The Navel Gazes Back at You!

My buddy Dave, he had a Diaryland page. Rustic Yuppie. It was semi-artistic and depressed and kinda cool in the way of yearning teenagers who play guitar. (When I checked the page, which is still up, I realized exactly how much present-me writes like past-him. Fuck.) I read it all too frequently, in the obsessive way of teenagers who really have nothing to do but check Facebook. The content was banal, but I checked so often in case he mentioned me. He did once, and not even by name. Bastard.
I've probably said all of that before. So let's go a bit further. Faced with the journal of his depression, I looked for some validation that I was of meaning to someone. This is not one of those revelations that leaves me shell-shocked and yearning to be a better person. It's kinda fucked, but it's what I did to get by.

Well, I mean, "did" is maybe a stretch. In the process of writing this, I got curious and checked his Facebook page. He is still the same Dave he was in high school, an identity that has become significantly less cool to me with the benefit of time. The revelation gave me a jolt of schadenfreudian joy that I've made more progress, immediately followed by that familiar vertigo that follows a look into the pit.

He didn't mention me on his Facebook page either. Fucker.

The Flat Level

Melancholy, in the dead of night, I return here.

How I missed you. Not the "you" of the imaginary audience. The you of Neue, my distant blog.

For the past few, I've been infected with the late-night feelings. Emotions that go past nostalgia into longing. As I put these thoughts down, I feel somehow returned to my true self, however words-for-the-sake-of-words a concept that is. Reflective, sad, and a bit circumspect, but with the addition of my newly acquired edge of viciousness.

I was reading Hourou Musuko. Reading it gives me that dread of standing tiptoed next to the abyss, elatedly waiting for the breeze that pushes me into tangled tumbling. (How florid I feel after being apart from you.) I don't write for myself anymore. What a shame. When I broke that girl's heart, I pulled up stakes and left the good ol' http://redhotsun.blogspot.com/ to escape. I gave someone the key to my diary and it blew up in my face. Whoops.

I want to be the me that wrote so much in this blog, that Jessica who poured her heart at crafting something here. The dramatic part of me wants to say that I don't know if she's there anymore, but I'm just too old to view my own struggles so romantically. It's hard not being a princess.

Secret Ninjas in Love

Some advice columnist recommended writing letters and never sending them. It sounds like an idea that is at the same time ingenious and horrendously optimistic. A never-ending one-sided dialogue runs in my head when I'm angry with someone I'm not talking to, shadowboxing with a series of insightful, finely-honed jabs that never leave marks. If I put that down on paper, though, I don't know if it'd make me feel better. Although I guess that's what this blog is, so ... hrm.

I'm seeing this new woman, and now I've got a problem. A penis problem. I'm into her, and I'm attracted to her, but my loyal member (the Brown Bomber) wasn't able to retain the structural rigidity necessary to seal the deal last time I got her naked.

Which is and isn't a problem. It happened before with my previous flame on my first time out, something I attribute 70% to nerves and the first time being seen naked by someone who didn't have a clipboard in hand. But nerves build on themselves, and I've had performance anxiety for most of the week since that incident. Which leads me to today, when I get another chance. This post, this unsent letter, exists to address the extra 30% that isn't just the yips keeps revolving in my mind.

What scares me the most right now is getting hurt. After getting broke up on for the first time by someone who, in a fit of first-love fervor, I believed unable to deviate from our shared reality, I found myself wanting to pull back from any potentially painful positions. But I've gotten kind of deep in it with this girl. My desire for her outpaces my fear of getting stabbed through the heart, although the race gets close sometimes. So the sex thing makes me fear that I'll get dumped on the spot if I fail to rise to the occasion. Which I know in my heart to be bullshit, as her feelings for me seem to be more than lust and I can make fairly persuasive oral arguments.

To go one level deeper, I love this new woman. I've already dropped the four-letter L-bomb. But I keep thinking about what I used to have. There's a comfort to the past, so long as you keep from thinking about all the bad parts. The in-jokes, the familiar-if-not-great sex, the sense of camaraderie. We're on our way to (and, hopefully, beyond) all that, but the proximity the ex's memories linger. I don't want to put the girlfriend or myself into a shit situation by staying in a liminal space, but I can't control my nostalgia.

Hrm. Do I send this letter or not?

The Gristle Brand

The theme of this blog, if there really is one, is writer's block. So many of these entries begin with an ode to its terrifying power that I think it'd be fitting to name it as the official mascot of Neue. But once I get past the Homer-esque invocation to my muse, I can rev up the blood-rusty chainsaw that is my mind and really go to hell with it.

I wrote a poem about Randy Savage for
a women's lit class once. I got an A.
Should I feel guilty about that?

Power. That's what it's all about, isn't it? What and where it is, and how to get it. It's the question that's become me in the recent nights, the all-consuming issue sitting unacknowledged at the center of every interaction or word spoken. My quest for physical power has wrenched me toward the testosterone side of the force, and with that hormonal backdrop comes a certain perspective. I'm losing my ability to empathize with people I see as weak. Strength can be any number of things: money, power, intelligence, sociability, looks, pragmatism, cleverness. I want it. All of it.

There's something unspeakable about the drive for conquest. The manly men of the world decry that their machismo is vilified by a society they consider 'feminized,' but I think ambition's just become tacitly encouraged rather than openly so. But in the grand Victorian model, that which goes unsaid in polite society creates an undercurrent of obsession. I worry about revealing my desires, as I endeavor to maintain a well-balanced, genteel persona. Machiavelli said, when asking the question of whether it was better to be loved or feared, that it was best to be loved and feared. A Gordian solution to a philosophical problem: truly, he was a man after my own heart. So perhaps my conflict is a false one, another one of the self-made roadblocks on the toll road to Powerville.

The punchy ending to this would be some sort of revelation about the nature of desire, or how inherently unachievable the goal of true power is. Maybe some sort of rumination on how the lust for control mirrors the pursuit of my fellow alcoholics. This isn't one of those entries. I'll continue studying, going to the gym, and attempting to mack on girls. I say this with the sublime resignation of one who has discovered a universal truth: what else is there?

El Pensador

Filling this space is so hard. All the nothing on the page is intimidating, a constant chastising display of just how much I haven't written. But the only thing more played out than writers writing about writing is writers writing about not writing, so let's continue.

Getting my thoughts down helps me organize them, but it also serves to memorialize those ideas that have been swirling through my head to long. Nothing tombstones a nagging notion like seeing it written down, cast in the closest thing the internet offers to stone. Right now, I find myself dilemma-sick, thinking about the girl who doesn't read my blog anymore and also I used to fuck. In the hierarchy of non-fictive tedium, writers writing about not writing is superseded by people writing about heartbreak, and I'm eager to reach my nadir.

Even with her (or me, perspective-dependent) exiled to the land of wind and ghosts, all the extant memories keep floating in my preconscious, waiting to break into the waking world. Only time will serve to exorcise her shade, but the future seems more distant mid-haunting. (I might've rode the ghost metaphor farther than its spectral legs could carry it.)

The trouble, I suppose, is knowing when to feel like I'm out of the woods. Most patients are unfit to diagnose themselves, and I'm no different. Quite frankly, I hesitate to even admit to heartsickness, out of some combination of emotional constipation and a desire to win the breakup. And there are the relics of the era newly bygone. There was a picture:

A Valentine's day present, and the one thing I feel unsafe getting rid of. Because maybe she's already deleted her copy, and then it'll simply cease to be. So I keep it.

But I can't reconcile being a romantic with being a realist. Because I know that I didn't cry when I saw that picture two months ago. And I have a feeling that six months from now it'll only elicit a bitter flip of nostalgia. So the practical concerns (what to do now, I can honestly do better, let this be the end) are fighting in the streets with Love and its discontents (images of wonderful times now impossible to recreate, the desire to find a way back into the relationship, and every variety of pang). I'm falling prey to the sunk cost fallacy in a big, bad way, pining for something which was intermittently great and often unappetizing. But that's the nature of the thing.

The pithy line I used to summarize it to her, stolen from Civilization V's translation of Aristotle: "Time crumbles things; everything grows old and is forgotten under the power of time." But I wouldn't like this post ending with something that grand; it's inappropriate. I've discovered heartbreak in much the same way people "discover" restaurants - it was there the whole time, you just hadn't walked in. I'd love to end with a bit of "The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator", a poem as tailor-made for me as any could be, but I truthfully don't particularly resent the glimmering creatures who make a feast of each other tonight. Also, even at the end of my rope, I can't help but get douche chills at the idea of posting poems on my blog.

It's good to be back.

Don't Even Bang Unless You Plan to Hit Something

I got a girl, and I gave her the keys to this blog. It wasn't quite a mistake, no, but the beauty of the secret blog is that it serves as a receptacle for my most unrepeatable thoughts. I can't really let 'er rip if I know somebody's reading who shares a bed with my on occasion - at least, not without frisking them for weapons before lights-out. So I let this blog become fallow, its mix of diary entries and angry rants festering from a lack of attention.

So she dumps me, and now I come crawling back. Typical, right? See, I switched my major, from English to Chemistry. Part of me worried that my words had been sacrificed when I chose to pursue a career whose promised future was more than $20K a year and cheese sandwiches. But I guess I can still torture a metaphor and craft a run-on like a motherfucker. I've become more masculine, but my writing remains as unsure as ever. I'm sure Ezra Pound would cluck his tongue if a gang of feminist critics hadn't dug him up and nailed it to a red wheelbarrow. Ah, well.

Nine Variations on Leigh Holmes

I'd never felt it before, the pull to touch her and the glow she lit inside me. It was so strange, and recognizing the word that went with the feeling filled me with anxiety. 'Love' is such an easy word to misuse, abuse, and slander. The single English verb with the greatest power to endear and make you look like a fool, often simultaneously. She said it first, but I didn't really hear it because it came in the middle of a conversation; rolling onto the floor, void of pith.

-

The loveseat in front of my TV is all black leather and nowhere near big enough for me to lie down on comfortably. There was a time when we would sit there tensed, respecting the layer of distance friends need between each other, arms uncomfortably at our sides. We've found a way to make it work somehow, us two big people, her voluptuous legs wrapped around me like ivy, my hands sprawling redwoods growing up through the crook of her arm.

-

We broke the bed. That's an accomplishment I have never matched in terms of ego-swelling athletic sexual pride. When I was on top of her, I'd have to grab the steel rail of the headboard and push it forward to keep us from collapsing in on ourselves. It was awkward, but the sense of control, of knowing that I'm an integral part of what keeps this assembled and secure . . . well, it's the perfect metaphor.

-

It's the cutest burp you've ever heard. She turns her head and makes a noise like "pf-huh". Maybe if I wasn't in love with her it'd just be a twee affection, the sign of a woman trying to hard to be a girl. But it triggers something in me when I hear it. Something cliché and vulnerable and forcefully inchoate.

-

It's not a 'relationship.' That's what she told me. Still living with the man who at some point was her boyfriend, she can't take the mental leap to calling this what it is. Or what it isn't, perhaps. We talk about it, and we reach most of a resolution each time, but some conversations are ever-living. In August she moves out, and she said she'd be fine calling me her boyfriend about a week after she's left his house. I winced and told her it felt like I'd been punched in the gut.

-

She wanted me to choke her. Inexperienced, it was my first time taking control of someone in that primal way. I kept wondering if I was going to asphyxiate her, but my grip stayed tight. After I did it, she told me I was a natural dom, which conflicted me. There's nothing truer to my current philosophy than the act of taking control. But I wonder how far I've come from who I used to be.

-

I keep saying sappy things. I love how thick she is, and I never tire of expressing it. Every time I tell her how special she is to me, she bites her lip and looks away. The gesture makes me feel anxious, like I've fucked up, but I keep doing it.

-

She texts me all the time. Little things: good morning, I miss you, how's work, this creep is staring at me on the bus, fuck Cubs fans. We've been friends long enough that we already have a secret language, but the added intimacy has created bizarre new slang and in-jokes. Despite all the sex and cuddling and professions of love, having someone I always want to talk to is the thing that stays with me throughout the day.

-

Ending things is hard, whether it's a blog post or a relationship. I wonder when our denouement will come, and then sometimes I wonder if it will come. I can't stop knowing that our shared daydream will probably come to an end at some point, and it kind of tortures me. I want to watch plays and movies and have boring nights with her. I want to deal with the worst parts of her and watch her ugly cry. I want to get to the point where we keep getting annoyed with each other so that we can get to the point of sublime acceptance. I want to do the whole dance. Pondering the possibility isn't the same as envisioning a destiny, but any chance is worth it.

Interruption of Service

I turned 25 today. Or yesterday. It's hard to tell. I was born on 6/26/86, which I always interpreted as a subtle nod to the number of the beast. So, in celebration, I post here. My mother, she spent most of my birthday trying to convince me of the gravity of 25, how it heralds the end of people giving me slack for my youth. A good point, but one I couldn't take to heart. I know I need to be so much more than I am.

This birthday was not the best. A great project was undertaken to construct chicken and waffles ex nihilo, but the waffles suffered structural breaches in phase 2 of development and the entire work was scrapped. We still ate the fried chicken, and discovered that it's quite delicious with maple syrup. I met up with another friend, but there were insults, innuendos, and misunderstandings. That one left me in a bad mood. But the dinner with family was alright, the company was lively, and I was ultimately reminded whom I could rely on.

So, a decent birthday, not going in the record books. But I realized something: I used to enjoy having everyone make a big fuss about my birthday, but now I kind of want to go unnoticed. It's better as a day of quiet reflection and joking around with bosom friends than a big-tent bombshell event. And, really, it doesn't deserve the pomp and circumstance I usually demand. So maybe the bright side of turning 25 is me giving myself less leeway for needless things.

Pig King God

Insanity. That’s what I worry about. No family history except for a brother who took Art Bell too seriously. No outward indicators ever diagnosed. But internally, I understand just how thin the wires that hold everything together are. How, if plucked at the wrong time, one could produce a discordant note that would make the mechanism rip itself apart. Drugs made the line go slack, but eventually provided a tension of their own. So I keep an uncomfortable vigil on the individual parts of the machine, waiting for the moment when the wires cross and I fall out of sync with reality.

But see, what I feared was insanity. What I deep-down kinda hoped for was full-blown theatrical madness. If the insane brain is crackling static, the mind of a madman is a symphony being performed by twelve cellists performing in thirteen different time signatures. The insane go to a home and eat jello, while the mad speak prophetic nonsense and command a strength born of crazy. In the point-buy system of life, madness is the preferred idiosyncrasy of the min/maxer, because it elevates while at the same time providing a nobly tragic flaw.

Why not skip the middleman and become a madman? Well, like all other literary diseases, lunacy requires an inciting incident. To truly go mad, I'd need to lose my kingdom, or accidentally kill a loved one. I could discover the incomprehensible truth behind reality's veil and be sucked into a world disconnected from moral and natural law. But that requires the intervention of Fate or a heavy-handed narrator. You can't just go out and take the entrance exam for Stark Raving University; you need to be headhunted. But Chemical Imbalance Community College accepts admissions year-round, and has very affordable in-state tuition.

So, I fear insanity. Because if I keep writing shit like this, it can't be too far off.

I Wish This Was The Last Time I Had To Do This

The first part is the longest. Incubation. Put it out of your mind. Do anything else. Go for a walk, do some shopping, read a book; anything that you can convince myself is vaguely constructive. Ignore it. It'll still be there when you get around to it. You can get started after dinner.

Hand-wringing: step two. Sit in front of the computer. Commit to getting started. You still have tons of time left. In fact, you have enough time to check your e-mail. And, ooh, don't you want a sandwich while you're doing that? I heard about this great place over on Sheridan that makes this salmon banh mi...

Step three. Okay, this is the point where you just get disgusted with yourself. Because, really? You can't do better than this? Isn't this the hundredth-plus time you've been stuck staring at an empty computer screen? You need to change your approach. Your whole last-minute ethos is clearly not working. Best case, you stumble in tomorrow morning sick from your two hours and fifteen minutes of sleep, toting some sub-literate agglomeration of unrelated thoughts. Next time, you start a week in advance. This time next Sunday you'll be kicking back and enjoying yourself, laughing about how trivially easy it is to get the work done when you spread it evenly throughout the week.

Step four: panic, panic, panic, panic, panic! I mean, what the hell, right? Fuck! Fuck. Okay. Okay. So it took you an hour to get a tenth of the way through it. It's cool. Relax. No, you are not sleepy. Do not do this to me, god damn it. Make some coffee! But real quick-like. Okay, just, um, just try to think real hard. Just try to fill the page with as many words as you can and edit down from there. ...well, okay, good hustle, but it's better if the words are related to the subject at hand. Coffee's ready, go! Go! Yeah! That's good, isn't it? This'll help you think. It's gonna be fine. Just bang it out and it'll be fine. Wonder what's new on Twitter?

Step five: unplug your modem.

What? Oh yeah, step six. Um, okay, this is the part where you just

Step seven: Pray to the God of the Israelites for the strength to finish this without passing out. Trust me, New Testament YHWH doesn't have enough juice to fix this mess. Look, you will never pull this shit again, got it? The walls are buzzing and you're mouth's dry from all the coffee. Maybe you should just call it a day. If you just take a two-hour nap now, you'll wake up all refreshed and full of ideas. Well, if don't just sleep straight through 'til 9am tomorrow. Hm. Maybe nix that nap.

Step Eight. Enlightenment. Clouds open, muse sings, fingers never leave keyboard.

Yes! Yes. Home stretch. You did it, slugger! Okay, think of a punchy way to end it. Waitwaitwait! I got it! How about, "Step nine: get some sleep already."