My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

So, the drive itself was really long, and really boring. Though, we got the most bizarre call about halfway through the ride. Randy (my ex-step dad) was all animated on the phone, I couldn’t totally hear him, my ear hadn’t cleared up yet. He just sounded really excited, and he never gets excited about anything, except for maybe when a new kind of beer gets invented. After he ended the call, we pulled into a gas station, he turned toward me and said, “Okay, we’re going to have backstage passes, and we’ll get to hang-out with the band.” He may have followed up with, “Oh, also, birds are eating your face.” I don’t know, I was already a freaking out about getting to meet Aimee for the second time. This time, with a little plastic tube in my throat. This time, everything I’d say would be in text. My first thought, at least I won’t be as likely to blurt out anything stupid. Still, I was nervous, and I had until the next evening to be more nervous. Now, many may wonder HOW Randy scored backstage… everything. Well, I wonder too, even now. He won’t say, it’s a total mystery.

Anyway, we got to the hotel, a really nice downtown Hilton; art deco, French influences, really chic, early Tuesday evening. We got upstairs, the room was nice, a little old, but really nice. I had a big cozy bed, which I promptly got aboard. We got my forty-seven devices plugged-in; two vents, MacBook Pro, iPod Touch, iPad mini, NeuroSwitch, various batteries, particle accelerator, Time Machine, freeze-ray, mini death-ray (the original is mounted on a classified roof-top), I don’t really travel light.

At this point, I was worn, I was comfortable, I didn’t want to move, at all, ever again.. So, an hour later, we went to get me a tattoo. Whenever I go out of town, I try to get a new tattoo, and I knew if I didn’t go that first night, I wouldn’t go at all. I knew I’d want to sleep in the next morning, I wouldn’t want to follow any kind of schedule the day of the concert aside from getting TO the concert.

We went.

I always just try to google and pick the highest rated place nearest to my hotel, a system that hasn’t let me down so far.

Enter Deja Vu Tattoo…

If you ever need a tattoo in Baton Rouge, Deja Vu is for you…!

In my experience, it’s not so easy finding artists willing to even TRY tattooing smallish lettering, and SOMETIMES people can be a little taken aback by me at first glance, my hoses and tubes and what-not. The latter being way less true than the former, tattoo/goth people are generally the most welcoming people I’ve ever met. The girl I met that night in Baton Rouge was neither scared of small lettering, or my various hoses. Jessica at Deja Vu was totally cool and impressively skilled, she did a really spectacular tattoo on my leg.

The stencil…

My brother, Jessica and I discuss geo-political wartime economic policy…

Jessica etching words into my flesh…

Tattoo #73

This tattoo, lyrics from Aimee Mann’s fifth studio record, The Forgotten Arm, from the song, I Can’t Get My Head Around It, is one of my favorites.

This one had been on my list awhile, but it felt particularly appropriate that evening…

“…kicking is hard, but the bottom’s harder…”

I’ve always said, since I died but didn’t, that if I felt too exhausted, or too scared, or too both, to go do something, then I should absolutely go do it. I fail sometimes, but mostly I don’t. Mostly I go and do and have a blast. Kicking is hard, but hitting bottom, not fighting back, feels so much worse. I’ve done it, it’s awful. It’s terrifying. It’s terrifying because you’re not just lying down on purpose, you don’t hit whatever bottom you hit because it’s oh so cozy, it’s that you genuinely don’t have the energy, the will to get back up. You feel like maybe this time, you’re out of time. I kick because it’s Hell to sink.

I felt really pretty sick when we got to Baton Rouge. By the time Jessica was etching in the finishing touches on her beautiful work, I’m pretty certain I had a fever. I was freezing cold, but we weren’t anywhere cold. I basically ate dinner asleep, covered in six blankets. Everything just caught up with me; two trach changes, the ear tube, almost no sleep, the drive… I pushed until my batteries died… and I’d do it all again right now. I had an awesome night in a cool new city, I met a badass tattoo artist, I got a gorgeous tattoo. I’d rather drop dead on some adventure than in some hospital. That night I had a blast, and I didn’t die… score!

The next night, well, it would be better than anything I could imagine.

Tattoo by Kyle, Doc Dog’s Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, tattoo #71… is a lyric from a really kind of cryptic Elliott Smith song, No Name #3, which is off his first record, Roman Candle. The font is actually Elliott’s own hand-writing, I got it from a little pdf lyrics book that comes with the Remastered version of Roman Candle from iTunes. Elliott liked writing songs on bar napkins, scraps of paper, hotel stationary, anything on hand when an idea hit him. He didn’t just write obscure barely recognizable versions of songs that would eventually get cleaned up and put on a record, he’d write an entire finished, ready to record song on a crumpled piece of junk paper. He was the essence of chaotic genius.

As a whole, No Name #3 doesn’t make a ton of sense. bet365 arabic I don’t think, as a whole, it’s supposed to tell a story. To me, it reads like scraps of poetry that convey an overall theme. No Name #3 is about being tired, totally exhausted, spent. كيف تربح في الروليت Worn. Worn and just wanting to rest.

My favorite section goes…

“Watched the dying day

Blushing in the sky

Everyone is uptight

So come on night”

It’s a really gorgeous piece of writing, so much emotion in just a few words. It’s the sort of writing I aspire toward. I really like the imagery; watching an end of day sky, the kind of sky that goes from deep blue to hot orange to soft pink, waiting for that blush to be enveloped by darkness, black sky filled with stars that look like watchful angels. Wanting night to come because the day was just so Goddamn fucking tedious. It’s sad, it’s beautiful, it’s honest.

I feel this a lot. The day can be so tedious, so oppressively empty, I just want the quiet of 3 a. بوكر حقيقي m. At 3 a.m. life isn’t bringing me down, the quiet is soothing. I get waves of intense sadness, loneliness, but after those demons leave , and all’s silent, the things that I want start to feel possible again. Sometimes I make them possible when day comes, sometimes I can’t, but night gives me the will to try.

So come on night.

Okay, I’m going to draw a direct parallel between Clark Gable and… Woody Allen.

In Love and Death, Woody Allen’s Boris finds out from his giddy comrades that Russia is going to war with France. Boris comments on the absurdity of war, how it’s ultimately just a bunch of dead people. He relents and becomes an unlikely war hero.

In Gone with the Wind, Clark Gable’s Rhett is also upset that his fellow Southerners are so excited to go to war, totally naive to the ugliness of death. He also becomes an unlikely war hero.

There you have it, my strange drawing of a parallel across two starkly contrasting classic films.

So, last night was a good night on Twitter…

Aimee Mann favorites one of my tweets, again!

It’s so cool that today we really have a shot at interacting with our heroes. I count song-writers, only the best song-writers, in the same vein as novelists. To me, song-writers are akin to flash-fiction writers, and good flash is just as powerful as any novel. Aimee Mann is one of my top six writer heroes, her use of craft is beautiful. Her words make me want to push my craft as far as I possibly can, then just a little further. Many of her words are etched into my skin, they’re always with me, they’re that important to me.

I’ve met Aimee in person once, and she was totally kind, totally, just, real. I’ve also gotten to tweet with her a bunch of times, she remembered me from seven years ago, she’s always absolutely nice, and three times now… she has favorited something I wrote! I swear, each time is so exciting, I could just fall over.

Yes, I’m a nerd.

I was really disgusted that a few cowards in the Senate were able to shut down the compromise gun control bill. I don’t understand why the NRA thinks it’s totally cool for people to skip a background check when buying an MP5 at some gun show or online. Who really needs an assault rifle either the same day they decide they want one, or Fedexed overnight? Until the zombies come, nobody.

I also find the argument that outlawing extended ammo clips wouldn’t save lives to be absurd. Just playing video games I know that reloading is when you die, that’s when the enemy gets you. So, the less reloading, the more killing I get to do safely. You’re a shitty hunter if you need 30 rounds to kill a deer. That much ammo is used for killing people, period. Unless you’re on a battlefield, you don’t need extended ammo clips.

If a little extra time and a little less ammo saves even ONE life, shouldn’t we as a modern, peaceful society, be willing to pay such prices?

So, my tv story ran last night, and I actually thought it came out really well. These stories often turn sappy, or just get exaggerated, or sensationalized, but Mike Deeson kept things factual.

The state took away my assistants, they’re spending more money than my assistants cost. Aside from screwing me over by taking away my assistants, the state wants us disabled folks living in hospitals and institutions. All facts.

Florida’s going backward.

Tattoo by Colt, Doc Dog’s Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this is another Aimee Mann tattoo, lyrics from her song, Long Shot, which is off of one of her earlier records, I’m With Stupid.

To me, the song’s about this relationship that just goes bad over and over and over again. The one person keeps trying to end it for lots of reasons, solid reasons. Right? Yes, sure. Not really, though. All those reasons that seemed so solid just end up being, “please love me more.” Love isn’t rational, it’s just something you feel, and want, no matter the reasons for or against it.

Anyway, the tattoo felt appropriate.

Tattoo by Colt, Doc Dog’s Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this tattoo is from a PJ Harvey song, The Soldier, off of a record she created with John Parish, A Man a Woman Walked By.

I really like The Soldier because she takes the incoherent, yet vivid nature of a nightmare, and makes it coherent. Few writers can do this well, I’m talking song writers, fiction writers, any sort of writer. Dreams, and especially nightmares, are just not easy to put to words. You want to keep it wispy, surreal, vivid, yet something readable and compelling.

The song is about a soldier who has seen horrible things, done horrible things, is damaged, completely fucked up by these experiences, and at the end of everything just wants to go home. That’s how the last year felt, the last few years felt, leading up to this tattoo. I just want to take all my damage, everything I’ve made so external, I want to take it all and go home,

Here’s my problem with the “Technology Made Me a Real Boy!” trope.

So, a reader recently wanted to know…

By the way, why do you have those things on your head? are you alright???

Yes, they really used three question marks. Well, given the urgency of the question, and since I figure other people have the same question, I’m going to answer here.

No, I’m not dying. Those “things” on my head are sensors that are attached to my NeuroSwitch. The NeuroSwitch gives access to SwitchXS, the software that gives access to Mac OS X and everything else. Basically, the sensors on my forehead read the electrical impulses caused by wiggling my eyebrows, passing the signal on to the NeuroSwitch. The NeuroSwitch wirelessly talks to my computer, which talks to SwitchXS. So, I wiggle my eyebrows, a little on-screen keyboard (SwitchXS) pops up on my computer, and from that keyboard I type, move the mouse, launch apps, play World of Warcraft, drive robots, whatever.

NeuroSwitch is by far the most advanced switch around, it helps where every other switch fails. SwitchXS is the most advanced switch access software around, it allows access to the world’s most advanced operating system, Mac OS X. Together, they really do help make disability a non-issue.