Since You've Gone I've Been Lost Without A Trace, I Dream At Night I Can Only See Your Face, I Look Around But It's You I Can't Replace

--"Every Breath You Take (cover)", UB40 from the 50 First Dates Original Soundtrack

I was watching 50 First Dates tonight on my own. In fact, today was pretty much spent all by my lonesome. After being surrounded by friends and family all yesterday, it was nice to get a chance to recover without feeling hampered by having to be anywhere specific to meet any specific people. Plus, I've always liked 50 First Dates, but it's never been very high on anyone else's list of must-see movies. Say what you will, but there's something insanely sweet about the entire concept behind that movie. I always appreciate the opportunity to watch it in its entirety.

The aspect of the movie I identify with is the concept of romance. The entire movie is basically centered around the question of whether or not one person can romance the same person if the circumstances change. It's basically a long experiment regarding whether circumstances and environment play more of a part in whether two people fall in love than actual chemistry. From the first time I saw it I absolutely adore the notion that, despite everything, if you get the same two people together sparks are going to fly. Maybe it's the romantic in me. Maybe it's the idea that I can belay the concept of destiny in all things save love that speaks to me. All I know is that when I see Henry continually chase after Lucy day after day, having to romance her all over again when she wakes up with no memory of him, I empathize. That's the part of chasing after someone that's always puzzled me the most, the one that I've spent the most time trying to work out for myself. I know what attracts me to someone else and what keeps me interested in them. For the most part, I know what other people find best about me. But the facet that's always stumped is what keeps me and someone else together, what is that mystical connection that cements us together. I've always thought it has to go beyond attraction. That only lasts so long. I've always believed in the concept of soul mates.

I'm telling you right now--I don't know if I could do what Henry does. I don't know if I'd have the strength to continually make someone fall in love with me. I've always found the chase exhausting. The part I cherish the most is just after the chase, when the bond starts to become more solid. To me to know that somebody could reject me depending on the day or depending my approach would dishearten me to no end. I'm very easily discouraged. Like most, when I put out the effort and when I put myself on the line to acknowledge my feelings to a young woman, I want to know that it yielded favorable results. I don't want my efforts to have been in vain. Hearing someone I liked and I know liked me only the day before reject me would have the effect of crushing me. It would point to the signs that we aren't soul mates. In a perfect world, under those circumstances, soul mates would still be batting a hundred percent. It would destroy any faith I had that true love exists.

That's why I like 50 First Dates; it allows me to believe that someone I might end up with could love me no matter what occurs or how we meet or what I happen to say to her. There's a reassurance in movies like this, where the guy ends up with the girl in the end despite all obstacles.

I also like the fact that it explores the concept of the totality of one's emotions. Lucy speaks in the film of not wanting to hold Henry back from his life when she breaks up with him. To this, Henry responds in the film's climax something to the effect that his life can only continue with her in it. He doesn't say that she is his life. He doesn't say that he'll die without her. He says that he can't imagine the rest of his life without her. I like that distinction. I like that idea that he feels sorely compelled to include her in with the plans he's already made for himself rather than building his plans around what she wants to do. Yes, love takes compromise to a certain extent, but to another extent it also means building a life for yourself while at the same time making provisions should the right person come along.

It's just like the video game this movie reminds me of, Final Fantasy X. In that film the main couple, Yuna and Tidus, also endure an almost passionate relationship that is derailed by an almost impossible situation. After seeing and listening to the moving gradual courtship between the couple for almost forty hours of game time, the player is almost devastated to find out near the game's end that what he or she is witnessing is not a happy ending fairy tale. What the player comes to find out is that he or she is watching one of the saddest and most tragic love stories every imagined. What the player finds out is that Tidus isn't even real. Taking a page from stories like Cinderella and A Little Mermaid, Tidus' time as the person who Yuna thinks he is is limited. However, it's even more tragic because Tidus is the preserved memory of a town that was on the brink of destruction of almost fifty years before Yuna was even born. To save the town from an evil, a wizard preserved the town and all of its inhabitants in an almost suspended animation. Tidus walked and lived for those intervening fifty years without realizing he wasn't getting older or changing or even that he could never his town. Then one day he did and met Yuna. Ultimately, when that evil is defeated after many months of questing (and falling in love with Yuna), Tidus discovers that without the evil the reason for the spell is broken. He and Yuna come to find out that his destiny is to fade away into the nothing since he's only a memory of the real Tidus that would've died long ago.

Their farewell is probably one of the saddest good-byes in cinema history, live action or animated:



I admit it--I'm a sucker for a good unrequited love story. I enjoy hearing about two people who are meant for one another that are kept apart, who finally make it through in the end. But what really gets to me are stories like 50 First Dates and Final Fantasy X, where two people find each other and ultimately lose each other through no fault of their own. It's why I like Eponine's story too. I enjoy tragic love stories because it reinforces that when two people find each other that that's the most beautiful thing in the world. Whether or not they stay together is secondary. Whether or not they eventually reconnect is secondary. Whether or not they can never be together again is secondary.

It's the finding of one another that is beautiful. It's the proof that there's one person out there that you're meant to be with that is beautiful. That's where the real romance is, in the connecting.

That's what love is to me.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

When You Were Young, And On Your Own, How Did It Feel, To Be Alone? I Was Always Thinking, Of Games That I Was Playing

--"Only Love Can Break Your Heart (cover)", St. Etienne

I dyed my hair for the umpteenth time today. It really struck me that I've been doing this particular act off and on for quite a while now. I mean--I started noticing I was getting gray hairs as far back as the sixth grade. Back then, I never did anything about it because one really had to search through my tangled tresses to find even one or two specimens. But as the years started to add up I started to notice that I would get them more frequently. Maybe it's just the fact my natural hair color is coal black that they show up so easily in contrast, but it often felt like to me that I got more than my fair share of them far younger than I should have.

I began to experiment with dying it to cover up the fact I was getting them at all. It wasn't a vanity project (or maybe it was); I didn't care particularly that it made me look older or out of place with my peers. The reason I ostensibly dyed it was because I've always had an aversion to growing up too fast. The Breannes of the world might have quested for being recognized as an adult in their youth, but I was always of the mindset that my youth was slipping far too quickly. Getting gray hairs was only one sign of it. Luckily, it was the one sign that I could do something about. I never dyed it religiously. However, as soon as I thought it was getting too out of control for its own good, I would come along and blend it black or brown, whatever the case may be. It was my way of slowing the signs of aging in a misguided attempt to pretend I wasn't as mature as I really was. I couldn't do anything about the fact my friends were moving away or going on with their own lives; I couldn't do anything about having to get a job or finding my own place; and I couldn't do anything about people my age dying, either in the news or in my actual life. But, goddamn it all, I could do something about my own hair.

The thing is that no matter how often I dyed my hair, it would always go gray in parts again. Just like as often as I try to avoid the subject of my life changing all the time, there's nothing I can do to fix it in place, to secure it exactly as I want to remain. Like they said on Avonlea, "Nothing endures but change," and it seems like my life changes quicker than most. Well, actually, that's not true. It seems the life around me changes than most. DeAnn and Breanne (ha, that rhymes) get married; all of my friends that I had in high school move to other parts of the country; and my love life seems to fluctuate between tumultuous at best to being non-existent. Yet I seem stuck in the same persistent state of lackadaisical living that I've always adhered to. I try to change as little as possible about my day-to-day routine as I possibly can. Even my profiles state that all I do is "eat, watch, read, write, and travel." Aside from the traveling, those activities don't lend itself to much experimentation. I could literally eat, watch, read, and write all the same things for the rest of my life and not be any more happy or less happy than I am now. That isn't to say I don't try new things; it just means the discovery is the least enticing aspect of finding something new under the sun. For me, the best facet of finding something new is the working of it into my daily routine, the covering up of the fact that it was ever outside of my routine.

The more I try, though, the more I realize that I'm playing a game with time that I can't possibly win. There are parts to my routine that simply can't go on as they are. I'm losing touch with what makes living a life and leading a life different from each other. I'm letting the world outside myself dictate how I live; I'm reacting to stimuli instead of acting apart from it. There's going to come a point where everything will fall apart and my routine, my comfort zone, is just not going to hold up under scrutiny.

There's going to come a point where covering up that my life is changing everyday with a bit of color and polish is not going to do the trick anymore. There's going to come a point where my age and the years of neglecting the years that have gotten me this far are going to catch up to me once and for all.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

It's Hard To Be The Last To Show, Anticipation Is So Hard To See, If You Know, Don't Let It Show, Think It Over And Come Back To Me

--"Final Say", Sambassadeur

We stopped in that park where we had painted the bobbing horse tan just the year before. Then, I had told you to leave it alone as if it was a crime to touch up a few spots where the paint had chipped off. You then went on to inform that it wasn't like we were vandalizing the horse; that, if we were stopped by the police or some other concerned citizen, we were doing our civic duty to restore the old girl to as good as new. Our duty, you said, as if the park was in our backyard. I told you they had people for that kind of task. It wasn't our responsibility. Parks are for playing in--not for worrying, I reminded you. All you did was go back to smoothly applying the coat to the equine-shaped piece of equipment. I took a step away, but no more than a step. Reluctantly I came back to help you. You took out an old red brush from where you had been keeping it hidden in your knapsack, smiling devilishly, knowing full well that I would cave.

Then, it had been a matter of being stubborn why I never said I wanted to help, why I just pitched in.

"Not so well," you replied with the tone of somebody who had much less serious news to impart.

Your words floated out lightly with all the urgency of telling someone that you were cold. Then, as if to complete the image, you wrapped the blue-and-white scarf around your neck once more. You didn't even wait for me to let the news sink in. You didn't stand there expecting me to say something back. What could I say? You merely took your hands in your pockets and started to walk to the old wooden monkey bar and bridge set. After allowing myself some time to process your words, I followed you. I was careful to keep a few steps behind you. I didn't want to walk beside you if you needed some time to compose yourself. But somehow I knew that wasn't it. You never even paused in your actions. You walked to the wooden stairs, grabbed the metal arches they used as rails, and sat down. Your head never hung down. You didn't start to cry. You just sat there, waiting for me to catch up with you.

I walked up to you, but instead of sitting next to you, I just stood in front of you. There wasn't any room anyhow. I couldn't count how many times I've sat beside on those some steps. I just couldn't bring myself to do it this time. Those other times when I sat there, they were in happier times. I sat next to you during those times when we had just walked home from school and didn't feel like jumping straight into dealing with our extended families. I sat next to you during those times when you had beamed about how well you had finished in your last track meet. I sat next to you during those times when you had just gotten back from Vancouver and simply had to tell me all about it. Those weren't just some steps Those were happy steps. This wasn't a happy occasion. I couldn't sit on them because if what you were telling me were true, then those steps would forever be the opposite of happy steps. That's why I stood.

When I looked at you, you weren't exactly smiling. You seemed lost in your own thoughts and I didn't feel very much like getting lost right along with you. I wanted to stay objective. I wanted to stay composed because that's what I thought you needed from me at the time. Your blue sweater blurred into your blue jeans. It was rather difficult making out in the nighttime light where one ended and the other began. Or maybe my senses were failing. In either case, seeing your body blend in upon itself had the effect of making your face stand out--well, your face and that scarf of yours. You looked like a floating head with two long tendrils extending from it. I can't even imagine what I must have looked like. I'm assuming a grey shirt blended just as neatly into the horizon as dark blue did. I remembered thinking, you know what, I'm betting that everything else would have faded no matter what you had been wearing. It's funny how your perception plays tricks on you like that when you're truly focusing upon a singular object or a singular thought. It's like staring at the black area of a flame. I read somewhere that if you stare long enough at that empty space, everything else fades around it until all you can see is the flame. That's what your face was, the flame of a candle that I could have stared at all night.

It wasn't like us not to talk. The silence was a wall between us. I didn't know if you were fielding questions just yet or if the silence was an invitation to change the subject. I didn't know which way I was supposed to go. The funny thing about walls, though, is that if you climb high enough they can also act as bridges. That's exactly what you did after you had had enough of me staring at the nothingness beside and around you. You climbed up those few steps to start crossing the wooden bridge. At the pace you traversed them, you were practically telling me to chase you. Again, it took a few moments, but I gave into my basic instincts and scampered after you. There we were, kids acting like kids. The girl who ran track with her scarf flailing wildly behind her and the boy who emphatically didn't run track doing his best just to keep up with her.

It was a short run. We basically did a circuit of the structure. When we came back to the steps, you sat right back down. Your breathing wasn't in the least bit labored. If I hadn't just chased you I wouldn't have thought you had gotten up from those stairs at all. I had played this game before with you, the one where you pretend like you had been there the entire time. Then, when I tried to scrutinize the look on your face, you would just sit there. "Oh, did you just get here? I've been here for ages," your non-smile seemed to say. Running without running, gloating without gloating, that's the exact thought you want to convey. I shook my head. I didn't want to give you the satisfaction of voicing my annoyance. The fact you had suckered me into running at all was enough to let you know I was annoyed. There wouldn't be any point in actually saying the thought aloud. Complaining without complaining, that was me that night.

A few days later you asked me if ever had any intention of talking to you that night about what you had told me. I told you that I wasn't sure. I was waiting for you to say something more about it first, I explained. You said you had thought the same thing regarding me. It wasn't my place to talk about it if you didn't want to talk about it, I continued. Well, it wasn't my place to force you to talk about it if you were uncomfortable. I suppose one of those times you sat down I should have taken the opportunity to comment, or to console, whatever you needed. Sometimes, though, I need that visual clue that allows me to take a step in the right direction. You seriously couldn't have expected me to take a stand on something without seeing where you stood first. That wasn't my m.o. I was the only guy you could count on to back you up. But how could I back you up if I didn't know which direction you wanted to go in the first place? That was a little unfair of you. You know me. You need to tell me where to go before I'll go. You need to tell me what to say before I could say it. You needed to tell me how I was supposed to feel about all of that before I could feel it. It would never seem real to me, no matter what you said, until I could see for myself how real it was to you. The way you carried yourself--even the way you sat--it didn't seem at all real to you. You had said the words, but the words hadn't taken effect yet. For all I knew, that was just some more of your game-playing. You had been reciting a story to me. That's all you had been doing up until we got to the park. I wouldn't take you at your word until you started acting it out.

I couldn't.

You couldn't be what you say you were because you didn't look it. That would be like you telling me you were a bat and you still looking like yourself. You couldn't be those words because those words didn't look right on you. The truth was something you could see, you could touch, you could paint, you could run after. It wasn't something that just lingered in the wind, making you sad and torn up all inside. It wasn't something that just left pain behind it without a means to fight it. The truth wasn't some jargon you repeated to me because you wanted me to know. The truth was your face, and your face still moved and changed as if it were something very much full of life.

When you saw I wasn't going to sit next to you yet again, you stood up. You took the long end of your scarf and tossed it to me like Indiana Jones tossing the end of his whip. I grabbed on. You were going to pull me to safety, I thought, or at least lead me to that area of the park where we could finally talk about what it was you wanted to come there to talk about. You took a step towards the horse, then another. I let the scarf become taut before I reluctantly was dragged in behind you. It didn't take you long to reach your target. You came up beside the tan horse as if you were mounting a real horse. You brushed the mane playfully. You stroked beneath the chin, effectively trying to calm it down. Finally, I watched you get on the horse slowly. As you started to bounce slightly on the horse, I came up behind you so as to wrap the dragging end of your scarf around you again.


when it's over, when it's done
we'll be together, we'll be as one

I sat down on the steps just to watch you gallop away on the horse. The happy steps could at last be put to good use by me because that was a sight I'd be happy to hold onto. The way your lips drew up into the biggest grin I'd seen all day from you, the way your scarf kept threatening to become entangled in the springs of the bobbing horse, the way you hunched your back over to pretend you were speeding away from some invisible pursuers--they all coalesced into the image of the girl I still knew. There would be plenty of time to get to know the person you were going to become, once the truth hit. That night was still a night to memorialize the girl you used to be and the one you'd always remain to me at least.

Maybe that had been your plan all along. Maybe that was your next "painting the horse" scam. You knew I wouldn't want to talk about it and that's why you had opted to tell me last. You knew your whole family would want to do nothing but talk about it so you anticipated keeping my blissfully unaware for as long as possible. Then, when you finally did work out the right time to tell me, you told me in a way as to elicit no response. You posted the news as a bulletin written on water, impossible to write back upon. You wanted me to be the last to know because you wanted me to be the last to show how much it was going to affect me.

I think that's why you insisted telling me in the park. I think that's why you insisted on telling me late at night. There would be no time to really discuss it over and there would be ample space to let the dampened mood to float away. I can only imagine if you had chosen to tell me in your room or if you had chosen to tell me in the afternoon. We probably would have delved and dived as deeply as possible into every facet of what was going to happen to you. I probably would have struck a nerve or pushed you too far. You were smart in choosing the right battlefield as you did. You handled yourself capably and showed why it was I always tagged in along behind you and not the other way around.

That's how the evening ended. You rode the horse. I watched from the steps for another hour. Neither one of us mentioned to the other anything about the big reveal. I just watched you smiling, playing the way you had millions of other times we had come to this park. Tomorrow was a time we had decided to leave for another day. As far as we were concerned we weren't anticipating anything, we weren't expecting anything. We refused to let ourselves become worried about something that was still only words spoken aloud, first to her, then to me. Words couldn't hurt you. And if they couldn't hurt you, then they sure as hell couldn't hurt me.

After all, parks were for playing in. Not for worrying. Besides, I was hoping if you could ride that horse fast enough, you might just get away somehow.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

You Sit Around Getting Older, There's A Joke Here Somewhere And It's On Me, I'll Shake This World Off My Shoulders, Come, Baby, This Laugh's On Me

--"Dancing in the Dark", Bruce Springsteen

Nancy Drew turns twenty-two today.

Normally, I wouldn't even mention it since she and I aren't exactly on the best of terms right now, but it's hard not to think about it when her birthday reminder pops up every time I start Facebook. It's a little regretful when I think that last year at this time she and I were out celebrating this birthday and this year I'm considering allowing the date to slide by without incident. Sometimes I think it's amazing how much can change in the course of a year. Last year at this time I was thinking that she and I would remain on good terms even after she moved to wherever she found a job. This year I most often can't even be bothered to call her to wish her well--fight or no fight.

I'm not a huge advocate of making a big deal about birthdays at any rate--there's only a few of them each year that I genuinely remember off the top of my head and most of those don't rate more than a text or comment in passing--but I generally at least acknowledge the fact it is a huge milestone for people. Ilessa's birthday, though, only dredges up the fact of how far and fast we've fallen. I don't much feel like celebrating any aspect of it. I suppose it's the same sense of dread people get around the holidays. Rather than reveling in the fact that they are with family and friends, they choose to dwell on how alone and miserable they are. That's me. All I can think of this year is how much better we were last year.

Part of me wants to bury the hatchet and just call the girl. The other part is still telling me, "Fuck her. You don't need here. She only makes you miserable." I don't know which part will prevail. I'm predisposed to think it will be the latter. In my life I've always found it easier to walk away from people who've squandered all their good faith with me. While it isn't exactly a system of three strikes and you're out, I do have a personal sense of how much I'm willing to take from a person. I'm not a saint, but I do have feelings. When someone like her repeatedly steps all over them and tries to placate me by saying, "that's just the way she is," it bothers me. More to the point, it annoys me. I mean--I can take someone being rude. I'm not the model of grace and decorum either. I can take someone having a temper. I have one as well. I can even take someone I have trouble conversing with at times. Not everyone likes to talk for talking's sake. However, in the few years I've known her, she's pressed on these specific buttons of mine time and time again.

Her blowing up back in early June was just an excuse for me to walk away from someone I consider extremely volatile and quite possibly the type of person I should be avoiding.

And yet.

And yet I'm stuck in the quandary of the fact that we've been friends for a few years now. Coupled to the fact that I'm not exactly swarming with friends, I'm questioning just how awful is awful in regards to her. It's not like she blew up and then walked away. She blew up and then tried to apologize a few days later. That, in some small way, is respectable. No one likes someone who's being mean-tempered, but I can at least recognize the effort it takes to admit you're wrong and the swallowing of pride it takes to offer an apology. It kind of falls to me not to be the asshole now and accept her peace offering. And, while I'm sure she'll do something to break the fences just as quickly as she's mended them, I'm also staring at the fact she is a genuine person, prone to act out on emotion, which I've been accused of myself more than once. Possibly, as Brandy says, the reason I get so fed up with Nancy is the fact I recognize she possesses some of the same off-putting personality faults that I see in myself. Maybe the same reasons she and I get along or also the same reasons she elicits thoughts of abandonment so easily.

I don't know what to do. Her birthday is the perfect opportunity to get the dialogue flowing again. It would be nice to hear from her again. On the other hand, there has been a comforting sense of serenity in my life since we stopped talking. Actually, ever since Miss Flib and Miss Nancy Drew departed from being so front and center in my thoughts, I rarely get all wrapped up in trying to be impressive for anyone. That's a huge weight off my shoulders. There's a peacefulness that can only exist within when you eliminate those people who do nothing but stir disappointment and apprehension time and time again. Sure, they'll provide that sense of adventure too--that's the nature of their ken, stirring passions both scintillating and poisonous--but that sense never lasts. It's their inconstancy that makes them great to be around, but also makes them a pain in the arse to deal with the longer you have to stay around them at one time. She's the type of person that's better experienced in short bursts. I've always thought that. It could be that all I'm experiencing is the same old pattern where I get to missing her and have to renew relations. Then, in a few weeks or whenever, I'll remember what a constant struggle it is to keep my tongue in check around her. Then it'll be back to cooling things off again.

Maybe all I'm experiencing is the fact that this is the longest I've gone without talking to her since we met.

I'm starting to think it's inevitable. Ilessa is that rare creature who's bad enough to be a nuisance at times, but not bad enough to leave completely. I can think of a dozen reasons why she isn't the best friend I've ever had, but none of them separately or put together are enough for me to say I'm done with her for good.

Somehow I get the feeling when her next birthday rolls around I'll be having the same exact argument with myself that I'm having now.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I Am The Wilderness Locked In A Cage, I Am A Growing Force You Kept In Place, I Am A Tree Reaching For The Sun, Please Don't Hold Me Down

--"Release Me", Oh Laura

At the end of this month I will be moving from Harbor City to Long Beach. It will be the second time I've moved in 2 1/2 years and the third time overall. It also marks the milestone of being the first time where I won't be having a female roommate. More importantly, it's going to be the first time I'll be moving towards something better as opposed to away from something worse. Up until now each one of my moves has been because I didn't like the situation I had been in. I moved, not knowing what to expect, but hoping that it would be better than what I was leaving behind. That's not the case in this situation. I've loved living with Amber. I've loved my first experience with a real adult job with a real adult place where I wasn't beholden to anyone. I couldn't say that with DeAnn because I still kind of answered to her while we were living together; I still had to run plans and expenses by her. Here, now, it was the first time where I didn't have to check in with anyone or leave a schedule of where I was headed off to. Hell, I didn't even need to explain where and what I was doing, even after being gone for weeks at a time.

If anything the only place holding me back while I've been here was me. I had all the freedom in the world, something that I always thought I was lacking, and I didn't have the slightest clue as to where to direct it. I wasted a lot of time staying home, playing it safe, and basically being the same person I was when I was living with my parents and when I was living with DeAnn. With them I thought it was them keeping me home because it was too much of a hassle to check in all the time. For the same reason I don't often say hello or good-bye to people, because I don't like calling attention to myself, I didn't bother trying to stay out late as often as I could or just go like I wanted to. Instead, I opted to stay home more often than not simply because the excursion wasn't worth the effort explaining it later on. Sure, I went out more on my own and for longer than I ever have before--flying half-a-dozen times to Boston, once to Chicago with Breanne, once to Louisville to visit Toby, and just recently going up to San Francisco to see Jenny--without ever telling a single soul what my plans were, but there were also a ton of times where I didn't do much because I didn't feel like doing much.

I'm hoping this move will change all that. I'm hoping that the new scene with the new roommate will open me to the level I originally intended myself to get to. I mean--I liked the fact that Amber were both quiet kind of folk while we were sharing the space here. But that also meant that we didn't get to know and interact with one another as much as I would have liked. We hardly went anywhere together or hung out. In fact, I think I can count the number of times we actually did that on one hand or barely two. That's a lot my fault. I don't exactly invite new friendships if I can avoid it. I'm very first-impressions oriented and there are fewer and fewer individuals who make a good impression on me. I like doing what I like doing and the people I find in those places are the ones I tend to hang around the most. I don't like trying other people's interests if it isn't already isn't my interest. That's why I think she and I never did too many things together. I was already set in my ways and somebody new wasn't going to change that.


please don't hold me down

However, my new roommate and I enjoy a lot of the same things, which I'm hoping means that it'll get me out of the house more with other people. I've down the whole doing what I like by myself for awhile now. And I've down the whole hanging out with the same people from Bally's and people I know from Rilokiley.net for awhile now. I've also been seeing the same set of faces at my weekly board game meetings. It's time I was introduced to a new crowd, doing things I normally wouldn't do. It's time I step out of my comfort zone.

Some of my first posts here regarded the lack of excitement in my life and how I was planning to change that. And, while I've certainly lived through a lot of close calls and rather interesting experiences in the last four years, as Breanne would say, "that ain't nothing, sugar." It's not nearly enough. I should've done more. I could've done more. Like I said, these last 2 1/2 years the only person holding me back was me.

No more.

At the end of this month I'm putting forth the effort to let myself go even more and get on with the business of doing whatever the fuck I please and not just the same 'ole same 'ole.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Everyday I Wake Up, I Choose Love, I Choose Light, And I Try, It's Too Easy Just To Fall Apart

--"You Me & The Bourgeoisie", The Submarines

I started reading 9 Chickweed Lane in 1994 when it first started showing up in the L.A. Times. It was something to read and laugh at while I was waiting for classes at USC to start.

I've always loved the interplay between the main characters of Edda and Amos.

Finally, after 14 years, starting when they were in junior high and lasting till now, of teasing the audience with this dancing around the issue it looks like they're finally going to consummate the relationship.









This kind of makes me happier than when my friends actually get together because it's like I've been following these two for half of my life, from when they were in that awkward "we're just friends" stage to the recent "we're dating but open to see other people" college stage.

Till now, I always thought this would be how Edda and Amos would remain in the strip when dealing with each other:



People always claim I hold onto 9 Chickweed Lane so tightly because it closely mirrors my story. Dorky guy becomes fast friends with talented and pretty girl who inevitably remain close for a titan's age until they have some kind of detente that settles everything once and for all? Nope, that doesn't sound like anyone I know, right? In reality, though, I knew I grew to like the strip almost in spite of it reminding me and her. The real reason I like it is because it presents reality in this skewed and often hilarious point-of-view that kind of matches my perception. Of course, it mirrors the koala and donkey aspect of my life because it often mirrors other aspects of my life. From the struggles one generation experiences in dealing with the one before it, to the way friends both help and hinder you at different times, to the way no one stays very long in one role in your life--there's a lot more reminiscent of my life than just the friends-become-lovers aspect to the story.

Most of all what ties it all together--and to me--is the fact that the strip almost has a cautious approach to love. I always write about how true romantic love often adopts this wistful and forlorn quality. More great romances are spent in waiting than in the actual doing. For the most part this could be true of all life. The strip almost presents our time on earth as being 80% finding out what we want to do and 20% actually doing it. From finding out how we really feel to what really we want to do with our lives--the characters always seem to be in a constant search for what will make them happy and fretting that every choice they make will inevitably lead them to actually making them unhappy. It's this search and almost fatalistic attitude to living that I agree with.

I don't know if every choice I will make or made is right, but in the end I make my choices, worried that it won't turn out for the best, and have to live with them.

That's Edda.

That's Amos.

That's Breanne.

That's Toby.

And that's me. I can only hope that someday I find my trip to Brussels to put it all together.

Yours Swimmingly,,
mojo shivers

What Are We Going To Do With You? You Don't Make It Easy On Me, What Am I Supposed To Do, If You Won't Let Me Help You, Why Won't You?

--"Godspeed (live)", Jenny Lewis

Around 2002 I found out my friend Jennifer was having to deal with a slightly obsessive boyfriend, Steve. But, before then, I didn't even know word one about what was going on. I don't how long it went on before she felt strong enough to tell me and she rarely talked about how truly bad it got. It was just one of those situations where once it's resolved, people rarely talk about it again. Jennifer certainly would never bring it up again to me and I doubt there was anyone else in her life that she would discuss it with. As she told me repeatedly when I asked about Steve, "Steve's gone. Steve's history. Steve won't be coming back." And that was that.

I mean--it's understandable. No one wants to relive those horrible chapters of their lives because no one wants to face the reality that, to a certain extent, they are responsible for getting themselves into the situation. The pattern of our lives may not be entirely of our doing, but every decision we make impacts what happens to us to a greater or lesser degree. And when bad things happen, as bad things often do, it's hard to reconcile the fact that somehow, in some way, we got ourselves there. The same rationale floats through my head when I read headfirst into a harsh reality; the same rationale I'm sure must have been floating through Jennifer's head when that night came. Thoughts like "how did it come to this?" and "how do I get out of this?" must have been running through her mind for at least a few days before she ever approached me because that's not the type of assistance you ask for lightly. That's the type of help that takes careful consideration. People don't like to ask for help, and some people especially don't like to ask for help. Jennifer always was one of the latter. She never wanted to admit that she wasn't capable enough of doing something on her own. Never.

Yet, in the same way I still shake my head at her not offering up the news that she was dying, I kind of fault her a little for not clueing me or someone else in on the stalker ex-boyfriend situation sooner. I don't know if anything could have been done sooner. I don't know if anything would have needed to be done sooner, but I do know that my help would have been there to be given to her freely without her having to ask me if I knew some of the particulars a few weeks earlier. I'm sure I wouldn't have been the only one to offer. There were a lot of people that could have handled him in a dozen ways that might have been somewhat less traumatic or dramatic.

I've never been a rather private person. I possess my secrets, sure, but there are a lot of places where people can pick through my life in a comprehensive manner if they opt to do so. Moreover, there are very few questions I hesitate to answer if there is an answer I can succinctly give. It's just part of my policy not to hold back when it comes to me and my history. Other people, though, found solace in being withholding when it comes to the events that shaped them or continue to shape them. Whether it's due to not wanting to burden someone else with their baggage or a sense of entitlement that dictates to them that what they go through is theirs and theirs alone to own, people can become guarded with some of the stories they lived or are living through. To some extent these experiences are their valuables to hold in reserve or give as freely as they wish, but to another extent sometimes these experiences are like so much deadweight tying them down. And sometimes the only way to get rid of them is to loosen them from your person by sharing the experience with someone else, anyone else who you trust enough to listen.

I'll just say it. I don't quite understand why people hold the various factors, causes, or originators of pain in their lives to themselves. Especially people. I don't understand why, when most individuals are surrounded with a least a handful of people who love and care for them, these individuals can't unburden themselves by saying what or who what is hurting them, by recounting what or who may have hurt them in the past, by broadcasting what or who may be threatening to hurt them in the future. It doesn't make sense to me. It took Tara almost eight months after I met her to tell me of that night she was almost sexually assaulted at her high school dance. It took Brandy almost two months to even let me in that her fiance Joshua died before they could ever get married. And it was almost longer than those put together before DeAnn told me some of the awfulness of her experience growing up. I mean--even while I was hearing these stories and others, one of the first things that comes to my mind is the question of why I wasn't told sooner. Maybe it's insensitive, but I tend to trust people with my secrets and shames rather early on and if anything close to what happened to them had happened to me, that's the story I would have led with. Those are the kinds of tales that I want other people to know, to better explain why I hurt or why I react in certain circumstances in the way I do. Those are the kinds of secrets that I wish people could trust me sooner with.

With Jennifer, I guess the problem was that for some time before she actually told me I knew she was having a rough time. I don't know what was eating at her, thus, I didn't know what to say or do to assist her. I somehow guessed she was in trouble, but waiting to see how best to help her or even if she needed help was, at the time, kind of worse than after finding out. After all, I knew how to deal with obsessive behavior after being on both sides of the mirror regarding that issue. I heard and lived through a few of the results of that kind of behavior coming to its inevitable conclusion--none of which are pretty, but some are relatively safer than others. What I didn't have much experience with was the lack of communication. My other friends I couldn't have helped while what was happening to them happened. I couldn't have been in the car with Tara, I couldn't have stopped Joshua dying even if I knew when and where it had happened beforehand, I couldn't have been with DeAnn every second of those dark days. It's hard to be of help when all the worst things a person has gone through were months or years in the past. But Jennifer was different. Her situation had been happening in the present tense. Hers was a problem I could have been giving advice or even helping firsthand with long before it came to its terrifying conclusion. I often wonder how everything would have turned out had I known about Steve sooner.

Yet, even as I sit here, I'm sure Jennifer had her reasons to keep this affair private. I'm sure she thought she was doing the right thing by handling it on her own. I mean--no one makes a choice to intentionally muck up their lives, right? I could be accused of making more than my fair amount of decisions on my own that ended either in blood, tears, and regret. Any time you ask for help you run the risk of making it a habit, of molding yourself into a person who needs other people's efforts just to get by in the world. The trick I think is finding that point where handling all the world throws at you on your own just isn't up to snuff any more and it's time to call in for some eager reinforcements.

Some pain, some hurt, some people you really do have to go through on your own. But not all of them.

There are some difficult journeys that you can travel along with other people, where it's okay to help each other out, where it's okay to admit you can't make it on your own. No one should have to be alone and suffering if they don't need to be or even if they don't want to be. Sometimes asking for help isn't really admitting you're weak or incapable of coping, sometimes the strongest choice you can make is the choice to allow others into your life to help carry you through the dangerous waters.

Life isn't about being strong, good enough, or perfect enough all the time. There are going to be times, choices, and even people that are going to be stronger, better than, or too much for you to handle. Life isn't about how you get through them all by your lonesome. Life should be about how we all get by those times together, together with the people who are sometimes just as weak, tired, and imperfect as we are.

As Lucy puts it, "life isn't about having all the answers yourself. It's about knowing which person to go to find the answers you need."

All you need to do is ask.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Yesterday I Got So Scared, I Shivered Like A Child, Yesterday Away From You, It Froze Me Deep Inside

--"In Between Days (cover)", Ben Folds Five

After the first time we fooled around and you had fallen asleep already, I stayed up. Not because I wasn't tired (because I was). Not because I didn't want to settle right in next to you and just fall asleep with my arms around you (because I did). The reason I stayed up on that cold night just days before Christmas was that I felt my mind racing with thoughts other than I was tired or that I wanted to be next to you. I was thinking about how new this whole experience was. I was thinking about how I didn't even know we had been playing a game with one another and that, somehow, inexplicably, the rules had changed completely.

There I was, laying on the bed in the guest bedroom, your parents just a couple of doors down the hall, wondering exactly what it was I had just done. I remember holding you every step of the way as my mind raced with thoughts that every little touch, every little whisper, every little knowing glance was inappropriate. But every step of the way something inside of me kept telling me that a few minutes more, a few inches more down your arm would be alright. It would be alright because there were lines that wouldn't be crossed. I would stop us from crossing them. You would stop us from crossing them. But as the minutes ticked by on the alarm clock with the big green numbers in that guest room, the line kept getting redrawn. I know that's what inevitably happens in situations like that now. However, at the time, with your whole body so warm and soft feeling next to mine, it felt like we were exploring new territory; that no one else before had ever fallen victim to their passions against their better judgment. I felt like needing you like I needed you then was akin to messing with uncontrollable laws of nature that I didn't quite understand. And every time we kissed like we kissed on that cold night it felt like I was on the brink of losing myself and the universe at the next wrong move or word.

It went beyond nervousness.

It went beyond concern.

It went to the idea that being that close to someone was sinful--Adam and Eve sinful. Forget the idea that I was there caressing someone I had come to care about in other ways, pushing things to whatever that next step was for us. Seeing just how young, how fresh you looked with your too-cute-for-words dimples and your long dancer's legs; it felt plain wrong to be so covetous; like I wasn't worth being there with you. The two hours or so we went at it before you snuck back to your room felt like one hundred twenty minutes caught between heaven and hell. I never knew a person could be so tortured and tantalized at the same time. It was just touching. It was just kissing. It was just everything I wanted at that moment.

When you fell asleep for the last twenty minutes we were in that bed together I thought about things. Mindlessly stroking my hand up and down your arm, the fine down barely noticeable on my fingertips, I thought about how going into that trip that even that much was more than I could have hoped for. There you were, eyes closed, allowing me to basically hold you while you slept. That was a level of trust that I never knew I was capable of or anyone, for that matter, was capable of. You trusted me with your protection, your safety without ever having to ask me. Not the protection of your life--though that was implied--no, you trusted me with something far more important. You trusted the protection of your well-being, your emotional life with me. Contrary to me, after we had kissed each other good night and after I had said to you, "Good night, Breannie mine, with her eyes so bright, tears so silvery, and my kisses still wet upon her cheeks," you went to sleep instantly. Your body didn't hesitate. It was as if you'd been sleeping next to me for years and not for the second night ever. Yes, it might have been the exhaustion--meeting me at the party, talking non-stop, introducing me to your family, showing me around the house, going to dinner, &c... does really take it out of a person--but it felt more than that. It felt like you knew right away in a manner that I didn't that we could trust each other just like that. Talking the talking is one thing--we'd been talking, what, eighteen months by then?--but to see that trust in action was another beast entirely. It's different to see all your blueprints and schemes in an actual true-to-life model. I don't know how you did it. I don't know how you managed to trust me so implicitly with you there and everything your body had to offer.

Maybe your youth had a part to play in it. Young hearts are often leading their owners around by the leash. Maybe your body had no choice but to acquiesce to your heart's edict I was a good guy. But what if I hadn't have been? What if I'd use the chill in the air and the heat of the moment to take liberties you weren't prepared to grant? What if I hadn't agreed with you about the whole stopping above the waist business? What if I had wanted more? What then? While you slept I contemplated what it meant that you had left yourself so vulnerable. I could have done anything. I could have done the worst. You had no idea what I might or might not have been capable of at that moment in time. All you had to go on was a voice on a phone, some practiced flattery, and the word of a person who was destined to be your soul mate (or so he claimed). Your naivete, callous as it may sound, might have pushed you into something you might not have done had we attempted something so brazen a few years later. After all, at fourteen(-and-a-half), you might not have had the litany of ex-boyfriends to compare me to. You might not have known that all men don't act as restrained as I did when placed in that situation.

Maybe the location gave you courage. We were in your house and your parents were only one well-timed scream away. Perhaps that gave you the fortitude to allow me to keep you there without any idea of what might happen. We were playing by your rules because we were playing on your board and with your pieces. If it had been the other way around, if the first time I had tasted the salt on your skin had been back in California I think I might have been the one falling asleep in your embrace and you might have been the one taken for a loop at the unfamiliarity of it all. It could have been falling asleep in a bed you must have slept in dozens of dozens of times (guest room or not) afforded the comfort necessary to relaxation. It could have been habit took over and your body just forgot entirely there was another person in there with you. That might have explained the ease with which you took to your slumber.

Or there's the theory that you had wanted more to happen. I mean--you've always said that the whole couple of days I was there that you wished something more could have happened. I always took it to mean something metaphorical, that you wanted some affirmation about where the two of us stood. I always took it to mean you wanted something of a big gesture, a big conversation, a big event to put our friendship into terms that were undeniable one way or the other. Leaving yourself there might have been your idea all along and that it was my pussing out that hadn't been part of your plan. Providence knows it wouldn't have been the first time you'd manipulated me into doubting myself into inaction. Maybe the lack of any actual consummation was more of a disappointment than you had let on and not what you had had planned the whole time.

I don't know--if it had been me in your position I would have been a tad more wary.

I'm glad you weren't wary, though.

I'll never forget that night--the words, the feel, the tastes, and the cold. I'll never forget laying beneath that thin blanket of yours thinking how far I'd come just to get there. It's like I had given up a small piece of myself to you that day and I still haven't gotten it back. I didn't figure out all the answers that night in much the same way I still haven't quite gotten all the answers between us right even to this day. I still come to you sometimes without any clue as to how you'll react. But I learned something very important there--my hand around your waist, my nose pretending to smell the scent of your hair, my legs tucked neatly into yours. I learned that, even while I had my doubts about us, about you, about where all of it was leading, you had fallen straight to sleep.

You never distrusted me for a second and that allowed me to eventually relax that night. Inevitably, I fell asleep just before you had gotten up to go back to your room. You told me that it was about ten or so minutes after I started snoring that you went back, but I think that was just the story you practiced for your mother much later on. In truth, I think I remember holding you for much longer than ten minutes. Like I said, inevitably I fell asleep to you thanks to the feeling of your complete faith in me. For all I know we could have slept for hours and I wouldn't have been the wiser.

You allayed a lot of my fears that night as we fought back the cold together, like we've been doing ever since.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers