My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

I’m trying to decide if I want to write something rather than just post this video of Aimee Mann singing 4th of July.

I really hate today, and every year this song seems more true. Last year was good though, I was in the hospital, but it was really good. I just want to go back there, because I was with Monica, and she was there, really there. I had to get a sinus CT scan, she’s walking next to me, I couldn’t keep from looking at her. She’s like an angel, I get lost looking at her, it’s like the rest of the world just fades away. The world fades and being sick fades, and I love her so much it scares me. It’s like, how can I feel so much for one person? It’s overwhelming, it scares me because I know she could go away, there’s nothing worse than her going away. I mean, I was in the hospital, I was sick from antibiotics, my sinuses hurt, my eye was swollen shut, everything hurt, and yet I was so completely, breathlessly, unthinkably happy. I was in some shitty hospital room, but in my head, and in my heart, I was at home.

This is so hard to write. When I write I’m completely in the moment, I’m back in that place like I’m there right now. I could write that evening so vividly.

We’re alone in the room after the CT scan, the sun’s setting over the bay, beautiful shades of orange are shining into the room through one large window. Monica, more beautiful than that sunset. I want to kiss her so badly, our first kiss as an “us.” We’d been together, yet not, since the day we met, but that 4th of July we really are together. After years, we’re together. All I want to do is kiss her, the room filling with shadow as that fiery orange sun sinks into the bay. She’s so gorgeous and I know I look like shit after days in the hospital. I say, “Dear, I have a really odd question, I’m probably the only fellow who has ever, and will ever ask you this sort of question. I’m really oddly very nervous even writing this, because it is such a bizarre question, and…” She says, “Michael Phillips, you make me crazy. Just tell me!” I say, “I know my face is probably really icky, just, I really want to kiss you… Could you maybe get a hot cloth and make me less not pretty so I can kiss you? I just, I really want to kiss you. Can I kiss you?” She goes to the sink, runs some warm water over a cloth, runs the warm cloth over my face a little, gently brushes my cracked lips. She says softly, “You’re fine.” She leans in, around all my hoses and tubes and wires, leans in and kisses me, softly, slowly, our lips brushing, then embracing deeply before letting go. It felt like magic, I felt so alive. I knew even more that I honestly wanted to spend my forever with her.

Writing that hurts so fucking much, she’s so far away now.

I just want to go back, but I can’t. I want to go home, but I can’t. She doesn’t want me, doesn’t get lost in me the way I get lost in her.

I don’t know how to feel okay, She’s left before, I’ve been with someone else, but it’s not right, I just hurt that person. Part of me is always with Monica, even when I’ve tried to tell myself otherwise. It just doesn’t work.

So that’s today’s memory lane, with all the pathos and pain. Another chapter in a book where the chapters are endless and they’re always the same, a verse, and a verse, and refrain…

Tattoo by John, Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this is from a Nirvana song, Blandest (Demo), which is off their With the Lights Out collection. I wonder how many songs from With the Lights Out would have been polished and put on studio records and become part of the broad lexicon of pop-culture rather than be these really obscure treasures that pretty much only Nirvana fans ever find. What if what if what if.

Anyway, you all puzzle out what if means and why it’s etched into my chest forever, my forever, at least. Leave comments, try to guess, whatever.

So, I’m not entirely not writing. Us Mac people recently got the Mac App Store, it’s built into OS X and it’s a one stop shop for buying Mac software. It’s basically just like the iPhone App Store, click, buy, run.  Anyway, the day the store opened I HAD to try it, I get ridiculously excited about these things. The first app that caught my eye was Evernote, it’s this cloud-based notebook app. You can create different notebooks for different subjects, like, I have “Thoughts,” ” Writing fragments,” “Dreams…” All your notebooks are stored online, so you have access to them on practically any computer, or smartphone, anywhere. It’s a really stylish, easy way to turn thoughts into words that you can always keep with you. You can also create shared notebooks that people can read and even write collaboratively. I totally hadn’t planned on writing this little review, I just think Evernote is so fucking cool.

I love the idea of writing in notebooks, pouring thoughts onto paper, it’s very romantic. It’s also something I’ve never been able to do. Aside from blogging, I’ve never kept any sort of notebook or journal. I mean, if I have a little one paragraph thought that only means something to me, I’m not going to blog it, and I’m not going to save it as a single text file. Before Evernote, that thought would simply fade until it disappeared. There are also thoughts, no matter how invested I am in transparency, that I just can’t share right now. Evernote lets me keep all my thoughts in a nice safe place, to be shared, or not. That’s where I’ve been of late.