joan rivers is on jimmy fallon—which is apparently my "go to" show when i dont want to watch tv—and she looks as if she was drawn by an old asian man on 42nd street.

(the guy at the chair in front of a canvas. with the hat on. near a table that is blanketed with tshirts. you know the guy, he stalks the tourist areas. his legs casually spread open, his air brush building a shadow on the hanging white cotton.)

her hair is an unmovable blonde helmet. her cheeks are like chiseled marble; sun tanned dunes high upon her face, rolling along with her speech. her steady drone. her metered self deprecation. it is hilarious.

no srsly.

sharp pain

i havent been here much because im afraid to write.

here is where i try to be truthful but sometimes the truth hurts and sometimes the truth runs in circles like water around a drain and i dont want to become repetitious especially when it would hurt every time.

so ive stayed away even though i dont want to. even though when i dont visit and contribute i feel empty and worthless like everything inside of me slipping away. like the sands in the hourglass are trickling into the negative and this hourglass cant be turned over, its a one shot deal.

it doesnt help that im burdened with responsibilities. that i have to remain focused on not one or two but three things, and that these things dont even have my full attention because there are other things im overly concerned with. other things that i have to iron out, and i keep waiting for these things to iron out so that i can get back to focusing on the things i need to focus on.

it doesnt help that even now, even here, where im supposed to be truthful, i cant even say any names.

and so i come here with sweaty palms and a head with too much in it. and so i come here not to write stories but to write about nothing. to write about all that is left in the aftermath of importance.

andi ive been carrying this cold, this sickness, with me for too long. sometimes i wonder if its my immune system and sometimes i wonder if its my emotions. sometimes i think im too sensitive to survive, that eventually i will die of a broken heart. this, even though i can be cold and even though i can be calculating. this, even though i can ignore and i can forget. this, even though i have let the past be the past, have let the ghost haunt freely, have let the scars scab up and close. this, even though i know in the end everything will be the same.

i come here to write and i do, but sporadically. this blog no longer lets me be a better writer, just as it no longer is a place i can confess. this blog has become another duty, another job which i do poorly at. i will spend my minutes here and i will accept that it doesnt satisfy. that it only adds a sharp pain in the overall frustration of my routine. ouch.

they wore camo long ago

i just read a headline saying the military is now accepting openly gay recruits and my first reaction was a faint sense of celebration. i sort of yay we did it! stirring in my gut, and then my second reaction was curiosity. curiosity about why i felt that something had been achieved. curiosity about what this meant. curiosity about how gays would react to it.

i grew up around gays. my mother was gay (sometimes). a lot of her friends were gay. it was a very normal thing in my household. there was never any stigma. never any awkward pauses or embarrassed laughter. as a child, the only difference i noticed between gays and straights was that gays only had lovers, where as straights had girlfriends boyfriends wives and husbands.

dont get me wrong, im not saying i was blind to sexual orientation. i knew there was a difference, and i knew i wasnt gay. what im saying is that there wasnt anything exotic about being gay. some people just were and others werent. just another element of nature.

my moms best friend was this guy named greg. he was a shy, doughy, clean cut man with pinkish cheeks and a effete way with his hands. he always wore a cheap pair of polyester slacks and a white collared shirt under a thin knit sweater. she'd knew him for years, since before i was born, i believe.

i recall him as being somewhat distant, and not very warm to me. i think he was sort of disgusted by the presence of young children, that he felt them a waste of space. they were unable to hold intelligent conversation, were always needy, and stole precious time from the short span of young adulthood. chiefly, his best friend, who he wanted all the attention from. but back then i was sort of indifferent towards him, and didnt crave any emotional response from him anyway. he was dull and quiet and never had anything interesting to say when he did speak. plus, he never brought any presents.

now though, that im probably older than he was then, i sort of understand why he was this way. sometimes my friends kids bug me too.

she had other best friends. there was this lesbian couple who were vegetarian and didnt shave their legs. one of them was tall and thin and always wore a baseball cap. her name was paula and she had one of those names that fit. to me, she looked exactly like a paula. i forget the others name but she was shorter and wore glasses and had a short, boyish haircut. she liked to read on the sun porch while eating yellow tomatoes picked from her garden. they were nice, and let us stay with them when we lost our place on haight street. my mom slept in them bed with them every night. i think they were a triple for a while.

in any case, im wondering what accepting openly gay recruits will do to the army. probably nothing. it'll just be the army, but a little more fabulous.

a nightcap before night

on the way home from class i stop in a bar to have a few drinks. i saddle up to a corner and slide off my backpack and and let my self exhale before ordering a drink. next to me is a man not much older than myself and hes trying to get the bartenders attention and adjusting his baseball hat nervously. hes fiddling with his smart phone and shifting in his seat. the bartender knows him and knows how to handle him and ignores him until he settles a bit, quiets in his stool, focuses on his phone, and then comes over to see what the guy wanted.

i sip my manhattan and dont pretend to be shy about eavesdropping on their conversation. its baseball talk. football talk. the bartender, who i know fairly well and get along with in a very casual way, without the pretense of politeness and regardless of our shared profession, knows enough about both sports to hold a reasonable conversation with the guy, who, it seems, is filled with up-to-date statistics and inside news on every player on every local team. i chime in when i can, offering the weak second hand facts i picked up in the newspaper or on sports wrap ups during the week. the bartender holds his own and backs up my statements with a knowing wink. i finish my manhattan and decide to move when the conversation dies and a window opens.

i go to another side of the bar, a quieter area where my seat is more personal and the conversation is more sparse. the bartender comes over and pours me a beer and each of us a shot of whiskey. we catch up with each other.

he is a photographer, im assuming a good one, and works the bar to pay the bills. to support his art. he knows i write and that i dont call myself a writer. we discuss the trials of creative ventures, or more accurately, how to handle those spells when the juices arent flowing and it seems the well has run dry. i tell him about how i havent written in weeks and how there are no words in me to write. he tells me of a writer whos name i forget, who worked at the post office and wrote every day for four hours and never got famous or even recognized until he was retired and about to die. i nod solemnly at this all too typical tale, afraid to respond with my voice for fear ill doom myself to the same fate. i cant write four hours a day, i think to myself, i can barely write twenty minutes a day. i ask what he does when he feels creatively blocked and he says he shoots a roll a day no matter what, even if the pictures are crap. i have to admire this and also feel a bit envious, i wonder if its easier to just shoot pictures of crap than it is to write a few pages of crap.

he suggest i look into other mediums. see a play. read some poetry. i agree, and promise myself ill try. i dont know if i will, but it seems like a good idea. i can definitely find inspiration in the cadence of written dialog, or the meter of a gentle stanza. i dont mention how i am falling behind in school, how the record company has kept me busy, how my love life has become a tangled distraction. these are all excuses, all reasons to hold myself back. he knows and i know.

i finish my beer and we take our shots. he doesnt charge me for the drinks and i tip him $20. we shake hands and i thank him for the advice. the guy in the corner with the baseball hat yells out something toward the screen. i shrug on my back pack and i walk home with the moon on my shoulders and wonder what it is i didnt write this time.

sick day

its been a while since i wrote here. hell, its been a while since i wrote. since the last time i visited this site i have

grown and shaved my beard multiple times.

been burdened with school work, playing catch up with my classes.

gained about 3 pounds.

saw a few movies.

yesterday i woke up feeling ill. my head felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton. i could hardly breathe through my nose. my chest felt scratchy and each inhale clawed at my lungs. i went to class nonetheless, and only fell asleep twice. when i returned home i took some cold medicine and drank a cup of hot tea with whiskey in it. i laid on the couch and put a movie in the dvd player. in the middle of it a took a short nap. luckily the movie wasnt too complicated and when i woke i still understood what was going on.

the kitties laid at my feet. when the movie ended i ate food while watching reruns on tv. i began coughing later in the evening and this worried me, as i have to work today, but i had to dismiss the worry because i cant miss another shift.

i dont have much to say. i just wanted to write for a little bit. i guess ill try to resurrect this habit again. it always last for a couple weeks or so. oh well.

cough.