Archive for May, 2009
Songs
A few people have noted to me that I often give off the vibe of a song-writer. It’s interesting when I think about it, music does play a big role in my writing. I never write in the quiet, I’m listening to Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie right now. I really don’t like writing long pieces, I don’t think I’ve ever put more than twenty-five hundred words into a single subject. I like saying a lot without too many words. I like impact without length.
My favorite song-writers, Elliott Smith, Aimee Mann, Alanis Morissette, they tell gorgeous, honest stories in under five minutes of lyrics. So, I definitely think that music is so much a part of why I’m able to write the way I like to write.
4 commentsWould Not Come
I hadn’t listened to Alanis Morissette in a long time, years, but last night I dug out my favorite album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. I think it’s her smartest, often angriest album, and I spent a good stretch of years identifying with that sort anger. After high-school, for a solid six years, I had a great deal of internal anger. I didn’t end up going to college like I expected. I didn’t have any friends who weren’t online, let alone an honest to Christ girlfriend. I was going to disability advocacy meetings with my mom, not living like a fellow of twenty. I didn’t have assistants, nothing was what I wanted for myself. It all happened so slowly, steadily, and I grew to hate it. I never talked about it, never knew how. It was hard to live that way because I’ve never thought to myself, oh, I’m disabled, so I obviously can’t have a girlfriend, or leave the house without my mom. Fuck that, it’s not me. I couldn’t directly identify with Alanis’ lyrics, I didn’t share her experiences, but I definitely understood them on an intellectual level, and I felt the emotion behind them. My anger was in that I was lacking experiences, and the necessary support toward such experiences. That lack of experiences ended three years ago.
So, last night, Alanis starts singing Would Not Come. I’ve always liked the song, always understood it intellectually, but last night it hit me completely differently. I’m living this song, right fucking now I’m living it. For the last fucking year, I’ve lived it. I was so close to everything I ever wanted, and I lost it in a blink, so fast my head spun, so fast my head still spins. I lost my end to loneliness, the lover I wanted for so long. I lost my best friend, my muse. Right now, my life is a series of fixes, trying to find something that will not come.
Yet, when I don’t feel like bleeding in the bathtub, I realize that my life is better than empty. I feel awful, beyond fucked up, but I got here by way of so many experiences. I can genuinely identify with so many songs, I have so many of my own words to write, I’m not devoid of a life. Yes, the songs are of loss, addiction, depression, suicide. Yes, my writing is very dark. Still, bad experiences are better than abject nothingness.
I don’t want to be here. Sometimes I’d happily open my wrists and be done. Still, if I manage to dig my way out of this nightmare, if I don’t break, I’ll be a better me.
3 commentsTerminator Salvation
If I were 14, never seen a good movie, or read a good book, never made love to a woman, I imagine Terminator Salvation would have seemed absolutely brilliant. As it is, I’m not 14, and I’ve experienced all of the above, so this Terminator re-boot just made me regret that I wasn’t doing something genuinely fulfilling.
There’s a scene where a fellow dies and the audience sees it through his eyes, it was unfortunately very reminiscent of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I had ridiculous flashbacks of being afraid to die. I’m sitting there, at this astonishingly bad movie, thinking about the fact that one day my eyes will go dark and it won’t be my idea. I’m at this bad movie, feeling disconnected from everyone around me, the full weight of wasted time pressing down on my chest, wishing I was somewhere else, with someone else.
So, I guess Terminator Salvation made me feel something other than bored.
4 commentsAlameda #2
We walked down Alameda, sun fading away, a soft orange sky.
Lost in your eyes, lost in you, walking down a cracked sidewalk, not wanting it to end.
Thinking about your kiss, I felt no past. I felt a fleeting now, a futureless future. You’d be gone in the morning
We walked down Alameda, a song in my head and you in my heart.
5 comments
Angels and Demons (vast spoilers)
So, I went to see Angels and Demons and it was really boring, so I must have fallen asleep. I mean, honestly, how many stories do we need about the Catholic Church being secretive, backward-thinking, and often evil?
At any rate, I must have dozed off, because I think I had a crazy dream. I dreamt the movie involves a bomb made out of anti-matter, and this bomb is going to destroy Vatican City. So, to save the Vatican, Ewan McGregor, who’s a priest, grabs the bomb, jumps in a helicopter and flies way up in the sky above Saint Peter’s Square. The bomb, made of anti-matter, detonates high enough above the city only to cause minor damage. Oh, and thank Christ, Ewan parachutes safely away. Then I woke up, and the rest was very predictable.
The end.
10 commentsBackup razor
“You know, the day I did it, I took two razorblades to the bathtub. You know why? Because I knew that once I started to bleed, I’d get weak. And I didn’t wanna drop one blade and leave myself half done. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine hating your life so much that you’d wanna bring a backup razor?” – Stay
Yes, I can imagine it. I do imagine it. Suicide isn’t necessarily a wish to die, sometimes it’s a desperate way to end terrible anguish. The idea of nothingness seems better than a waking nightmare. It’s hard carrying loss, regret, pain, there comes a point when anything that could lift that weight feels like a good idea.
I suppose I have a really odd perspective on suicide, it’s something I can think about, and can never do. I can totally feel that moment of wanting it, knowing I would do it, and then have the sorrow subside. I can feel it over and over, to no end. I get to think about sharp blades splitting my wrists wide open, the way warm blood would run down my arms, but they’re just thoughts. I get genuine desire without the possibility of action. Vivid material for writing after a passing feeling. It’s sadly beautiful, in a fucked up sort of way. I often worry that I could end up a broken mess, but I’m not there yet. Close, but not quite.
When I was in the hospital for depression, I was in a tiny, electronically locked room. White walls, big shatter-proof windows on either side of the door, a security camera quietly staring down at me. I imagine some nurse saw me singing along with Elliott Smith, or Aimee Mann, posting live updates on Twitter and my blog. The team of doctors came in to ask me some questions, to guage my level of crazy. They asked, “have you ever asked anyone to kill you?” I said, “no, of course not.” I would never ask that of someone, that’s just insane. Suicide, to me, is a very personal choice. It’s a controlled end, your idea. If someone else cut my wrists, it would be terrifying, because at some point it could stop being my choice. What if I changed my mind at the last second? I think the appeal of suicide is the control. Death is scary when it happens to you, when it’s completely out of your hands. Whenever something accidentally goes wrong with my vent, I don’t think to myself, “awesome, I might get to die.” I never want to die by some mechanical malfunction, a hose falling off my vent. If I’m ever really sick in the hospital, I want every measure taken. I’ll fight all the way down.
I’ve learned that while I have it in me to kill myself, the circumstances will never come about for me to do so, and I don’t want to go any other way. The idea of endless loneliness, constant sadness, is getting to be quite frightening, however.
10 commentsDaily posting
Writing, lately, is not going well. I’m really not in a good place just now, very scattered, very depressed. موقع البوكر I’ve been trying to post something daily, but I just can’t do it anymore.
I can physically type, but my head’s not in it. So, I’m simply going to write when I feel like it, at least for awhile. I also, eventually, need to do some offline writing, but I can’t write anything as fucked up as I am. العاب قمار روليت I need something I don’t have right now. بلاك جاك
7 commentsGoing Nowhere
You’re full of darkness and noise, and a thousand pretty pictures, completely vivid, but so far away .
The darkness, the noise, they’re closer than any lover. They’re constant.
Those thousand pretty pictures, those vivid images you can’t touch, they’re just pain. They’re a longing for slit wrists and bullets in your head, but you’re going nowhere.
You’re sitting in the dark, killing time, and going nowhere.
1 commentStar Trek
Let me start by saying that I’ve never liked Star Trek in any of its forms. However, I really loved the latest version of Star Trek. I don’t care that none of the science and technology made any sense, I don’t even care that some of the acting was paper thin, it was just flat out fun to watch. I felt like I was watching Star Wars, before Lucas had his breakdown.
14 commentsDear Internets
Dear Internets,
I’m the dumb fuck who’s been spelling Elliott Smith’s name wrong in all of my blog posts. However, I’ve corrected the issue, and I sincerely apologize. I’m an idiot.
Warm Regards,
Michael
6 comments