Lately I am becoming more OK with the idea of being me and nothing more.  I just want to press on.  I feel like I'm living in a world where we all spend too much time looking into mirrors.  I don't long to be Great anymore...just good when I'm good and not when I'm not.

I guess that I've "always" thought that I would like to write for a living in some way. It wasn't until about a year ago, though, that for some reason I started thinking I actually could and should.  OK.  I spent a lot of time thinking about things to write about, a lot of time writing things in my head, a lot of time living in my own fantasy worlds, but precious little time actually attempting to do any real writing.  The past year has left me with nothing but a lot of half-baked ideas and random, unfinished files on my computer (that all sound really whiny).  If this is something I really want...why haven't I pursued it?  I haven't done anything, on my own or in the working-people-world.  I've spent the last year of my life daydreaming and cashiering at a hardware store.  Maybe I don't want to "be a writer."  Maybe it's an idea that someone I knew put in my head.  Maybe it's an idea that my generation put in my head--everyone is on the internet nowadays, everyone is an "aspiring writer."  In reality, most people just want the world to be interested in their inane and uninteresting personal lives, emotions, and ideas (or, worst case scenario, their crappy poetry). 

I mean, I guess now I could really apply myself...go buy an idiot's guide to writing short stories...spend time writing every day...fill a notebook with thoughts...

...but whatever.

Wake up! Wake up! I've finally figured it all out. The words for our conversation hearts:

EASE MY FEARS

in the past couple of days: my car broke down ($200), bloody ass explosion, caught some kind of 24 hour virus. I can now look forward to coughing up phlegm for the next several weeks. A tempurpedic pillow has changed my life; I'm hip an with it. I smoke virginia slims; I'm sad And used-up. Once you go superslims, you never go back. Regular cigarettes now feel excessive between my fingers . So tell me now who's hot? who's not?

every morning is a pointless race to work, a sea of breaklights the bane of my existence. i've become entangled in all the grown-up things i was so desperate to avoid. i don't care much about what anybody thinks of me.



the other night i dreamed that, despite being lucid, i knocked several of my own teeth out. i turned to my sister and said "this is one of those bad dreams you have where your teeth fall out." i could control everything but my teeth and i started to get paranoid that just maybe i wasn't really asleep, but was indeed missing teeth for real. however, i woke up with a stomach ache and proceeded shit blood for about a straight hour. serious. then i went to work because i don't have health insurance anyway. this was a couple of days ago and my stomach still hurts. are you listening, president obama? i am getting a real taste of the american blue collar working class.

night vapor honeysweet, your insides are achey. your outsides lonely. you smoke trees just to feel alright, but i can see the glow of your love inside. once or twice lovers and a couple of drinks were the same blues you see in key of D. you sing me a song and i can't play along but i can feel the warm glow of your love inside, inside.

one day when i was a child, crying, my parents told me that i would run out of tears. there is a set amount of tears somewhere in your head, they explained, and if i wasn't careful they would run out before i got old enough to cry about anything significant. for a while, i wondered if it would be the last time every time i cried; if i would stop mid sob some day, unable to produce any more tears and lie there hiccuping and heaving.

i was in a mood earlier. one of those moods so dark and strange it feels almost solid inside of you. i sat recalling an instance with someone long ago; a rare moment of honesty and vulnerability. woefully, my compatriot called himself a misogynist and rambled on about other things. it wasn't a conversation as much as it was like sitting at the kitchen table with a glass i had somehow knocked over, watching the contents drip onto the floor.

sometimes i think i might like to write a short story or something along those lines, but i'm too afraid to say anything about anyone other than myself. i don't feel qualified to make a statement about the actions and motivations of others, even if it's just somebody i made up. and even i if i did invent characters, i would probably find myself apologizing for them the way i make excuses for everyone i know.

spaced-out shit

i wanna collapse in laughter on the floor, remembering the times we felt like dyin'. with me, don't turn the most significant events in your past into a clumsily constructed sentence or two. you can talk (i will listen). i'm thinking about guys named larry who look, with out a doubt, like the name larry fits perfectly. do you know the kind of person i mean? i'm imagining maybe someday we can spit toothpaste into the same sink in the mornings. and i'm imagining somebody i won't ever write about (only to). ain't nothin between us but air.

Maybe is a word we use when

Out here I should have plenty of time and plenty o things to dream up, but apparently my mind is empty. I am reduced to my most basic needs and urges. I daydream about sex and what I'm having for lunch. I blink and breathe. The Complicated Things sit across from me at dinner, relating interesting anecdotes. Telling me how things are on the car insurance front. I put my feelings aside for now, set them down somewhere just behind your head in the place where I stare when I can't look you in the face. Hey Baby, your neuroses or mine?

intermittent episodes of sleep paralysis left me hallucinating that you've been pushing buttons to make me sad. sitting here it is almost literal. learn a bit of piano and play me songs! put my new friends under mind control. you whispered with multiple voices, somehow. they can't get far enough away from me. occam's razor should make everyone feel better. it's not some heavy-handed manipulation but rather, hearts feeling around in the dark...