The Moon Is Out And The Streets Are Wet, So Tonight You've Got Me Shaky Again, You're Just Happy As Long As You've Got Something

--"Shadows Are Bent", Gospel Gossip

It was nearing some ungodly hour. We were both trembling along back to the hotel room when Ilessa kind of fell to her knees laughing. It was just one of those moments that transcends explanation so I went with it. I started laughing too.

Soon it would be tomorrow and tomorrow would spell the end of our little getaway for the holiday. That was a deadline I did not want to see. Maybe that's why I sunk down to the street, despite the onlookers and despite the scrutiny. I just didn't care. I wanted the night to last as long as possible. I wanted to live in this fantasy world where two people could just kneel in the street for as long as they wanted, worshipping at the temple of drunken revelry. I wanted that to tbe the reality awaiting me rather than the responsibility and maturity that Tuesday would cover me in. I wanted to remain lost there on the wet pavement for as long as possible.

That's the one thing I've always liked about Miss Nancy Fucking Drew despite her other shortcomings. She, more than most, knows how to lose any and all concerns no matter how doggedly they might be tailing her. She sloughs giving a damn off better than a person in her situation has the right to be. Quite frankly, it's scary. It isn't scary because I ever get the sense that she's lost control. On the contrary, she always seems at the top of her game at all times and in any condition. It's scary because it gives me hope that I could actually live like this all the time like she appears to. I could actually be that close to hedonism. It's scary because the beliefs and the natural progression of my personal characters seems to be inching towards that result with every passing day. People always thinks it's hard to remain grounded and stay firm despite the pressure to change. I say it's far harder to chuck everything to the wind and really cut loose.

As I knelt there, looking at the fractured face of Ilessa, I realized I could have misjudged her in a way. Ever since she had invited me down to San Diego for the weekend, ever since she had casually hinted that a pub crawl was simply the best remedy for the soul, ever since she had refused to take no for an answer, I had been playing up her crazy streak to my co-workers and friends. I had emphasized how much I didn't want to go because I knew what would happen. I knew it would be nothing but drinking and cavorting and simply stupid choices that I would probably regret later on. After all, I told them, it wasn't my first go-around on the roller coaster known as Ilessa Campbell. I let them in on the secret that the last few rides had ended as all thrill rides do, either my being scared shitless or vomiting as soon as I had unbuckled myself. Did I really want to have to endure that all over again?

In a word, yes.

Looking at her grinning face, eyes squinted to the point of being non-existant, a laugh so shrill as to cause the nearby storefront windows to reverberate, I remembered why I was friends with her in the face. That laugh sums up the experience of having a friend like Ilessa. On paper she might seem like a total disaster--emotional baggage from a physically abusive childhood; overcompensating with alcohol, drugs, and other substances in her teens; a rather overbearing personality that tends to grate rather than smooth; a wicked, wicked temper--but in life all that falls by the wayside. She's basically the type of person where all her faults only manifest in her absence. In her presence it's completely the opposite. In that situation all her merits come to the fore.

I don't know how long we tarried on the ground. I do remember we rolled onto our backs at one point trying to get up. Yes, in one part of my mind I was shaking at how quickly I had lost control of my better judgment. Normally, you could never catch me in a position where I was ripe to mocked or ridiculed. But in the larger part of my being all I could concentrate was on that laugh and how good it felt to be joining in her chorus. I like laughing. I love the feeling it gives me. I would daresay I love laughing even more than I hate being laughed at.

That's the gift of Ilessa, putting into perspective of how precious small moments are and how we should enjoy the freedom that every day affords us.

Eventually, we had to get up from our position and trudge back to the welcoming warmth of our hotel room. Eventually, we had to get up the next morning feeling like we had both been run over by about twenty jeeps. Eventually, we had to pack up and leave San Diego for home. Eventually, we both had to go back to what passed for normalcy.

But for one shining moment underneath an absolutely perfect misty San Diego moon we shared a laugh, a laugh that both scared me out of my mind and comforted me in some weird and wonderful way.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Till Now I Always Got By On My Own, I Never Really Cared Until I Met You, And Now It Chills Me To The Bone, How Do I Get You Alone?

--"Alone", Heart

I was watching one of Sarah's bravest performances in Guinevere and was impressed by how well the film tackled the subject of how one deals with a relationship that isn't conventional. Rather than preach or glorify the decision Sarah's character, Harper, makes in the story to live with and learn from a man over twice her age, it presents its perks and pitfalls in equal light. It's not the most action-paced story and the themes are subtle, but, if you've seen the film as many times as I have, you can pick up a lot of nuances about the search for individuality and the search for love often coinciding with one another. I think that's what I appreciate most about the film is that it has this underlying quality about the gaining of independence being a manifestation of one's capacity to love someone fully--even if that someone, as Harper puts it, turns out to be the "best fuck-up" you've ever made.


but the secret is still my own
and my love for you is still unknown

When I was growing up, with my little crushes on girls in my class, with my infatuations with celebrities, I do not believe I was capable of comprehending the depth of maturity and selflessness one has to possess in order to love someone fully. I thought it was a matter of being attracted to somebody else and acting on these feelings. Rather than realizing that love isn't akin to the idea of romance fashioned in Victorian novels whereby people are compelled towards one another, I threw myself in fully. I proclaimed my intentions with the intensity of a man possessed. I acted foolishly and with no regard for common sense or decency. More importantly, I tended to follow in the shadow of young woman who never even knew I was there.

Then, as I got a little older, I started finding myself in the company of individuals who apparently enjoyed my company. However, rather than recognize the signs for what they were, I was blindsided by incomprehension or disbelief. I say incomprehension because there were a few young ladies who my inner circle swore to me were infatuated with me, but I failed to see the signs until after the fact. I was like that dorky guy you see in the films who is getting picked up on, but fails to recognize it for what it is. You see the actress attempt time and time again to give him her phone number, but he answers with "yeah, we should definitely talk" or "it's been fun talking with you. That was me to a tee. People I generally could have been attracted to I never even gave a chance because it was inconceivable to me that anyone could enjoy what I was and who I was back then. Chalk it up to a low self-image or chalk it up to blatant immaturity, but I had opportunities that were never taken.

I don't think I hit the point where I had the capacity to appreciate somebody else fully until I was around nineteen. And the only reason I knew that was that when it became vital to me to see who I wanted to see, damn the consequences. Rather than allow other people, like my family, like my friends, to dictate who or what I was going to like, that's the age where I hit my stride in asserting my self-will. I didn't care how old she might have been or how far away she lived or even how often we fought. All that mattered at the time was that that individual at the time was the person who seemed to bring out the best in me and that I would have done anything to continue to be that person. Rather than the ineffectual lovesick puppy who follows a pretty lady simply because she is so... shiny, it was around the age of nineteen that it honestly started to feel that I was making a choice. It was at that age that it really felt like I was taking control of my life by first taking control of my heart.

Yes, there were nights where I would spend wondering if I had some strange attraction to situations that were hopeless. Was I some kind of masochist who couldn't have a relationship that wasn't doomed from the start? I really started to look over my track record and I began to see that the longest relationships I had were the ones that had huge obstacles to them. I started to take it to heart that if it didn't feel like an ordeal, an ordeal the two of us could tackle together, my relationships would fall apart. It was as if I needed adversity to hold us together.

Then it happened. I met the one person where it didn't feel like the attraction was the adversity. It really seemed that she was perfect and that the universe had just conspired to keep us apart. She was the first person I knew I loved despite the setbacks rather than because of them. I stopped thinking how to make everything work for me and how I wanted things, and started to think of what would be best for both of us. I stopped thinking of getting what I want simply because people told me no and started thinking of making what I wanted come true and not letting anyone stop me. I stopped thinking of how best to get someone to like me and started thinking of how best to love someone else.

I stopped thinking of how not to be lonely and started thinking of how the two of us could be alone.

That's why I like Guinevere, because the more I watch it, the more I realize that it's a story about me. It goes from being a story about a relationship that seems doomed from the start because of preconceived notions of what's appropriate and what's beneficial to a story about a relationship that is doomed because of the innate fact that the two people don't belong together. That's kind of the story of my transformation, of taking it from what I thought I wanted because of what I thought love would be like to what I have come to need because of who I am when I am in love.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I'm Gonna See You In The Morning, I'm Gonna See When You're Uptight, I'm Gonna See When You're Boring, I'm Gonna See You Every Night

--"I'm Gonna See You", That Dog

SUNRISE ALONG THE SHORE
by E. Patrick Taroc

Fair heart, another amber Sun
And another day without you
At that hour alighted anew,
At that moment made its coming.
Saddened, this letter I begun
That I might allay this numbing
At having none to share that scene
Except she my mirror can glean.
And so I penned these words of woe
That, by chance, my own might wane--
Far too long they within remain
If left tacit beneath my tears.
My sorrow I felt foreced to show
To you, who still now quells my fears
By reading these unsteady lines,
And myself, who for you now pines.

I would like to hear you once more,
But an ocean severs us two;
To journey those paths I once knew;
But no common road spans the break.
Yet these phrases shall reach your shore
And their message you shall not mistake:
One shared sunrise I left you ten
And one sunrise I'll share again.

(11/27/94) Copyright 1994 E. Patrick Taroc

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

finally!

the past six months for me was hell.

honestly.

i guess it was my turn in my circle of friends to go through all those problems--school problems, personal problems, work problems, whatever. as much as i'm a bit disappointed with my grades, at least i don't have to retake any classes. because of all the things that happened, i realized my limits. i don't feel competent for grad school anymore, and it doesn't really bother me.

i've made up my mind on what to do after college... well, at least half of me has decided.

and the reason why i didn't get a chance to write here as much is because... this blog switched to the "google account" thing, and i was too late to claim my original account.

It May Sound Absurd... But Don't Be Naive, Even Heroes Have The Right To Bleed

--"Superman (It's Not Easy)", Five For Fighting

I was watcing Lost tonight, enjoying it as I normally do, when it reached the point where Charlie started to compile his greatest hits list, the five greatest moments of his life. I started to wonder, if pressed, could I name five points in my life that were monumentally memorable are worthy of inclusion. I mean--sure, I've had my moments, but when measure against the scope of what everybody else has accomplished, they don't really stack up--not yet anyway.

Nope, if I were to chalk up such a list I think at the most I would have one or two moments I'd like to remember for all time. The first one is obvious if you know me at all so I'll skip over that one. The second one takes a bit more doing. The second one concerns that time in eighth grade when I was at the graduation dance and asked for the first time to dance with Sara. It wasn't that I was particularly in love with Sara or that it was the first dance I'd ever had with a girl. But it was the first dance where I suddenly felt all eyes upon me. It was the first dance where I came down with horrible stage fright and had to excuse myself to the men's room until all the attention died down. I was kind of shy, but, more to the point, I was also kind of ill-equipped to make a spectacle out of myself. Needless to say, it's been almost twenty years since that moment and it still haunts me to this day. I still think of it every time I dance for the first time with a stranger--will everyone suddenly whip their heads around, ooh and ahh, and embarrass the hell out of me. I still think of it every time somebody asks me to name my worst memory of school. Hell, I still think of it every time I pass by my old school.

So why would I want to include this painful trial of childhood on my all-time list of defining moments? Simple. I would include it because it is me at my weakest. It is me at the time in my life where I faced adversity by running away. It's also a moment I've never repeated again. I may have been embarrassed a time or two after that day, but never again was I ever too shook up to even talk about it. That dance was the one and only time I was robbed of any self-control and dignity. I caved. That's why I would want people to know when they read my list, that that's as bad as I get. For the most part since that time I've remained a consumate personification of sticking things out to the bitter end. I'm not saying running away is a character flaw. Even if it is, it isn't the worst one an individual can have as Breanne can attest to. It simply isn't a character flaw I aspire to keep in my possession.

I don't know--people when asked a question like the aforementioned always seem prone to only include the good times in their life. I think it's a mistake to gloss over or forsake those times that show you when you've been beaten. I believe it's those times when you're confused, upset, sad, or lost that come to define you more than when you're at the top of your game. How you handle setbacks and adversity says a lot more about your personality than how you handle success.

I'd rather people remember me as the shockingly awkward kid who blanched at his first social dance than remember me as the guy who asked for Ilessa's phone number in the middle of her speech at the park. The former is more a portrait of me than the latter. That's true of all people; the portrait you see of the confident, vibrant well-adjusted person you see before you is almost always painted directly over the portrait of the misspent and saddened youth. That's why, even if the other four instnaces in my life are all grand and lively in their content, I'm reserving at least one spot on my rosted for that particular moment in junior high when I about shat in my pants.

Everyone has moments they're not proud of... and those are the moments we really should both hold onto and share.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

How Far Will You Take It, Well No One Knows, Don't Let Me Go, I Got A Hold On You Tonight, Oh Oh It's Magic, When I'm With You

--"Magic", The Cars

I left her sleeping in the car.

It wasn't my car. To be painfully truthful, I didn't exactly know whose car it was. There had been the troubles at Matty's house again. I didn't have time to think. I stole a car, but, more importantly I stole her away from a bad situation.

That was me. A regular hero.

When we were driving we barely talked. I didn't ask what happened. She didn't explain. She didn't have to. I knew the routine. It was always something at her house--her mother hitting the bottle, her father hitting his wife. Something. Poor Matty was always caught in the middle. It was funny, people always complimented her family on being some Norman Rockwell portrait of the typical functioning family, but I never did. The only thing typical about her "functional" family was that it wasn't. The only good thing--the only good thing--Mr. and Mrs. Kapelovich ever produced was Matryoshka herself. There she had been, sitting next to me in the car, so sad, so silent, and all I could think was how many times this scene had already played out, how many times I had come to her rescue. It would be comical if it weren't so deadly twisted.

I took her to the cliff, the one that overlooked that quiet piece of the ocean where the sun set perfectly every evening. It was beautiful, but not quite as beautiful as her.

I offered her a bottled water that was conveniently in the backseat of the car after I had stopped the car. She shook her head. I opened it, drank about half, and returned the lid back on top. She would want her half sooner or later. I told her to get out, but she wanted to stay in. I wanted to press the issue a little further. Underage driver, stolen car--at the very least I wanted to be hundred yards away from it should anyone come looking. "It wasn't my car. It was here when we got here, officer. Just like you found it." I couldn't argue with her, though. Poor girl had a rough day. I couldn't be just another bad guy to her. Not today.

We stayed in the car. I turned the radio on. She turned to face me.

"Hokes, are we in trouble?"

"Don't worry about it."

"But you stole this..."

"I said don't worry about it, Matty. Let me worry about the heat. You just sit there. You just sit there and look pretty."

"We've got to take it back."

"In a minute."

She didn't say anything after that. She sat in the passenger seat, staring off into the blue abyss of the ocean. Then she cried. I didn't stop her. I didn't talk to her. I didn't touch her. I just let her cry. That's what she wanted. That's what usually put her back right.

It wasn't the first time I've been with her when she's cried.

I felt her touch me on the shoulder with those delicate fingers of hers, telling me it was alright to care again. I pulled her face in close to mine, wrapped my arms around her as best I could from across the seats, and held her awkwardly until she told me to let go. It was the best I could do. It was the only thing I could do. Well, that and go steal another car for her. That was basically my job, steal her away from the troubles and make sure she made it back okay. I was like a courier. She was the package. I picked the package up. I delivered the package after the trip. I didn't ask what the package was and I didn't dare try to look inside the package. That wasn't my job. That wasn't what I needed to do. My job was to keep the package safe and I was damn good at my job.

She began to talk non-stop about everything but what I wanted to talk about. Her voice whirred like a vacuum cleaner, sucking up all the intensity that had pervaded the car only minutes before. She became the epitome of cheerfulness. I went with it. I responded to her every question, humored her every aside. I ever went so far as to play along when she wanted to quiz me about what it was like to steal a car. I played along because she was young. She didn't know any better. I played along also because she was my friend. Again, she didn't know any better. Besides, I liked seeing her amused. It made me think she might pull through her whole ordeal relatively unscathed someday.

I left her sleeping in the car with some off-handed joke about why cars didn't have ceiling fans. She fell asleep smiling. A good sign. I stepped out of the car to grab a quick smoke and to decide what to do next.


how far can you take it
till you realize
theres magic in your eyes

I walked over to the edge of the cliff, hearing the crashing on the rocks below. It was soothing in a way, the violence giving way to tranquility in alternating rhythm. I felt in my bones the solitude this place afforded. I felt the silence. It was nice. Once I reached the edge, I sat down and let my legs dangle over the edge. I continued to smoke while staring at the disappearing horizon. Soon it would be night and I would have to start considering bringing her back. Fuck, I hated thinking about that. It was the part of the day, knowing my so-called rescues were brief in nature and only served as a temporary stop-gap. I was the boy with his finger in the dam, too stupid to think of anything better to do. What could I do? Run away with her with a stolen car, four hundred in cash, and pray for the best? I was barely fifteen with a learner's permit and no wheels to call my own. More precisely, I'd already been warned once about taking her away from her parents without their permission. I hadn't been arrested, but kidnapping definitely would not sit well with those who mattered.

Of course, I thought, there was always... No, I stopped myself.

But.

There was always the pack. I could always ask to take her in as one of our own. That would solve all her problems. And mine. I could finally tell her the truth. The complete truth. I could finally share with her everything that I was and everything that I held dear. I'd always felt like a fraud, pretending to be honest with her with everything that was important to me. It was no wonder she didn't yet feel confident enough to do the same. I'd always felt like there was something between us, a barrier of my own construction.

If I took her in, if I sponsored her, she could finally be away from the troubles. We could start a new life together, a better life, a life where she wouldn't have to worry about anything.

Well, almost anything.

Fuck, I couldn't do that to her. I whipped my head around to glimpse her sleeping form in the car. She was beautiful. Innocent. If I changed her, made her into what I was, she would lose that. She would cease being beautiful, cease being innocent. She would become what I was.

A monster.

I threw the cigaretted down into the waves below and hauled myself up. The daylight was fading quickly now and it was only a matter of time before I would have to bring her back. I made the slow trek back to the car and got in. I made an attempt to close the door as quietly as I could, but she woke up anyway.

"Hokes?"

"Yeah, Matty?"

"What time is it?"

"Time for you to go back home."

She opened her eyes briefly, yawned, and proceeded to go back to sleep. It would be tough leaving her with them again. It killed a little more each time to know that years were all that was keeping me from taking her away from all that pain. It killed me to realize that to stop a monster--two monsters, actually--I couldn't resort to making her into one, even if she'd be strong enough to break away herself. It killed me to think of someone so beautiful was slowly dying each day she was allowed to live in the household.

I had to console myself with the the thought that at least I had another magical night with her. I'd rescued her and I'd kept her safe, even if only for a few hours.

And as I started the car to get her back home, I also consoled myself with another great truth. When it did come time for Matty to finally leave home and make a life for herself, I could do something even more heroic for her. When that time came and the law said that she no longer needed to be shackled to her parents I could give her the greatest gift of all.

I could kill her parents.

I gave a quick glance to the sleeping beauty next to me. I pulled the car away from the cliffside and smiled.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Studying. Trying To Stay On Top Of Things.

I'm taking a little break from studying for my Physics midterm. But I've got most of The Pillows' discography lined up in the background. God, I love this band. In their early days you could hear heavy influence from The Smiths and The Pixies, and as they progressed, they added more and more loungey acid jazz and Steve Miller style elements, and then BAM! out came, "Please Mr. Lostman" which rocked harder than all their previous albums. They began to turn into this very distinctive alternative rock to which they've stuck to this day. Simply awesome.

Doesn't the cover of "Please Mr. Lostman" vaguely remind you of the basic set to Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett? It looked almost the same as the cover of the play... at least the edition I read. By the way, they're not really that old, they're in their early 30's around the time this album was released. But all the more reason for me to think it's a reference to Waiting For Godot. The protagonists are old men.

Oh yeah, I also need to shave and get a haircut. This scruffy bum look won't go over well with my 'rents.

Anyway, back to work.

That's all folks.

Burn Down The Disco, Hang The Blessed DJ, Because The Music That They Constantly Play, It Says Nothing To Me About Life

--"Panic", The Puppini Sisters (cover)

The official story about why I no longer have an antenna on my car is that I cannot stand people fiddling around with the music whilst in my car. I tell people I broke it off because a man's car should be an extension of a man's home--if a man can't listen to the music he wants to while in the confines of his vehicle, then what's the point of having favorite bands at all. I don't know--it's always amused people, it's always been a memorable anecdote, and it's a readily accepted explanation for what could have been a far more complex situation.

The truth is, though, that I backed my car out of my friend's driveway and in the process knocked off the antenna very handily. No, it wasn't my intention to do it. Nor did I have any guiding principle or just cause behind the action. It was a foolish set of circumstances that propelled the damage to the car and an even more foolish impetus for my wanting to complete the job.

Sufficed to say, a lot of the anecdotes I repeat again and again here have their basis in something more mundane, but, because of my love of the dramatic, I've spiced them up about. There's something about having an extraordinary explanation for a choice I've made rather than diddling the same old mundane excuse. It's much more silly and fun to tell people that I don't like ketchup with french fries because I don't eat foods that rhyme together (tomatoes with potatoes) rather than merely saying I don't like those particular two foods with one another. It's much more of a story to say that Brandy and I got lost together for six hours at Epcot whereby we proceeded to have an adventure by ourselves, rather than to say we were both scared witless and were about fifty yards from having any type of meaningful fun while touring the park. The truth is we didn't go around nonchalantly trying everything out because we wanted to. The truth is we went around because we were desperate to find our caretakers. Lastly, I think it makes for a much more engaging tale to say to people that I hiked with Breanne from Macon to Atlanta on a spur-of-the-moment impulsive decision rather than to say that we'd been thinking about it for awhile. So while it is true we hadn't exactly planned to do that that weekend, it's not like it came as a complete shock either.

I wouldn't say I would call it lying because there is enough truth in a lot of the explanations I give to make it sound plausible. I guess the real reason I've always been a fan of embellishment is the fact that when I go over what's happened in life, I want it to sound exciting. I want my stories to mean something. Everyone can say that they've lead an exciting life from time to time. But if their anecdotes don't bear it out, then is it really true?

I guess it's kind of like my aversion to listening to the radio and why people are so ready to believe that I broke my antenna off. I hate somebody else or something else dictating what I listen to, what I read, or who I am. Just because I have ordinary experiences doesn't mean I'm tied to being ordinary. Besides, people prefer the tale over the exact truth. Everyone tries to make their life shiny and new, rather than revel in the smallness of it all. Everyone tries to make their song stand out far from the maddening crowd of everyone else's. Everyone wants to make their song the most important song ever heard. Everyone wants their song to really mean something and say something to everyone. Everyone wants to feel important.

Why should I be any different?

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Because We Live In A House Of Mirrors, We See Our Fears And Everything, Our Songs, Faces, And Second Hand Clothes, But More And More We're Suffering

--"You Are What You Love", Jenny Lewis featuring the Watson Twins

Night really is the worst part of the day for me. Often times I find myself unable to sleep for the simple reason that I never sleep at night. I fear it's become a horrible habit for me. Starting out as a small child, chiding against the imposed bedtime of my parents, I would endeavor to stay up later and later while still being able to maintain functionality at school the next day. In elementary school this meant staying up to ten, which, at that age, seemed liked a big deal. Then, with the advent of high school and the right to sleep whenever I wanted, it became a habit to catch my midnight shows. Shows like Quantum Leap, Northern Exposure, and The New Twilight Zone all come on at that special hour. I didn't even care they were all in syndication and were probably two or three years old. It became a ritual for me. I would grab a snack from the kitchen, pull myself to the couch, and just vege. I would revel in being the only one awake, the only one alive, in a household full of sleeping giants. It felt naughty somehow, as if I was a thief, stealing away with something I wasn't supposed to.

During my high school days, it wasn't unusual for me to fall asleep at three in the morning and get up for school at six. A grand total of three hours was all I needed to subsist upon. It was kind of a small feat. It was also during this time that I started to experiment with no-sleepers, what other people call all-nighters. I would have rather started my homework at three in the morning, after my shows, than interrupt my ritual.

It wasn't until college that I started to notice that even when I wanted to sleep, I couldn't. I had gotten my body used to not sleeping until two or three in the morning and I didn't know how to untrain it. That's when I begin to worry that this would be the pattern I would follow for the rest of my life. Instead of being able to sleep normally, I would forever be the night owl.


I'm good at it, I've mastered it
Avoiding, avoiding everything

The truth is the reason I suffer from insomnia is because I cannot seem to do work when other people are out and about. I concentrate better in the wee hours when the whole world seems to fall away dead. Brandy calls it a form of xenophobia. She tells me that I have a superstition that I'm live in constant fear of being interrupted in the middle of being inspired and losing it. Thinking about it, it could be true. I cannot how many times when I've thought I'd stumbled upon the best idea ever, received a phone call, and been unable to recall what I had wanted to do. Indeed, sometimes when I'm writing these posts, I become the little notes master. I'll scribble a couple of key phrases or lyrics just to remind me what I wanted to write about. But I don't think Brandy's thesis is the whole truth. The real reason why I like staying up is that it's the only time I can be sure of doing exactly what I want without having to compromise myself to make someone else happy. I rise and fall according to my own whims.

If that's true, then why do I suffer so? I should be happy that I have those hours to experience that unique sense of freedom. Lately, I don't, though.

I've thought about it and I think the reason why I toss at night, why I'm in the process of trying to sleep earlier and earlier, is because I know the more I stay up at night, the more I realize that I'm moving away from being a person who enjoys other people's company. The way I figure it, every hour I try to eke out by myself at night is another hour I take away from going out with friends and acquaintances. I've decided I don't want to be akin to a hermit, monopolizing my time for my own pursuits and activities. I want to be able to set aside time for Carly (should she ever free up some time), for Ilessa (should she ever do something aside from wreaking havoc), and, of course, Breanne (should she ever have more time than what we have on-line).

These are the thoughts that have been keeping me from writing regularly here or, for that matter, from sleeping well. I've been spending the last few weeks scared out of my mind that I'm going to be forever more comfortable in the lonely netherworld of darkness rather than the social jungle of daytime.

For once in my life I want to get a good sleep to prepare for a fun-packed day rather than rush through a dreary day to get to my own private night world. I've settled upon a goal for myself and that's to be more comfortable doing more things with other people rather than myself.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

And Oh My Love, We Can Live On The Sun, And Wouldn't We Be Attractive, Riding In Our Shiny Motor Cars, With Eyeglasses Full of Stars

--"Plenty of Paper", Eisley

I watched Disturbia over the weekend. I thought it was a good movie and that I really should have seen it when it first opened. Not only was it a good thriller, but it called up some pretty nifty ideas about what it's like to be trapped with your own thoughts. Maybe it's because of the previous post, but that idea suddenly has started resonating with me more.

I spend an awfully large amount of time thinking about things, reflecting about things, and I've been told that that may not be the healthiest hobby to possess. It's been expressed to me in various ways--that I over-think, that I'm too book smart and not street smart, that I take things to heart too often. Maybe I am guilty as charged. Maybe I can pick apart the smallest comment and maybe I tend to dissolve into a myriad of anecdotes at the humblest of phrases. I don't know--I've always been like that. I've always made connections from seemingly disparate portions of my life and ventured off into wild tangents. It's just what I do. It's why people say I have an over-active imagination.

But it's also what keeps me from experiencing life as other people do. Most people are content to let life happen to them and then move onto the next experience. I'm always finding myself three experiences behind. It's like I can't move on until I've gotten the previous portion figured out. I have one eye to the past in the hopes that the past will provide some clue as to the future. I'm like some ancient diviner, consulting the bones for my next decision. And when I say I analyze, I really do mean I analyze. I call in my buddies, each with their separate fields of expertise, to tell me what to make of it all. I read books on the most insignificant details so I can get a better grasp of what exactly happened to me. I re-live portions of my life to see where I went wrong. I do it all. As a close confidante told me just today, I see my life as this huge baseball game. I pour over mounds of data compiled from--what--thirty-one years of living to extropolate what's going to happen to me tomorrow, a week from now, a year from now, &c... Instead of just relying on my instincts, I always try to make myself as prepared as possible for every outcome.

Perhaps that's not the best way to go about it.

Something tells me that, like the character in Disturbia I could drive myself crazy figuring out all the angles before making my play. Rather than go out and see what is happening, I choose to imagine what will happen or what could happen. I think it might be time to cast an eye to the future without looking back. I think it might be time to just see what's out there for myself without so much of the worry, self-doubt, and ineptitude that seems to plague those huge decisions I make. It seems even when I am impulsive (I'm very impulsive about certain areas--trips, for instance), it always comes back to me chastising myself for being impulsive and promising myself to not do that next time. I can never let it be.

I think it's about time I start looking to the future as an open slate or, to keep my friend's analogy, the start of a new season with a brand new team and no idea of who I'll be playing. I've got to start living my life with the hope everything will work themselves out and not preparing myself all the time for when they don't. That's the key, I think, to believe there is a future that has no ties to the past and no limits to its scope.

After all, as Father Bueller once said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it."

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I'd Rather Rip My Heart Right Out Of My Ribcage With My Bare Hands, And Then Throw It On The Floor And Stomp On It 'Till I Die

--"One More Minute", Weird Al Yankovic

In July of 1992 I began serving out the two hundred fifty hours of community service I was ordered to do as punishment for my misdemeanor hit and run offense. Sufficed to say, I hated every second of it. The logical part of my brain told me it could have been much worse. They could have convicted of a felony hit and run. I could have served jail time instead of community service. I could have also had to pay thousands of dollars instead of the four hundred I was ordered to. There are a million other things that could have wrong for me in the same situation that didn't. Whether it was my good grades, it being my first time getting into any kind of legal trouble, or from the sheer fact they believed my story that I didn't know that it was illegal at the time, I got away relatively scot-free.

However, while I was serving out my hours--eight hours a day, six days a week, for the whole month of July--I literally thought I was in hell. It wasn't just because it was one of the hottest Julys during the 1990s--hot enough to give me probably the worst farmer tan you've seen on an individual. It wasn't just because that they took away my license for the first summer after I had gotten it. It wasn't just that I was doing menial work that a monkey could do. It was the fact that I'd been ordered to do it. It was the fact that I could think of a dozen other activities I could have been engaged in, but had my options limited to just the one I was chained to. It was the fact I was trapped.

Serving out those hours also gave me another reason to call it Hell. While I was living the life of a young man under probation, my friends, who also had gotten their licenses the previous year, were out utilizing their newfound freedom the utmost. I hated them the more for it. I don't know if I ever told them, but pretty much 90% of my time cleaning up the park was spent me thinking of ways to "get even" with them. I know it was stupid to build up all this rage for them for merely doing what every normal teenager does, for doing what I would be doing if I hadn't been so stupid, but jealousy doesn't exactly lend itself to clearheaded thinking. To me it literally felt like they were rubbing my nose in the fact I was in Hell--telling me what exciting misadventures they went on, meekly reassuring me that it would have been cool if I had been there, &c.... I secretly despised them for their seemingly blind eye to my plight. How dare they have fun without me. How dare they not suffer like I was. How dare they not try and rescue me. Those are some of the crazy thoughts that were recycling through my head at the time.

Naturally, as often happens with me, thoughts of why I was being slighted gave way to thoughts of how to provide justice for myself. If I thought of one way to do away with them, I must have thought of a thousand. They ranged from the ludicrous, like running them over with a semi and then hauling the bodies off in the back of it, to the mundane, like shoving a knife in their bellies. That's where the practice in writing my martian murder comedy serial, Trails of Death: Murder in the 21st Century, that I wrote from 6th to 7th grade came in real handy. I borrowed a page from my compilation and started to devising ways to actually drown someone in pistachio ice cream, or maybe tie them to a flaming handglider headed to the ocean (so they, naturally, would die three ways--burning, falling, and drowning), or maybe just death from bad music. With eight hours of time, let me tell you, I could afford to be creative, elaborate, and melodramatic.

I didn't want to do the right thing and let my envy go.

I wanted to hold onto it and use it to get through my day. In fact, that's probably the only way I ever survived it. Without keeping my mind busy with plans and machinations how to subdue my friends, I probably would have gone stir crazy.

The truth was the whole time I was hating them, I really was hating myself. I felt stupid. I felt like an idiot who had made the biggest blunder ever. But it was easier to focus on how I was wronged and how to get right again rather than focus on how I was wrong and how to make it right again. I know how prisoners must feel--all that time with nothing but anger and regret swimming through their head. I know how it is to focus on how the system, somebody else, or even the world just has it in for them because that's where I was. I had two hundred fifty hours to think of two hundred fifty ways how where I was wasn't my fault.

And when I was compiling ways to kill my buddies, it was only to keep from getting down on myself. I very easily could have slipped into thoughts of self-defeat and into punishing myself further because I felt so violently frustrated. I don't know--Breanne says I lash out especially hard when I think I've messed up the most. She thinks I think if I can get someone to accept the blame then it really doesn't count that I messed up. Brandy calls it classic transference. I'm mad at being imperfect so I look for ways to pin it to someone else's imperfections. Me? I just think I'm used to getting my own way by any means necessary that I can't stop even when I've been caught.

After that July was over, I went back to being a normal person, but I don't think I've ever forgotten those feelings of vengeance. Those kinds of strong emotions don't ever really dissipate. Sometimes I fear that they're all still swirling aside me and that one wrong word will bring them out again.

Then again, I do have one quirky piece of serendipity to give me hope. You see, in July of 1993, one year to the month after all that happened, I chanced upon a piece of writing by Breanne.

And, that, as they say, has made all the difference.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers