Even The Best Fall Down Sometimes, Even The Wrong Words Seem To Rhyme, Out Of The Doubt That Fills My Mind, I Somehow Find, You And I Collide

--"Collide", Howie Day

Before I started working on The Carisa Meridian the longest piece of writing I had was a hundred or so page letter I wrote to my friend Jina. Not only was I proud of the accomplishment itself, I was also proud of the fact that I had developed such a rapport with an individual that writing triple digit letters didn't seem altogether odd. In fact, those letters between us stand as arguably the single most candid work I've ever produced. Yes, you could say there's a small part of me in everything I write and, yes, you could say that I'm honest everyday when I write here. What you couldn't say, though, is that anything I've written since those letters stand as a permanent reminder of what I was like over ten years ago. Besides grilling Little Miss Chipper, those letters would be your best at finding out the young man I was back in those simpler times known as the 90's.

I remember when I was writing them I would be amazed at just how much information I manage to cram into them. I wrote about the silliest and smallest occurrences in my life. It didn't matter. I wanted her to know it all. It wasn't important how interesting I made my life. In fact, I think my life was considerably more boring compared to hers at the time. The only thing that was important was that she got to know me as much as possible. I mean--I've always been a candid individual when it comes to the people in my life, but with that letter I was making a conscious effort to provide a sort of bible of all things mojo that she could come back to and refer to whenever she wanted to remember something. Aside from the "real" gifts I sent Jina, I wanted to make those letters my piece of art to her. I wanted to make it a gift to last the ages, the gift of me. That's why as the letters continue, they get progressively longer and more in-depth.

The same was true about her letters to me. When Jina and I weren't talking for those ten years, I would sometimes re-read her letters to me. I would chuckle or get sad at all the events that happened to her so many years ago. But what made me really sad was the fact that, as far as I knew, those would be the last mementos of her. Those letters took on the properties of a keepsake of someone who might as well have passed on from this Earth. As such, I treated them like they were gospel. I did everything I could to remember the girl who had meant so much to me during my formative years, before the dawn of Breanne, and who had taken the time to send me those small bundles of joy every few months. I honestly don't know what I would have done during my periods of self-doubt and loathing, when I absolutely hated myself for fucking things up with Jina, if I didn't have those letters to sustain me.

The one thing I never counted on happening was being able to read those letters I had sent her again. I thought they would forever remain with her, just as her letters to me would remain hidden away at my place--two gravestones to a long dead friendship. I never imagined that I would someday be reading them again or that she would be reading hers again. I thought that would be impossible.

But it's not.

This weekend I'll finally be mailing all her letters to me back to her. And, soon after that, I shall receive all my letters to her back to me. I'll finally be able to see what I was like during the happy times of our friendship and I'll finally be able to re-connect with that person, that person I was, who believed that the two of us would last forever. All I know now is the repentant me now who is just enjoying the fact she's communicating with me at all, which is nice in itself.

But it'll be really nice to rediscover what it was like when everything was nice and everything was perfect, and I had a good friend whose name was Jina.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I Saw Your Eyes, And You Touched My Mind, Although It Took Awhile, I Was Falling In Love, I Saw Your Eyes, And You Made Me Cry

--"Space Age Love Song", Flock of Seagulls

collected from this weekend...

I. Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:39 pm

Three of my friends took me out to dinner (and cupcakes) for my apparently three-week long birthday celebration. It was a nice dinner, the cupcakes were scrumptious, and we even took a leisurely walk along the beach to work off the cupcakes. Sometimes it's a pain in the ass to have friends who work in the gym.

What makes me sad tonight is the fact that two of my friends were casually talking about how their kids keep them up at night and how, at that age, it's hard to schedule these get-togethers all the time. It got me to thinking how I'm not even close to being settled down and how all this talk of raising kids is so foreign to me. I mean--I could understand the half-jealous/half-relief feelings I get when B. talks about being married and settled down. I've learned to separate my life from hers in terms of expectations. It's like her living in Georgia makes it not my problem because there's nothing I could do to match her. But this, these two friends live in the same area I do, are about the same age, and really could be me had I made different choices with my life.

I thought I'd be married by now. In fact, I remember writing a story in 4th grade about where I'd be in the year 2000. I would have been turning 25 so I wrote about how I'd be married with one kid already. Boy, was I way off the mark there.

Then, to compound it, I invited my one friend who I've kind of been going out with and kind of not. I felt bad for her because all this talk of being married and having kids probably made her as uncomfortable as I was. Neither of us have any clue where we're headed or even if we want to be headed anywhere. It doesn't help much to have friends talk about what a rewarding experience having and raising kids is.

The dinner was nice. The cupcakes were nice. And it was nice seeing all my friends again. I just wish the conversation had focused on another topic that wasn't so troubling for me.

After the first two friends left, the girl and I got to talking and she put up the theory that's really been blowing my mind all evening. All my life I've gone out with younger girls. Too young, she says, to even make the possibility of settling down a far-off idea. She thinks I choose people that I know I have no chance of marrying because I'm holding out hope for the one I really want to marry.

That colors every relationship I've ever had because now I think I'm doomed to always ask out people who aren't even thinking settling down and passing over those I could really build a life with. It just makes me want to really scream "what the fuck am I doing with my life?"

II. Fri Oct 26, 2007 12:37 pm

I talked about getting married as early as 19 when I was going out with Breanne, but that never materialized for a whole lists of reason. I talked about it again at 23 with DeAnn, but she was completely wrong for me. Ever since then it's like I look for people who I'm only semi-serious with on the off chance B. will leave that dumbass husband of hers. It's like I don't want to tie myself down to somebody I can't leave right away in case the one I really want needs me. I'm basically trapped in a situation where I'm holding out for the big dream while quashing all the small dreams I might have a shot at along the way.

I don't know if I really should be married by now. And, Miss Emily, I think you're right in saying that I shouldn't compare my life to how my friends are doing. Everyone moves at their own schedule.

But it hurts to know that the person I'm sorta seeing right now can see just how much I'll never love her enough to want to settle down with her, can see how much more I want somebody else.

And it hurts to know that I might have been free and clear to pursue other projects if I didn't think I had a shot at finally completing the masterpiece I started fourteen years ago.

Maybe if I'd never met her... I would have been better off because I wouldn't be so confused, so alone, and so pointlessly hopeful. I just wonder if one can ever be happy and hopeful at the same time.

III. Fri Oct 26, 2007 12:49 pm

The trouble is she's been married for five years now... and just as often as I'd advised her to leave him, I've also told her to work things out because it kills me to hear she's having a rough go of it. He's not horrible to her, he's not abusive. His main problem is that he's kind of boring and she sort of married down. He doesn't excite her and she was (or maybe still is) the most exciting person I knew.

I don't how much longer I can wait for her. She's 27 and I'm 32. I've been wanting her off and on for the last almost fifteen years. I really think we only have so much time left before it's just too late for us to ever work out.

IV. Fri Oct 26, 2007 12:57 pm

I'm not proud of it, but we went to Chicago this past July for her birthday... without her husband.

I think we're both clear about how we feel and what our responsibility is in our situation. Being together would involve breaking a lot of commitments--not to mention one of us changing their whole life around.

I don't know--I'm getting to the point where all the trouble might be worth it.

V. Fri Oct 26, 2007 10:12 pm
Good thing I can't smell because I do believe I might be catching a whiff of old-fashioned black-and-white morality stinking up the joint. LOL And here I was beginning to believe you really were open-minded as you seem to be. Who knew there was a weak link to you after all?

In my defense (not that what I do is defensible or even needs defensible), I struggled a lot with it. I came close to getting separate rooms or cancelling the whole trip entirely many times in the planning stages. In the end I decided it's not like it was a one night stand with a stranger, it's not like it's something I would consider do on a regular basis, and it's not like I was coercing her or tricking her into it.

We were both adults. We both knew there would be repercussions. We both knew it was a very murky path to be going down.

In the end, she's still the one person I've never let go of and we're still in each other's life in a capacity that doesn't quit fit "just friends."

I took a risk that I would get attached to her again... but, ultimately, I decided I've always been attached to her. You never forget your first real taste of love and I've been lucky enough to be able to hold onto her all this time. We can't let each other go, as hard as we've tried. There's always going to be this connection that's going to push hard choices in front of us and I really am at a loss as to how to solve that. Some days I'm really sorry our friendship causes so many huge problems for the other people in our life who may frown upon mistakes we've made in the past and mistakes we'll continue to make.

But I'm not sorry I went to Chicago with her. I'm not sorry at all. And I told her next time we're not going to wait another eight years to see each other--even if it means bringing him along or separate rooms or what have you. She's too important to me to go that long without seeing her.

VI. Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:05 pm

She can't have kids, sadly. Honestly, that's one of their huge issues. They were thinking about trying adopting but they talked it over and I talked it over with her. It was kind of clear that them bringing a child into the family at whatever age would be a band-aid on the problems between them. I advised and she agreed that if she thinks this marriage is worth saving then the two of them need to work on getting straight before even considering adopting.

That's what I mean when I say this is a complicated arrangement, if you can even call it that. Right now they're in a good place. They're working on fixing on some of the holes that they kind of refused to see in their first five years of being married. As for me, I'm kind of happy for her. She isn't as volatile as she was when she was having problems.

I mean it when I say I really want her to be happy foremost even if she chooses him. My hanging around to hope she breaks up isn't because I'm trying to break up the marriage for the most part and it isn't because she's keeping me on a leash. She's been more than helpful in giving me advice on the girlfriends I've had since she got married. Neither of us are really trying hard to fuck up our lives.

It's just that one of the first rules we've both committed to is that no matter what happens our friendship will never change. Her husband partly hates me because I'm still a big part of her life--not as much as I used to be, but definitely more than most people would be comfortable. I don't blame him for hating me for that. That makes things hard on him when you couple that with the fact she's really big on making sure no one's the boss of her. We both have that mentality kind of, that no one owns us and no one tells us what to do. That's why Chicago happened because she was going whether or not her husband liked it. I think she would have gone even if I had tried to back out. She's just that willful.

Basically, we keep everyone happy with three simple rules.

I'm not allowed to fly to Georgia.

She's not allowed to fly to California without him.

I'm not allowed to call her house--only her cel phone--on the off-chance he'll pick up the phone.

It's not a perfect system, but it's lasted this long and so far there are no further plans to see each other in the next few years so I think it'll last for awhile longer. Hopefully, her marriage will improve and I'll stop fantasizing that she might actually leave him. She keeps telling me that I shouldn't wait around for her. But it's difficult when she was so unhappy and I could conceivably do something to fix it. I don't really want to wait for her. And for awhile I was convinced that I wasn't.

But last night, with someone else telling me how obvious it was that I was waiting, only brought to the surface of how under the thrall of what could be I still am.

I think we'll always love each other. First loves, lifelong best friends, surrogate little sister--there's a lot of reasons why gracefully backing out just isn't possible. She's the only healthy (if you want to call it that) relationship that's lasted this long. It's not just the romantic connection that keeps us together. It's all the other ways we back each other up:

--When she was running away from home almost every month, I would talk to her until she had the courage to come back to her parents.
--When I was handling relationships wrong and this close to getting arrested for fighting with exes, she was the only who could talk any sense into me.
--When she found out she couldn't have children, her husband and I would trade off talking her day after day, week after week, about how it wasn't a punishment from God. We told her that her future wasn't sealed repeatedly until she returned to her normal chipper self.
--When I went bankrupt, she floated me three thousand no questions asked until I could start paying her back.
--and dozens and dozens more reasons why it feels like she's saved my life numerous times and I've saved hers just as many.

I don't know how many of you have friends like that, but I can't think of a single other person i've shared so much heartache and woe with and who has been a part of so many of my good times.

She's part of the reason why I started this sad thread. No one has made me as sad as she has. It's like delfty and I were discussing, she can only hurt me because she feels like such a part of me. If I didn't care, I would be the first person walking away from her. No one is worth all the sorrow, the madness, the four hour screaming matches we've had over the phone... no one except her.

I can't let go of her. Not completely. Not ever.

VII. Sat Oct 27, 2007 10:45 am

Why we're not together is as much my fault as it is hers. From the get go I always felt close to her, but I was hung-up about the five year age difference and us having lives across the country from one another. I never thought it would work out between us.

But there's a huge difference between my being a nineteen-year-old kid who never really traveled anywhere in his life and my being thirty-two and kind of sick and tired of California. Back then I wasn't sure this petulant, willful, and altogether kind of wicked fifteen-year-old girl was the one I wanted to marry someday. I thought I'd meet someone better, someone who caused me less worry or stress or whatever. But she always knew I was the one for her. She was always the one stressing that we wouldn't always be seventeen/thirteen or even nineteen/fifteen. Honestly, I could never envision us lasting till thirty-two/twenty-seven. She always knew that one of us would a reach an age where moving across the country wouldn't be a big deal. Honestly, I could never envision making such a commitment for one person.

She kept waiting for me to, as she put it, slip into the saddle and get to riding. But I never could. I was young and stupid, and I thought there was no way I could meet someone this great that young and have her turn out to be "the one."

Now it's obvious she was and that her stubbornness that I was the one for her was true too.

The only reason she got married was because I kept shyly backing away from making real plans for the future with her. I kept telling her that "if we were meant to be then we'll up together eventually."

I kept telling her "maybe someday" when she asked, when I should have just said, "yes." That's what I wanted to say. That was the right answer.

That's how we got stuck in this situation. She moved onto her second choice and now her first choice is suddenly telling her that he made a mistake. If anything, I'm the one who pushed her into a less than ideal marriage because I didn't start putting the prospect of an ideal marriage on the table until five years ago.

Shit. It's probably more my fault than hers now that I look at it.

VIII. Sun Oct 28, 2007 3:56 pm

That was never answered, sugar. What is this? What will be? Hell's bells, I don't know how many times I've asked myself those same questions. I don't think we can look to anybody else for guidance. It's one of those muddy situations where there's no one else around to lend a hand and no one else to blame. We've just got to get to pushing the cart out ourselves.

And, no, I never assigned blame. You're the one who likes to do that, remember? I, as always, remain blameless. You can't fault a lady for knowing what she likes and doing all in God's power to go after it no more than you can blame that poor 'ole scorpion in that fable. I can only be Breanne--no more, no less. I can't fault you for feeling like you did. You were only doing what you thought was right. We were both doing that in our separate, but similar, ways. Do I wish we had gone down the same track and arrived at the some destination? Obviously. It would have made the whole scuffle more bearable.

I am glad that we ended up going down the same direction. It's like I'm driving down the highway and I see you as a familiar face in the car beside me. And I don't know where you're going and I don't know how soon you're going to have to turn off. Maybe we might end up at the same place together, maybe we won't. But for as long as I'm set on this course and your set on yours, I might as well keep you for company for as long as possible. It's mighty hard to find good company and the Good Lord knows that this journey of ours is longer than all hell.

Stay with me.

Don't give me up. Not just yet.

Not if you can help it and I promise to do the same.

That's what we said, right, sugar?

Breanne

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Sunrise Like A Nosebleed, Your Head Hurts And You Can't Breathe, You Been Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World

--"Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World", U2

When I wrote about how Rachel set a good example for me over three years ago I was filled with the optimism anybody who decides to make a change for the better is filled with. I wanted to follow her lead. I wanted to be a better person because I read firsthand what a profound difference in made in her life and all of the lives that touched hers. I was filled with an initiative that with hard work and determination I really could imitate her life in regards to being a force for good. I didn't have any ulterior motives for it. I was fully behind becoming this altruistic paragon of virtue because it was the right thing to do and because I thought I needed it.

The trouble with trying to become a better person is that it's not as easy as reading a book or emulating a person's choices. I've never found success in asking myself what would so-and-so do--as in, as my friend likes to say, "what would Indiana Jones do?" It just doesn't work like that. You cannot ride the coattails of a personal hero and expect the same results. That was a fact that these three years have taught me. Believe me, if I were to claim anyone as a hero, it would definitely be Rachel. I'm certain there is not a single person out there who I've regarded as being everything I wanted to be as much as her. The manner in which she conducted herself, the choices she made when it came to sticking to her principles, the generous and caring warmth of spirit she possessed--all of these things served to inspire me doubly and triply more than any other text, advice, or speeches I've ever come across. If I had a religious figure central to my core beliefs, it certainly would be her.

Yet I'm not her. It's taken me awhile to realize that. I'm just not built to be warm and friendly to everyone. This is not to say I'm cruel to all who stray into my sphere of influence. I've merely discovered that I don't have the type of personality which invites people to open up to me right away. Sure, I think I've helped out a few people now and again, but it's always after a short period of introductions, which is usually what trips me up. I simple don't have the drive to make as many friends as possible. I've always been relatively happy with a few select friends which I would do anything for. However, a force for good does not that make me. If anything, I leave things exactly the same I found out. I help out those who I've always helped out, but I don't set out to harm someone if I can avoid it and I don't set out to help someone new every day. That's been the hardest lesson for me to realize. I'll never be someone who changes the world with his words and his actions like Rachel does.


your lips move but you can't talk
trying to throw your arms around the world

For this last year I've spoken to a few people how this incongruity has troubled me. I still have this overwhelming desire to be a better person, more in the limelight, fighting the good fight wherever I go. Yet the reality of my being dictates that I'm better equipped to be a complete savior when it comes to the people who have made a deep and lasting connection with me. I'm really good at that. I'm really good at sacrificing all of my being for those who've earned my trust.

But is that good enough?

Does that put me down the same path as my hero, as Rachel?

Probably not. But I think the thing about inspirational figures is that they never really set out to be inspirational figures. I don't think she ever imagined people would want to follow in her footsteps exactly. I don't think she ever envisioned me trying to accomplish everything she did. What I do think is that she would have wanted people to try to better themselves and she would have wanted people to help out in whatever way they could.

She would have wanted to know that a lot of people in a lot of different places were doing good because of the person she was. That's the important part, the desire to effect change in one's self.

I still have the desire, but I think I've given up the dream of ever being exactly like her. As I wrote before,

She set a good example. That's the best compliment I can ever give anyone.

Maybe it's time I take her cue and trying setting a good example in my own unique way--not in saving the whole world, but in saving some people who have turned out to be important to me.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I Can't Wait To Say All The Things You Can't See, All The Things That Make You Better, 'Cause I Can Say All The Things You Can't See

--"Like U Crazy", Mates of State

Back in high school I was a joiner. Partly it was to buff up my college application, but partly my need to be in as many clubs as I possibly could stemmed from the need we all have. I needed to belong to a group. I needed to identify myself with a collection of people with the same interests. Yes, I've always regarded myself as some lone wolf figure that no one can quite understand, but it's always been my dirty little secret that I wish I could give up being so different and just act normal for once. High school was probably my one best stab at doing what I was supposed to do in a manner that I was supposed to do it. I joined service societies, academic societies--hell, I even tried out for basketball and tennis while I was there--all in an attempt to finally fit in.

For the most part, it worked. If you looked at my yearbook resume it seemed I was a busy bee, working with various groups all over the school. However, if you asked me, I would have said I still didn't feel like I fit in. I had friends, sure, but I never really got the sense that any of those groups I was in ever really shared the same ideas or philosophies as me. If anything, I felt like I had to sublimate my own ideas just to fit in.

That's the conclusion I've come to, that as much as groups band together people with the same philosophies and ideals, they also narrow the opportunities people have to discover new philosophies and new ideals. Even from my first exposure to groups, the infamous beavers vs. squirrels game we played at Bethany, where belonging was the whole point of the game, it seems that's all that groups are good for. It hasn't changed so much now, even twenty or so years later. At Bethany, you were either a beaver or a squirrel; you couldn't be both. Yet if you asked any one of us what the difference was between the two groups, I doubt if any could have given a coherent answer. Yes, we were in first grade, but that still didn't change the central idea that the number one criterion for belonging to one group was the absolute despising of another group. The philosophies didn't matter, the ideals didn't matter--the central point was that you weren't with another group. That was the lesson we had come to understand even at that young age.

I've always held a higher standard for belonging to any group. Never one to be pigeonholed, I've always sought out groups for what they had to offer, for what they espoused and not for what they reviled. I've always sought to belong to groups that could say all the things I didn't know how to say yet, that had figured out my beliefs even before I even knew had those beliefs.

Yet time and time again, I run into the idea that once I affiliate myself with one set of people, I couldn't associate with another set. I couldn't possibly listen to indie music and pop music, or rap music and country. I couldn't possibly like chick flicks and straight-up action films. Or, worse yet, there was no way I could have close friends that were of a different upbringing, age range, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or race than me. It seemed the more I chose to identify myself as being one thing or another, people wanted to classify me and tell me what I had to exclude.

Again, I've never had all these hang-ups that most people seem to have. I like what I like and that's all I need to know. I don't care what the background is, what connotations they evoke, or even the possible stereotypes that come along with it. I'll believe what I want to believe and damn the rest.

It's even worse when people make assumptions for a group you've joined that you have no control over. Just because I'm in my thirties doesn't mean I have nothing in common with someone who's much younger than me. Just because I'm Asian doesn't mean I like all things Asian or even anything Asian, for that matter. Just because I live in Los Angeles doesn't mean I love, love, love all things Los Angeles (especially their sorryass sports team). The more I learn about group dynamics, the more I realize how terribly faulty the notion of groups are.

What I've really learned is that the best groups are the ones that don't even consider themselves groups. Why ostracize anybody if you don't have to? The best groups really are informal groups of friends with dissimilar interests, dissimilar philosophies, and dissimilar age, race, economic, political, &c... backgrounds. The reason is simple. They don't discriminate for any reason, which is the goal every collection of people should be working towards. The way a group of friends work doesn't take a statement of beliefs. I don't need to know you're Republican or Democrat, in high school or college, that you grew up in the South or the Midwest, or half a million other labels to divide us. The only thing you need to know about groups of friends is whether or not you trust somebody. That's an instinctual thing that you can't teach people and that you can't see right off the bat. It's something you can't put a label to.

In high school I looked for groups that I thought I believed in.

Now I see it's all about looking for people I trust in. I find those people and we all form a group that believes in each other and doesn't apply labels to one another. I don't care if you're gay or straight; gun nut or peacenik; foodie or vegeterian; fifteen or fifty; career academic or slacker pothead; red, yellow, white, or black; squirrel or beaver--the only two groups I'm interested in dividing the world into are:

People I trust

People I don't

That's the only distinction that matters to me. All the other bullshit of how they choose to express themselves or distinguish themselves just falls on deaf ears. I don't care enough about anything else about a person to love them despite my not trusting them or hate them despite my trusting them completely.

Just give me someone who can say all the things I never saw before and I'm good (and just make sure they're not a Yankee fan.)

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I Feel Wonderful Because I See, The Love Light In Your Eyes, And The Wonder Of It All, Is That You Just Don't Realize How Much I Love You

--"Wonderful Tonight", Eric Clapton

For the birthday girl...

BRIGHTER THAN THEM ALL
by E. Patrick Taroc

Like the flame from a pilot light,
Boldened and blue, her eyes waver
And a tenderness they betray
As he softly steals her away.
You look so wonderful tonight,
He whispers once they reach the floor
And she’s held in his arms once more,
With each beat her acting braver.

Scared her beauty’s brittle, he knows
She’s always been a fragile fawn,
Shying far from the adoring view
And the acclaim she knows is true.
Yet with him her gracefulness grows,
And sunlight holds fast to her smile
As a truth she can’t reconcile
On her face timidly does dawn.

She asks him if she’s pretty yet,
Shining like stars before they fall--
A birthday girl and birthday dad
Sharing a wish she’s always had.
“By far of all I've ever met....”
And as the band brays their last bars,
He says, “Darling, don’t mind the stars.
Tonight you’re brighter than them all.”

(10/16/07) Copyright 2007 E. Patrick Taroc

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

What Are You Changing? Who Do You Think You're Changing? You Can't Change Things, We're All Stuck In Our Ways

--"Rise Up With Fists (cover)", Rilo Kiley

Back at St. Rita's I was pretty good friends with a set of identical twins name Paul and Phillip. For the most part, they acted like identical twins are supposed to act, which is to say that acted quite alike. They dressed alike, they were involved in the same things, and they even had the same tastes in a lot of different.

The one difference that always struck me as odd was the fact that whenever they went to McDonald's, Paul would get a Big Mac and Phillip would get a Quarter Pounder. I don't know why I always assumed that they would order the same thing, but it always left me with a feeling that of all things to differ on that was by far the most inconsequential. I know food preferences is a matter of taste, but to act and react so alike in so many ways and to diverge on what fast food order always seemed petty to me. I don't know--I always assumed that if either of them were to assert their independence from one another it would have been taking up different musical instruments, which they didn't (they both took up the accordion). Or to hang out with a different crowd of friends. I guess that's why it struck me as weird that to my young mind they were practically indistinguishable from one other except for the whole McDonald's quandary.


and I will rise up with fists
and I will take what's mine mine mine

I don't know if I could have ever been a twin. At the very least I would have made for a very bad one. From a very young age I valued having my own identity almost to exclusion of co-opting anyone else's. I think the pressure to customarily dress, act, and otherwise be a mirror to a sibling would have only served to make me act completely different from him or her. Even taking a look at my own relationship with my brother, it's fairly obvious that I never wanted anyone confusing the two of us for one another. Whenever he got into something I didn't automatically jump into it too. I always had to make sure that it was important to me and it is something I wanted to associate with. Conversely, when he got into something I liked, very often I would abandon it on the simple principle that if it didn't truly matter to me then there was no reason both of us should be doing it. I've always had identity issues in verifying that everyone I knew had a clear idea of what I was about and what I stood for.

I guess you could say that I've never bought into doing something just because everyone else is doing it. As Rachel once wrote, "Right is right even if no one does it, and wrong is wrong even if everyone does it." I believe that not only does it work best when everyone is doing what he or she like, I actually believe that society is much worse off when everyone is of exactly the same mind. I think any group works best when people have various opinions AND still find a way to come to the same conclusion. It's when people start thinking that they should fall in with the rest of the group without examining their principles and beliefs that groups get into trouble.

I guess that's why I always had trouble with the concept of twins. I want to be the only person who thinks like I do and I want to know that when I run into somebody they'll have a vastly different set of beliefs to challenge or strengthen my own.

I want to be able to order a Big Mac when everyone else is ordering a Quarter Pounder or vice-versa.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Do You Dream Of A Cold Alaska?, Better Wrap Up Warm Tonight, All I Know Is We're In A Blue Time, Where The Land Is Snow Drop White

--"Alaska", Camera Obscura

I. Into the Wild

I've begun reading Krakauer's Into the Wild after having seen the film and after much insistence from a friend of mine who swears by it. I don't know if it's the usual read a book/see the movie, excitement that has me really enjoying the idea of getting away from it all, but the more I read from the book, the more I'm falling in love with the idea of getting away from it all. I'm enjoying reading about what it would be like to have no responsibility, no planning, and to just pick up and go when and where you wanted.

Not that I could ever do it for too long. There are practicalities to consider, but I have been toying with maybe more weekend getaways, the kind that I used to do all the time with DeAnn. Say what you will about our time together, but it definitely wasn't the most sedentary period I ever spent in my life. In fact, I don't think I ever did as much traveling as I did when we were together. Maybe it was just to fill time, but I think it was something more. I think the reason why I had such get-up-and-go back then as opposed to now is that I had someone to share it with. When one tends to do the bulk of his traveling alone, it tends to get tedious and uneventful. It was fun to have a partner. Having a companion enriched the trip in ways that I didn't even count on. Places I'd been to before were seen with new eyes when I brought DeAnn along. I guess that's kind of the point, that you get to share in the experience anew when you have somebody who hasn't been there before.

I used to think that the best trips were the ones I did on my own. After all, aren't all the great adventure stories about people who have ventured into the great unknown by themselves and made a go at it? Isn't it more adventuresome to not carry backup with you? Time was that I espoused any company because I thought it would tarnish the pioneer spirit of my sojourns. West Virginia, Maryland, Philadelphia, New York, Boston--these were all trips I made a conscious effort to undertake without towing anybody else. I may have met up with friends once I arrived, but it was never for the full time I was away. And I was the better for it. I don't know how those trips would have turned out had I not had the freedom to go wherever I wanted to go. Being able to be flexible with schedules and timetables made for truly unique experiences.

But the more I read the book, the more it dawns on me that the only reason Christopher McCandless' journey seems so extraordinary is because the fact we were able to relive it through the book. Had he gone off alone, had he died alone, it would have been just another tragic tale of somebody dying in the great Alaskan Wilderness. It's precisely because of the fact we can share in his journey that it becomes a tale worth telling, just like a journey shared by two people is a journey worth taking and talking about. When it's just me, I'm the only person who can relive it and that's not quite the same experience.

II. Northern Exposure

Then, when I start to think about what it would be like to take another fantastic trip out on the open road, it always compels me to the next step of thinking what it would be like to move to a new place, someplace where I didn't know a soul. I always hearken back to Joel Fleischman from Northern Exposure and the whole fish-out-of-water adventure. It's no big secret that I would love to move to Boston someday. I have loved the city every time I've been there. I have loved the people, the sights, the food, the baseball team (of course), just everything. I think about how great it would be to be immersed in such a thoroughfare of knowledge, history, and culture. I think about what kind of person I would turn into from just being exposed to that kind of life day after day.

Sometimes I think I'm scared of moving away from California. I'm scared of being so far from the familiar. Part of me thinks that's why I like traveling so much, because I'm too chicken shit to take a chance on a new city and that I satiate my wanderlust by these occasional jaunts across the country. I always talk this big talk about not needing my family, not needing my friends here. I always talk this big talk about how, if I really wanted, I could leave right now and be okay somewhere else. I always romanticize myself as some stoic lone wolf who could mete out an existence wherever I went.

The real picture is far less noble. The real me has always relied on ritual and routine carefully crafted over the years. There would be so much I would have to change if I, indeed, did move to Boston. Instead of driving up from Santa Monica to Oxnard along PCH when I'm troubled, where would I go when I'm over there? Instead of driving up to the top of Mount Wilson when I go out on a fourth or fifth date, where could I take someone that would be as inspiring? Instead of having literally thousand of places that I can easily relate to an anecdote, I'll have to craft new stories about the new places in my new home city.

True story. I had AOL for two or three years longer than I had to all because I couldn't be bothered to switch all my personal info to a new e-mail address. I'm a man who doesn't like to be bothered with cleaning up after myself. It's not that I don't think I could cut it in a new city if I had to. It's that I'm very impatient when it comes to the small details and I'm very resistant to forging new connections. If something seems to be working one way, I'm loathe to try and improve on it.

That's what Boston would be like for me, a lonely existence at first replete with having to make new friends, learn a new city, and craft new stories to relate to people. It'd be worse than traveling by myself because at least with traveling you can come back from the new and strange. When you move, you're immersed in that new and strange.

I don't know if I'm ready for that yet.

III. Diners

I had a late night snack with Ilessa the other night after spending a day at the beach. We hit up The Kettle, this all-night diner near my cousin's house in Manhattan Beach. We talked about my plan to move to Boston. I could hear the excitement in my voice, the tenable joy in the life I could imagine for myself there. She smiled and nodded like she always does when I get excited about something she knows I'll never follow through with. I mean--what else can you do? She had to be encouraging on the off chance that this is one of the handful of endeavors I actually see through completion in my life. But on the inside she knows this may just be a pipe dream and she knows better to encourage me. She knows better than to get my hopes up because that only means I only feel worse when I quit out on the idea.

That's when I hit upon the memory that Boston has some awesome diners and that that's one thing that might be familiar in an unfamiliar land. There's something comforting about the universal quality of diners and their usual fare of comfort food. I like knowing that no matter which one I walk into they'll probably have a decent two eggs and ham, a decent fish n' chips, maybe some meat loaf. When it comes to being nervous about having to adjust my way of life, eating's never been on the list of things to worry about. There's always a decent diner somewhere nearby. I always get the sense when I bite into a patty melt two thousand miles away from California it always tastes pretty much the same as the one I can get into California.

But it that enough? Is one familiar routine enough for me to establish a foothold in an enemy domain? She shrugs her shoulders. I can't ever quite tell if she's for or against my idea of moving away. She's always lived in California and, as far as I can tell, she's never had designs for ever moving away. She likes it here. She likes everything about here. Sometimes I think she has a hard time wrapping her head around the idea somewhere else can be better. She's like a conservative in her sureness. It's like Southern California works for her, so it must work for everyone else.

I guess that's what I'm looking for, some place I can be sure of. That's why I travel. That's why I want to move. It's much in the same vein that I'm still looking for that one person I can be sure of. I do all this searching, get these bouts of wanderlust, because what I have right now has never felt quite perfect. That's why I go out on these trips, that's why I seem to meet all the wrong women, because no place I've ever lived and no woman I've ever loved has ever hit the nail on the head.

It's like the whole diner theory, I explain to her. I want one city that, no matter which place I go, it feels comfortable for me. I want one person that feels right no matter what time of the day it is, no matter where we end up. It should feel the same every time I walk into my new day.

She says she understands that explanation and we spend the rest of the night talking about other things, aware that we haven't discussed the getaway north for weeks now.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

What I Really Wanna Know, My Baby, What I Really Want To Say I Can't Define, Well, It's Love, That I Need, Oh, But My Soul Will Have To Wait

--"Santeria", Sublime

I'M SORRY I'M LAUGHING
by E. Patrick Taroc

I'm sorry I'm laughing, but so
Much sadness have I always felt,
So many letters have I sent,
Without knowing what my tears meant.
I am laughing because we know
The one picked is the brightest rose
While the rest wait in the repose
Of those in whom coldness has dwelt.
I'm laughing because you did too,
(I know you were never once pleased
To listen to what I had to say)
Letting my chance to say slip away.
Yes, the tears I cried were for you,
But now I laugh because of me...
And at how we both used to be...
And at the chances never seized.
So, sorry if you find me sad
(Something I'm sure you never were);
I tried being how I am for real,
But my feelings you did not feel.
So, for now I'll fake being glad
If that makes us both right once more--

For it's the sad face you ignore
And the laughing face you prefer.

(02/12/95) copyright 1995, 2007 E. Patrick Taroc

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

She Can't Catch Up With The Working Crowd, The Weekend Mood And She's Feeling Proud, Live In Dreams Sunday Girl

--"Sunday Girl", Blondie

Sometimes I wonder which I remember more or which brings more into focus my memories, the events that actually happened to me or the people I met along the way. It's very easy for me to get lost in the what of a story and to forget that the who of the story can be just as memorable. A prime example of this is my trip to D.C. way back in '86.

Back in Sixth Grade I took a trip with a collection of students from my class to Washington D.C. It was an annual trip so the whole time I went to school it was something the younger kids looked forward to. You'd always hear about how great the trip was from the other grades ahead of you and you always dreamed about all the sights you were going to see. And I have to say mine didn't disappoint. I mean--I have so many different anecdotes of all the different things that happened on that one trip. From the Holy Grail of Milkshakes near Thomas Jefferson's house to the naked flashing Superman imitations with half the class in one hotel room--it is probably the one trip I look back on with complete fondness.

One thing I remember on the trip was how awesome it was that we had 2 out of the 3 meals paid for us by the school. Mostly it was of the variety of eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant and being able to order whatever we wanted and then the same thing later that night at a restaurant out somewhere. However, there were some pretty damn fantastic exceptions to the rule when it came to some breakfasts. The first one was that two days the the class had their breakfast at McDonald's. They explained to us that because it wasn't a full sit-down place we could order however much we wanted to and it would be paid for, but if we wanted seconds it would come out of our own pockets. That first time I wasn't myself and didn't think of the best way to exploit the rules so I ordered what I usually ordered, a big breakfast with an extra hash brown.

Mistake.

I realized my faux pas when I saw everyone else with three or four hash browns on their tables. Now I'm a man who loves his hash browns and I should have jumped all over the school's generous offer. That whole breakfast I pretty much complained the entire time that I should have gotten more than two.

That's why the second time we had breakfast at McDonald's and they proffered us the same lucrative deal, I took them at their word. When the counter person asked me that time what I wanted, I made sure I got clarification on the exact conditions my breakfast would be paid for from one of our parental chaperones. Again, I was told I could order as much as I wanted on the house, but seconds would be paid for with my own money. With a big smile on my face I turned back to the guy or girl on register and placed my order. "I'd like a Big Breakfast with an orange juice and thirty hash browns, please."

I felt the person taking my order's befuddlement before I saw it.

"Did you say thirty, sir?"

"Yes, I want thirty extra hash browns."

And that's how I pretty much had snacks for the rest of that day and most of the next. I squirreled away the remaining hash browns in my backpack and took one out whenever I got hungry (or bored). You would think I would have gotten tired after, oh say, the fifteenth straight hash brown, but I don't think I could ever get tired of that. I have a big propensity for eating a lot of the foods I like and almost never eating a food I dislike.

Sufficed to say, when the news broke of my apparent gall at which I took the school's generosity to the extreme, I became sort of a folk hero for the duration of the class trip. If I wasn't being congratulated for having the balls to take advantage of the situation, I was being admonished for the selfsame act. What did I care? I had my hash browns to keep me company.

It's this trait that came in handy when we were taken to a breakfast buffet place on the second to last day of our trip. Again, the school, rather than pay for the steep buffet prices, had worked out with management to provide us kids with the same deal. We could load up on our first trip, but we couldn't go back for seconds. Still remembering my recent victory, I loaded up my tray for bear. Following is the exact list of my breakfast my morning, a breakfast so massive it took six plates in total:

Giant Belgian Waffles (2)
French Toast (4)
Regular Toast (2)

Sausage Links (8)
Ham Steak (2)
Sausage Patties (6)

Scrambled Eggs (1/2 plate)
Sunnyside up Eggs (2)

Hash Browns (1 plate, stacked up about as high as I'd say three or four pancakes tall)

I wasn't planning to eat the entire tray of food, but I was always taught to take more than you think you can eat at buffets, no matter what the sign says. You can never know what one particular place does better than another. That's why I always load up for the first trip and find out what's good. Then, on the second trip, I only pick up the things that passed muster and concentrate on filling up on those items only.

With the rules as they were, though, I would have no chance to load up again. In that spirit, I took enough to fill up on whatever I decided was good on the first run-through. Again, I had no motivation to plow through the entirety of my breakfast.

That is, until the person charging me at the register took a gander at my tray. Nominally, she was there just to oversee that all the students' breakfast got charged to the school's account. But she had other designs. Every student that passed her way she made a point to greet and get to know. She had probably the most pleasant personality I've ever seen in a food service worker. She was the type of employee and job would be glad to have because not only did she make her customers smile, but she brightened up the other employees around her. The best description I could give of her was she was like Little Miss Chipper all grown up.

When it came time for me to pass her way her face spread out into a huge grin.

"Now, child, just how many people are you eating for?"

"Um, myself?" I offered sheepishly.

"And you seriously plan on eating all six plates in one sitting."

If that wasn't a challenge, then I don't know what was. Suddenly, what had originally began as a ploy to hedge my bets on eating the best items the buffet had to offer, became a direct affront to my manhood. I couldn't just let it slide.

"Yes, I do."

She laughed, drawing the attention of everyone around her.

"I tell you what. I bet you fifteen dollars, which was going to be my lunch today, that you can't clean up every single plate on your tray," she told me with the confidence of someone who was accustomed to sizing up someone at first glance.

"Fifteen dollars? No tricks?"

"If you can finish it, it'll be worth fifteen dollars just to see you do it."

I smiled and walked my tray to a nearby table where I knew she could see me. I called my friends over as witnesses and got down to the business of eating.

I used to think she made the bet with me to tease me, sure that there was no way I could win it. Maybe I thought that's the way most adults were, setting limits for children because they thought they knew everything. Back then I was so adamant about finishing everything because I wanted to prove her wrong. I wanted to be right so badly about my eating capabilities that I disregarded any shred of restraint I should have had. What I ate that day pushed me past a condition of full, or of being stuffed. I was literally gorging myself. Yes, I've always been a fan of breakfasts, but the amount of food I ate that morning was probably double the amount of any previous meal I ever ate up to the point. I didn't care. All that mattered to me was that I proved an adult mistaken, this particular adult especially. I've always been defiant about being told what I can and can't do. Breanne and I share that same stubborn quality. I wasn't about to let this one stranger, who had never seen me eat before--to say nothing of hearing about my thirty hash brown exploits a few days prior--get the better of me.

Now I can see I was probably wrong. She probably was as happy as she pretended to be. Rather than her challenging me to make fun of me or to discount my talents, she probably was just looking for a way to amuse herself. She probably did believe I could finish my food if I put my mind to it and was merely goading me into making a spectacle of myself, which I did quite handily. She probably was just looking for a bit of fun and I was more than willing to oblige.

I don't know--it's not often I meet someone who I feel doesn't have a hidden agenda and is as sincerely happy as her demeanor would suggest. That smiling, joking clown of a woman may have been the first of that kind I've ever run into.

When I inevitably finished the food I think I collected my reward with a bit more arrogance than I had intended to. I kind of accepted my money with a bit of "in-your-face" bravado. She took it all in stride, smiling and saying that it was worth her money to have a front-row view of a piece of gastronomic artistry that I unveiled that morning. She told me an eating performance like that comes along only so often and that I had pretty much made her week for her.

That story is one I always tell me because it's still rather funny to me that I let a random waitress compel me into trying to burst my own stomach. But I also tell it as an example of what a magical trip that was and what kind of magical people I met during my time there.

Because that's what she was, someone who was so joyful and jubilant that I have never run into since. She, like the Holy Grail of Milkshakes, like the thirty hash browns, like the six plates of food, is a once-in-a-lifetime type of encounter, never to be duplicated and always to be cherished.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

The Space Between, What's Wrong And Right, Is Where You'll Find Me Hiding, Waiting For You, The Space Between, Your Heart And Mine

--"The Space Between", Dave Matthews Band

Hearing Miss Frisson talk about her big sister Nora, how generous she is with her time and how she's always treated her younger sister as an equal, makes me jealous occasionally. The sincerity in her voice and the eagerness with which she tells me just how much she loves her sister puts Toby in an entirely class of person, as someone way better than myself. I don't think I've ever talked so lovingly of anyone in my family. In fact, I'm sure of it. I don't have the distinction of looking up to anyone in my family. I've never had an older sister, brother, or cousin to emulate. I'm pretty damn close in age to any relative that I get along with so I've never had this relationship of admiring somebody as a role model. Sufficed to say I've never had any notions of emulating my parents, but hearing her talk, I'm convinced I would have appreciated having an older sister, someone to go to for advice I could trust.

Brandy believes my reasons run much deeper than wanting somebody to confide in, though. Her and I have talked about my issues in length and, although she's not a licensed therapist or psychologist, some of her ideas make sense to me. She believes I harbor an unresolved fixation with the idea of sleeping with a sister. In much the same vein of an Oedipal complex, she thinks that from an early age I've had this desire for somebody I could be close with in every way, which manifested in an ongoing fascination with incestuous themes. All of it--all the weird behavior, the ease at which I drive people away, the self-destructive behavior--stems from the idea that there really is no one in the world I feel I can trust or depend on or love. Instead, I have become focused on the notion that had I had an older sister, I would have turned out fine. I would have had somebody in my own household that I could have come to in times of need, times of joy, and would been free to tell her everything that I was feeling like Toby is able to discuss anything with her two older sisters. More importantly, at least Brandy thinks for me, I would have had somebody who would have been able to express their feelings for me in a fashion that nobody in my immediate family has ever been able to do.

I don't buy into the complete theory, but it does explain a lot. Early on in my friendship with B., I've commented that she really felt like a younger sister. I always thought I said it aloud as a compliment to her, as a remark on how close I felt with her, to let her know she was appreciated. Now I see it could have been an affirmation directed back at me as a way to process my feelings for her. It's fairly illogical and twisted, but I had associated the feeling of having a younger sister to the feeling of being in love with someone, because I hadn't really experienced either at that point. Telling Breanne that I loved her like a sister was akin to my confessing to her that I was in love with her. The closest I can explain how those usually two separate ideas of love got twisted around one another is to point towards The Blue Lagoon. Like those castaways, sometimes you can mistake the intimacy that you have with a beloved sibling, that complete trust and feelings of joy, with the same sort of intimacy one has with a lover. Somewhere along the way I had broken down that wall, if it was ever up in the first place.

I think it's a real breakthrough that I've figured this much out. I've told various friends and relatives various pieces of where a lot of my odd behavior originates. I always thought I had a moderate case of being anti-social. Now I'm really mulling over the idea that I feel cheated somehow. It's like I have this idea that an older or younger sister I share everything with is the key to my having turned out well-adjusted. Yet, because I was denied that, I turned out the way I did. It's also the reason why I have such narrow criteria to the women I date. I'm not looking merely somebody to be a lover or a friend. It's like I'm looking for someone as close as family that I just happen to sleep with.

I admit, it's worrisome harboring such thoughts. I didn't want to admit to myself that these fantasies of sleeping with some imaginary sister had any part of my psyche. However, the more I've really poured over this idea and confided my thoughts on the subject with various parties, the more I see it's really been an idea I've had all along. I just never gave it voice before. I always thought it would mean I actually was the monster people thought me to be. Now I see that's not true. The root cause of this fetish is wanting to find love and there's nothing more universal that that. I guess sometime long ago I decided I wasn't ever really loved as a kid and that, if I had a sister, I could have been loved and I have really given out love freely in return.

I think that's always going to be my struggle, to realize that I'm never going to find that sisterly relationship in anyone and that I can't keep foisting that level on intimacy on people. I have to lose the idea that having a girlfriend or a wife is not a poor substitute to having a sister. Otherwise, I'm going to go through life being disappointed when I try to open to somebody and they don't immediately avail themselves to me... like I think my phantom sister would have.

I'll never have a sister and it's time I stop trying to pigeonhole woman I like into that role.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers