My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

Water so hot, your entire body screams. Every inch of your skin burns white hot, then falls silent, numb. You can hear your own heart beating, loud and strong between your ears. Your chest rises and falls surrounded by steam. The feeling returns to your skin, conscious again from the initial shock. You lie back and close your eyes, heart pounding, thinking of her.

You remember her skin against yours, the heat and sweat. You remember the pain, the pleasure, the pleasurable pain. Bites and kisses, nails dug in and gentle caresses, sinking into scalding water. The line between ecstasy and agony is gone, burned away, there’s no difference between the two. You’re both dominant and submissive in turn, both knowing exactly how to play one another.

You don’t speak, and neither does she, not with words. You know other each on a visceral level, her breath on your face says I love you, I want you, take me, fuck me. Your eyes speak the same to her. She knows that you can’t stand much more, neither can she. She wants to see the look of release wash over your face. She takes you how she wants you, you can’t stop her. She won’t stop and you know it. You have no choices. She touches you beneath the hot water, slowly, then ever faster. You know what’s about to happen, your lack of choice doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, save for her touch and the look in her eyes. Beautiful, sinful, perfect.

You open your eyes and she’s gone. Your skin feels warm and alive with lingering pain. You remember her. You feel alive in the heat.

Maybe Sting has the right of it. He’s not as good as, say, Bono, or Jesus, but maybe he really knows something. Maybe De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da is exactly the right thing to say. Yes, I may, no, should, no, will try it on the next woman I fancy. It’s so stupid it’s brilliant.

I don’t know how it works for Sting, but if I approached a woman for whom I had affectation and simply said, “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da,” she would never speak to me again. 

So, this is stupid and decadent, but just for kicks I went for my first professorial manicure. 

I think the polish looks nice with the tattoo.

A reader wrote noting that I often write about addiction and depression. They wanted to know if things are easier or harder regarding addiction being that access to such vices could potentially be completely withheld by others. I figure I’ll share my reply.

Hi again,

Let’s start with alcohol. I was having a really bad summer, Sara unexpectedly moved to Boston and I got REALLY lonely. I was supposed to join her, but the logistics felt impossible. I missed her so much, I couldn’t sleep for months. On top of that, I had some really bad trache experiences. So, I picked up scotch, vodka and brandy.

I got really depressed and drinking felt like a nice break. I was also told by several people that I wasn’t “allowed” to drink ANYTHING. At 27, I don’t think “allowed” should be an issue, so I drank more and harder. I hire assistants who don’t question me, I have plenty of access to liquor. I definitely used it. After awhile, after Sara unofficially dumped me over it, I just realized it was a temporary fix for a bad situation, and I quit. I quit because I wanted to quit. My doctor gave me Ativan to help me sleep, and I’ve been trying to sort things out since. I definitely get depressed, but I let myself feel and try to fix it.

Drugs are different. Originally, I never got the choice to quit and it still bothers me. However, I also understand that I can’t live on opiates, just like I can’t live on brandy. Nobody understands how absolutely terrifying the hospital is for me, especially without Sara. She always made me feel so much safer. So, in the hospital, I take every liberty with pain medicine and medicine to sleep. I’m just not strong enough to cope in that place. It’s frustrating because everyone close to me has labeled me an “addict,” and says that I’ll hurt myself because I don’t know what I’m doing. The thing is, I know exactly what I’m doing. I ask for small well-spaced doses. I study all the drugs. I don’t mix pain medicine with sleep medicine. I never ask to take pain medicine home. These are all conscious choices. I don’t like being in pain and terrified, especially terrified, so I think it’s my absolute right to cope as I see necessary in that place.

You’re right, nobody can tell you to quit something or not be depressed. That only makes things feel worse. People can be supportive, it’s much easier with support, but ultimately, you really have to want to quit. You have to realize that vices are a temporary fix for a fucked up situation. If you let yourself indulge too long, you’re not solving anything. You’re really just making the overall problem last longer. Nobody can tell you these things and make you do anything, though. You have to understand these things in your own head. The choices have to be yours and no one else’s.

It’s okay to feel awful, let yourself feel it. Just try to realize that if you don’t confront why you feel awful, if you constantly patch it with vices, you’ll never actually feel better.

That’s my experience anyway.

Michael Phillips

So, yesterday I was listening to music and trying to figure out something fun to do with my evening. Tattoos are always fun, and I’d been thinking about a song lyrics tattoo for awhile. Music’s kind of personal to me, I feel like what I listen to tells a lot about me. I’m really particular about what goes on my playlists. I mean, I “like” lots of music, I know the words to everything from The Beatles to John Prine, but everything I listen to on my own is very specific. At any rate, while I was listening to my “Anger and Depression are Fun” playlist, one of my absolute favorite Nirvana songs started playing. I heard the line I wanted etched into my skin.

“And if you cut yourself, you will think you’re happy”

It’s a line from Sappy, such brilliant song. It’s totally open to interpretation, but at its core, I think it’s a song about sacrifice. How we hurt ourselves to make others happy, thinking that we’ll then be happy too. I’m inclined to think the song’s specifically about God, but again, it’s totally open. That sort of constant sacrifice is exhausting, and in the end, you’re really not happy, a fact that I often forget. Hence the tattoo.

My regular tattoo shop was closed, they close super early on Sundays, so I ended up going to where I got my very first tattoo, Phat Katz. It was a pretty spectacular evening, pouring rain, definitely not vent/trache weather. The shop’s layout had changed since my visit almost four years ago, so to get my tattoo, the two artists had to carry me and the chair up two flights of stairs.

The experience was definitely worth the effort. I got to see a girl completely punk out mid-tattoo, and another girl with a wickedly swollen lip piercing that needed yanked. I always find it a little amusing when I’m the toughest person in a room.

Last night I went to see Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and honestly, it was a fun movie. Michael Cera pretty much plays the same character as in Juno, but he plays it so well. Overall, I think I liked it better than Juno, the dialogue felt more real. Juno, while good, often seemed over-written. Nobody is that witty, that often. I mean, who the fuck says, “honest to blog,” in conversation?

Last night I went to see Blindness, a film in which an epidemic of blindness brings society to its knees. It’s pretty much one of my favorite types of movie, some unexplained disaster destroys everything we know. Extreme circumstances force people to make extreme choices, morality and ethics tend to fall away. Blindness is definitely that sort of movie.

We never find out what causes the epidemic, but it’s quickly determined to be contagious and people are immediately forced into quarantine. One woman, however, remains unaffected.

I’ll say right now that I loved the movie, but I need more time to think before I write on it.

I’ve decided on what could possibly be my greatest Halloween costume ever. The idea hit me like a flash of heat and sweat, brilliant and clear.

Later today I’m going to see Blindness, and I’m thinking it will be amazing. I love society ending disaster fiction, so Blindness should be up my ally.

I’ve written about it before, but I feel that there’s a certain appeal to the fall of society, particularly with zombies. There are certain freedoms gained when all that matters is survival, no more schedules, or money, people are forced to focus on what’s really important. Disaster also tends to show the extremes of human nature, good and terrible. I always enjoy thinking about how people might react under astonishingly extreme circumstances. I’ve had to see how I’d react under such circumstances, my own personal zombies.

Blindness should be very interesting, almost, if not definitely, claustrophobic. In some ways, mass blindness could be more terrifying than zombies, more inescapable than the walking dead. Terror without the immediacy of death.

I have different ideas about death now, ideas that are still evolving. I mean, I don’t want to die, yet I feel like at least it’s a possible end of horror and pain. I say possible because I don’t honestly know what happens after we die. Heaven, Hell, absolute nothingness, I don’t know. I know that both times I really almost died I don’t remember being afraid until I woke up again. When I am afraid, that point of not remember, that lack of awareness has almost been a comfort, knowing that I’ll get there, but at the same time, I don’t want to get there.