we spoke seriously of meeting new people. making connections. dates. here it was, the side dish i'd been fantasizing about for years and now that the promise of a full serving became evident, i went yellow paralyzed with fear. for the first time i was speaking with the woman i was taking for granted for the last year. it spooked me. picture this.... a too pretty to be so pleasant girl wringing her hands and worrying about the unknowns in an equation she thought was all but set. she has needs and wants but is too content to muddle herself with extracurricular thoughts. they are there and she smiles to herself that she possesses this self-surprise ability.
i open doors. i don't know what to do to pass the time but i shut my mouth and i wait for the hands on the wall to tell me i've done nothing. and i grit my teeth and worry that another day has passed in which i've held fast against progress.
some time ago i enjoyed the upper hand. the knowing what i want and living a life without compromise. but now, my mouth open and running and her mouth closed, her eyes and ears content to watch and listen, why she shows her hand and it reveals that same desire to fly through doorways, i, a cripple, ruminate for the very first time that there exists such a prospect that she could leave me just as easily. it won't happen, can't happen but it's real just the same.
and how could i strive to regain the upper hand? pick another partner? and yet another after that to prove my prowess? i could stack them longways until their fingers formed a handheld bridge across the zoned-off, block-lined crosswalk? was i exploring all the things i wanted? or just going through the motions of an unmanned wrecking ball?
questions begetting questions and i was just as lost as when the episode began.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Sunday, September 12, 2010
the first
i'm not in love with my significant other.
subtext: i know she cares more for me than i for her. i don't know how she cannot see this. i also hate myself for being too much of a coward to tell her.
spent so long
while i tiptoed around the idea of sharing my ideas and falling in love with new minds the internets grew up, got wise, stumbled drunk, said some things but never stopped churning. me? same guy, still bottled up and paying for it. i meet new people to feel reborn. i realize that i'm just a novelty that eventually reeks of stagnation. i maintain old friendships partly because of their true blue quality but also because they'll have me and its safe. i can admit my partial truths here just as i can in the yellowed pages of a leather-bound diary. there's no risk in either one because i will fail myself. i will fear that someone who matters will read what i write and leave my life. or worse still, laugh at my futile attempts. for once i feel old and mean it with sincerity. while kids act like jackasses i seethe in the corner with the anger of a person who won't allow himself to be ... uhm, himself. so i'm grouchy, lack the good sense to mind my health and go on pretending i know what it is i'm talking about. admit some truth for once. then repeat. and we (i) shall see to the task of abolishing this self-hatred.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
finding fool's gold
you used to be more interesting, she told me. you used to do more. have more ambition. it is what it is i say and i wonder if i've become so passive that sharp tongues juss sorta roll past me. to truth, i've been waiting for her to say that for awhile. since when? since hell, this time she was waiting around for joe to come around and pick her up. and i thought how funny it was that he was picking her up on his bike, which really just meant that they were going bike riding. i bought a bike once. last summer. and i promptly filled the tires and stored the damn thing because of a magazine article i read about studies on testicular cancer. it didn't specifically note correlations but it got me remembering the very many cyclists i'd heard in the news that had come down with balls cancer. i don't want balls cancer or any cancer. but i do want to finish my story's point. how i knew that she'd get around to the point that i'd lost my interest. she told me i don't write anymore. i could protest but the fact that this entry is two years in the making would put reason in her corner. i don't fill my life with arts now. i dont create anything. i dont enjoy political discourse like i used to. what's that say? it's that i'm not an arty kid. that the phase i was playing through a few years ago was me touching doorknobs feeling for what were roadbloacks and what were new paths. it is discouraging to ewxognize that you're not going to be famous for your athletic talents or written words. i am bland. and i'm often imbued with a grumpy demeanor. the kind that seethes with frustration because expectations fell through. i don't find myself particularly interesting but the unsettling part is that now alarms me is how deep my unpleasantness goes.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Soon Collides
Was in my fourth collision in the last two months this past weekend. i was on a cheddar yellow school bus departing wisconsin for downtown chicago. however, instead of roaming the uptown area, i spent my saturday at an oasis before a series of buses took the group of us (all strangers) to a local hospital. though sore, my body turned out just fine. i will likely get the muscle relaxer Rx so that i can spice up my next drinking excursion.
in simplest terms, a small honda sedan merged too quickly and lost traction due to the icy conditions of the road, crossed three lanes of traffic (missing everything) and t-boned itself into the front end of the full size, 74-capacity school bus. upon the wreck, the bus was eerily silent, i remember hearing myself unvoluntarily droning "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit" while bracing my arms into a right triangle with the seat back in front of me. i looked behind me and met the bewildered eyes of sixteen bewildered UW students. yet, fearing a jinx upon our luck, no one dared answer affirmation of well-being. a stocky fellow started colleting blood around his mouth, an indication of a bitten-through lip. another, a beanpole with facial scruff felt his forehead for oozing. we collected our things separetely and decided to exit the rear of the bus. as i made my way to the driver, all he could say was "won't be able to use the front door". he was right, too; the silver and gold specked sedan had wrapped itself around the front and right sides of the bus, making an exit there impassable. incredibly, the driver sustained no physical wounds. he took his time packing his bag and, collecting his coat and external wear, led the way to the rear of the yellow shell. miraculously, though as it should, the bus held it's form. it'll never run again as it did that morning, but it held together tight and defended its unbelted passengers against certain death. in any other machine, a Suburban, an Excursion, a Hummer perhaps, we would have smootched off the sedan and rolled over the median instantly causing an enmassing ball, a vehicular pinball gaining speed and size while projecting itself through rows of cars waiting an imminent gathering.
the whole ordeal stirred me yesterday--i felt myself on the brink of breaking down on several occasions. i had those two debating sides of me stirring up trouble, one begging my emotions to the surface while the other kept it all clammed up inside. after exiting the bus, i got curious and detached from the group of shellshocked students to check out the other participant, the sedan driver. the paramedics stood nearby waiting for the firefighters to loosened and pry the driver. it was a futile effort, with the honda a permanent partner pasted to the bus grill; there'd be no further animation from his body. nearby, at the base of a driver side door intact only because it was pinned upright, drizzled red onto the road shoulder. given the natural decline of the road toward the median, the blood followed helplessly toward the mounds of muddied snow embanked onto the cement median. it created a nauseating effect. i turned my head in horror, a neck-jerk reaction to the confrontation with the last pouring of the honda driver's life. he lay there, for lack of a power to do much else-a head and a body as a table to collect a mid-road sample of snow and wait.
to tell-all and sob or to savor the numb qualities of a near-death excursion, i opted for the latter because i really do hate stirring up attention into my corner. today was easier to manage, though i admit my outward feelings of grumpiness. i hummed with arrested annoyance at the most innocuous simple-minded jokes, things i often ignore. sometimes i needs my grumble pie. looking back over the past couple days, i see myself retelling the story of the wreck... five, six, seven times and hating myself for doing it. telling a story once or twice is fine but the continued recollection of any matter is a total annoyance bordering on the side of bragging. is this anti-social? ehh.
in simplest terms, a small honda sedan merged too quickly and lost traction due to the icy conditions of the road, crossed three lanes of traffic (missing everything) and t-boned itself into the front end of the full size, 74-capacity school bus. upon the wreck, the bus was eerily silent, i remember hearing myself unvoluntarily droning "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit" while bracing my arms into a right triangle with the seat back in front of me. i looked behind me and met the bewildered eyes of sixteen bewildered UW students. yet, fearing a jinx upon our luck, no one dared answer affirmation of well-being. a stocky fellow started colleting blood around his mouth, an indication of a bitten-through lip. another, a beanpole with facial scruff felt his forehead for oozing. we collected our things separetely and decided to exit the rear of the bus. as i made my way to the driver, all he could say was "won't be able to use the front door". he was right, too; the silver and gold specked sedan had wrapped itself around the front and right sides of the bus, making an exit there impassable. incredibly, the driver sustained no physical wounds. he took his time packing his bag and, collecting his coat and external wear, led the way to the rear of the yellow shell. miraculously, though as it should, the bus held it's form. it'll never run again as it did that morning, but it held together tight and defended its unbelted passengers against certain death. in any other machine, a Suburban, an Excursion, a Hummer perhaps, we would have smootched off the sedan and rolled over the median instantly causing an enmassing ball, a vehicular pinball gaining speed and size while projecting itself through rows of cars waiting an imminent gathering.
the whole ordeal stirred me yesterday--i felt myself on the brink of breaking down on several occasions. i had those two debating sides of me stirring up trouble, one begging my emotions to the surface while the other kept it all clammed up inside. after exiting the bus, i got curious and detached from the group of shellshocked students to check out the other participant, the sedan driver. the paramedics stood nearby waiting for the firefighters to loosened and pry the driver. it was a futile effort, with the honda a permanent partner pasted to the bus grill; there'd be no further animation from his body. nearby, at the base of a driver side door intact only because it was pinned upright, drizzled red onto the road shoulder. given the natural decline of the road toward the median, the blood followed helplessly toward the mounds of muddied snow embanked onto the cement median. it created a nauseating effect. i turned my head in horror, a neck-jerk reaction to the confrontation with the last pouring of the honda driver's life. he lay there, for lack of a power to do much else-a head and a body as a table to collect a mid-road sample of snow and wait.
to tell-all and sob or to savor the numb qualities of a near-death excursion, i opted for the latter because i really do hate stirring up attention into my corner. today was easier to manage, though i admit my outward feelings of grumpiness. i hummed with arrested annoyance at the most innocuous simple-minded jokes, things i often ignore. sometimes i needs my grumble pie. looking back over the past couple days, i see myself retelling the story of the wreck... five, six, seven times and hating myself for doing it. telling a story once or twice is fine but the continued recollection of any matter is a total annoyance bordering on the side of bragging. is this anti-social? ehh.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
remember when ...
i made a list of all the things i was going to change about my life?
bought a wipe board. unwrapped it. sat with it. wrote down that which came to mind:
-figure out life plans for june 2009 (job end)
-smoke less (why do i?)
-floss more (battle bad breath!)
-exercise regularly (wanna look good naked)
i don't hate my job, but i can see myself getting lazy and complacent and i know there's more to life than what i'm doing. i can't see what that is but i know it's not here. one day i'll look back and sorta miss that i was so aimless and sloppy. i'll laugh with shame and then carry on.
post script: i checked the coast and it was clear that all of my friends i'd been close to and cherished had fallen off, enrolled in, got off their bums and toured the parts of the world where i could no longer reach them. lj used to be a commonplace to share thoughts and stories and photo to thumb through. now it's a ghost town. maybe now i write for myself. without an audience, what's to shame over?
bought a wipe board. unwrapped it. sat with it. wrote down that which came to mind:
-figure out life plans for june 2009 (job end)
-smoke less (why do i?)
-floss more (battle bad breath!)
-exercise regularly (wanna look good naked)
i don't hate my job, but i can see myself getting lazy and complacent and i know there's more to life than what i'm doing. i can't see what that is but i know it's not here. one day i'll look back and sorta miss that i was so aimless and sloppy. i'll laugh with shame and then carry on.
post script: i checked the coast and it was clear that all of my friends i'd been close to and cherished had fallen off, enrolled in, got off their bums and toured the parts of the world where i could no longer reach them. lj used to be a commonplace to share thoughts and stories and photo to thumb through. now it's a ghost town. maybe now i write for myself. without an audience, what's to shame over?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)