When You're Young You Find Inspiration, In Anyone Who's Ever Gone, And Opened Up A Closing Door

--"Being Boring (cover)", West End Girls

In my family we always had this little clique. It was me, my brother Francis, my cousin Vincent, and his brother Victor, whom we called V.J. No matter what the occasion was, no matter what we were celebrating, the four of us always broke off from the main gathering. If it was at my parents' home, we retreated to my room since my room was actually the guest house. If it was at my aunt and uncle's house, we usually retired to what they referred to as the "bonus" room, which was just actually the upstairs den.

I don't know how many hours I've wasted in that bonus room of theirs. I don't know how much joking around, kidding around, has occurred within its confines, but the dynamic was always the same when we were kids. My cousin Victor, being the eldest over me by ten months, has always been the unofficial leader, though he hated it when we used to call him that. It was simple. When it came time to making a decision we always used to look to him to be the tiebreaker. When it came time to pointing blame, he was always the first one we used to throw underneath the bus. I mean--it wasn't even his personality per se that caused us to bestow this mantle upon him. It literally was just the fact he was the oldest. I don't know if any of the four us could be described as a natural leader or if there is such a thing as someone who's born a natural leader, someone who doesn't learn the qualities as they go. Yet time and time again all the way up through high school we turned to my eldest cousin to be the de facto decision-maker. You might even say we looked up to him because he represented the best of both worlds, he was someone around our age and yet he was the closest to crossing over to that mystical realm of being looked upon as being grown up and mature.

That's just the way mentorships work.

Growing up, I thought being mentored and being taught were the same things. I thought they could be used interchangeably. It wasn't until much later on that I began to notice the distinction. When one is apprenticing below someone it's because that individual has a type of rarified knowledge he wishes to pass along. That is relationship built around the principle that the information will flow one way and one way only. While a mentorship is based around a perceived respect for a person based on their life experience. They might not have done anything worthwhile or gained any particular set of truths that can be gleaned directly, but because of their age, their travels, or even just their simple interaction with sets of people outside one's range of comfort, these people take on a mythical quality of having some inner spark that we need to see for ourselves.

It's the relationship Breanne has all but admitted we had when we first became friends. I was the big 'ole college dude. I was five years removed from being where she was at the time. I was the one who had criss-crossed the country three times before she had even left her immediate region of the country. It fell to me to be this all-knowing avatar of higher understanding. And I played the part well. I'm already a natural advice giver and the gods only know that, if you give me enough rope to lead you around with, I'm pretty much going to hold onto the reins as long as possible. It was like leading around a blind guy without any knowledge of where they needed to go beforehand. I was over eager to play the part of tour guide that I never stopped to consider that I was a little out of my element too. This isn't to say I gave her bad advice or that I lead her astray time and time again. It's only to say that mentorships, like me to my cousin, aren't often a contract agreed to by both parties. Often times the mentor is thrust into the role, whether he likes it or not, when the mentee decides that that's the type of symbiosis needs to be established.

Yes, sometimes it's entirely manufactured. For instance, I used to know this guy at St. Rita's named Marcos. I remember he had been invited over to my friend Tommy's house for his birthday. It had been this deal where we'd been allowed to pitch a tend and camp out in Tommy's backyard. Well, of course, we spent a lot of the night discussing girls and how far everyone had progressed in their deciphering of the ways of the fairer sex. When we found out this Marcos had done things we were at least a year or two away from experiencing ourselves, we simply had to pick his brain. It might have been bragging. It might have been an honest account of his experience up until then. Either way it represent an elevation in level of respect. It was a perceived promotion out from amongst the ranks of us peons, deserved or not. At any event, it was calculated and predetermined effort to distinguish himself and it worked to perfection.

The trouble with any mentorships is that since it isn't rarified knowledge the mentor is guarding, there's always a sense of being deceived when the mentee at last attains the same set of similar experiences as the mentor. It's inevitable. I remember when I realized that my cousin wasn't the end-all be-all of what was the cool thing to do. It was like visiting Disneyland for the first time. Sure, it's this magical place once you get there... but it's also not everything all those friends of yours said it was going to be. You stop looking at people the same way once you've done a lot of the same things they've done. You stop finding them special. Or, as Lucy says, as soon as she got as old as I was when we met it was like she had landed on the moon after me. I'd lost my edge. I'd lost a bit of the mystique that my age carried with it.

It's funny. By that time I'd already almost gotten her pregnant, had listened to her practically living on the streets for days at a time, and seen her blossom into the fiercely independent creature she is today. If anything, she was the one having all sorts of life experiences that I had never run into. She was the one, if we had chosen along the lines of who could be teaching whom, should have been explaining a bit more of how the world works to me. That's a reputation that's by rights deserved, which mine wasn't.

I think that's just the relationship I crave. I always seem to do better with people in general when I feel I'm above them. I don't necessarily look down on them. I never once looked down on Breanne or Jina (5 years younger) or Tara (4 years) or DeAnn (3 years), but inside I felt always had a marker over them. With most people I stay friends with for a long time, I either feel like I have things I can show them... or, more precisely, I can show off to them. I either feel like I'm more intelligent than them like I did when I was with DeAnn. Or I feel I've "lived" more like I did with Jina. Or I just plain feel like my age entitled me to be the ultimate decision-maker in the partnership. It's only when I feel like people have usurped my authority that I feel threatened and usually end things. Or all things to end. I kind of need that mentor mentality to keep me interested in a person.

Brandy calls it the "bargain mentality." I have to feel like I'm getting the better end of the deal. I have to feel like anything I do won't be one-upped by my friend. Remarkably, Lucy said she always felt like it was the opposite for her. She always felt like she's gotten the better end of the deal because for a long time I was doing all these things she couldn't do. She was sort of living vicariously through me. For her it was like getting to do all these things before she was emotionally ready or, indeed, legally able to do them for herself. I don't know--I guess that's why we lasted this long. Usually, I'm not one to hold the spotlight for very long, but I do like the ego stroke holding the spotlight of at least one or two people can provide. Conversely, she's used to being the center of attention and it's still of curious interest to her when she hears me do something she's never tried or she's never had the opportunity to involve herself in yet.

Even though by now it's really devolved into a an almost fair partnership, she still allows me the honorific of being the older one. She still pretends like a lot of what I tell her is of great fascination to her... like she did in the old days. I stopped being a mentor to her a long time ago.

And yet, what I've found in my own life, is that once you bestow that title onto somebody it stays that way, at least a little forever. I still catch myself deferring to my cousin strictly out of habit. And I guess she still finds it soothing, like an old song she used to sing, to treat me like the older brother who's been out and about a little bit longer than her. It might not be true, but to her (and I guess to me) that's the relationship that's been established. Even if it's only a name, that's far better a tradition to keep than to tear asunder now after all these years.

Once a mentor, always a mentor, I say.

And once a more than generous friend, always that kind of friend as well.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I Want To Keep This Feeling, Deep Inside Of Me, I Want You Always In My Heart, You Are Everything

--"Halo", The Cure

I wasn't angling for it. I neither dropped any hints or let it slip that it would be nice to possess one, but I came away from my trip to Louisville a few months ago the proud owner of a genuine Louisville Slugger with "mojo shivers" emblazoned across its sweet spot. It's a thoughtful gift, considering how big of a baseball fan I am. More than that, it's a gift that I didn't have to work hard to attain.


you hold my eyes in yours
and open up the world

Here's the thing.

I'm probably the worst person to get birthday or Christmas gifts for. I've repeated it a thousand times, but most folks don't seem to get it. If there's something I want I'll eventually get it myself. And if I don't have it already and you perchance would like to give it to me, then I don't see the point in waiting for my "actual" birthday (or one out of the three). More than anything, if you do wait to give it to me, I'll probably end up buying it before I open yours or, worse yet, I'll have fallen out of enamoration with it by that time. Or if I just don't need your gift, I'll flat out tell you that I don't need it. It's happened more than once. Case in point, DeAnn's sister gave me a subscription to the official WWF magazine for Christmas... about three months after I stopped liking wrestling. And when I told her that upon receiving the gift, it made her cry. Or, worse yet, Mrs. Holins, one Jean Holins, otherwise known as Breanne's mother, for my graduation from USC gave me an expensive Hublot watch. When I told her, thank you, but I don't really wear expensive watches, she hung up the phone on me.

I have this weird paranoid view towards gift-giving, which I've explained before. But, stranger still, I have an even weirder hesitation about receiving gifts. About the only people who are cleared to give me gifts of any sizes and shapes are my family, Breanne, whomever I dating at the time (but curiously not their family), and, I suppose, whomever my current boss. Everyone else is pretty much S.O.L. I think it stems from the fact that I still think people have an angle to anything they do. Gift-giving is just a reinforcement of that paranoia. For instance, I've been in situations where somebody has bought me two or three shirts because they "thought it might look good on me" and then expected me to pay her back twenty dollars for each of them. Granted, they didn't qualify as gifts, but the idea is the same. Whenever I receive a gift and accept it, it's like I'm signing a non-verbal contract to reciprocate. And, frankly, that's a deal I mostly never want to make. There's only a few people who ever knew how to shop for me:

1. Lucy (natch)
2. Francis (most of the time)
3. Either one of my cousins
4. Jina (when we were close)
5. Tara
6. DeAnn

Everyone else buys crap. It's that simple.

Well, not that simple. I will go as far as saying that Breanne's parents have given me a nice gift now and again, but it's uncomfortable because sometimes they're too nice. And my parents have given me awesome gifts now and again, but they've always been the huge kind--my car, a few of my trips across the country, my cool-ass pocket watch during my Avonlea phase. Anything small or meant to be thoughtful has failed miserably. It's too difficult to explain what I'm into at the time people want to get me a gift and that gets doubly hard when you want to delay it for a few weeks or months just so it falls on my birthday or Christmas.

The main problem I feel is that there are few people I truly want to buy gifts for at any one given time. The list as it stands now, stands at five. B, Marion, Tattie, my brother, and my two cousins. And one of my cousins doesn't even like getting gifts. Everyone else--EVERYONE ELSE--I could take or leave ever having to buy another gift for. For instance, I balk at every time I have to give my parents gifts. I've reached that age where there's nothing that they can give me that I'll want so I feel I don't really need to return the favor. That's not to say I wouldn't want to give them anything, but buying them stuff because they need something new (a new DVD player or a new camera) is vastly different than wrapping something up and waiting for a special occasion to present it to them. They know that if they want something that I have some expertise on they can ask me and I'll pick it out for them. But I call shenanigans on the whole "here's something I hope you really enjoy" aspect of appeasing my parents with gifts.

The five people I mentioned are the only five people where I ever get the urge to spend money on them just because they might like something. And those are the only five people who I feel honored whenever they spend money on me because most often than not it's something that's catered to me and they've taken the time to find out I'll like--be it music, movies, games, sports-related, clothes, or something else.

----

And yet, there's the question of the bat. Delfty got it for me because she said I'd spent enough on her and her sister while I was out there. The least they could do is get me a souvenir that they knew I would really enjoy having. And, even though it was two people who have unquestionably good taste in picking out gifts for me, it still made me feel uncomfortable accepting it from them. Normally with most people in that inner circle of mine I'm all for, "when's my time? When does mojo shivers get his?" LOL But this time it felt like I would be accepting too much.

I think I'm just starting to feel what other people have always felt like when they've received something nice. I guess you could say I was feeling a bit of gratitude. I mean--call me crazy if you want--but I've never been all that grateful of a person. I always tried to portray myself as being capable of getting by mostly without any generosity from anyone else. Yes, I don't mind if you help me, but I've always had this big pet peeve of people who want me to be grateful to them for doing something. When you do something for me, I'll say thank you, but I've never been one to be overly flattering about it. When you do something for me, you can expect me to pay you back someday for it with a similar favor or way to make up the difference. I just hate it when people stand there waiting for all the curtsies and bowing just because they did one thing for me. That really upsets me. That's also why most gift-giving bothers me... because as soon as I receive one, the next question always is "where's mine?" Funny, I think to myself, I thought the whole point was to give because you wanted to do and not because you wanted one back.

But now I kind of get it. The bat was totally a surprise, totally something I wanted, and it was given without any strings. They didn't want a bat in return and they refused to let me pay half. Before, when somebody did something that nice for me--like when Breanne flew me out for Christmas or Nancy got me that job interview, I would say thanks and move right past the uncomfortableness. That time in the Louisville Slugger Museum I really wanted to return the favor right away.

I don't know what's different. I don't know, if as Lucy says, I'm starting to finally grow a heart after all these years, but I'm starting to see that there really shouldn't be a quota about how many presents I should give out each year. More importantly, I'm starting to see that just because somebody wants a present in kind when they give me a gift doesn't make them a horrible person. Mostly it just makes them a normal human being, someone who sees the joy in giving to as many as possible and can't quite understand someone who is as miserly as I've been known to be in the past. I always thought the point was proving to myself and others that I wasn't beholden to any tradition of returning tit-for-tat. I always thought my stubbornness in this regard was my right as an independent individual.

Now l think it isn't about proving that I don't need to give something away to everyone I know... it's more about getting to know people enough and wanting to make them happy enough to give each and every one of them that bit of a smile that they seem to give me year after year.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

But There's One Thing I'm Prepared To Do, To Make This Cesspool As Good As New, I'll Get My Guns& Both Of My Friends, We'll Make Some Righteous Amends

--"Cesspool (live)", Blake Babies

just to complete the Blake Babies trifecta...

It takes a lot of vanity to create something. It requires a sense of self-absorption that nearly borders on delusion. Most individuals, when faces with a blank page, a blank canvas, or an appealing slab of clay can only think about how much they would fail at any endeavor requiring them to mold something, to craft something seemingly out of thin air. It takes a real son-of-a-bitch to say, you know what, I can do something with this. I can make something great and grand and glorious all by the virtue of my sheer will.

That's what creating art is all about, imposing your will on the nothingness and hammering out something new. And it isn't something that you do because you're bored or because you think it might be a fun idea. You do it because you have to, because you don't what else you can do but pour something out of yourself into your chosen media.

I see blogs come and go. I see photo sites be put up one month, where the owner says she plans to keep it updated everyday, only to be abandoned a few months later. I see dozens of people who think they are something just because they have a passing fancy of being good at it. And while I would never claim to be the world's biggest authority in what makes an artist and what doesn't, I know being someone considered dedicated to his craft means sticking by it more than a few months, means grinding it out year in and year out. It really pains me to discover a new writer, writing something that I really care about, only to see them wither on the vine and stop writing for the public a year or two later. As Breanne once described it, it's like planting a seed and watching it grow almost to full bloom, but never reaching its full potential before dying off.

I don't know--writing's never been something I've done for fun. Yes, there are a lot of times when I have fun doing it, but, in the end, it comes down to the fact that this is the only way I know of getting ideas, memories, and general meanderings out without going crazy. Sure, I'd like to make some money doing this someday, but I don't really see myself stopping writing here or wherever for anything short of the Apocalypse. Believe me, there's been days where I couldn't think of anything decent to write and I still came onto here because I couldn't sleep otherwise. Having to choose between putting something to paper (or keyboard) that was only half-baked or letting the site lie fallow more than a few days, I've always chosen to post something up. If Breanne is busy, if Toby can't cover it, it always falls to me to make sure that this site keeps chugging along.

And, let's face it, it's not like I have brilliant ideas every day. I wrote a post about Capri Sun just the other week, for chrissakes. But that's just my personality. I always need to be writing something. Back in high school and college it was writing letters. I couldn't get enough of writing huge letters--usually to Jina--and I couldn't wait to get back replies from the twenty or so people I was writing to at the time. With the advent of the internet, it became a daily routine to write e-mails to everyone--long, blasted e-mails that basically served the same purpose as my letters, only with a faster response time. However, it wasn't until I discovered the old 5ilver.net and, of course, sdfsdfwox.org, that I truly found an outlet that could keep up with my production timetable. I've always thought I'd make a decent comic stip writer... if I knew how to draw. Or I've always thought I'd make a decent columnist, if I really cared about to write about any one particular subject outside of myself. But to me the topic I always fall back on is just plain simple throwing out into the world everything about me, guts and all, which, sure, people have written columns about. Yet those columns are almost always filled with humor, which makes them easier to digest, while my "columns" here, I guess, tend to swing towards the more emotional cesspool side of the spectrum. That doesn't make for a series that people could really stomach day after day.

And yet, come September 1st of this year, it will officially be FIVE FUCKING YEARS since I started writing this humble blog. And in about one hundred more posts the three of us will have combined for A FUCKING THOUSAND POSTS on this humble blog. That's not something you do because you're interested in getting read by millions of people. Yes, the few faithful followers we have here are nice, but I've been doing this for five years more to write something than to have somebody else read me. I would have written all the same posts in a real journal if A) my handwriting weren't atrocious and B) if it wasn't so much darn faster to type than it was to handwrite everything. Some have even suggested that I could have just written Word Documents detailing my posts, but I figured since I would be typing them up anyway, there wouldn't be that huge of a difference of posting them up for the whole universe to see. It's not like I'd write any more guardedly if I knew everyone and their dog would be reading this. In the end, I really don't care or mind who stumbles across my site.

I told myself (and I told the girls) that this site is never going to be a friends-only clubhouse. What's the fun in only giving away the stories my friends have already heard and been a part of?

I told myself that this site is never going to be about flashy graphics or writing about topics only to draw traffic. We're not putting on a show for audience as much as we're exhibiting a gallery. I'm not in it for the instantaneous response. I'm kind of glad that the bulk of the people who read here don't bother to comment because that would only lead to me trying to incorporate their ideas and suggestions more. I just want to hang something here permanently (or as permanently as posting to the internet is these day) and not stick around for the review or commentary. I did my job, let the critics fight out what it all means.

Come to think of it, that's a Deist philosophy if I've ever heard one. A person creating a piece of art, getting it to work, and then walking away once the project's finished and before it can fall apart on him? I think I've read that book before.

Truth be told, there are days when all I got going into a post is a line from a song. All I have to work with is a few lyrics and time enough to mold something into shape. I don't know what I'm going to write about. I don't know where it's going to head. But because I know myself and I know what I'm capable of, I put something up that speaks the truth about what I believe and what I remember. Because I know the thought of putting something out there into the world that isn't always prime choice; it allows me to put the table scraps and still call it a nourishing meal.

And, yes, because I have the nerve to think that what I have to say matters, I can look into the nothing... like tonight.. and actually write a good three or four pages that I think are worth reading. I may not be able to write a tune and looking out from behind a camera makes me feel like I'm a child playing with the grownups' toys, but I've always had a fearless heart when it came to writing. I've always felt that there is no assignment or topic somebody could give me that I'd feel apprehensive about writing about.


maybe we'll start a trend

That's what this blog's really about, imposing my sheer will over the fear that what I have to say isn't of any import whatsoever.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

And When You Start Afresh You Still Think of Days Gone By, And When A Heart Is Broken It Still Goes On Pumping

--"He'd Be A Diamond (cover)", Blake Babies

continuing with the Blake Babies covers motif...

The last time I had sex was July 2007.

Before that, the last time was four-and-a-half years earlier in December 2003.

But I think the statistic that matters most to me now is the fact the last time I had sex with a steady girlfriend or at least somebody I was living with was October 2000. Yes, it's been almost eight years since I shared that experience with somebody I could truly call my own. Everything else after that date, wondrous and exhilarating as they may have been, doesn't really signify all that much. They were both with people that I once shared something truly magical with, but let slip away. And while it was deeply gratifying to reconnect in that manner with both of them, each of the few times we were together were pale comparisons to what it was like when we were truly together. It was like having a road trip with buddies you used to hang out with in high school. Sure, it's an amazing adventure recalling the past, recalling how truly close you used to be. In the end, though, all it does is serve to remind you about how far things have fallen apart since those suppose halcyon days. All it does is remind you how much you miss that spark of human connection that at least has a chance of prospering into something more substantial.

Yes, I miss the sex. I would be lying if I didn't say that. But I think what I miss more is the notion that whenever we had sex it was just another expression of how truly in love we were or, more importantly, how truly in love I really was. Those other times in '07 and '03, they were sorely lacking that necessary ingredient. And while at the time I wasn't exactly thinking, "hey, you know what this needs? A mystique that it's going to lead somewhere more permanent and more in tune with my life goals," I did notice the difference.

I still loved the two women I slept with. They are probably two of the most influential and meaningful people in my life, so it wasn't like I was doing it with random strangers. I just knew I wasn't in love with them. I just knew that whatever happened, it wasn't going to end up how I ultimately wanted it to end up. I just knew that, if anything, they were more a signifier our involvement with one another intimately was coming to an end rather than signifying that something new and wonderful was about to blossom. However joyous the celebration, when you're celebrating the end of something it's never going to compare to the celebrating to be had when you're marking the beginning of a journey.

Because even when you're in throes of ex sex and you're thinking to yourself, you know, you can handle being friends with benefits or something even more esoteric, what you're really screaming for is a relationship where you don't have to make up boundaries and lines. And even when you're saying you can handle this time or that time being truly the last time the two of you ever do something like that, all you can see in your head is all the days and times you did the exact same things while foolishly believing those times would never end. And even while you're both screaming and laughing that the two of you could go all day and all night, what you're really picturing is all the days gone by.

That's what I miss the most, the days when making love was something you could look forward to and not just something you smile reflecting back on.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Do I Want Too Much? Am I Going Overboard To Want That Touch? I Shouted Out To The Night: "Give Me What I Deserve, 'Cause That's My Right!"

--"Passionate Kisses (cover)", Blake Babies

On Saturday I bought something that I'd been meaning to buy for some years now. I am now the proud honor of an honest-to-gods tarot deck, complete with a handy-dandy beginner's guide to reading them. Now I'm not intent on becoming the world's next greatest psychic--truth be told, I only bought it because I thought it would be conducive to my next great card game idea. But it has been kind of enlightening to parse through the booklet and find out just how replete with meaning each and every card in the deck is, minor and major arcana both.

At its heart, the practice of reading a tarot deck is symbology. You lay out the cards in whatever fashion suits you best and you make an interpretation of both the way the cards lay and the order in which they are dealt onto the pattern on the table. Every small nuance matters when making this interpretation, from the orientation of the card to the smallest details on the cards themselves, from the way the card rests on top of another card to even where the characters on the cards point to other cards. It all has relevance. And that's kind of what I missed when I was reading up on tarot decks a decade or so ago. Back then I only thought the name of the card mattered. I thought it was like constructing a sentence, the only aspect that had any significance was the way the cards were arranged. Now I'm finding out it's more like painting a picture, it's the details that hide or uncover other details that is the real key. I've probably poured over the cards for about two hours total since purchasing the deck. Every time I look I find more details to illuminate more and more meaning in each card. And with each morsel of understanding I add to every individual card, the more connections are formed when I lay out my rudimentary spreads on the table. How the professional fortune tellers make it all seem easy is starting to make a little more sense to me now.

I don't know why I couldn't decipher that before. It's maybe because I'm a look first type of person, a written word over brushstroke kind of guy. It's always been easier for me to solve a puzzle than interpret a piece of art. It's always been easier to come up with the solution to a math problem than puzzle my way through a piece of classic music. I've always had a reference for artistic beauty, I've just never been all that adept at telling you why I like something. Give me an academic essay to write about some novel or film or painting or song, and I can deliver you a first-rate composition. Ask me why something is good or why I like something and I tend to haver a minute or two. Eventually, I come up with the answer, but it's not what I think of first.

I think I'm a very sensitive person, but I'm not a very expressive person. I can compliment and flatter, but that's mostly due to possessing the knowledge of how to string the right words together. I don't know if I can always be counted on to feel exactly the way I'm professing to feel, or I don't know if I can always be trusted to mean everything I say or write in quite the magnitude I say or write things. I exaggerate. I take dramatic license all the time because I have a good handle on what makes an interesting read. I know how to explain most of what I write about; I don't always know how to fully explore most of what I write about. I get by on a lot of first impressions, quick takes, and initial comprehension since I can translate this into deeper explanations.

In many ways I think that's a failing of mine. Since I've always done okay to good by calling it like I see it (no rewriting, no editing), I've gotten used to flying by a lot of moments in my life without taking the time to let it all sink in. I've done a lot of watching.

I just don't know if I've ever done all that much seeing.

----

A year after we met Lucy latched onto my phrase du jour at the time, "wistful and forlorn". I was obsessed at the time (maybe I still am) with this concept of people and places looking wistful and forlorn. I know it had a lot to do with watching Avonlea. After all, it's where I borrowed the phrase from. But I think it also had to do with the fact I was in my first few years of college. I was in that period of time where I earnestly began to long for more carefree days of my youth. Now I've always been a nostalgic type of person. As evinced here, I'm a huge fan of recalling anecdotes and swapping old war stories. But in college it really began hitting me how fast those first few years really flew by.

It also had to do with finding out about Les Miserables and Eponine. The concept of unrequited love started popping up everywhere in my short stories and poems.

Wistful and forlorn became my pet project. I started gathering a portfolio of pictures of people, wistful and forlorn. I started reading books about people, wistful and forlorn. I started to listening to (more) music about people, wistful and forlorn. I started to create more projects dealing with people, wistful and forlorn. I don't know how I did it--but everything I consumed or produced in some way revolved around this concept. Hell, some might say that my blog is still very much a reflection of this motif.

That's when my good friend Little Miss Chipper started sending me pictures of herself in poses and settings, wistful and forlorn. They would always be outside, near the columns of the back of her parents' home. And they would always inevitably looking everywhere besides straight into the camera. It kind of reminds of that South Park episode where all the cool Christian album covers involve not looking directly into the camera and looking anything but gleeful. My initial impression was one of enjoyment and mock amusement. In my head, I thought she was mostly doing it for my benefit. I honestly believed that they were only pictures designed for me to smile at and not take seriously to any sizable degree. I thought she was playing.


shouldn't I have this?

But now I look at those pictures, knowing what I know now and they took on whole new meanings. At the time I thought she couldn't possibly know the full scope of the feelings she was seeking to portray. I thought she was imitating people more steeped in the human condition, people more like me. But now I don't see the girl she was at the time she took the picture; the only thing I see now is the woman she grew up to be. And suddenly her posture, the bend to her elbows, the far-off glances she manifests in these pictures, adopt added facets that I never saw before. Rather than viewing them as pretensions of an individual trying her hardest to be seen as someone older than she was, I've reexamined my viewpoint. Now what they are is portents of the storms that I know were lying ahead of her.

That's what I mean about me and initial impressions. I possibly might have perused through the ten pictures she sent me in the "wistful and forlorn" set she mailed to me for about half-an-hour, at most. I imbued them with no added significance because, hey, they were only pictures. These days, however, it's like playing the same snippet of music over and over again; attempting to hear each and every single note or intonation. When I look at these same ten pictures, or any pictures from more than five years ago featuring anyone I've ever known, they become filled with hidden depths. I'm at a point in my life where I have the patience to see what I couldn't see before and to really appreciate what striking portraits of the human condition they really are. I mean--not every lesson is grasped right at the beginning and not every answer comes from the outset.

I used to think it did. I used to think I was a fairly quick person to "get" something right away. I thought I had all the answers necessary to get by. I didn't have the time to look for anything in full when finding half of the truth was sufficient enough.

But in reality I'm that wistful and forlorn person in the picture. I'm Sara staring off the cliff into the Atlantic Ocean. I'm Eponine singing "On My Own". I'm Breanne lying on the bench outside her house. I don't have all the answers. I am still looking for all that I haven't found. The only difference now is I finally realized I'm still looking and that has given me the opportunity to really seek out the answers below the surface, the meaning between the lines. It's finally given me the chance to see the lovely details in the bigger picture and the understanding to appreciate these selfsame details.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Spinning Around, I've Got This Funny Feeling, Turning My Whole World Upside Down

--"Spinnin' Around", Jump 5

When we are St. Rita's my mother never packed us tiny, little juiceboxes with our lunches. Nope, for her sons she always packed that good 'ole pouch of Capri Sun. Orange, punch, &c...--we must have ran through each and every flavor they offered at Albertson's by the time we were done with school. That in and of itself isn't anything of note; plenty of my classmates drank Capri Sun. What was weird about the fact I had it at practically every lunch was the way in which I carried and drank it. For whatever reason I would not carry those things right side up. As soon as it was out of the brown lunch bag I would hold it with the flat side towards my face. Then, when it came time to punch the straw into it, I would always poke it through the now-exposed bottom of the pouch. Ostensibly this was because I thought all the sugar had settled into the bottom during transport, but in reality it was just a ploy to be different.

This led to all sorts of situations that people who followed directions never had to run into. For instance, I couldn't just set my Capri Sun down. I had to lean it up against something if I wanted it to stay upright. Also, as I drank it, I would always have to adjust the straw shorter since the fat end of the pouch was closer to the entry hole. Lastly, it was impossible to put it back in my bag to save for later. Whereas other people had the luxury of positioning their drinks upright in their bags when they placed them back in their cubby holes, sadly, my drink would never survive such a positioning and would have probably leaked over everything.

I didn't care. I was a man of ritual and that was my daily ritual.


because you keep me spinning all around

The thing is this one ritual that seems to have followed me into adulthood. It's become one of my rules, so to speak. Now whenever I hold a canned or bottled beverage to carry somewhere, be it the table or just to the couch, I inevitably flip it upside down in my hand. That's what you get after eight years of holding my drinks the wrong way; it's somehow imprinted in my brain that that's the natural way to hold drinks. One only has to take a look at me buying my prerequisite root beer from the break room at work and carrying it upside-down to my desk to see that I'm still adhering to the principle that all the sugar is at the bottom of the drink to this day.

Actually, I believe part of the reason this habit has continued is that I've found it's so much easier to stack stuff when the can's upside-down. For example, a can of root beer costs fifty-five cents at work. Say I borrow a dollar from somebody, rather than stick their change in my pocket, which I'm going to have dig out again, I just stick the change in the concave portion of the can's underbelly. Or say I'm drinking Coronas on Casey and Laurel's porch. Rather than try to juggle the limes to the table out there, I've found the bottom of bottle works just dandy in keeping those errant limes in line. See what you can do when you have a different grasp of things?

I'm not an innovator. In the history of time I'm sure there's been one person who has made a point of holding his or her drinks the wrong way. But I do think, of the people I know, no one else goes to the extreme of attempting to do things differently than I do. Hell, I still get crap about signing off my business letters "Yours Swimmingly". I do things because they make sense to me, because initially I had some reason for doing something that got stuck in my brain. It's why I do things in eights (because my Boy Scout buddy told me I must like that number after cutting my pancakes into eights and leaving an eighth of the yolk runny on my scrambled eggs). It's why I put two straws into my drinks when I can (because you never know when somebody is going to want to share with you or, as Mitch once said, in case one breaks down). And it's why I have a dozen more rules when it comes to living my life. If I wanted to get the same results as everyone else, I would make the same choices as everyone else. I would fall into the same habits as everyone else. But, because I pride myself on my uniqueness, I try to break from the norm in as many ways as possible.

It's not the same as rebelling or doing the opposite of everyone. Hell, I'm not about to get pierced or tatted up just to separate myself from the herd. It's about having an idea and going with it without giving a thought whether or not it'll shock somebody. The point isn't to aggravate or annoy or shock; the point is to do what I want without ever thinking about how somebody else will react. It's about what Rachel said once long ago:

Right is right even if no one does it, and wrong is wrong even if everyone does it.

And the only person who ever decides what's right for me is me. That's why I'm going to continue to hold my drinks upside-down, because at the end of the day my holding a bottle the wrong way isn't going to kill you and it's not going to bother you to the point of distraction. At least it shouldn't. I'm going to continue this peculiarity of mine because at the end of the day the only person who's going to be affected by my choices is going to be me, the only person who's going to be drinking from my bottle (or can or pouch) is going to be me.

Hold your Capri Sun however you want and just let me do the same.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

You Know I Don't Like Being Stuck In A Crowd, And The Streets Don't Change But Maybe The Name, I Ain't Got Time For The Game

--"Patience", Guns N' Roses

Whenever my parents call to ask a favor of me, like they did tonight, I do my best to accommodate, but it's never quite to the levels people expect of me. I don't know what it is. I don't know why, after all these years, it still feels beneath me to help them out, but there are days when I can tell by the tone of their voice that they really need me. And that's when it's easiest for me to turn my back on them or, at the very least, give my assistance begrudgingly. On the contrary, when it's something small they need or I know they could turn to anyone for the help, that's when I'm more than willing to play nice and do what I can to pitch in. It's like my level of willingness wholly depends on the level of need.

I just have no patience for people who can't help themselves at least partially. It's like when I have a special skill or special knowledge, I believe that everybody should know at least a little how to do it too. And when they don't I look down upon them, especially if it's my family, and especially if it's my parents. The way I see it is my friends grew up in a different environment so I can excuse them not picking up the same set of skills as me. But my family? They grew up pretty much the same as me--the same place, the same time, the same everything. There's no reason they shouldn't have seen and learned the same things I have. And I know I double this impulse when it comes to my parents. It's one thing to know one's peers in the family--brothers and cousins--can't do everything as well as you. But when you surpass your parents in certain areas it's very disconcerting. Some people take it in stride. To me it's always been the unspoken promise they've broken.

When I found out I knew more about certain arenas of life than my dad or mom, it totally threw me. I admit that. It made me start to question what else they faked knowing more than me about. It genuinely raised some questions with me over how qualified they were to raise me. And I guess I've never let go of that feeling. In fact, I think I've passed the same sense of being betrayed to others.

I'm already an impatient person. I have a rarified temper that has gotten me into trouble many times before. But I'm especially impatient with people I feel I have an advantage over. Ignorance is not something I've ever been able to tolerate well. And when that ignorance manifests in a plea for help it just infuriates me. It's like when I see people trying to switch over to my lane on the freeway. You're asking me to do something for you for no commiserate favor. So I answer your question, so I do my favor for you? What then? What do I get out of it. Your gratitude. Gratitude matters little to me when I still feel like I've been taken advantage of. I used my knowledge, I used my time to better your position, but my position remains the same. Well, that's just like letting someone butt in friend of you in line like back in elementary school.

That's why I think I get upset or impatient when my parents ask me for favors. I know the best of what they have to offer me has passed. From this point on, it's me who will be doing more to help them out and that's a sinking feeling that I guess I haven't been able to look past. As matter how hard I try, I'm still not the person that can help anyone out altruistically. If anything I'm still that guy who needs to know that I'll be getting more in return with every favor I do.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers