the rest with tables and blankets and shit that hasn't seen any sort of light since the first Regan administration.

There's more to this than bargain hunting.  If there wasn't, I don't think it would be nearly as large as it has become.  Part of it, I suppose, is the normal suburban habit of knowing people two houses down and that's really it - the porch lights go on, maybe they see the others in church or passing by during power-walks/jogs/bike-rides.  Now, though, we get to see them, and see what they've had buried in their basements and attics.  It supplies both the need for gossip and the need for community, working like a block party/Spring cleaning.

So we deal with the questions about what is and isn't for sale, hagglers, and that one neighbor dressed in army fatigues that smell like Schnapps.

Which, on the whole, is better than how I normally spend my Saturday mornings.

3.9.11

Our Childhood, Our Home...

So, I've been dealing with my normal fear that my current state is going to stick around for a while.  Which is fine, I suppose, as most of my free time has has been taken over by the job.  I've been taking work home with me and going through it all manually, which doubles the time needed and increases the general frustration and ennui I have for calling customers and getting yelled at by them, then the sales people, and then the overlords in the mid-west.

I've taken to daydreaming about a few of the nicer aspects of the job.  This amounts mostly to a paycheck and insurance, but it's something(s?) to focus on while the Trip drifts farther away.  I was even thinking about fixing up the basement, upping the rent to my folks, and having something like my own place.

Then the storm came.

One foot of water across 1/8 an acre and twenty hours later, and a lot of shit was gone.  All of the books I had read between middle school and my first attempt at college.  90% of the CDs.  56% of the DVDs.  Clothing.  All of the furniture I inherited from previous generations of the McGovern family, to be used once I have my own place.  Cherry wood, almost perfectly suited to my visual preferences - glossy black with dull red centers, a dining room set.

A large chunk of my past and one possible future are now in various stages of being chucked out.

The picture of my grandmother and I...

My parents have had crying fits.  I've had dreams where I'm drowning and unable to exhale and just die.  I have a three day weekend of writing and hauling memories out of the basement, and moving the salvage up to the attic.

I don't really know how I feel about this.  Depressed, I suppose - but I honestly don't know.

1.8.11

Well, at least we got together and it wasn't Christmas...

Nikki was one of the few Neshaminy people I stayed in contact with during my college days. She's one of the few I still interact with in person - although that's really a matter of time and tide. It's kind of funny, watching your friends grow up, see how they change a little bit each time you meet them. I have this memory of her, back in eleventh grade (I think), right after her maternal grandfather passed. I remember kneeling by her desk, hugging her and wondering why the fuck she felt compelled to go into school the morning after a thing like that.

Troopers. You never really know which ones they are until they get shook.

My paternal grandparents help raise my brother and I. Ester and John. They were hard line Vatican I folks from Philadelphia, taught my brother and I the Latin mass, the rosary, the mysteries, the creeds...whole shabang. My grandmother, Ester, passed a few days after I left kindergarten. She..um...the reason that the elder McGovern's played such a large roll in our lives was because my mom and dad worked weird hours. Mom was the personnel manager at the Neshaminy Mall's Strawbridge & Clothier, so her hours were just all over the clock. And in kindergarten class, (the unfortunately named) Mrs. Skank and her student teacher were going to have a Mother's Day Tea. And my mom couldn't make it, because of work, so we decided that my grandmother would go.

The only picture I have of her - and I have two copies of this - is her and I walking through the classroom, my hand raised up to hold her's, and I'm smiling at the camera and she's smiling down at me. My hair was already going from redish-brown to it's current black state, and she's smiling down, and when I look at it now she's...I can see how frail she was. And I'm not seeing the woman who had screaming matches with my mother over my brother and I going to the museum and seeing evolution or how the stars hang in the heavens. I'm not seeing her laying on the couch too weak to move because her heart's on it's last legs.

All I'm seeing is this one moment that I barely remember.

I usually shut up when people say "They're in a better place". This, I suppose is proof that there is a God, because a minor miracle has occurred: I've shut my mouth. I don't mention that I could never, even as a little kid, tell the difference between heaven and hell without the normal cues (Clouds/Fire), or how most of my life has been spent wanting to wring the Logo's neck - and tend to feel that way still.

But a fun bit of providence...years later, around fifth grade, when my paternal grandfather passed, we got a letter in the mail from that student teacher. Inside was a mass card and a copy of the picture from the Mother's Day Tea. A lady friend once noted that it's the last picture of me "Honestly smiling," and that "All the others just show [me] smirking at a joke" or "trying to get the photographer to shut up". Both are true, I guess.

Flash-forward to now. Nikki's maternal grandmother will be laid to rest on Thursday. I know all those grandkids and all of the family, and...Omnia mutantur nihil interit. De hoc satis.

24.7.11

Forget It, Sean, It's Fishtown...

I'm come to the conclusion that in every city there is a residential section that cabs avoid for for a special reason. It's not robbery at gun point, or that the residents usually leave smears or puddles of biology on the seats - no, it's because their sense of direction fails them there. Internal compasses no longer point to true north, as though there is a UFO eternally hovering over the row homes and brownstones. Even GPSes throw up their electronic hands, and navigator starts saying things like "Might as well turn left".

Fishtown is such a location.

Recently, Fishtown has become a hotbed for hipster activity, a haven for vintage clothing, vinyl records, and fairly descent if hard to pronounce beer. My friends, the DZs live there, and every other month or so I find myself getting off at the Gerard exit and sinking low into my chair to navigate to their home. ND - my "sister" - is a speech therapist for the elderly, refereed to by her patiences as Dr. Nicolai. MZ works as a contractor for the government. We've plans to go to Neko Case's concert next month, and the whole block party thing was a last second invite - and ended up being the only one with guts enough to mosey into Fishtown.

This time it was for a block party. Now, the only times I've ever seen a block party was in "Dave Chapelle's Block Party," and "Judge Dread," so I was expecting either a great time, or horrid, mindless violence while people with speech impediments make grandiose claims about their role in society and ruin a fairly cinematic line of comics. Wasn't too far off, as it turns out.

MZ met me at the door, helping me with the case of beer, before we were joined by ND, the lady of the house. There is the normal chit chat as ND pours us lemonade vodka (the secret: no water) before we go out to brave the heat. Water is pouring down the sides of the street, and the cars used to corden off the party portion of the block were constantly in danger of being t-boned by passing traffic who seemed confused by three cars parked diagonally to keep them away, and the tents were peopled by the good folk of Fishtown sinking quickly into an inebriated haze.

Once MZ's parents arrive, I sneak over to a non-party section behind a florist for a cigarette. After helping two of the cars park, I ended up helping the band (they're having a band?) unload their gear, and one of the girls asks if I know the guys or I'm doing it "Out of the goodness of my own heart", and then smiles when I say "Uh...I was...you know. I was just there." Once everything is out of the trunks, I bail, know that any continuation would result in my breaking something beyond repair. Returning to the tent, ND laughs. "Leave it to you to wander around the corner and end up joining a band!" We dance a little to the greatest hits of the 1950's while the band set up, and after an hour the band kicks off. The "Goodness of my heart" girl begins singing, and the the covers start flying. MD's father and I sit in our chairs, rocking out and I sign along, keeping my volume low, except when they go into Modern English "I'll Stop the World (and Melt With You)" - the only 80's hit I've never gotten tired of, and doubt I ever will. Once the band ends, the singer ("Horrible", as the band's name is Horrible and the Cupcakes) runs over and give me a hug. It was her second performance, and she wanted to thank me for having fun. I told her she did great and she gave me another hug before returning to breaking down the set-up

The DZs try to convince me to give her my phone number, but I think I understand it. She's going through an adrenaline shutdown, a performer's blessing once all of the fear is gone, and the lights are finally off.

I remain in the tent for another two hours before the gun fire got a bit too close to the street (I wish I was making that up) and then, hugging my friends, went back to Penndel. I was closing the car door when TWVO (I'm trying to figure out a better way to name them, as their initials tend to get a bit strange) invited me out to the diner. I looked to the dark windows of the house, and then back to car. "Five minutes," I said.

23.7.11

Transmission from others...

I've been rereading some personal-non-fiction, lately. Henry Rollins' "Black Coffee Blues" trilogy, Michael Palin's "Diaries", and (of course) Warren Ellis' "Shivering Sands". The best way to deal with free-floating depression: look at how you're heroes dealt with it. Rollins' "Intensity is all" point of view - which I still feel is covering a shit load of issues ranging from guilt (best friend shot and killed in front of him in 1992) to lack of connections (he never mentions friends that are just friends, only industry people). Palin's happy-go-lucky nature (which hides a lot of hard mental work - comedy is never easy). Ellis' ...now here's a bit, because "Shivering Sands" is more so a diary about ideas - you're watching Warren Ellis come up with the ideas for his work from 2000-2009, mostly in a drunken haze of futurism and sub-culture.

I touched a little on that - the idea thing - during a conversation with J.C. J.C. came into Kutztown a year after me, and seems like a weirdly displaced little brother (in the same way the N.H. is a weirdly displaced twin), and both of us being theater majors meant that we were exposed to the same teachings, done in the same methods, and ended up having the same views about certain process. Using the Stanislavski Method to get through the day at work (and in forming characters for our different writing projects), the hyper-reality that's trickling into the mainstream world view (him from exposure to MTV, me through the essays of Umberto Eco - which just proves that the only difference between high and low culture is sun-worship). But while J.C.'s work deals more with his (current) struggles with his Catholicism, my own has had more of a "Fuck! We're old!" quality to it.

The ideas - both the things you try to put out into the world and the shit that keeps you up until four a.m. - usually strike because you're not thinking about them. You've just been absorbing the information, letting it run through the processors, and then, boom, the plot-line is there. All of the artistry (if any) can come out of training: method, approach, style, all of that can be taught to varying degrees. But they can't teach you how to focus, because that's always going to be different. I prefer to not plot out a story, and to sit outside and listen to a book on my computer with filtering in the outside world (birds, wind, traffic) and taking some of the different rhythms into my key strokes. Some guys blast heavy metal (Stephen King) others in bars (Warren Ellis - but I've become convinced that Ellis couldn't do anything with out a bar/pub/bag-in-a-bottle).

I suppose all of this came about because of Ellis. In "Shivering Sands" he points out that he's from the tiny English village of Thundersley - originally Thor's Clearing. And all of his work, metaphorically at least, is about lighting - all of the futuretech, the bright flashes of subculture that slowly get subsumed into the monoculture once their spark has been dulled. All of this is mostly done in comic form, although his novel "Crooked Little Vein" has the same blistering effect (see the address bar of this blog to find out if I liked it). Anyway, from the mention of Thurdersley he talks a little bit about his father and stories. His father, it turns out, was an unpublished writer, and loved the fact that he was now a part of Warren's Story (please note capital "S"), while Warren had always felt like a bit player in his father's Story growing up.

That made me pause. All of the things I've written have a gloom to them (in my mind, anyway), and a rather sever awareness of time. I seem more interested in people trying to become adults, and failing miserably.

J.C. called and we talked about his mom going through the same stuff my dad went through, health wise. He talks about how he's doing community theater, trying to keep his acting bug alive.
Another call from N.H. about his sister's wedding, his own (now shockingly) long term relationship with his lady friend. He talks about soccer and the New York fan mentality.
Both phone calls consist of half an hour of the participants complaining about the lack of change.

I talk a little about the new book, and how I want to finish it because I think it's a mind fuck for the reader in it's basic form, a literary dutch angle that I'm hoping will be over shadowed by the more blatantly weird elements (a Puerto Rican named Sven Herbaugh - and that's about as rational as my naming scheme is for this one). I talk about trying to get into my subconscious, trying to think in two different time streams for the book (I wanted to do three, but realized that the word "will" would become impossibly annoying by the fourth paragraph), and hoping that the book acts like a mental bomb for people, leaving the remains of the consensus all over the walls in an easy to clean film or splatter. Both of them are writers, and both of them had exposure to me during the darker parts, so they know that I probably should spend more that five seconds figuring things out. But that's been my life. Sitting on the sidelines, a bit player in the stories of others. Taking in information.

Hell, even the author surrogate is more of an "Also-Staring" role - but then I've only ever written one character: me. Just different portions of me, different percentages mingling outside of my head. Maybe it will work.

Ok, off to a block/triangle party, and then a night spent check tense-agreement. Hiya, Saturday.

11.7.11

Hard Times and Good Rocking...

This weekend...meh. It did not go well. There's only so much joy to be found in know where you stand after the bills are paid, and missing invites from friends. I ended up going on a bit too long in a letter to a friend, saying a lot and nothing at the same time. Frankly, I have no idea what's going on. Summer's never been kind to me, and I think the lack of a defined assault has made me go looking for one.

Normally this isn't a problem - I just ignore the self-destructive tendencies until they go away. Tell myself that everything is self-control, that nihilism never works out for me, and move on. But for some reason I can't shake it. It took a lot for me to get my head out of my ass, stop with the self-loathing and start living a somewhat enjoyable life. And something's put the kabosh on that for now. My apologies to those who suffered the blast back. It might happen again - but I should be good for a year. As soon as the venting was complete I ended up smiling to myself and chuckling at what an idiot I can be. Sometime I think my personality is that of Homer Simpson - and I see little wrong with that.
***
So I did some writing in earnest. Best thing to do when the emptiness won't be ignored. It's the kind I like best - when I'm not doing it with a thought of trying to be published or make my living at it or anything. When it comes down to "Fuck it - this is what I do". Creation in freefall - down as in flames, up as in smoke. That when it's best, when I let it work and find the world falling to order. I might still be unhappy with the world once I go back to it, but I know more about it by letting it fall into a polite chaos.
***
I watched "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" this weekend. It was a great movie, but it added to the "did not go well" portion of my mental state. Watching him come apart, seeing what his family went through...yeah, that struck a nerve. Probably my second most uncomfortable viewing experience of all time. Heh. While I'm way more functional than he, I can see my parents in his - their long suffering due to their refusal to completely turn their backs on the mad black sheep of the family. His fixation with God and the Devil, and my own with the various concepts of death, see...I'm not him. I can function. I can deal with people, with reality - whatever the hell that is. But knowing I was that close, that I pulled back on my own...it's a good reminder, maybe even a timely one. I'm me.
***
All of this shit would have gotten to me and leveled be out for months a while back. Funny. Changed a lot and didn't even know it. And I'm grinning a bit. I hate my job, I don't like the various situations I'm finding myself in, and I'm still happy. I'm turning into a half-assed Dr. Lao. And I don't see anything wrong with that.

5.7.11

And Somewhere the Tea's Getting Cold...

So, the last post was a brief rant. Very brief - for me, anyway. Funny, all the people I want to scream it at won't bother reading it. T'was ever thus. Funny thing is, during my whole relearning how to be human phase, I keep getting reminded of why I liked being Penndel's ghost. Reduced interaction made for a mostly peaceful existence, and at least the invasion of my mental space would justify the bile I spewed.

That's really a misconception, I guess. The only thing stupider than someone thinking that they don't need the world is someone who thinks the world can't get by without them. Hard lesson to learn, that is. And even with all of the interaction (via e-mail, a few phone calls, even a few in person) I can feel the desire (but not the need - so that's progress) to slink back to my little black hole and go back to just observing and ignoring as the mood strikes me.

I've stuck with it, though. Even showed up at a BBQ for two friends I normally don't see outside of flea markets. I guess it's grown on me, although it has shown me that some of the problems I was dealing with are a bit more complex than I had first imagined - either by talking with those who had dealt with similar issues or just getting a fresh perspective. At some point I hope to beable to have these conversations without a long, alcohol laden preamble, but hey, one step at a time.

A lot going on, but all of it is mental. I'm going to try to get some writing done now, before it all gets the better of me.

Strange Weather We're Having...

Kitty Genovese. Sylvia Likens. Remember those two name for a minute, because I'll have to prove a point in a moment.

Casey Anthony was found not guilty of murder today. I know next to nothing of the case, except that her child is dead, it happened in Florida, and everyone is very upset that Casey Anthony was found not guilty. Never mind the "beyond all reasonable doubt" stipulation that exists at least in lip service within our legal system. Never mind that we (most likely) do not know all of the facts. And ignore for a second the legal ideal - that one thousand guilty people would go free rather than a single innocent be jailed.

Just let yourselves feel angry for a minute.

Never mind the fact that the West Memphis Three are rotting behind bars after a clearly mismanaged railroad job. That the bankers who brought the world to a halt and ruined both individual lives and nations were given bonuses. Forget the fact that this happens all the time, and any dialog about what might have caused it dies off once the ratings go down.

Just let yourselves feel angry for a minute.

Leave a light on tonight for the lost life of a little girl you never met - and sadly never will meet, rather than to keep thieves away. Mention how sorry you are that it happened. Grieve in public.

Because you're going to forget.

Kitty Genovese was stabbed in front of her apartment building. Not killed. No, her attacker came back after she crawled into the stairwell and there, in the stairwell, she was killed, raped, and looted - in that order, while the people in the apartment complex watched.

Sylvia Likens was tortured and raped and finally, mercifully, died, at the hands of a religious zealot neighbor and local kids between the ages of 10-18. The zealot was released from prison early. The kids did even less time.

And you don't remember that.

So feel angry for a minute. But remember, you will forget. You always do, until something reminds you. And you refuse to face it. Thus, you refuse to change it. But by all means, please, make a show of it.

Please, do not waste my time.

26.5.11

The War in the Son...

I'm used to dealing with opposites. I can deal with most of the confusion and such that rises out of it. Wasn't always that way, but I guess maturity had to take some form. Case in (professional) point - I had material for three books. Realized I'll most likely never force myself to be still long enough to write them, so condense the basic points enough to make one, fairly cohesive (if metaphor addled) novel. I still doubt if it's anything that could go big - but my views on the importance of that changes day to day, so what can you do?

Another example: My office nickname. I found it out yesterday (05.25.2011). To set the scene, my sub-boss' nickname was Flounder, from the movie "Animal House" - an eminent fuck-up whose arrogance and possibly criminal underpinnings made me feel better about myself. My nickname is "Kaczynski" as in Ted "The Unabomber" Kaczynski. This is because I wear a hoodie at work, as the office is kept about as cool as late autumn. While I'll admit to being an angry person, and at times a very strange person, I'm not a violent one. As I've often pointed out, I'm a (mostly) honest coward. I get it, though. Most of the folks around the office that call me that remember the Tylenol Murders, so the fear of the man (if they ever felt is) is way past the sell by date. You have to make fun of it, or it owns you. You have to wear the monsters' skins to make sure there's a zipper. If you can't mock something, you have no business taking it serious.

I work with highly experienced, well trained people. I was trained by a spineless backstabber who it appears (going over his files and records) was possibly involved in low level fraud. I can see why they need the excuse to make fun. Tiny little pissants have given birth to larger monsters before. If you think A.Anderson was bad, look at Goldman. If you think Main was underhanded, check out Haliburton. And the former always started from something smaller. You have to put on the monster's skin. You have to convince yourself that it's not you.

Recently...frankly, I feel myself beginning to lose patience with the whole wretched affair. Most of the people close to me who aren't family and know about the Trip are excited for me. Those in my bloodline - or closer to the blood line than to me...they've expressed their doubts. Most of them are the elders - guys and gals my parents age. And my parents, too. They don't see the point of it, I guess - or they do, and they don't like it.

[...]Here's a story I hate. Late summer, 1988 or 89. I'm in the backseat of my dad's old blue coup, and we go driving through Fairless Hills. That's the town where I spent my first nine months of breathing my own air, and mom and dad both liked to drive by the old house and see what the "new" owners were doing with it. I was three or four at the time - I remember this because dad retells this story from time to time. I remember the car. That's really it.

Anyway -- dad asked me if I was doing alright, since I was having nightmares. I told him that there were Asian people in the trees. And that we were shooting at them and they were shooting at us.

When my dad told me the story later (it stopped being a thing in my late teens - around 2001, of course), he went into Edgar Cayce, and reincarnation. For a First Vatican Catholic, my father has always seemed to know a lot about reincarnation - a couple of times he claimed his interest in the Titanic was because he never got off the boat, and when we went to see that stupid James Cameron flick he had to walk out towards the end. Whatever was working on him, I guess, had been working on me, too, just in a different way. When I was ten, I started reading what I could about Vietnam.

I don't remember any of the dreams my dad used to say I had. Mostly, he's stopped talking about it. Which might be for the best.

[...] I wrote that to write this: I've always gotten along better with the old-timers. So their...let's call it "disapproval" of my plans for the trip cuts a bit harder than I suppose it should. Most of all when it comes from the ex-hippies. Those that I thought might get it. But they don't. I understand why they don't:

Parents still together after thirty-one years.
Descent job.
Ok (not great) head on my shoulders.
Somewhat of a future.
A couple of romantic prospects (to them this means girls around my age).

They don't see me from thirteen until twenty-five(ish) - the unreasoned self-loathing, the pitch black anger towards the world because at least the anger made sense, the feeling that I would have been better served by life being a cruel bastard rather than a kind one. They don't see it because, fuck, I kept it hidden most of the time. All of the dark humor, all of the gallows wisdom, all of night spent reading about what was happening beyond the no-horse town. [...]I was able to shrug off the first World Trade Center attack. Oklahoma City. Columbine fucked me up a little, but not much. 9-11...shit, I used to laugh at the politicians saying we could never forget, then doing their damndest to return us to a normal mindset while making my mother go through strip searches every time she gets on a plane (once every two months). I shrugged off the horror. I had to. It was easier than admitting that it made sense to me. No one really makes friends with their shadows. Not until it's that or implode. Memories will do that to you.

And they didn't see that. They don't know about the long nights alone with just my thoughts whirring on and on behind my eyes. They see the kid who couldn't connect with people until he started acting. They don't see the kid who couldn't stop acting. They don't see the family hound ripping his mental state the shreds over the fact that he feels like he'd be stabbing his family in the back by going. They just know they might stop it. All they had to do is bring back the scared thirteen year old.

[...] I was planning the road trip in 2003. When I was getting ready to graduate. The end point was Vancouver, BC then - I've toned it down to Seattle, WA - and I was pretty much ready until life happened (as it tends to do). But that's a story for another day. When my manager at the books store asked me what I was going to do once I got there, I said, "No clue. Lots of options." I remember the look he gave me.

My nickname at work is Kaczynski. Lots of folks laugh at it. Me included. They need to see the zipper on the monster's skin. I know it's a hoodie - I wear it because they won't touch the fucking thermostat.

9.5.11

Evening Songs...

Entropy is the order of things. Decay feeds the next turn of the wheel. All that is well and good I guess, but it really sucks to go through it. The rebirthing process is just as painful, you see. The only thing that can really be said for either part while in the midst of it is "at least it ain't boring".

That's what's going through my head right now. I feel a change, an augmentation to my normal procedures getting ready, slowly massing like storm clouds along the horizon. It's been this way for close to a year, as I've come out of my shell and begun - for really the first time in my life - to interact in meaningful ways with people. But those clouds keep massing and I keep thinking, maybe the moment is coming, you know? Maybe the storm is getting ready to break.

I've felt it before. Usually I'm able to find someway to diffuse the situation and remain in the same rut. The process of entropy reigns over all. Because it's easy. It's comfortable. I know every nook and crease, like a well lit room I've wandered around and studied. If I was enjoying this, then I guess that would be ok - short terms, at least. Kind of like a functional alcoholic.

I can feel the depression creeping back, coupling with the fear of change. I feel myself becoming nostalgic for times that - in a clear head - I know weren't enjoyable. And I have to keep watching it because habits fit like gloves.

And I want the storm to break.

21.4.11

Prep-Work...

So, in late May my brother and I will be heading to Toronto for a long weekend. The major reason for this is to see the Union play Toronto FC (and hopefully not get our heads caved in by the rare "angry" Canadians). But I'm also viewing it as a test of just how much driving I can do. If the Plan is to come about, then I'm going to be facing a rump-testing amount of time in the car. So, twenty-hours in one weekend should be as good a place to start as any.

Funny bit - to me, anyway - I've been talking to a couple of old timers recently who have done the same. My list of must-sees has jumped from [approx.] twenty to [approx.] fifty, and the crooked little vein on my trip just became a kid's menu maze. This has engender more planning, and a restructuring of my financial outlook for it. For a journey that is most likely going to end in vagrancy and dereliction, there sure is a lot of number crunching involved. Also, the time table has had to get another going over due to 1) funds, 2) weather patterns, and 3) the very real possibility of needing a passport to get into AZ.

But all of that is in the realm of yet-to-pass. Currently I'm just watching my summer reading stack grow: mostly Roger Zelazny, PKD, and Alfred Bester - I figured this would work well, since RZ wrote books with both. However, I do find it odd that I keep coming across PKD stuff that I haven't read - not just recovers, but whole novels that never presented themselves before. It's going to be interesting to see if this has any affect on my own attempts at writing. I somehow merged Victorian Manners and Post Cyber-Punk styles for a few pages when I read "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" and "Cryptonomicon" at the same time - so who knows what New Wave/amphetamine intensive/Pre-Cyber-Punk Sci.Fi. will have on my wretched little book. Or the Kershaw script (see: story of R.).

In other "trying to write" news - I'm just leading with my jaw on the new bit. I'm not going to try and be artsy (Project Van Buren) or pander (three untitled bits clogging my hard-drive). I'm just letting off steam and trying to keep my interest. Which isn't easy, since everything seems like I'm trying to be Jonathan Franzen. I'm not. He's a great author, sure - I'll go so far as to say he's one of the best at this point in time and maybe, in fact, the current "Great American Novelist" - but his shit bores me to no end. I'm amazed by his skill in the same way I'm amazed by Michael Bay: he knows what he does well, he plays to his strengths, and I really find nothing there to connect with. That might just be me (and looking over the reviews, it probably is just me) but there you go.

More updates as they come.

24.1.11

Rapid motion in all things...

So, I've been gearing up for "the Trip" - where I'll be crisscrossing the country in the hope of seeing the other ocean at it's own level. I've been prepping, getting kitted up, and that old sensation of the synchronicity highway is back. It's a bit exciting - I've never done anything for me on this scale (usually it stops at reading a good book or buying a BluRayDisc), so it's more than a little strange. But now it's beginning to seem like it's going to happen.

The only real destination I have in mind is Kutztown, mostly to fulfill a promise I made to myself of somehow befouling the campus somehow. Beyond that...well, there's tons of places I want to see, and other roadside attractions that I'll find I guess.

Still - holy crap - at some point between June and September, I'll be on the road.