The Wee Democracy

a brief note before i get into it

you know that old saying -- something like, you can't go back to the farm once you've seen paris? yeah, well try going back to dallas after ten days in new york. i've been sick to my stomach ever since i got off the plane, and this morning i found myself standing in the middle of my room screaming silently to myself "whyythefuckamievenhereihatethisgoddamnmotherfuckincity! idon'tevenwannnabehereanymore!! ijustwannabebackinnewyorkgoddammit!!"

i had this dream while i was in new york, wherein i had flown early back to dallas and was suddenly overcome with remorse, and i just prayed that i could be back. then i woke up, and i was in my sister's apartment. it was a feeling of relief that can only be compared to someone who suddenly and unequivocally knows that they are the recipient of a miracle.

but i won't wake up from this. and the only way this ends up being a miracle is if i take myself back there. but it's gonna be a long time sleeping before that happens...


July19 - takeoff

so its late monday, the first night i've spent in NY. the entire day has gone by very quickly, which would seem to indicate that, if my understanding of the laws governing relativity and all theories thereof are accurate, i must be having a good time.

i mean, when the flight gods are kind enough to put you on an airplane next to a blonde with freckles and blue eyes, you should at least get the inkling that something is up with your fortunes and perhaps the worm has does his turning in your favor.

already, i've reunited with jill and travis, two cats i had a good time with back in may, had a deep and desperately needed catharsis via conversation with my sister, drank a healthy amount, eaten great italian, cried, laughed, imbibed, partook, and played chess with the grace and forthought of an inebriate-savant prodigy, therein smiting the mighty champion of W family chess (i even took a picture of the plain of victory).

at this point, i'm writing the blog entry (editor's note - this will be one of only four long hand written blogs) in my notebook to avoid the catastrophic loss of information that resulted from my procrastination and failures of memory after my austin trip and vince's wedding. already the distance i've put between my person and my home has reaped some lovely benefits.

i am writing this completely at ease which is quite uncommon for a brotha such as myself. this laid back posture has already loosened up my mind a bit, allowing this entry to flow with the aforementioned ease and minimal effort. so much conquered in one day, all leading up to me smacking leah around the chess board like the boogeyman.

today i'm high on life. so i say. the irish don't stand a chance.



feeling: sex and the city type fabulous
thinking of: the stories that were told, of kings in days of old
song of the day: one - U2

see you in the funny papers
 
i'm off to NY today, to do all those things i'm setting out to do. or nothing at all. see you all when i see you all.
 
peace, fools.
 
 
 
 
feeling: nervous
thinking of: nervousness
 

back in time
 
apparently, i'm eight years old again. what started out as a simple tender eyelid, yesterday, has escalated into the fear that i have perhaps the most useless stupid disease ever divised -- pink eye.
 
i'm not for sure what it is, but for sure my eyelid is swollen and tender. my eye's ok. no pinkness, really to speak of outside of their normal bloodshottedness. but what's really ticking me off is the fact that i could be seriously fucked by this. i mean, i don't have insurance. i don't even have a doctor.
 
i'm irrationally angry, and i've picked the perfect pawn to throw down my irrational anger upon - the system.
 
college doesn't teach you what to do when you graduate without a job and benefits right out of the gate. they need to have a class that teaches you how to take care of yourself. evidently, you're supposed to learn all that on your own. well, if i can learn so damn much on my own, how come i had to go to school in the first place? huh? how come i couldn't just stay home all those years of my whimsical youth before the weight of the world destroyed my spirit and play super mario bros. all day? hmm? i wouldn't have gotten pink eye either, if i was just safe in my home. so teach us something worthwhile education system.
 
and health care? you can stick it up your ass, too. insurance, prescriptions, doctors, pharmacists. jack up the prices to everything so you can all screw me, why don't you?? make sure you're always putting your foot on the little guy's neck so he's always on the defensive, and can't threaten your gestapo-like reign of power and the oligarchy that runs this effed up country of big wigs and broken down heroes on a last chance power drive.
 
i have pink eye, and i'm gonna have to go to the nastiest hospital in the city to get it fixed before tomorrow. damn the man.
 
 
 
feeling: like oscar
thinking of: nothing anymore
song of the day: age of consent - new order
do you find this happens all the time? crucial point one day becomes a crime

down the rabbit hole
 
familiar habits are returning, and familiar circumstances aren't helping. i'm watching alot of sopranos again. clouds are forming.
 
maybe i can outrun them.
 
 
 
 
feeling: ...
thinking of: sunday, new york
song of the day: cop that shit - timbaland and missy elliott
i don't know what you heard, and i don't know what you know...

destiny shmestiny

i simply cannot shake this idea that i'm destined for something great.

the problem is, i seem to think that destiny will just find me, knock on the door, and shove the gift/burden onto my shoulders. that would be fine with me, and require a minimal of effort.

but no. you've got to go looking for your destiny.

destiny's a fucking lazy-ass.



feeling: hot
thinking of: blocking out the sun, M. Burns style
song of the day: a poor man's memory - explosions in the sky

things i'm going to do in NY

try to go on a date

hang out in carl shurz park, and on the east river esplanade

hang out in central park and try to write

dress cool

read some of this bloggy material at the bowery poetry club

try not to run out crying after they boo me at the bowery poetry club

casually pay attention to job opportunties

not so casually pay attention to irish and/or irish looking girls

walk across at least one bridge

go to the top of the empire state building

write...alot

drink...even more

try not to spend a zillion dollars on crap i can buy here

not alienate my sister.

play with fire

spend a day stalking sofia coppola

do something else touristy

eat great food again

look for more irish girls



feeling: oh god, so tired
thinking of: dos mas dias
song of the day: play with fire - rollin' stones
Well, you've got your diamonds and you've got your pretty clothes, and the chauffeur drives your car
you let everybody know, but don't play with me, 'cause you're playing with fire

(in best moe the bartender voice)WHAAAAAAAAAT??

we went to chili's last night, in search of dessert.

see, earlier in the day, i was in the lounge and i heard this news blurb about shaq possibly/probably being traded to miami. so i wanted to find out if this was true or not, asap, so i could go on berating that overpaid nerd mark cuban for letting steve nash go for what? for what?? huh???

but i digress. so we're walking into chili's and i ask my mom if she watched the news today. this is not such a random question, because if she's watching tv at all, there's about a 70% chance she's watching a news program of sorts. she said no. and then i asked leah, which was a bit of a longshot, i'll admit, and sure enough, she said no, too.

then, with a noticeable enthusiasm, the hostess said "i can turn on the news for you, if you want". i politely declined, and thanked her.

leah said at the table that it was funny that she just offered to turn on the news like that. then a while later, we were talking about it and she speculated that maaaaaaybe the hostess was trying to flirt.

it's weird, this burgeoning self esteem. so fragile, so unstable. is it possible? am i hot?

i think i need the validation of a reality dating show to be my own personal litmus test. fifth wheel, here i come.




feeling: sleepy. josh got too little sleep last night
thinking of: the end of the day
song of the day: wrapped in my memory - shawn smith
and you're wrapped in my memory like chains, for I say that the flowers will always be there in my heart, like an old fashioned movie and i never forget your part

open letters

dear beer commercials,
stop making empty promises. the only thing drinking the beer you so vigorously promote as social lubricant and chick magnet has succeeded in attracting is fat cells to my stomach.


dear my stomach,
stop growing hair. i'm a man now, i get the picture. just knock it off.


dear work,
i hate you. not my job, though i hate that too, but work in general...you must go. failure to go away in a prompt fashion will result in violence perpetrated upon your head and body.

dear irish girls,
stop being so damn attractive. i can't take it anymore. ok, don't stop,


dear fingers,
learn how to play an instrument, will you? stop being shiftless layabouts and get on the stick! i'm writing a letter to my voice soon to demand immediate improvement in the singing department, so you'd better start crackin'.


dear cheerios,
i'm just writing to you to thank you so much for all the years of yummy bowlish happiness you've provided me through my life, with your honey nut lusciousness, your sassy and playful apple cinnamon, your bold frosted o's, and your tasteful and tasty classic plain cheerios. i hope that you and i have several more years of good times ahead of us.


dear karma,
get to work, you lazy fuck!




feeling: ok - it's late, leah's here
thinking of: sleepytown, USA
song of the day: nothin' but a g thang - snoop and dre
its the capital S, oh yes, so fresh N, double O P, D O double G Y D O double G, ya see, showin' much flex when it's time to wreck a mic, pimpin' hoes and clockin' a grip, like my name was dolemite

karma

a friend has recently told me that no one deserves anything they get, whether it be good or bad. it all happens, and it is not "deserved" or "owed".

i begged to differ, stating that if there's one thing i've learned at my job, which i maintain is the most soul crushing of jobs that fall outside of the parameters of indentured servitude, its that all of us do, indeed, deserve a modicum of common courtesy from out fellow man. however, the problem arises that the ilk that frequents the mall on saturdays barely qualifies as man. it's more like a communal mind, all bent on being messy and demanding something for nothing.

this is all beside the point. my friend also said that i was too good to her. too nice. i speculated that perhaps it was my sense of fairness and justice driving my actions. that i was trying to load my karma for the good. like, if i do enough good things, then good things will be done upon me. dunno if i believe in that. in karma.

it's a very nice notion to believe in. if you do good, you get good. and if you think bad, well, bad's what you get. but that is clearly not the case. if it were, i'm guessing several grand pianos would have fallen from such great heights on dick cheney's face by now. but, such is life.

so do you have to believe in good for goodness' sake before the karmic wheel spins back your way? i mean, can you do good for the sake of hoping that you'll get something in return, like me, or do you have to be all altruistic and shit?

damn hindus always have a loophole to screw me out of a good time.



feeling: utterly confused and,to be honest, a tad pissed
thinking of: cats
song of the day: here comes my baby - cat stevens
here comes my baby, here she comes now, and it comes as no surprise to me, with another guy...

gettin' funky on the mic like an old batch of collard greens

i hung out again with lauren today. we went to whole foods, and decried the high prices that hippies and rich housewives find acceptable. we went to the bookstore, and i bought a book on job hunting, which scares me to the bone. then to tom thumb, where the prices were a damn bit more agreeable, the goal of our journey being to gather all the ingredients so that i could make the W family's tuna salad. actually, it's my mom's recipe (not that it's all that fancy), but i add a special ingridient to it that i like to call: love.

she was having trouble beating the spider thingie that hangs out in the deku tree, so i had to help her out there, all the while chopping celery and boiling eggs -- i've said too much about the tuna salad.
elliott kitten harangued me for the tuna juices, big ole eyes looking up at me like a feline crackhead as if to say, 'gimme a hit, boss'. we ate, watched some sex and the city.

you'd think that this was a good day, but i just can't seem to shake this funkitude that's blocking my good time receptors. it is as if i'm forgetting something...the feeling you get when you know you have a test coming up, you just don't know when, and so you walk with fear to the classroom praying, god please don't let the test be today.

ill at ease would be a good way to describe it, but finding the source is such a bitch sometimes. i even tried to fight it with my version of the a-bomb, which is to say, my rap mix cd. but no, not even the smooth mysogeny of snoop dogg, or dre, or lil jon and the east side boyz could snap me out of feeling like i was forgetting something, like impending doom was...well, impending.

i was talking to lisa last night, about how the last two months i spent in austin were very good. i told her that i felt like i was shaping into the person that i wanted to be for the rest of my life. not a shiftless layabout who smoked too much weed and watched a lot of tv. but someone who was happy in their work, good at it, looking to move into a career, finally comfortable with being in strange circumstances and meeting new people whenever possible. now, though, i feel like i'm regressing.

alot of times, this blog is like therapy. purging all the thoughts that rattle around in my head that bother me, if for no other reason that to put them someplace other than my head.

and like tony sopranos says, talking helps.



feeling: meh
thinking of: the future, when i feel guh
song of the day: you can't always get what you want - the stones
(no lyric, the whole song)

run for your life!!

i'm going to new york on the 19th to stay with leah for ten days. it promises to be a whomping good time. but this whole thing has started me thinking. time is running out for me.

i've said it before, i don't like making decisions. i'm no good at it. i mean, there was a time when i thought about what to do, then made the best informed decision i could. then opted to do the diametric opposite of that. in the costanza philosophy of things, if nothing i do is right, do everything wrong instead.

take the summer of 2002, which i've touched upon as recently as last month. at first, i thought it was all good, living with a friend, with plans to live with him and others in the following year. working in a job that i liked with people i liked. feeling like a person i was happy to be.

but then my friend explained how i couldn't live with them, because a guy that they had talked to before me decided, after all (and after i'd agreed, mind you) to go ahead and claim a spot in the house. now, in hindsight, with all the drama that went down in that craphole, i'm glad i ended up living on my own.

the summer, i felt, was shaping up to suck, i complained to the lady i worked with, and were it not for this job, and coming in and being able to talk about this with someone like her, i would feel like a complete dumbass.

skip to the beginning of august, a few days after settling into my apartment. i'm sitting there, basking in the glory of my freedom, enjoying that new apartment smell, flopping around on my big bed, in my new sheets, taking pleasure in the cleanliness, and thusly, godliness, of the kitchen before cleaning it every night became a chore. then it was gone.

so it all came crashing down, and i was left with the distinct impression that every decision i made regarding things was utterly wrong. the thought that depressed me the most was that the entire summer, from start to finish was one large mistake. who needs a drink?

i know i should stop with the self pity, but damn. i'm just not good at sacking up and taking charge of my life. and i know i can't spend forever in a department store, and i wouldn't even if it paid well enough. i have to decide what i'm going to do, where i'm going to do it.

to paraphrase major payne, the sad truth is, i gotta get a job.



feeling: like i'm running out of time
thinking of: so many things that i've lost count. i may have adult ADD
song of the day: ruby tuesday - the rolling stones
goodbye, ruby tuesday, who could hang a name on you when you change with every new day. still, i'm gonna miss you...

dammit!!

sometimes, i'll be going through friendster, and i'll see a girl who's really really really super cute, and i'll agree with her tastes in music, and in movies, and in books, and i'll find her little note about herself to be funny and clever, and she'll say that she's "in a relationship".

and i'll yell to the computer screen, then stop being on friendster, you painted hussy!!



feeling: frustrated and confused
thinking of: making out
song of the day: by your side - sade
if only you could see into me...

trigger happy

today i smelled something that reminded me of my ex-step-mom's smell when she took me and my sister and my ex-step-sister to a horrid day care place back....waaaaay back in the day. it was an ok smell. but the place sucked, believe it.

i also heard macy gray singing whatever song that is where she's saying "try to say goodbye and i choke", and i swear to god i smelled coffee grounds. the reason being that i heard that song almost every morning on the radio in the bakery/coffee shop where i worked freshman year. that and that train song with rebecca gayheart.

the elevator smells like an elevator at a hotel at a beach, which is to say, old and musty and salty. i liked it.

last week i smelled the ruins of a building they're rennovating downtown and it brought me right back to jester east when i first got there for orientation. when i got past the initial shock and idea of moving away, it was pretty sweet to imagine how i'd set up my own room. which, by the way, was much better than the one they stowed me in for O.




feeling: i don't know what i'm feeling today. nostalgic? sad? what?
thinking of: tessa jane
song of the day: if winter ends - bright eyes
i fell for the promise of a life with a purpose, but i know that that's impossible now

blue

seeing lauren, meeting cuzi, and being thrilled by how much i liked spider-man 2 can't draw back the gray rain curtain that covers my view of the world.

so i'm gonna pull a riqui and just post a song and its lyrics today.

i'm writing a song all about you
a true song as real as my tears
but you've no need to fear it
cause no one will hear it.
sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year.

i'll tell all about how you cheated
i'd like for the whole world to hear.
i'd like to get even with you
cause you're leavin'
but sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year.

it's a good thing that i'm not a star
you don't know how lucky you are
though my record may say it
no one will play it
sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year.



feeling: guess
thinking of: heartache, michigan, new york, and saturday
song of the day: sad songs and waltzes - cake