2011 book/movie list

I've kind of started a tradition that at the beginning of the year, I list all the books I read and movies I watched during the previous year.  I have a terrible time trying to remember what books I've read and what movies I've seen so I thought this might help.  Even reading through this list, I couldn't remember reading or watching some of this stuff.  I need to lay off the aspartame.

twenty-six degrees of separation

"I am the lowest thing.  I am the bottom of the universe."
-Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Last Friday night, yeah, we danced on tabletops and we took too many shots, think we kissed but I forgot...um, I mean I just had a birthday dinner with a high school acquaintance.  Our birthdays are two days apart and so it seemed appropriate to have a meal to celebrate at least one of our births.  The meal was enjoyable and mine was free because earlier in the day my supervisor gave me a gift card to the very restaurant we went to.

And then when we were done, we went to a funky yogurt shop with pastel striped walls and do-it-yourself yogurt assembly.  And I got hit on by the guy at the counter, some college-age kid with swooped hair and an hoop through his upper left ear.  Although he was a dude, it still felt kind of nice to have someone show some kind of interest in me.  It's been a while.  Damn, I've really reached a new level of lameness.  But the yogurt was good.

Saturday, I went Christmas shopping for my family.  I spent nine hours at the mall and various other retail stores.  It was kind of nice being off on my own, venturing out of the same four walls and the same arrangement of furniture and forlornness.  It was also weird, uncomfortable.  I've wallowed in my own world for so long that it felt uneasy to stretch myself past my perimeter.  Usually, when I have a day off work, I just want to stay at home.  Going out and doing things makes the time pass by faster, which means work comes sooner.  When I'm at home, the hours go by slower, allowing me to savor the reprieve just a little bit longer.  It's sad that I dislike my job so much I'm willing to sacrifice a social life in favor of feeling a prolonged sense of time away from work. 

The drive was relaxing, however.  An hour or so of smooth movement, singing at the top of my lungs and distancing myself from the damage of being at home and surrounded by damaging people.  I was in my own world in my car, the only place I felt safe back at school when things got tough.  It was my tank, my asylum, my music player and motivational speaker, my confessional, my best friend. 

Eventually, the urge to use the bathroom got the best of me.  As much as I tried to ignore it, I really needed to go.  I went from place to place, resisting the urge to pee at every stop, wondering where I could go and find a semi-private bathroom where I wouldn't be walked in on and have my urine flow suddenly stunted.  I'm pee shy. 

As I walked around the mall, I felt like a lot of people were looking at me.  I don't know if it was because of my usual paranoia or if there was a legitimate reason.  I was sweating pretty heavily.  It was cold outside so I wore a hoodie but inside each building, it was sweltering.  It probably didn't help that every place I went to was crowded with late shoppers.  The combination of my natural production of internal heat coupled with rowdy bodies bustling around was enough to drum up plenty of warmth.  Or were they looking at me because I was sloppily dressed due to the fact that my fluctuating weight won't allow for well-fitting clothing or if it was because I was so pale and shiny or if I was just an all together awkward arrangement of face, flesh, and bodily structure.

I stopped by and looked at all the store mannequins, perfectly sculpted, clothed, and posed.  I looked over the layered fabrics stretched across the headless torsos and liked what I saw.  I realized I still didn't know how to dress myself.  I never would have put all that stuff together but I could recognize when something worked.  It was like art and writing.  I didn't know how to make beautiful art or construct beautiful words and stories but I could recognize when it worked.  But I imagined putting those clothes on myself and realized it wouldn't work.  They were thin and hard-bodied models and anything looked good on them.  But when you get to a certain size, no matter how fashionable the clothing is, it just doesn't look right.  There's too much fabric, too little structure.

But we weren't all that different, the mannequins and I.  We were both pale and plastic pieces of nothing.  They were just dressed better.

Surprisingly, I didn't think about buying too much for myself.  I felt too fat to buy clothing and there wasn't really anything else that interested me.  I had enough electronics and music and hair gel.  I did walk into a bookstore, though, and want to buy up every book I came in contact with.  I can never shake the feeling of wanting my writing to belong to a book store, to walk along the aisles and be able to pluck my book out of one of the shelves.  It was an empty kind of comfort, a nice feeling to revel in if only for a moment.  A boy can dream.

My actual birthday was on Sunday and I didn't do anything.  I was tired from the long day before and just wanted to ring in my twenty-sixth in a sloth-like manner.  I think I accomplished that.

It was actually a pretty decent birthday.  The only sad part was realizing I was another year older and hadn't accomplished anything.  Physically, I get older but I'm still the same in every other aspect.  Same job.  Same lack of balance and faith and connectivity.  Still haven't lost that weight or written that book or found anyone or anything to make me feel alive again.  I still feel dead.

Happy birthday, you breathless body.  Merry Christmas, you corpse.

I can wish for things to be better in the new year.  I can try to make things better in the new year but if there was something I could do, wouldn't I have done it by now?  So, where does that leave me for my twenty-sixth year on this planet?  I've already wished and tried to make things better and it hasn't seemed to work out so I guess I have no other option than to just coast.  But isn't that what I've been doing all this time?  I've make a couple of feeble attempts at happiness, a stab or two at serenity but mostly I'm just too tired to try. 

I think I'll just read a lot of books and watch a lot of crappy horror movies and wait for it all to be over.

identity

"Most of the men and women in whom Momoulian had placed his trust had betrayed him. The pattern had repeated itself so often down the decades that he was sure he would one day become hardened to the pain such betrayals caused. But he never achieved such precious indifference. The cruelty of other people- their callous usage of him- never failed to wound him, and though he had extended his charitable hand to all manner of crippled psyches, such ingratitude was unforgivable."
- Clive Barker, The Damnation Game

When I put off writing, the pressure builds up inside me until I feel like my brain is going to explode.  The world is knotted up inside my head, pulsing to try to untangle itself but it only manages to strengthen the stranglehold on me.  It feels a lot like going on a diet.  When I can't eat, I get irritable, angry and confused.  After a period of deprivation, the cravings become too much for me to handle and I want to eat everything in sight.

It's the same way with writing.  I crave writing.  It's another form of nourishment for me.  Writing is another feel good food.  But when I can't write (or am too lazy), I start feeling deprived again and just like I want to eat everything I can get my hands on, I want to write about whatever pops into my head, from the mundane (which toothpaste is best?) to the profound (what, who, and where is God?).

And when I'm actually able to write, the world finds a way to uncoil itself, it's tendrils stretching out in all directions like inky black octopus arms, writhing to get my attention, yearning to be written about.  All the small stuff, all the large stuff gets trapped inside and I feel like I can't properly let it go unless I get it all out.

It's usually not too bad when I'm good about writing but lately, I haven't been doing well at all.  I'm exhausted from work and when I get home, I just want to watch a dumb horror movie, eat a pizza and then go to sleep.  When I'm at work, frustrated with customers and fellow associates, my mind buzzes with subject matter.  The words flow freely from a cut sliced open in my brain but by the time I reach the safety of my bedroom, the cut has sealed itself shut for another day.  The tendrils collect themselves into a tangled ball again and I can't get anything to come out properly.  But, I've noticed there have been a few limbs that have managed to remain free from the swirling mess inside my mind, recurring themes in my thought process that continue to hang down around my heart and squeeze: food, work, my aspirations and people, specifically the broken connections with people that are still scabbing over.

I can't seem to let go of all the people who let go of me.  Especially those who made me feel good.  I don't get many people who can do that for me so when they do come around, I get attached to them, probably too quickly.  They made me feel good, like I mattered.  And then they quite literally vanished.  Gone and away without a word of warning.  The worst part is it wouldn't even hurt that much if these people had not specifically told me they would be the ones to stick around.

I don't think anyone left me on purpose.  I don't think anyone meant to hurt me.  But they still did.  They hurt me more than they will ever know, especially because I'll never tell them.  The reason being is because, as I mentioned, they didn't mean to hurt me so why should I hurt them by telling them that they basically destroyed me?  I'm not sure that would benefit anyone.  It might benefit me in the short-term, to let all the anger out on them, to tell them how much they screwed me up.  It feels unfair to let these people go unaware of the pain they caused.

But it also feels vindictive, like I'm being spiteful to tell them such things.  I'd like to think I'd want to know if I hurt someone, especially if it was unintentional so I could first apologize and then correct my actions in the future but I'm not sure I'd be able to live with myself if I knew the depth to which I hurt someone like how I was hurt.  To know that I got right to the core of that person and cracked it would devastate me.  And no matter how broken I felt, I wouldn't want to do that to anyone else.  There are enough broken people in the world without me adding to the crowd.

The difference between the ones who left me and other people I've lost contact with is the people I just lost contact with never said they would keep in touch or stick around or never leave me.  People come and go and I can accept that.  With the regular people who slip in and out of my life, we all knew it was ending and there was a mutual interest in keeping in touch but no one made these grand claims or promises they couldn't keep.  And I wonder why the ones who did make these grand claims couldn't keep their promises, why they would even make them in the first place if they wouldn't put in the effort to keep them.

The worst part is it wasn't even just one person.  One person would be hard enough but I'd like to think I'd move on eventually.  No, this wasn't just one good friend who got up and walked away.  It wasn't even two people but a slew of individuals who abandoned me.  Individuals I truly thought cared about me.  And they left me, one after the other, taking turns crushing my heart.  By the end of it all, I found myself on the floor, trying to collect what was left, scooping up the sinew and and smearing blood on my cheeks, amazed by the rapid succession of stealing away and leaving me alone to atrophy.

And it isn't just a simple case of breaking a promise.  When these people left me, it made me feel inadequate, like I wasn't not good enough to keep up with, like my friendship wasn't valuable enough for them to want to hold onto.  It has really messed me up because these were not just acquaintances to me.  They were beyond friends.  They were special.  And I thought I was special to them.  Maybe at one time I was.  Something somewhere changed, however.  I don't know what I was to them before but now I know I'm nothing more than a ghost to them.

When I died, I always wondered what kind of dead I was.  I sifted through the different ghouls and goblins and tried to categorize my corpse.  I wasn't a poltergeist because I didn't haunt or harm others.  I wasn't a vampire because I didn't feed on other people for sustenance.  I wasn't a zombie because I wasn't quite mindless, or cool, enough.  Plus, I was a vegetarian at the time.  Nothing seemed to fit.  Finally, I realized I was just another restless spirit, an unsettled spectre with unfinished business bolted down to Earth.

And through it all, these people are the ones who still haunt me.  They are not completely gone, occasionally popping in to say hello but it feels more like a seance than a salutation, a greeting over the grave that means nothing to anyone.  They swoop in to say they are thinking of me without actually thinking of me, a shallow connection as a way to soothe their own souls and feel good that they at least made contact before blowing out the candles and slipping back into silence again, breaking the bond of the spirit board and sending me back to dissolve into death one more time.  But if they really cared, they would have done more than summoned my spirit.  They would have conversed with my corpse, no matter how buried I may have felt.

What's it feel like to be a ghost?  It's not great.  I float around, seeing people but never feeling them, hearing people but never being heard.  Transparent as glass and just as cold.  I want to shout and scream but my voice carries no weight.  I am nothing of substance.

It's the duality of the ruse of red cheeks and pumping blood that I show to the world while inside myself, I am dead, cold and incapable of feeling anything but insecurity and hopelessness.  The emptiness is as far reaching as the tentacles of my messy mental faculties.  It's the wanting vs being, the heartbeat vs blood loss, the sadist vs the soother.  It's a constant battle of expectations and realizations, what people think I am and succumbing to what I've become.  It's trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy, trying to fight off the hatred and fear that bubbles up inside me every day, trying to put on the face of the boy I used to be, pure and innocent and loving.  It's pushing down everything that everyone thought I was going to be, everything everyone thinks I am now. 

The appendages not only hold tight to my head but who I am as a whole.  Pull back the layers of limbs and you'll find a blank space where only emptiness resides.  There is no core because I am anything and everything.  Therefore, I am nothing.  I am potential and possibility and failure and freedom.  I am breathing and broken bones.  I am writer, artist, storyteller, maniac, restless, actor, mediator and yet I am really none of those things.  I have nothing to hold onto.  I have no identity.  I am not defined by my job or position within my family or passion.  I cannot follow through with anything or align myself with a movement, idea, or belief.  I do not move within this world.  This world moves within me.  I am pinned in place as it all rushes through me.  I can hear, smell, feel, and taste a sample of it all: the joy, the sorrow, the hope and disappointment but the only thing that's truly palatable is pain.

I suppose I wouldn't be so heartbroken over these people if I cared more about myself.  I wouldn't need them to make me feel special and wouldn't be so distraught over their disappearance.  But the truth of the matter is I needed them to feel good about myself and because of them, now I can't feel good about anyone else.  I am trapped inside myself with no solace, no one to turn to in times of need.  The ones I used to be able to count on are unavailable.  I want to reach out and touch them so bad, to grab them and absorb them into me, to recapture that good feeling but it's gone, pulled apart and burned away.  Never to be mended.

All I ever wanted was to show love, to love everyone and eventually find someone I could love in a special way and hope that they would want to love me in that same way.  And the very thing I wanted is the very thing that destroyed me.  It was that love that lynched my capacity to care for anyone else.  I see now it's not possible for me to love or be loved but that doesn't mean I don't crave it every once in a while.  It's that duality again.  It won't even let me give up on the ghost of a good thing.

The tendrils constrict.

on a cold dark street

"I don't know if I want to live, or if I have to...or if it's just a habit."
-The Walking Dead

The other day, I was standing at work and I thought to myself that I was getting closer and closer to not caring if I died.  Probably closest I've been in years, like since I was a kid and prayed for death in my sleep every night.

I've casually thought about offing myself before but nothing substantial ever came of it because of small factors like devastating my family, leaving them with my debts and the concept of everlasting hell kept me from pursuing expiration.

But lately I've been thinking more and more that I'm probably going to hell anyway so that's a moot fear.  The family devastation and debt is another thing, though.  If I were to die by other means than my own, I wouldn't have to feel bad because I wasn't the one who finalized the physical aspect of my demise.  Maybe I'd get hit by a bus or inherit my father's colon cancer and experience The Great Release guilt-free.

I can't really see my life getting better.  I know this is a gaping fallacy most suicidal people fall into, thinking life will never get better, that things will never ease up.  It's hard to see past your own pain.  You can't visualize the grand landscape of life when the world weighs down on your mind's eye.  But pain is fleeting, right?  Things do get better.  It won't always be this bad.  But who really knows that?  In my experience, things have only gotten worse the farther I've come.  High school was terrible and college was a colossal disaster, one I'm still paying for physically, emotionally and monetarily.   And because of that monetary consequence, I can't get my feet off the ground and move away to a place of better opportunity for jobs and friendship.  I'm stuck.

But what does any of it matter?  I don't have any passion for drawing or animating or writing.  Food, my only true comfort, isn't even all that great anymore.  And I don't feel connected to anyone.  I think about the people I used to care about, the ones who left me, and I can only feel a burning resentment toward them for ruining our relationships.

So, if I die then whatever.

But that night,  I actually had a dream where I was back in Savannah.  It was at night and I was just leaving an illuminated auditorium.  The light from the building spilled onto the cobblestone road, transitioning from white to yellow to gray.  The air was cold and blue and I walked down a series of brick steps and turned left.  The space in front of me was obscured by the dark night sky and expansive bushes.  I took a few steps and then hesitated.  I felt a sweeping sense of unease and decided to turn around and go the other way.

I thought to myself, "Who knows what's in those bushes.  This isn't a good part of town.  I don't want to get killed tonight."  Then I walked up another set of brick stairs and turned left into a water fountain.  Suddenly, I was barefoot and splashing in the icy cold water, looking down and watching the clear liquid froth at my feet.

Then, I remembered what I had felt in the waking world, about not caring if I was dead.  But I kept walking forward, still not wanting to risk the chance of encountering a gun or a blade in my fleshy stomach.

I woke up and had to wonder what it all meant.  Was it my subconscious telling me that I really didn't want to die or was it just a case of focusing on something so much that you carry it over into your dreams?  You know, like if you do something repetitive over an extended period of time like wrapping loose change or spending the day with a person and suddenly that loose change or that person appears in your dreams.

Was it just a case of life infiltrating dreams or am I still unsure about my existence?  I don't have much hope that it's a sign of anything significant.  Why should I?  Who's out there looking after me?  Who has something grand planned for my existence?  What do I have to live for?  I don't want to fall for another false hope.  I don't want to once again think things will get better only to be slapped down one more time.  No, I think I've finally cracked, fallen too far to see any way out.

The worst part, and the part that makes me feel the most selfish, is the fact that there are probably some people who do care about my fate but I don't care about their opinions.  It's the ones I want to care for me, the ones I want so desperately to love me, the ones I want to take an interest in my life and writing and thoughts and feelings, who remain indifferent.

Yeah, I'm definitely thinking it was a "loose change" kind of dream.

do you know a killer?

Several weeks ago, my sister's coworker, Jon, went to a man's house to sell him car and homeowner's insurance.

As Jon was assessing the house, the man's wife went up to him, a bit frazzled, her eyes enlarged with fear, and said, "Don't sell him any insurance.  He's going to burn this house down and then kill me."  No doubt, Jon was startled by the statement.  What do you do in that situation?  Do you take her seriously or blow it off as her being crazy or paranoid?  Jon decided to shrug it off and sold the man the insurance anyway.

He didn't think too much about the lady with the large eyes until he got a phone call two weeks later.

It was the man.

"You can take my wife off the policy," he said.  "She committed suicide a few days ago."

Jon, concerned, called the police to let them know what the man's wife had told him but they refused to look into it, saying the case was officially closed.

.
.
.

So...he killed her.

Happy Halloween.

pentagrammatical error

“And it’s not just obvious things, he said. It’s not all possessions and hauntings and black shadows by the bed. Satan can come knocking wearing a more mundane coat. The Ouija abuser could have health or personal problems, or their luck could just turn rotten. Most often, the afflicted simply find that their faith in God mysteriously drains away. The invisible world of the undead, the world of ghosts and spirits, is the world where the devil lives, he told me calmly. And if you go looking for the devil, the devil will find you.” 
-Will Storr vs the Supernatural by Will Storr

When I was a little boy, I used to hang out with my gay cousin, his sister and their dead relative in their haunted mobile home.  Well, at least they told me there was a dead relative that lived with them.  Although I was around ten-years-old and naive, I was still skeptical of the trailer's transparent tenant.  It was hard for me to imagine there was an actual presence, a ghost, that walked (floated?) among them.

I'm pretty open minded so it wasn't that I didn't believe in ghosts but I was also the type of person that needed to see things with my own eyes in order to truly believe.  Also, my cousins had tried to trick me with unbelievable stories before.

My uncle had a pond across from his trailer and the eldest cousin, J, once told me it contained a gigantic fish as large as the pond itself.  His name was Chester.  I was probably about seven at the time and dumb and knew nothing about fish.  If wales could get huge, could some species of fish as well?  Although I had never heard of a gigantic catfish before, maybe Chester was a freak accident of nature.

My little brain spun with the possibilities but there was never any physical evidence, never any indication of a fin skimming the surface of the shimmery gray pond.  I wasn't sure what to make of J's claim but his sister, K, backed him up.  J liked to be dramatic and spin salacious stories but K was more down to earth and so if she agreed with him, maybe it was really true.  Maybe there was a fish as big as a house floating around in the murky water.

Eventually, I came to my senses and realized my cousins were just screwing with me.  Chester the catfish was a hoax, unless some toxic waste had somehow spilled into the water, genetically altering the scaly creature's DNA, turning it into the Godzilla of redneck cuisine.  But if that was the case, how come they never told the press and made heaps of cash off their freak-sized pond monster?

The ghost thing was a bit trickier.  J said it was one of their relatives, Vernon, who used to live in the trailer before his father moved in.  Vernon might have even possibly died there, which would have bolstered the validity of the story and also made it somewhat more believable and spooky.  To me, at least, it was more logical there was a ghost in their house rather than an enormous fish with a pituitary problem.  It didn't help matters that the trailer was pretty creepy as it was.

The whole trailer was small and cramped.  The interior wasn't well lit or ventilated and was always hazy with cigarette smoke.  My uncle and both cousins smoked so there were ample amounts of ash smeared on the tables and cracked ashtrays among the coffee-stained copies of Cosmopolitan.  The smokiness could have easily been misinterpreted as an unnerving fog that had just rolled in to announce the presence of something unholy.

There weren't many sources of light, either.  And what little light they had was dull and mustard yellow in color.  There were also rooms in the house I never entered, such as their bathroom and father's room.  Knowing there were unseen rooms within the tiny confines of the place prodded my imagination.  Those rooms were mysterious.  What was the mobile home hiding in those rooms?

That other half of the house where the unexplored rooms were located was connected to the den and kitchen by a short, narrow hall.  A door leading outside was on the right of the hall and was covered by a makeshift drape made from what looked and felt like a burlap sack.  It was the only light source in the hall.  It filtered the sunlight into jagged brown shafts that splintered off and dissolved into the darkness, leaving an inky black hole...or wall...or entrance to another dimension that floated ten feet in front of me.  I had never gone past the inky darkness so I had no idea what was back there.  Technically, it was my uncle's bedroom but for all I knew, that might have been were Vernon died.

And then dwelled.

in bed, breathing

"Only the lonely
know the way I feel tonight
only the lonely
know this feeling ain't right..."
-Roy Orbison, Only the Lonely

For the longest time, I thought I had risen above love.  I thought I had defeated loneliness and felt content with just being by myself.  I didn't fool or force myself into believing it.  I genuinely thought I was over love, better off even.  Naturally, the pangs of loneliness would pop up on occasion but I always shrugged them off.  They never lasted long enough to cause permanent damage.  I felt I was already about as hurt as I could be so how much more damage could they cause?  I knew I'd never be able to get rid of the loneliness completely but I was confident I could control it.

But now, I feel the loneliness is crushing me like a trash compactor.  Several factors, such as my crumbling faith in God and realizing the youth at work have close knit friendships, have contributed to my ever-increasing isolation over the past several months.  I looked around at work and realized I was one of the older ones, an outsider coming into this group of teens who all started together.  On the other side of the spectrum we had the older supervisors with families and 401Ks.  And I was this glob with nothing to grasp, too old for the young crowd, too young or the older group, suspended in a timezone that no one could relate to.

When I had people to talk to, I could keep the emptiness at arm's length.  I had people I could connect with while in college.  They were in the same situation as me.  We could all relate.  We were wide-eyed and working toward something.  My roommates were good.  I had a few ginger ladies I enjoyed.  And then there was my special gal Chasity, who was with me from the beginning to the end.  And someone else who was with me long before that.  But my roommates got jobs, the gingers stopped talking to me and Chasity got engaged and moved out of the country.  And as for the other one, well, that just didn't end too well...

And slowly, I dropped off everyone's radar.

I knew communication wasn't a one-way process so I did try to keep up with them.  I called, texted, IMed and Facebooked.  And they reciprocated.  For a while.  And then they all slowly faded out.  I suppose without the college connection to keep us together, none of us really had that much to talk about.  It was a cycle I had began noticing early on.  Fellow students talked to me while in class but once the quarter was over, I never heard from them again.  The trend continued when I started working.  As soon as one of the lucky few were able to move away to college or find another job, they stopped talking to me.  I suppose I'm a good coworker or classmate, but nothing more, nothing anyone would want to continue a relationship with once the job ended or the class was completed.

And even earlier than that, I didn't talk to anyone from high school after we all graduated.  I keep up with one or two people but their schedules are so busy it actually is more convenient for them to get in touch with me since I never have anything going on.  It's not that I don't try but they are too busy with their pursuits, which I understand.  I suppose this is what it feels like to grow up and lose contact with people who once held a special place in your mind.  Maybe there isn't such a thing as lifelong friends.  The beauty in being connected to such a wide variety of people is that they open your world to so many different things.  The beast is that, because they all are so different, they end up going in different directions, scattering out and leaving you alone.  And while it's the natural order of things, I believe I have stumbled on my part of the deal.  Friends come and go and usually people make other friends to fill the spaces of those left behind.  I haven't quite managed to fill those voids.

A big problem with living here is there's nothing to do.  I live in a redneck infested cesspool of pregnancy and narcotics.  Girls grow up to become nurses only because it's a relatively simple job to get into.  And the guy's grow up to drill offshore.  And there is nothing wrong at all with either occupation but the sad part is how people can't see beyond the small bubble of their residency.  And so they take those jobs just to remain inside the bubble.  Dreams and aspirations usually fall by the wayside as soon as they graduate high school because it's time to be an adult, to grow up and raise a family and pursuing dreams doesn't fit into the picture.  And those who do pursue their dreams often leave their bubble and never come back.  I feel I'm in a weird predicament because I am one of the dreamers yet I'm trapped in my bubble with those I have no interest in getting to know.

Most of the girls my age are already married or pregnant.  Most of the guys are douche bag hicks.  I have nothing in common with any of these people.  And therefore I have no friends.  And romantic entanglements are even harder to come by.  As mentioned earlier, most girls are knocked up or knocked around by their boyfriends/husbands.  So, there's not a great selection as far as romantic prospects go.  And at this point in the game, what do I even want out of a relationship?  What am I looking for?  To settle down?  To have a few flings?  And what kind of person will it take to revive me?  Friendship?  Romantic relationship?  Sexual compatibility?  Same cynical attitude?  I've wanted it for so long that I didn't put much thought into envisioning what form it would take.  I always assumed a certain way but now I'm just not so sure.

The lack of friendship, as well as romance, has caused a rekindling of that ache, that need to be someone's number one.  I feel more alone than I ever have in my life.  I have no friend to lean on, no partner to stay in bed with, and barely a God to pray to.  I am immeasurably lonely.  In fact, I think it's hard for most people to comprehend it.  Sometimes I don't think I can, either, but when I say it, people don't seem to realize how deep it sinks into me. 

Maybe this feeling is just another pang, just more intense and longer-lasting.  Maybe this, too, will pass.  But I can't help but thinking by acknowledging it, I'm opening the way for more pain.  I also can't help but to think how I'm missing intimacy in my life.  I need to know someone else's lips and love and life.  I haven't had the best opinion of people in general for a while now but I know there's got to be more than what I've observed.  I want to explore that, to feel something more than surface flushes of heat.  I want to be able to talk to someone on the phone or hold them or have them go with me for a drive.  I want someone I can watch horror movies with and talk about death and dreams.  I want someone I can show my writings to, someone I can share a book with, someone I can kiss and cry to.  I've never had that.  No one has gotten to know me past casual chatter.  And that's driven a wedge between me and everyone else.  My blog knows me more personally than anyone in my life and I think there's a great deal of sadness in that.  There's just no one to turn to, physical, spiritual or electronic.  That's not to say I haven't ever come close.  I've almost had that.  But almost doesn't assuage the agony.

I can't deny it anymore, can't turn it away despite my rejection of love.  I'm lonely.  As much as I thought I was beyond human emotions, I'm not.  When I died, I tried to bury all of that while attempting to remain above ground myself.  I'd love to be in love.  I'd love to have someone to love me.  I walk this path singular, solitary, sick.  I wouldn't mind having a hand to hold along the way.  But that doesn't mean it will happen or that I am capable of having it happen to me.  I'm too selfish and full of unjustified bitterness and hatred to have a fulfilling relationship.  I'm too insecure, too indecisive, and too paranoid.  I can't have it all but I crave it so much.  I want to be loved, supported, recognized.  I just don't want to fall into the fire without anyone ever really having known who I am.

I think about the majestic qualities of love, how it bubbles up and grows on a grand scale.  I think about the power of love and how it can change lives.  And that's nice but sometimes I crave the simpler aspects of it.  Really, all I want is to be one of two bodies in bed, breathing.  I don't know what the warmth of someone else's skin feels like.  It's strange to me when I hear it on television or in the movies, how people curl up together and comment on the comforting warmth.  I guess I forgot that bodies can be that way.  I had simply become accustomed to mine running cold.  I just want to know someone else, to experience someone's chest rising and falling next to mine, to share such a small space, to breathe in the same air, to cradle, to be held, to feel connected to something for once.  I want to feel the function of a heartbeat, to know that something is alive within myself and someone else, to feel it speed up and slow down, a crashing thump thump thump against my ear.  A laugh.  A breath.  A sigh.  I want to tap into the most basic of human needs, desires.  And that's a need to feel warm with someone else, to love, to be loved, to be wanted and cared for.

To not be so damn alone.

I want to dive into humanity, to revel in feeling alive again.  I want to be a part of the population.  To love and be loved is not to make a connection with just one person, but to connect with whole world.  You know what everyone else feels, needs, fears.  Even if the feeling doesn't last, if the person walks out or is taken away, you've been there, you've felt it and smelled it and tasted it and had it wash over you and cleanse you and when you walk down the street or shake someone's hand or smile and wave as you pass by, you know them more than you might realize.  You understand them, have been there before, might be there again, can sympathize with their plight.  Because it is your plight as well.  It is the plight of every creature that breathes and even some that don't.  It is love.  It is lust.  It is an intense attraction.  It is the need to feel, the urge to belong.  It's built into us like our blood.  And once you've known true love, I think you are irrevocably changed.  I've stayed the same for far too long.

I go to bed and breathe in the fan to give my lungs something to do.  I stretch out and bury my face into the pillow, tunneling away from the world, waiting until the darkness sweeps over me for one more night.   And I wonder what it would be like to be escorted into dreams, to have a hand pull me into sleep instead of the television, wonder what it would be like to drift back from dreams, ascend to the surface of consciousness, buoyant in my bed and bound by flesh and bone instead of being flanked by microfiber and flannel to warm me.

bad romance III: the wedding

"There goes somebody's miracle
Walking down the street
There goes some modern fairy tale
I wish it could happen to me..."
-Liz Phair, Somebody's Miracle

The girl I mentioned in my first Bad Romance entry, the one who found herself a boyfriend, married the guy yesterday.  It was weird to imagine her getting married.  I think she had one boyfriend in high school and two in college, one of them being the guy she eventually married.  That's not to say that someone should have a lot of boyfriends or girlfriends before settling down but I guess for me, because she hadn't been involved in many relationships, I just never saw her as a relationship kind of girl.  Much less marriage material.  But, there she was, dressed in white and exchanging rings and the whole scene felt so surreal.

I wasn't thrilled about attending the wedding because she and I had grown apart since we both moved away to college.  She and I used to be pretty close in high school and community college but after we both moved from our home town, life happened, as it always does, and circumstances weakened our bond.  It was almost like we were estranged or something.  I hadn't spoken to her in probably a year and so in some ways it felt like I was a wedding crasher, sitting down in a pew among strangers, watching foreign people unite in the face of God.  Plus, I had no idea who her groom was.  She met him in college so the first time I shook his hand was during the reception.  I surely didn't know him and I felt like I wasn't too sure I knew her that well, either.

The idea of sitting through the whole atmosphere of holy matrimony was also unappetizing.  Love and marriage is such a foreign concept to me now that I sat there, baffled, as the groom's father took over preacher duties and talked about God and love and the unbreakable bond the bride and groom were about to form.  Pictures flashed and tears were splashed and I just felt out of place.  My usual empty.  But there was this weirdness that found itself creeping up inside me.  I watched my high school classmate get married.  And I kind of wanted that for myself.  It was a celebration.  It was a big day for both of them, maybe one of the most important days in their lives and I wanted that, too.  I wondered if I'd ever have a big day like that, if I'd ever get to go on stage and put a ring on it and have people clap for us and beam and cry and bring out a three-tiered cake with whipped frosting and kiss her in front of friends and family and not feel so alone and show people that I wasn't an unlovable freak, like, "Hey,  I can be loved.  I can be cared for.  And I'm capable of caring, too.  I can be normal."

But I'm not normal.  And I'm not okay.

For the longest time I had given up on that white wedding scenario for myself.  I mean, I still had given up on it but the wedding was one of the only times I had let myself think about such a thing.  You see, not only had I given up on love and romance years ago but I hadn't let myself even think about it because I knew I was just putting myself in a bad place.  It's never fun to fantasize about something you can't have.  I could dream about living in a mansion with with a pooper made from platinum but that will never happen so why should I set my heart on it?  It was the same with love.

Then I thought more about it and realized maybe I just wanted the show, the celebration, the ceremony of it all.  But after all the food had been wrapped up and the gifts have been opened, I'd be left with a wife and a future with her and I don't even know if I want that.  I guess I'm a bit confused.  When I was younger, all I wanted was love but one day I realized that I was never going to get it and then upon further introspection I realized that I wasn't even sure I wanted it.  I think the concept of marriage is nice but I also think a lot of people don't fully understand how huge of a commitment marriage is.  It's wonderful but it also takes so much work.  It's like a second job.  You have to transition from taking care of yourself to help take care of someone else.  That's not to say you shouldn't take care of yourself but what I mean to say is you have someone else to consider rather than just yourself.  Marriage is tricky sometimes.  And it's forever.  And forever is not for everyone.

Is it for me?

The ceremony pretty much went how I pictured it:  I went with a mutual friend of mine and the bride's.  We sat down and made fun of everyone and then had some cake and left.  I was mostly concerned that I'd see a lot of people from high school.  I wasn't looking or feeling my best after my weight gain so I had hoped I wouldn't run into too many people looking as run down as I did.  But, really, it was mostly just her college friends so I felt relatively safe.  It didn't help the sense of being among strangers, though, because I didn't know anyone except the bride's family.

I was a bit surprised at how they geeked up the joint.  The bride was dressed like Liv Tyler straight out of Lord of the Rings.  They even had a LOTR cake.  And the groom had a Star Wars Millenium Falcon cake, which was quite delicious.  They also had a nice assortment of candy to choose from. After the couple exchanged vows, they sang Michael Buble's "Everything" to each other because they are both theater majors so they had to incorporate some musical number to seal the deal.  And then they walked out to the Pirates of the Caribbean theme and the audience was treated to a five minute slide show of their lives from tots to teens to happily engaged.

During the reception, as I stuffed my face, the newlyweds played those lame "how well do you know your spouse" games.  And then we talked to the bride for a bit and then that was it.  I grabbed a couple of bags of candy and we were on our way out.  It wasn't as miserable as I was expecting it to be and and the mutual friend even agreed it wasn't too bad, and she hates weddings.  Of course, the inevitable feeling of loneliness did present itself like I was expecting it to do.  And I think that's why I was so hesitant to go.  Their happiness would just be another reminder of my misery.  And then I felt bad because it's just so typically negative to feel that way, to not be happy for anyone.  I really need to get over myself.

But I promise this wasn't some kind of cliched realization about the loss of love while attending a wedding.  No, those pinpricks of loneliness were there far before the ceremony.  I've actually been feeling the emptiness a lot more over the past several weeks.  It'll come and go but it hasn't been too far from my mind.  It kind of just sweeps in like a whisper in my ear, reminding me how isolated I am, how far away I am from love.  How far I am away from God and any kind of love I thought I once had.  It feels like my heart is stifled, only allowed to slip between two spots:  bitterness and emptiness.  There's always a low-grade kind of grumpiness inside, a dysthymia that's poisoned not only myself but my outward emotions for others.  I can't seem to be happy for anyone.  I guess it's all a part of being a dead and disintegrating bastard.  It all fades in time.  The flesh and the feelings all whisk away.  But some feelings never die.  Envy is evergreen.  The dead are jealous of the living.  They want a warm body instead of the cold dirt.  They want a bouquet of flowers instead of a casket spray.  They want a heart injected with love, not formaldehyde.  I reach up and out with rotten hands and try to touch the face of a fantasy but it always slips just out of sight.

But the dead are discarded and life carries on for everyone else.  And as everyone else carried on outside the church building, I gave the girl who came with me my keys and told her to start up the car while I stayed behind to pee.  After I was done, I hit the candy spread hard.  I filled bag after bag with chocolate goodness, looking forward to easing the pain later on with cocoa-dipped jumbo marshmallows.  As I reached for another shovel-full of Oreo cake balls, an older lady stood next to me and filled up her own bag.

Looking over the assortment of sweets, she gave me a nudge, smirked and said, "Death by chocolate, eh?"

"You don't know the half of it," I said as I pulled the drawstring closed on the bag and then walked away.

loans & groans

When the store manager called me into his office, I assumed it was for another one-on-one meeting we had every week or so to discuss how my department was doing.  But, when I sat down, he told me that the company was phasing out my position next year.  I was a little taken aback.  He told me it wasn't because of my performance and that he had no control over the decision.  I sat there, trying to process what was going on.

"I'm sure you want to go back to your former department," he said.

I thought about it for a minute.  While I didn't exactly love my new position, I thought back to my old position and realized I didn't miss it at all and wasn't thrilled to go back.  But, if I had no choice...

"Yes, I'd prefer that," I responded.

"I thought so," he said with a bit of a sigh.  "Well, you know I can't really promise you anything.  The only thing I can say is you'll get to keep your rate of pay but as you know, we've already moved everyone around to replace you, so..."

What was he trying to say?

"You still have five months," he added.  "Who knows what could happen in that time.  Some people might find other jobs.  Others will go off to school, so we might be able to fit you in somewhere." 

Might be able to fit me in somewhere?  That was reassuring.  If you'll recall, I wasn't exactly clamoring to take on supervisor of a new department and after only being given one day to decide, I went ahead and said yes.  Then, I went back and told him my concerns about the new position and that I wasn't sure I really wanted it after all.  To that, he told me he had already shifted everyone around to replace me and that I would be "putting him in a bind."  Well, now he was putting me in a bind.  After guilting me into taking the job, he was now saying that I wasn't going to have it anymore, after only two months of doing it?  I felt hot.  I took the job because I felt bad that everyone else had been moved around to compensate for the hole I made when I left.  I didn't want to disturb anyone else's new placement and definitely didn't want to disappoint my boss.  So, I tried to be a good employee and go with it, to ride out the mess I had put myself in.  Once again, trying to be a good person ended up biting me in the butt.  If I would have just told him no when I had the chance, I wouldn't have to worry about where I'd end up, like I'm doing now.  Even though I'm going to get my same pay, he can't guarantee I'll get the same hours.

And if that wasn't a big enough blow to the balls, I got a letter from my student loan provider informing me they are going to raise my payments up three hundred dollars starting this month.  After working nearly ten days straight, I was excited to come home and enjoy my three day weekend.  I was happy to pull into the driveway, knowing that long stretch of work was behind me and I had a semi-long stretch of rest ahead of me.  That is, until I saw that letter.  The next day was spent trying to sort the mess out.  Unfortunately, it couldn't be.  Turns out, private loan lenders are pretty much a-holes who don't work with low income losers such as myself.  I had already exhausted all of my deferments, forbearances, and interest only payment options.  The lady on the phone said my only other course would be to try consolidation.  So, after she patched me through to someone else, the guy on the phone calculated what my payments would be if I consolidated.  The payments would be two-to-three hundred dollars more a month.  Didn't exactly help my situation or provide any sort of comfort.

The worst part was that I tried to get my mom involved and she's just about as clueless when it comes to financial matters as I am.  The first huge mistake was when she didn't get involved in my initial loan application.  Being the typical dumb-ass redneck family that we are, none of my relatives had moved on to higher education.  Hardly any of them graduated high school so the concept of student loans was something that had never crossed anyone's minds.  And being the naive twenty-year old that I was at the time, I had no idea what I was doing.  I knew about checking and savings accounts but that was about the extent of it.  So when I asked Mom to help me find a good place to apply to, her response was, "Just apply to whoever will take you."  Thaanks.

I looked up a couple of companies my college recommended and randomly selected one.  I didn't know it was a private loan company.  I didn't even know there were different types of loans to choose from.  So, I went with the same company all three years I attended college, never truly realizing how much debt I was racking up.  My mom and I always assumed we'd just be able to pay back whatever we could.  Another dumb assumption.  Doesn't work that way.  These people are pretty ruthless and have no sympathy for unemployment or crappy retail jobs.  It's not like I'm not trying to pay back the money.  I've been paying on it for over a year now.  Never late.  Never less than what I owed.  But the increase will drain me of what little money I already have and I can't live like that.  But it doesn't matter to them.

The most frustrating aspect was when I asked my mom to listen in on my conversation with the loan people, just to make sure they didn't rope me into some plan that sounded good at first but ultimately would force me into repaying them with a goat sacrifice and my left testicle.  She ended up doing more harm than good, asking inane questions that served to anger me more on top of my already short fuse after learning there was no way I could back out of the increased payments.  And at one point, when the guy put me on hold, mom said she was going to take that time to use the bathroom.  But she took the phone in there with her.  So, I'm sitting in my room listening to soft jazz when I start to hear a soft sprinkle.

"Mom, I can hear you PEEING.  On the phone!"

Splash, splash.

"Oops, sorry."

I'm surprised the guy didn't come back on the line mid-stream.  That would have made the whole interaction all the more disastrous.  So, I spend the first day of my three day weekend trying to sort out the loan stuff but it was fruitless.  I was left feeling worse than when I started.  And as for now, I'm stuck paying nine hundred dollars a month when I don't even make that much.  I kind of don't know what I'm going to do. 

It just sucks because when I got my raise, I really thought that I'd be able to build my checking account back up and maybe even try to start saving.  I thought maybe I could catch up on my finances and feel comfortable with my money but even with my raise, it was still a bit of a struggle to save.  Then, I heard I'd be demoted and that my hours might be cut and then I hear my loans are increasing.  It's the perfect storm of screwing me over.  I can't see any way to get out of this.  Unless I win the lottery.  Or finalize my death.  But even if I did that, my parents are cosigners so if I bite the big one, they'll be stuck paying for my bad choices.  I'd be responsible for them living under a bridge and eating dirt to pay off my loans.  I don't want to do that to them.  I can't escape it.  Even in death, I can't run from the ramifications of my terrible decisions.  I can't seem to get anything right.

belly-flopping into the lake of fire

“Pie is an irrational number, incapable of being made into a fraction, impossible to divide from itself. So, too the soul is an irrational, indivisible equation that perfectly expresses one thing: you. The soul would be no good to the devil if it could be destroyed. And it is not lost when placed in Satan’s care, as is often said. He always knows exactly how to put his finger on it.”
-Horns by Joe Hill

I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell.

It seems like such a casual conclusion to an insignificant life, a lazy indifference to a devastating destination.  I'm definitely not happy about it but I feel calm.  In fact, I think I'm more disturbed by now undisturbed I am by it.  How can be so blasé about baking in eternal hellfire?  Maybe it's because it is too terrible to conceive.  Or maybe I feel deep down in my heart that I'm truly not deserving of damnation.  But hell is not determined by good deeds or being a good person.  It's salvation through Jesus, which I'm not sure I have.  It's about having a personal relationship with Christ, which I definitely don't have.  The more I learn about Christianity, the more I realize how far away from it I am, how I'm confused by certain aspects or flat our disagree with others.

I already knew there were several parts of Christianity I wasn't following.  There's that whole bit about loving your neighbor, which is a problem for me because I pretty much hate everyone.  And through stumbling upon other Christian teachings, I found out, much to my surprise, that anxiety and depression are symptoms of sin.  And since I believe I fit those labels, it makes me wonder if it's all my fault, if I've done this to myself.  I can't help but to think of my horse-faced counselor in college.  He sat in his chair, his gray hair pulled tightly across his temples, hanging in a limp ponytail, telling me that a lot of my troubles were brought on myself.  He said I assigned different roles to different people in my life.  Some were executioners, others were saviors.  And I fulfilled the role of victim.  He did have a Jesus beard so maybe there's a connection there.  But at the time I didn't need to hear that.  It didn't seem like the best idea to tell me I was bringing all the pain I was feeling on to myself.  Even if it was true, it felt like there should have been a better way to go about it.  Telling a depressed person it's all their fault?  What good is that supposed to do?  Are they expected to snap out of their sadness?  It only plunged me deeper because not only was I going through all of this grief, I was told it was all my fault, that it was all pointless, that I could have controlled it, that I could have done without it, that I might have been happy.  No, I did not feel better.

But I prayed through it and tried to rely on God.  Things got marginally better.  That could have been God at work or that could have simply been life unfolding as it randomly does.  So there was no reassurance.  There was no proof or confirmation.  It was most likely chance, something easily explained away.  Easily dismissible.  God felt easily absent.  But I kept going, kept praying, kept relying because you don't give up on God when it's hard.  But when things are easy, it's easy to be a Christian, easy to praise God for all the good in your life.  Yet it feels nearly impossible to hang on to the hope of something greater when your world is in shambles.  Obviously, it can be done.  Good Christians do it every day.  I have an acquaintance whose life is worse than mine in many aspects and yet she still has a strong faith.  I envy her a lot.  I have it better in so many ways, but worse in others.  I look up to her an wonder how she does it.  I suspect a big part of it is because she grew up in church.  Her parents were strong Christians and instilled that into her at an early age.  I didn't grow up that way.  For her, her faith was as natural as her arms and legs.  For me, faith always felt like having an extra arm attached to my forehead.  It never quite felt right.

It's just hard to talk to a God who doesn't talk back.  It's hard to put faith in something that seems so distant and unattainable.  It's hard to believe in good when you feel bathed in bad every day of your life.  My mind is diseased and my body is deformed and I can't see the justice in it, especially when I called out for salvation so many times, read my Bible, prayed, listened for God's voice many a night and never got so much as a whisper.  I felt like I followed the "rules" but every Christian has a different set of rules, another aspect of the religion that frustrates me.  Go to any church, any religious leader, and they'll all tell you there's only one way to reach Jesus, but they each have their own "one way."  I've been told to just follow me heart and pray about which way to go and believe in that but what if I believe in the wrong way?  Take a look at my life and you'll see I'm not good at making decisions.  I tried to have faith, tried to press on through prayer because people told me that God was still there, God was still with me, working through me, even if I couldn't feel it or hear it.  And I tried to believe that but belief only goes so far without a little evidence, faith only goes so far without a little bit of confirmation.  None of which I have received.  The wind never blew, my heart never stirred and my soul never stilled.

god the father

"Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged." 
-Colossians 3:21

I've often tried to do research on man and God and the connection between the two that I cannot seem to establish.  In the past, I've made attempts to live the Christian lifestyle, to give my troubles and fears to God but there was always a slight hesitation, always a need for validation that I was living correctly, that I was in fact saved, that God was there with me.  But there was never any indication that God heard me, that He was with me, or that He even cared.  And one day, I came across an interesting viewpoint about certain people's relationships with God.  I cannot recall where I gathered this information but I remember it struck me.  The person said that there is often a correlation between the relationship you have with your heavenly father and the relationship you have with your biological father.  When I thought about my dad, I realized it always felt like he was absent, too.  Maybe this person was on to something.

As you might have guessed by now, based on my assessment of the rest of my family, I don't have a great relationship with my dad.  He's a stoic figure who isn't incredibly expressive, articulate or affectionate.  He hasn't hugged me since I was a little kid.  I don't even remember the last time we've touched.  I also can't recall the last time he told me he loved me.  And I see God in the same way.  My father in heaven feels just as cold and distant as my father in my home.  It's as if they both gave me life and then stood back and watched me live it, witnessed my stumbles and falls into the dirt and didn't lift a hand to help.  They've both provided in some ways, such as financial comfort and housing, and lacked in other ways, such as emotional stability and safety.  They both feel like a presence that cannot be persuaded.

There's quite a few differences between me and my father.  He's incredibly country and I'm not.  He likes to hunt and fish and drink beer on Fridays after work.  I like to write and draw and eat candy.  He's not into art or music like I am.  He likes westerns.  I like horror.  He's an outside type.  I'm an insider.  You get the point.  But we don't clash over our differences and it's not hard for us to get along, mostly because we are so different we are almost removed from each other's lives.  There is no tension because there is basically nothing there at all.  When I come home from work and walk into the den where he is, he doesn't say hello or acknowledge me.  I always have to be the one to initiate contact and it hurts.  An absence of a greeting might not seem like much but I don't see him all day and when we find ourselves in the same room, he can't be bothered to tear himself away from the six o' clock news to say hello.  And God, in his vast greatness, can't seem to come down to Earth to throw me a bone.

But that's not to say my dad doesn't care for me.  I know he does.  He just doesn't show it.  And being the insecure mess that I am, I need that reassurance.  And I know God is supposed to care for me but I don't feel that, either.  I'm constantly praying for a sign that I'm living the way I should be, that God is with me, that I'm not some gigantic sinner that's bound to belly-flop into the lake of fire.  And I wonder what it will take to change things.  Should I begin with God or my dad?  If I see an improvement in one area, should I expect the same results on the other side?  I doubt it.  Much like my sister, my dad is set in his ways, not that my dad is a douche like my sister.  As far as I can tell, he's a good man, just guarded and closed off emotionally.  And because he has been that way for over fifty years, I don't think there's much I can do to pierce his countrified armor.  

While my father remains steadfast in his stoicism, God remains deaf and dumb to my dilemmas.  I know I've called out to him more times than I can recall only to be met with silence.  I wonder if my dad would be so silent.  I suppose all it would take is for me to ask.  But if I were to be honest with myself, I'm not sure I really want to ask.  Maybe I'm not in a hurry to change things, to have such a great relationship with my dad.  Maybe I'm too far gone or maybe I'm just too scared.

My dad has never been the picture of great health.  He's a big believer in deep frying everything.  He also enjoys his alcohol and cigarettes.  The smoking thing is a big problem for me.  He's getting older and having worked a back-breaking job for over thirty years now, his body has slowly worn down.  He has an unhealthy diet and doesn't wear sunscreen despite the fact that he works out in the sun all day long.  It feels as if he's already in danger of disintegrating without having to add the bad habit of smoking to the mix.  There's a long list of dead relatives who expired due to tobacco related illnesses.  He watched his aunt die a slow and painful death from emphysema.  She was a long time smoker.  He watched his brother die a slow and painful death from lung cancer.  He was a long time smoker.  And you think that might have stopped him, might have been revelatory occurrences.  But he never missed a beat.  Even when his colon exploded at four in the morning when I was eight-years-old.  It was cancer.  Despite the chemotherapy and colostomy bags, Dad still lit up.  And I think that kind of scare left a scar inside me.  In the back of my mind, I'm always terrified that my dad will fall ill again, that the cancer will come back or turn up in a different part of his body and he'll die in a hospital bed hooked up to tubes and wires.  That he'll turn skeletal and bald like his dead brother.  that he'll suffer and that I'll suffer seeing him like that.  And that fear has held me back from getting close to him.  I don't want to spend years building this beautiful relationship with my dad only for him to die on me so suddenly.  And so I don't get close to spare myself that potential pain.  And I feel bad about that.

It's kind of weird because I don't feel like I'm missing anything in my life, therefore I almost feel like nothing needs to change.  I see my dad fairly regularly and so he's in my life, he's just not involved in my life.  I'd imagine a lot of people would want to be closer with their loved ones but I'm not sure if I do want to be closer with my dad.  We can't relate to each other as we are on two totally different areas of the personality spectrum.  I don't agree with many of his philosophies, nor his small-mindedness on certain issues.  But there's no talking or compromise because he will always think he's got the world figured out and there's no fighting that.  He's already mentioned that he'd be willing to disown me if ever I turned out a certain way and so it's hard to bond with that knowledge tucked away in my head.  My dad has his own world figured out and I wonder how much I factor into it.  It feels like a case of not missing what you never had but I fear it will turn into not knowing what you have until it's gone.  I don't want to regret that I never had a better relationship with my dad but it's not like it's strained to begin with.  I don't dislike him but there's nothing special there.  I hate to say it because so many people grow up without a father and I am fortunate enough to have one but I don't cherish it.  And a part of the reason why is because I feel like he doesn't cherish it, either.  But nothing will change because things don't need to be.  I don't think I'll get anything more out of our relationship than I've already gotten and I guess I'm fine with that...or I will be eventually.  

And I feel that same kind of standstill with God, at least in the relationship department.  I feel my knowledge and understanding of God has been changing and growing throughout the years yet I can't seem to apply that knowledge and understanding to whatever it is that he and I have.  There are times when I want to give up and there are times when I want to persevere.  But nothing ever really seems to change.  It's hoping and wishing and no action.  It's the fear of rejection, of awkward silences, of breaking down walls and putting in effort.  It's wondering if the outcome is worth that effort.  It's all about relationships and how I can't make them work with friends, family or God the father.  It's about wanting to be loved by those considered to be closest to me.  And it's about not feeling like I am.  What good is the heart if you can't show it to me?  How do I know I have it when it's kept locked away in a box among the money and gifts?  It's nice to know you're loved.  It's nicer to be told.  It's the best when shown.  And that's something I think people have a lot of trouble with, especially my two dads.

blood relative

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring close-knit family...in another city."

-George Burns

 
Family is something I've never thought too much about, never thought was important or an integral part of my life.  Family is, however, plays an important role in my life, probably more than I can realize or appreciate.  I've just taken them for granted like I have all the other luxuries in my life.  I think, "Who doesn't have a family?  That's like asking who doesn't have oxygen?" It just feels like something that's always been there and is just as much a part of my life as my skin covering my bones or the grass on the ground.  But a lot of people don't have a family and I can't necessarily wrap my mind around how that might be a negative thing for them.  And I guess that's because although I do have a family, none of us are that close or hold that relationship to a high degree and it almost feels like I don't have much of one, either.  I feel bad for saying that because I'm sure there isn't a legitimate comparison there.  Having a detached family is better than none at all.

Right?

I think a big factor in my family not being close is the fact that we've all kind of done our own thing.  My dad's grandmother had four boys and none of them finished high school.  Without an education, they took on menial jobs to support their new wives and screaming babies.  That includes my father.  And it seems my father's brothers didn't seem too bothered to tell their children to get an education because next to none of them did.  They were lucky to get out of high school but even that doesn't help you get very far in life anymore.  And with no way out, they all stuck around and knocked up others who stuck around.  And then came more screaming babies, which always made holiday get-togethers way more fun, and the cycle continued.  And I say this not to insult my family because even with an education, I'm not much better off than they are.  I only say it to mean that my goals differed from those of my aunts, uncles and cousins.  They focused on cigarettes and alcohol while I focused on getting through college.  They worried about how they were going to take care of their accidental offspring while I wondered how I would become an artist.  And those differences in focus left very little for commonality among us.  Therefore, we never had an opportunity to be that close.

I hear all the time about the importance of family, how family is all you have, how if you can't count on your family, you can't count on anyone.  And I wonder if that's why I can't count on anyone.  I wonder if that's why I can't form close connections with people.  Maybe family is set up to be your practice bond that you learn to form when you are younger.  And because I never managed to do that, maybe it negatively affected my social skills.  As much as family can be there for you to have a place to settle, to feel like you belong somewhere, they can also make you feel alienated.

There are people without families, and although it's probably not always an ideal situation, many of those individuals manage to do okay for themselves.  So, is family really that important after all?  What if friends take the place of family?  It seems any support system is beneficial, whether it be a relative or a really good friend.  And don't the terms "friend" and "family" become interchangeable after a while?  When it comes down to it, doesn't it seem more natural to think of your friends as your family, especially if you find yourself in a family that doesn't get you?  You share genetics with your family but how far does that take you?  When it comes down to it, it's only blood.  You are born into families and as you develop your own unique mind, you realize you might not click with the rest of your clan.  But you can choose your friends, find the people who share your interests and passions and that's how you can grow close.  They become your support, your therapy, your anchor.

But I don't have an anchor.  I'm not close with my family and I'm not really close with anyone.  Not anymore, anyway.  It's interesting because it feels like I'm missing something in each relationship I try to establish, whether it be with a relative or an acquaintance.  There's either that built-in closeness that comes with family, yet without the common interests.  Or I find people I have things in common with but can't ever seem to get close to them.  I wonder what keeps me from giving myself to others or allowing them to give themselves to me.  I seek it out yet can't seem to grasp it.

If family is so important, I wonder why it is that people have to find that family feeling outside of their blood.  It makes me wonder how families are put together.  Are our relatives randomly placed in to our lives or is there a plan in the parentage?  I look at the diversity of family and some days it feels like some are cut from the same cloth while others seem like a cut-and-paste collage.  How is it that dreamers are born into practicality?  How is it artists come from athletes, homosexuals from homophobes, atheists from the religious?  It turns out that some poor souls become the unfortunate result of the wheel of chance, made to begin their lives as outcasts.  It feels unfair to be placed in a family that will hinder a person's lifestyle.  Yes, friends can be supportive but it still hurts to feel like your family has turned their backs on you.  For example, my cousin came out as gay several years ago.  My mom told me that my father said he'd disown me if I ever came out as gay.  I wasn't gay so I was relieved I'd never have to go though that situation but I was also alarmed that he would feel that way.  It was annoying that he could be so small-minded for one and it hurt that he'd feel he could cut me out of his life so easily, especially over something I found so inconsequential.

I have to wonder if that small tidbit of information shaped the way I saw my father.  I wonder if it was one of the wedges placed between us, a slice of knowledge that kept me from pursuing a close relationship with him.  It makes sense.  Why should I try to get close, why should my love grow for him if he isn't willing to accept all of me, just love me as a son, respect me as a man, not just a lifestyle.  It seemed kind of a waste of energy.

I look at my parents and my sister and all my relatives and I realize I don't want to have children because I am terrified I'll end up passing my crazy along to my son or daughter.  Another part that scares me is the massive amount of bigotry and addiction in my family, something else I'm not too fired up about passing along to another generation.  Or what if I end up being like my parents?  What if I'm overly critical like my mother or emotionally absent like my father?  I wouldn't want to damage a child that way.  But, would I?  Who says I will end up being like them?  You hear of parents breaking the cycle of abuse all the time but is it really so easy to do?  Was my mother criticized as a child?  Did my dad have a good relationship with his dad?  Did they simply inherit their parents' bad habits?  Or did they consciously make a decision not to act the way their parents did but ended up doing it anyway?  What is controllable and what is unavoidable?

Is blood relative to behavior?  Are we our parents?  Are we handed down the bad as well as the good?  I have my mother's eyes and insecurities.  I have my father's hair and inability to show affection.  We not only inherit talent but temperament.  The question is what is fixable?  What can be changed and what will always remain?  Can you lose your ability to sing or your penchant for anger?  Are our characteristics so ingrained in us that we can never get rid of them or can we only suppress them, work on it daily or watch as it rises back up into our behavior?  What can be destroyed and what can be kept down?  Are we sentenced to a life of stoicism or mania?  Are we chained down by a certain set of characteristics or can we craft our own?  And if we can, how?

I look at my family tree and wonder what feeds it.  It's like it stands in a stagnant body of water, a pool where all the hereditary habits can be found, submerged and cycling, funneled into the tree, all the paranoia and madness and drug addiction coursing through the trunk and pumping through the pulp as it blooms, feeding the bark and branches the same tainted water that fueled the previous boughs, the ancient liquid that still lingers in the limbs, the roots swimming in insanity.  It's chlorophyll and cancer, heartwood and heartaches, sap and cigarettes.  Of course, every family tree could use some trimming but it still feels a little daunting to sit back and see the whole thing spread out in front of me.  Interestingly enough, it's also kind of reassuring.  Yes, I might be screwed up but every branch on the tree is a little gnarled, every leaf a little wilted.  It's not just me.  Maybe, baby, I was born this way and maybe I didn't solely contribute to my craziness.  I sprouted among the periwinkles and weeds and I can't help my placement in the dirt, so why should I worry?  Oh, yeah, because I can't help it.  My mom's a worrier, too.

It's genetic, after all.

mother may i?

"Oh mother dear
don't let them shoot my kite down..."
-Nick Heyward, Kite

It's taken me a while to write this post, partially because I couldn't think of too many examples to support my small rant, which we will jump into in a second.  Secondly, I could sense the backlash I'd probably unleash by being so trivial.  I wanted to continue to breakdown my family situation, which started with my last post, siblinguistics.  That one covered my sister, and I wanted to swing through the other branches of my family tree eventually covering my mom and dad.  But, as I started writing, I realized I really had no right to be complaining about these people.  My sister was a different story, as she never took care of me or tried to be involved in my life in any capacity.  My parents, however, took great care of me and any complaints I'd express would seem petty in comparison to the comfortable lifestyle I have.  Then, I realized that I am petty.  I complain.  It's what I do.  It's what I'm good at.  And just because I complain doesn't mean I don't realize how fortunate I am.  I can disagree with something without rejecting it, can appreciate something without accepting it.  I've spent too long feeling too guilty for the things I've felt and I can't do that anymore, something I've summed up as my paper cut philosophy, which I have covered extensively in this blog.  Yes, I'm privileged.  But privilege does not denote perfection.

Out of everyone in my family, I am probably closest with my mom.  But it doesn't mean that our relationship is that great.  While we are usually good overall, it's also often strained.  My mother is an extremely controlling, demanding woman.  She controls mine and my dad's money, food, and many times, our emotions.  When I was younger, I was never allowed to be too emotional.  If I ever laughed too much or was too hyper, like any kid is prone to do, I was reprimanded for acting childish.  If I was ever sad or upset about something, I was chastised for being weak.  There was never sympathy for any of the tough situations I found myself in.  Instead of a soothing word, my mother always countered my complaints with, "Why didn't you stand up for yourself?  Why did you take that from them?  Why didn't you do X, Y and Z to remedy the situation?"  Maybe because I was never reassured of my worth.  I was always picked apart rather than built up to be a confident.  And God forbid I ever got angry with my mother because it only made things worse.  I could never express any kind of hurt or sadness toward her because she made it seem like I was accusing her of being the worst mother in the world.  I never said that, nor thought that, but she tended to blow things out of proportion.  So, I learned to keep my feelings to myself.  It wasn't worth adding any more strife to the swirl of negative emotions that spun in my head.  And while it might not seem like that big of a deal, it definitely didn't help my emotional development, especially in the area of expression.  I learned to channel a lot of that negative energy through art, and eventually, writing.  But when it comes to people, I tend to either keep too much to myself or spill too much.

My mother is old school.  She's also small-minded and set in her ways.  It's hard being a progressive young man in such a repressive household.  She never liked the way I dressed.  She didn't like that I owned hair gel or had more than one pair of shoes.  She didn't like that I was more of an indoors person than outdoors.  She wanted me to ride a bike outside while I wanted to draw inside.  She didn't approve of my taste in clothing, music, friends, television and especially not my choice for college or career.

I needed to express myself, to get out of my redneck town.  I needed to be artistic, to create beauty and inspire and entertain.  My mother wanted me to draw blueprints for houses and company buildings.  I was not feeling that and never even considered it, much to my mother's disappointment.  No, I needed to break away, to do something bigger than I had ever done before, something more grand than myself, contribute art and culture and perhaps a message to the world.

But even a state away, my mother's reach managed to choke me.  She constantly asked if I had done my laundry, if I had finished my homework and went to bed at a decent hour.  She queried about the last time I vacuumed my room or took out the trash and if I had once washed a dish.  She didn't have to ask if I had purchased groceries because she had access to my bank account and made sure to tell me I was spending too much money.

I always had the impression that she thought I was immature and irresponsible.  Maybe I am to some degree but I am also responsible when I need to be.  I managed to make it through three years of college without starving or having the Center for Disease Control inspect my dorm room.  Oh, and I graduated Cum Laude.  I created a short film.  I was published in the college's literary journal.  And when I went back to work, I was put in charge of an entire department before being promoted to supervisor.  I don't have any illegitimate children running around, never been in trouble with the law and floss daily.  All in all, I think I'm a pretty damn good kid.  But my mother doesn't acknowledge those things.  She only chooses to criticize, nitpick and whittle away my accomplishments by pointing out inconsequential things I don't do to her satisfaction, such as the cleanliness of my room or the fact that I don't work enough hours at my job, which is out of my control anyway.

It seems silly for me to get upset over her acidic appraisal of my everyday life, but it all adds up, every judgment, every shake of her head or squint of her eyes.  It's the paper cut again.  It's that subtle chipping away at my self-esteem, an almost unconscious act of antagonizing me until I feel wrecked and unworthy.  It's the fact that she questions everything I do, wear, purchase.  It's the fact that she can't simple praise me for anything without throwing her own assessments into the mix.  It's the fact that she only sees my art as a money making business and not something I just enjoy.  It's the fact that she has never asked to read anything I've ever written.  It's because there's never been support of my decisions or my lifestyle, only reluctant acceptance.  And it feels like I've been living my life up against a wall, constantly pushing forward and feeling nothing but resistance.

But my mother is not a bad woman.  She is a hard worker, a good friend and a generous provider.  She has always paid for just about anything I've ever wanted, and will probably continue to do so as long as I have a need.  But being a monetary mama doesn't always ease the pain.  She took care of me how she knew to, in her own way, no matter how misguided she might have been.  But, isn't that all parents?  She did what she could with what she had and maybe by the time I came around, she was just tired.  She had already had eight hard years with my troublesome sister before I came along and since I wasn't necessarily planned, my parents probably just went with the wind when it came to raising me.  My mother soothed me with food instead of hugs, but she probably didn't know any better.  It worked and she stuck with it, never foreseeing the future damage she'd inflict.  She bought me coloring books and crayons and video games.  But she missed out on actually nurturing me and my talent, never went out of her way to make me feel special.  She often dismissed my drawings with an insincere "very good" before returning to her cooking.  But this was never intentional.  She was distracted, exhausted.  Once, when I was older, I confronted her with her incessant criticisms and she responded by saying she only said those things to help me, not to hurt me.  Obviously, she thought she was teaching me to be a better person but it backfired.  She was was unknowingly making me feel I was weak and unfit for independence.

It's always been a bit of a struggle to please my mother.  I often avoided situations that might have been fun or beneficial just so I wouldn't have to endure another disapproving look or icy silence.  I often asked her permission to do things in lieu of independent decision making.  It was always just easier to pacify her.  But I felt I was never able to grow up because I was confined by my mother's cold critiques.  How could I feel ready to step out into the world when she didn't think I could make up my own bed?  How could I grow up when my mom coddled me and then complained about it?  Hm, complaining.  I guess I got that from her, too.  I guess I have a lot in common with her.  Not only do we have the same hair, skin, teeth and eyes but the same mentality as well.  And it's slightly disconcerting as there are so many things about her I don't agree with.  And I realize the things I don't care about her are some of the same things I don't care about myself.  The impatience.  The quick temper.  The feeling of restless dissatisfaction.  What is it they say, you can't love anyone until you love yourself?  I suppose the same goes for acceptance.  My mother is not just a mom, but a person.  A human.  Fallible.  Loving.  Tired.  She is just another person, not a miracle mother, but no one's mother is.  And I have to accept that.

I'm sure parenting is harder than I could ever imagine and children, and people in general, no matter the age, are so susceptible to insecurity that the slightest word or action or inaction could create chaos within one's self, could screw someone up for life.  My mom wasn't highly educated, isn't incredibly worldly and doesn't have a great grasp of sensitivity.  And it's not really her fault.  Like I said, she's not a bad woman.  We do have our good times.  We laugh and when something excites me, I still want to tell her about it.  As much as I feel I missed out on integral part of growing up, becoming an adult, becoming well adjusted, I can't put all the blame on my mother and even if she was partly responsible, I should be old enough now to be able to change things, to at least make an effort to undo some of the damage.  And realize that she will never stop reviewing my life, lining up my accomplishments and blasting them away with her own input.  That's just something I have to not take so seriously, not have to internalize the way I do.  And as much as she might point out my shortcomings, as you can see, I point out hers as well.  I'm no better, really.  I am my mother's son. 

siblinguistics

"Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet."

-Vietnamese Proverb

After being screwed over by my sister several months ago, I had a lot of bitterness toward her.  It kind of disgusted me how she didn't want her own brother in her home.  I wasn't asking to live there, just to stay for a while so I could try to find a decent job that would allow me to move out of our parents' home so I could start my own life.  I suppose I was asking too much, however, because she acted like I was the biggest inconvenience the whole time I was there.

I tried to stay out of her way but when we found ourselves in the same area together, she interrogated me over my daily doings, asking me how many applications I sent in, inquiring as to how many resumes I printed out, how many newspapers I bought or how many malls I visited to ask if they were hiring.  Plus, she felt the need to push jobs on me that I had no interest in.  Here she was, working a job she hated, and thought it was necessary to make me do the same.  That's one characteristic she inherited from Mom.  As if her pestering me wasn't bad enough, I was driving to an interview one day when Mom called and told me my sister didn't even want me to come to her house.  Mom got the call from my sister just as I was pulling out of my driveway to go see her.  Mom said she started to call me and tell me to turn around.  I wish she would have.  It would have saved me some anguish.

I've never been close with my sister.  I believe it has something to do with our large age gap and the fact that she's probably a bigger cynic than I am, if you can believe that.  But I can't seem to shake this latest incident, can't seem to wrap my feeble mind around her complete lack of sympathy for my situation.  It's not like I was asking to move in.  It's not like I was planning on eating all of her groceries or throwing my dirty underwear on the living room floor.  I was just needing a place to stay for a maximum of two weeks until I could find a job and an apartment.  It wasn't too much to ask, at least I thought.  But, for my sister, I might as well have asked her to walk a tightrope over piranha infested waters.  It was insulting and hurtful because I'm family and I always hoped, despite us not being close, that she would help me out when I was in need.  Sure, she did, but she did so reluctantly and then treated me like a cockroach that came out at night to nibble on the dirty dishes left in the sink.  

When I was little, I adored my sister.  Perhaps that's where some of her annoyance with me came from.  Sure, I can understand having some little rugrat clinging onto your leg might grate on a gal's nerves after a while, but I wonder if she ever wondered why I was under her so much.  Did she ever realize how cool I thought she was, how I was proud that she was my sister, how I thought she was the neatest thing since Crayola?  As I grew older, I hoped that my burgeoning maturity would somehow soften her revulsion of me.  I hoped that as I became an adult, we could be more adult toward each other, see each other as somewhat equals, instead of a idealized big sister and a nerdy little brother.  Besides, she introduced me to art and horror movies when I was little, two things I still crave to this day.  I hoped we'd make a connection over those things.  I suppose we did, for a few Christmases.  But that connection wasn't strong enough to maintain through multiple holidays.  Even as I started to understand who I was as a person, as I began exploring myself and why I was who I was, as I stopped caring about being the cool guy for everyone else, I still felt vulnerable around her, inadequate.  I still saw myself as that clueless little boy who clung to his sister.  I think she still saw me that way, too.

I never knew how to talk to my sister because I never really knew who she was.  She moved out soon after I hit my teenage years, when I started becoming aware of myself and my surroundings.  I never got to know her past the sisterly image I had constructed in my small, impressionable mind.  She never got to know me past my little boy annoyance.  And when we'd see each other again for the holidays, it was always awkward.  We couldn't carry a conversation past book or movie recommendations and her horror stories about work.  It's not that I didn't try but it always felt forced when I asked her questions, like it was more of an interview than a relationship.

I love my sister because she's family, but I don't really like her.  She has a terrible attitude and doesn't give anything potentially good a chance.  She's cold to those around her, even her husband.  And after the way she treated me, I'm just kind of over her.  She came over the other day to take care of some business in town and stayed here overnight.  I hadn't seen her since Easter and I was okay with that.  While she was over, I stayed in my room the entire time, not going out of my way to ignore her but I didn't make any effort to socialize.  Mom pointed that out to me after my sister left.

"You acted like you had nothing to do with her," Mom said.

"Well, I didn't mean to."

"You just stayed in your room the whole time."

"I always stay in my room."

"Well, you could have came out and visited."

"Sorry."

"You still mad at her?"

And that was where I became annoyed with my mom.  It felt she was more angry at me for being angry at my sister for being mean to me.  But what about my parents being angry at my sister for being mean to me?  I brought that up and Mom just shrugged it off.

"Oh," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.  "We were angry and we told her, me and your dad."

Okay, so is that supposed to make me feel better?  You two can be angry and I can't?

"You just need to let it go and move on," Mom said.

But I can't and I won't because it wasn't just some excusably tough time in her life that I happened to step into.  It symbolized how she's always treated me, how she's always seen me as bothersome.  It goes beyond that one incident.  It exemplified our entire relationship and after that, I was done.  My sister and I have never been that close and I am sure we never will be.  And while I get jealous of other strong sibling relationships, I don't feel too bad about the nearly  nonexistent one I have with my sister.  It's really her choice to be the way she is and there's nothing I can do about it.  As much as this might sound terrible to say, I don't consider it that big of a loss.

How do you talk to a sibling?  I understand the parent child relationship, I suppose.  Parents are in charge, to be respected but there's also that small window of mutual friendship that can form as the child grows, matures and becomes a relatable adult.  But when it comes to an older or younger brother or sister, where does each sibling stand?  Are they equal because they are both children of two people who are older?  Or should the older sibling be treated with the same amount of respect and obedience that would be given to a parent?  And as the older sibling, how do you treat your younger brother or sister?  Do you always look down on them as the baby, as the one who took Mommy and Daddy's attention away from you?  Or do you realize that they grow up just like you did, that they are people, too, that they are not the whiny little brats you remember from your own childhood?  Can there be more than a brother sister relationship?  Can there be friendship?  I think so, as long as both are willing.  I just don't think my sister is.  She'll always look down on me just as much as I always looked up to her.  She'll always see me as nothing more than her baby brother, a snot-nosed nuisance. 

And I'll always see her as my big sister, a stranger.  A bitch with my blood.