cacao kapow!

Valentine's Day hit me like Chris Brown in a Bronco.  I'm not talking about just being alone (although that did have a lot to do with it).  I'm talking about the enormous amount of crap I ate.

I won an entire plastic container full of Hershey Kisses from work and then the store gave everyone a box of chocolates and my mom bought two boxes of chocolate for me.  After consuming that much sugar and chocolate and lard and fat and lard and sugar and chocolate and fat and lard and more lard and the occasional coconut cluster that slipped past my security measures (yuck), I felt like total garbage.

It's kind of amazing how you don't realize how bad you stopped feeling until you start feeling bad again.

I always thought I was impervious to sugar, caffeine, Aspartame, vitamins and minerals, love, legally obtained prescription drugs, etc.,  because I can have that stuff and it doesn't make me more energetic or foggy or good or bad.  I've always walked around generally feeling like crap.  So, when I started exercising and eating less greasy, fast food-type items, I didn't feel more energetic or "alive" or better physically or even mentally.

All it took was a near month-long binge of boxed chocolates to make me realize I didn't feel as bad as I believed.  And you might say a month-long binge of chocolates will make anyone feel that way, no matter what condition they started in.  Even the most lethargic sloth would come away from three boxes of cocoa-coated caramels feeling worse.  But that chocolate wasted feeling was how I used to feel all the time before I started dieting and exercising.

I felt bad that I indulged so heavily.  I write these entries about doing well.  I write about moderation and it's okay to cheat every once in a while and you just get up and do better the next time around.  And then I binge.  And it happens to everyone but I still feel like I should be a better example.  I've battled food and my weight and my addiction to food for years and you'd think I'd develop some sort of resistance to the constant cravings.  But, no.  In a lot of ways, I'm no better now than when I was seventeen and bingeing on Doritos and Diet Coke.

I also feel like I'm not as in touch with my body as I should be.  I don't know what's going on inside.  I can't detect the changes in my mood or my middle.  There's a giant disconnection there and I don't know how to harmonize my senses and awareness. 

If anything, I guess this overindulgence was a good lesson.  There might be something to this diet and exercise after all, folks!  Maybe it does make a difference, even if the differences are subtle and fluid and not easily recognized by those who aren't in touch with themselves.    

book notes #13: almost there

Last night, I finished up the second edit of my book.  Let me just say again how surprised I was at how much I could accomplish doing a little bit every day.  I've made more progress in the past two months than I've made in the last 5 or 6.  And that's just because I kept going, didn't take these week-long or month-long breaks.

Now, the plan is to work (every day) on rewriting the book, including all the changes.  Then get a few people to read it just to tell me if it's worth being a book and then, depending on how I feel about the possibility of the book being successful and if I can afford it, I might hire a professional editor.  I'll also need to buy an ISBN if I self-publish or if I decide to go the traditional route, I'll start sending out query letters.

With this lucky 13th update, I think I'm going to stop writing about writing the book.  I've written about it for approximately 4 years now and it's gotten embarrassing.  I've done all this smack talk about it and have built it up to be something grand like it will be this huge, life-changing project when really it's just a collection of all my whiny OD entries.  If you've read one of them, then you've already read my book.

I also ran across this quote by author Isaac Marion that I think is appropriate and good timing regarding my decision to stay mum from now on:

I think most people think of writing as a romantic dalliance that is fun to think about and impressive to talk about, but not a tangible reality that can actually be accomplished. Stop talking about it and do it. Don't waste that coal of desire on idle chatter, passing it around the room for everyone to admire. It will go out. Keep it hidden inside where it can burn and drive you and don't stop blowing on it until you've finished something.

Whew, he called me out on that one, didn't he?  I guess I have a lot more blowing to do.  I just want to be done!  And done I shall be, hopefully in the next two or three months.

Making progress every day.  And I won't stop until I have a book in my hands.  Even if I have to self-publish.  Even if everyone hates it.  Because it's my story and my therapy and I won't feel totally healed until I've totally finished it.

digital portrait

Since I bought a lot of Adobe products about two years ago and then never touched them, I thought I should probably get some use out of the 2,000 dollars worth of software chilling on my computer.  So, I did my first digital painting.

I spent 8 straight hours on it the first day and then several hours over the course of the next several days.  I didn't really keep track of total hours put into it but I'm guessing it took close to 20-30 hours.  Eventually, I stopped.  Not because I was done but because I wasn't sure what else I could do to improve it.  I feel like I never finish a work because there's always improvements to make but I'm not at the skill level I need to be to actually make those improvements so I usually just stop before I make it worse by trying to "fix" it.

Here's the reference picture:

And here's my "interpretation" of the picture.  I use the word "interpretation" as a way to say I can't get the picture to look photo-realistic and this is the best I can do.  But this is my first digital painting/drawing in Photoshop and one of the first pieces of art I've done in around 3 years so I'm rusty.

If you stand back and squint, it doesn't look too bad!  But the best part is I tweeted Sia the picture I created for her and she actually responded.  I fanboy-ed for a second but then regained my composure.  But how cool is that?  I know she's not a huge mega celebrity but it's not even about that.  I've been a fan of hers for years and some of my favorite songs in the world belong to her so just the fact that she, as a person and not a celebrity, acknowledged me is pretty awesome.

Working on the picture was fun.  In some ways it was relaxing the way drawing used to be for me.  In other ways, it was frustrating because I couldn't get the tone of her skin or hair texture correct.  But maybe it doesn't even have to be about all of that.  It's just about creation, expression, admiration.

I want to do more.  I'm just not sure I have it in me.  I half-started another portrait and realized it didn't look nearly as good as this one.  But I'm also a very impatient person and I expected the second portrait to look like this one in about ten minutes.  I just need to take it low and slow and stop expecting perfection.  I should expect relaxation.  I've got to remember that's why I liked drawing in the first place.  Before my head and insecurities took over.

I also started a zombie picture before Sia but I never finished it.  It's a bit more intensive.  Who knew glistening guts were so hard to paint?  Well, now I do.  Maybe I will finish it one day and share that one, too.

cotard's syndrome

I was talking to my supervisor at work the other day and out of nowhere, she said, "Brannon, from some of our conversations we've had, it seems to me like you're dying a very slow death."

"Been there, done that," I said.  "Now I'm just rotting."

do not allow back

This is embarrassing to write about but we're all family, right?  I've talked about all my other mishaps, be they spiritual, physical, and social.  Might as well talk about my professional snafus, too.

When I was seventeen, I quit my job as a florist assistant after dealing with dead people, nearly wrecking the company van (on several occasions), and inhaling second hand smoke from my soot-stained boss.  I quickly moved on to be a cashier at a pharmacy.  Things went swimmingly for six months until I sold cigarettes to an underage girl.  The girl worked with the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and several agents quickly swooped in and told my supervisor.  I was fired on the spot.

Now, let me explain.

I was fat, pimply, and insecure.  I didn't have a voice.  I didn't like to "confront" people.  The girl did look too young but I was too scared to say anything.  I felt a rush of nervousness hit me, a bad feeling, but I ignored it because I didn't want to come off as rude or suspicious of her.  Yeah, it was my job to be suspicious and check her age but I didn't think of it in those terms.  I just thought of it as one person dealing with another.

And it was a huge mistake.  All these years later, it still embarrasses me.  No one likes to talk about how they were fired but I was fired for doing something illegal.  I look back on it now and I feel dumb.  All I had to do was ask for an ID but I couldn't even muster the courage to do that.  And because I couldn't ask a simple question, I was fired and it made my life spin in a different direction.

Cut to a few weeks ago.  A former coworker from my current job called me up and told me he had gotten a position as an assistant supervisor at that same pharmacy.  He said there was another assistant manager position open in another city and he said I should try for it.  I immediately thought of my termination and wondered if I could be hired there again.  I didn't want to express that to him, though, because it was embarrassing.  So, I shrugged off his offer and made lame excuses and said I wasn't sure if it was right for me.

The job did sound pretty good, though.  More money.  More hours.  I just had to face that shame again.  I finally expressed my concern to him and he said he'd speak to his store manager to see if I could be hired again.

Two days later, he sent me a text message saying I was on the "do not allow back" list.  I wasn't necessarily shocked but just knowing it was official was disappointing.  There was the smallest part of me that held out hope.  But that hope was squashed, just like it always is.  Just knowing I'm on a naughty list somewhere makes me feel dirty.  Filled with more shame.

It's bad enough that the dumb, huge mistake I made ten years ago still embarrasses me, it's also still holding me back from better opportunities.  I didn't even ask for the opportunity.  In fact, I avoided it  'cause I didn't think it would work out.  Naturally, it didn't.  But it was like the universe had to bring my bad decisions back around to me, another reminder of mistakes and failures, of setbacks and shame.

A week or so later, I walked into that pharmacy to pick up a couple of things.  I had just come from work and I had on a dress shirt and tie.  A man with an unkempt beard and a limp came up to me and asked, "Do you work here?"

"No, I don't," I replied.  "I'm sorry."

"Oh, no, it's okay," he said as he hobbled away.  "Sorry for asking."

I wasn't talking to you, mister.

apprehensive

"They’re fooling themselves. They think all this bullshit about hard work and achieving means something but it doesn’t. Universe is completely random. Particles colliding at random. Blind chance. So you didn’t make it. No big deal. It’s not your fault. Shit’s random."
-Party Down

I'm not an atheist, just apprehensive.

I've mentioned before that I've stopped praying or relying on God in any kind of way.  I used to feel guilty about it but now I don't feel bad at all.  Nothing in my life has changed.  I'm no better or worse for it, which makes me wonder if God was ever in my life at all, or if God is anything at all.

I don't know.  I'm not sure I care.  I do hate that I've slid so far down but what can I do?  I've tried it all with the prayer and meditation and Bible reading and patience.  Nothing helped.  Nothing ever does.

Faith is a lot like a slot machine.  You pray and pull the lever and you hope for good results but you never know if you'll hit it big or end up empty.  It's really all random chance. You can never be sure if the constant prayer ever pays off or if things in your life just finally line up.  You want something long enough and if you work for it, you might just get it.  It doesn't mean God had anything to do with it.  Just to be fair, it also doesn't mean he didn't.  You just can't know so why get caught up in it?

It pisses me off when people think I have given up on my faith in God just because I am not where I want to be in life.  Do people think that's how I think it works?  I'm not new to this game.  I'm not asking for a perfect life.  It's not about circumstances but sensations.  I have never felt that comforting presence.  I have never had a good feeling when it comes to God.  I've only ever felt separation, emptiness, nothingness.  I am not reassured when I pray.  When I scream for God to give me a sign, I get nothing.  I am not comforted and therefore I don't think there's anything out there to comfort me.  How hard is it just to say hello?  If God cares/exists, why has he not shown me?

And where's the stable relationship with anyone in my life, cosmic or concrete, with flesh or faith?  My parents are distant, my coworkers are crass and former friends are too busy.  I can congregate and communicate but I'm no one's number one.  

I wish I could believe again.  I wish I could be the good little Christian boy in my Christian bubble like so many people around here.  They are small-minded and naive and annoying.  And sometimes I think it would be easier if I could just be that way, too.  What if God gave a shit?  What if he finally had mercy on my menial life?

It's not like he's bullying me or anything.  It just feels like it.  But that's conceited on my part because, really, who am I?  He has a whole big world to ignore so why would he single me out to slice and dice?  No, he's saving that dirty work for the devil.

every night is a knife

I don't want to be here anymore.

I don't want to be         anymore.

every day is a dagger

I ruined the only good relationship I ever had.

Memories of holding hands and hotel rooms keep me warm but the cold always settles in again.  The irrevocable damage sweeps over everything and I just can't believe it happened, that things turned so bad so fast.  And it's the reason I pushed people away and messed myself up for all these years.  The worst part was I did it all for no good reason.  It's not like I ever really belonged to you.  And I'm not sure I ever wanted you in the first place.  But you were the closest I ever had to something special and so I held on to it so tight, an iron grip on a frail hope.

I pinned myself to the ground and watched you fly away and flourish.  I was left behind, fingernails splintered on the concrete floor.  The pain deepens every day, spread out and penetrated into every part of me.  It will never go away, grafted on to me the day I gave up on you and everyone, and everything, else.  I call out, "I'm here, too.  You forgot about me."  But my voice grows weaker.  Their ears grow more deaf.  The space grows wider.

You don't get to be okay.  I don't want to be happy for you because you ripped me apart.  You didn't even mean to but damn it, you did.  And I just want you to know the pain you caused me.  I just want you to dip your toes into the fire you lit inside my soul.  Just have a taste and then you can move on with your life.  And I want you to carry a bit of that burden with you when you do.

i am not my beard

I buzzed my beard off the other night because I was tired of the rough texture.  I went to work the next day and was met with audible gasps.  Not good audible gasps, either.  More like shock and terror.

"What did you do to your face?"

"Where's the beard?"

"You...you shaved it?"

"Grow it back!"

People acted like I was missing an eye or a nose instead of facial hair.  I know they didn't mean to make me feel bad but they did.  I didn't realize I was some gargoyle and the only thing that kept people from bursting into tears at the site of me was my beard.  It was a mask, a filter, a softening lens that cranked down my deformed face.

Or maybe it was just the shock of seeing my face look so different so fast.  As I grew the beard, everyone was slowly introduced to bearded Bran, including myself.  And taking it all off with a few strokes of the clippers was a bit jarring.  I had the beard for nearly three months and it just became a part of me as if it were always there and suddenly it wasn't.  I didn't recognize the smooth stranger in the bathroom mirror.

I didn't like everyone's reaction.  I didn't even like my own.  I didn't regret buzzing it off but I do like the way I look better with a beard.  But my face feels so much better without one.  When I had the beard, I combed and clipped and conditioned and even through in some argon oil to soften the facial hair but it still felt too rough for my liking.  And sometimes when I slept on my side or stomach, the facial hair against the pillow really irritated my cheeks.

I also realized maintaining facial hair was actually more intensive than just shaving it clean off.  There's a lot of maintenance involved.  Clipping.  Washing.  Conditioning.  Keeping the neckline even and clean.  Trying not to get food or bugs or girls' fingers caught in it.  Serious upkeep.

Yes, the beard will come back but I won't do it for anyone else but myself.  This is kind of a big deal because I've always been so used to doing things the way others wanted, living and looking the way others have dictated.  But I'm not doing that anymore.  In fact, I am thinking about holding off on growing the beard back even longer than I normally would just out of spite!  Take that, jerks.

It's gonna be my choice, no one else's.  And I'm going to rock it either way. 

I think just about every guy has done this at least one time when debearding.

zombie vomit bag

"I have heard it said love endures all things, now I know that it's true, 
stronger than the grave, death can't put it out, here I am, the walking dead, 
still next to you..."
-Showbread, George Romero will be at our Wedding

We decorated Valentine bags at work so everyone could put goodies in them.  Everyone decorated their bags with sticker hearts and puff paint, which is all well and good but I wanted to do something a bit different.

 I designed my bag around the Showbread song George Romero will be at our Wedding.  It's about a zombie who vomits up a wedding ring and realizes he ate his wife.  He eventually finds her, zombified, and they stay together, despite them both being dead.  It's about how love can overcome all things, even death.  It's actually a really meaningful message beneath all the entrails. 

I wanted to draw a vomiting zombie on the bag but then I thought I'd put Photoshop to good use and designed the zombie dude in the program and printed him out.  I taped him to the bag, which gave a nice 3D effect.  And instead of just drawing vomit, I made it interactive so you can spin the vomit around.

 I also created a QR code which links to the song and on the back of the bag, I printed the song lyrics.  So you've got your physical, visual, and auditory interaction, which I thought was pretty neat.

Here's what the bag looks like.

we'll have our day

Trace the thump thump thump with your finger, feeling tiny reverberations beneath the marsh and marrow.  Pulled together with cotton and cool breezes.  This bed is our island, this room our country, this house our world.  Pay no mind to the comets crashing against our atmosphere.  You're safe now, secluded from the screams and secure in the handcuff of my arms.  We are perfect, lying in the inky black of bundled silk, lip petals and onyx eyes.  We are supple cannibals, one body nourished by the other, fragrant skin and warm throats.   

And we are disgusting.

But only by other people's standards, of course.  We're an aberration born from texts and timid minds.  We were an alignment or accident or maybe a divine delegation.  We don't know and we don't care.  Our lips come together the way the clouds kiss the sky and that's all that's ever made sense to us, all we ever needed to know.  Bursting suns and burning rays of need.  Undulating heat and hunger.

Ignore the bang bang bang at the door and keep focus on the fullness, this bed, this rhythmic flow.  Mind this medicine, unlocked and measured out in mouthfuls.  This is not unholy.  This is ethereal and beautiful and above us all, this gift, this flesh, these nerves and electrical currents teasing transcendence.  I'm inserting the key to God's house, opening the door for us to enter and evolve.  Together.  This is us, pulled apart from the masses and cast into the cosmos.  Mute out the mouths on the other side that tell us we are wrong.  They don't know love, only lassitude.  We are not filth.

But yes, we can still be dirty.

Feel the scratch scratch scratch along my back, marking territory on pale skin.  Red lines of belonging, parallel to past scars.  No one can breach these barriers but you, switching over with soft words and gentle moves.  Waves and waves and waves, blood rushing through my eyelids, feeling fuller and falling deeper in love.  Ignore anything but the bustle of breath, the tension in your tendons, the quickening flood of chemicals.  Snapshot the stars spiraling behind your eyelids.  Revel in the release of fluid and fear, shuddering in sameness.  Now we are one.  I am all you've ever been and you have become all I've ever aimed to be.  My love, lower your lashes to the noise at the threshold of death.  When the fire dies outside, we'll have our day.

book notes #12: cutting

As I previously mentioned, I have been hard at work on the second edit of my book.  I've made a lot of progress since the new year.  I've found doing a little bit at a time really does add up to large chunks of accomplishment.  It feels good to look at my Post-it bookmark and see it slowly but surely (and consistently) moving toward the end of my black binder.

Throughout the course of my book, I chronicle my encounters with hipsters, douchebags, bitches, sluts, tweakers, and kimono wearing opera singers.  And I talked about how much they, and my classes, sucked.  And to be fair, I talked about how much I sucked as well.  You'd think after reading about that much sucking, the reader would come out a little more satisfied, eh?

I already had a suspicion I should reel back on the reaming of others but after going over the book again and again, all the constant complaining is unappetizing.  So, I cut out a lot of the negativity in regards to other people and even myself.  Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of self-loathing (it wouldn't be Bran's book without one) but I have definitely scaled back on the bad attitude.

I've also cut out a lot of repetition.  I used my blog as a reference while writing my book and the way I wrote my entries was I often gave a lot of back story and repeated information for new readers who had just come upon my blog, allowing them to catch up on the happenings before they dived into a new entry.  But all that extra information doesn't translate well to a book because it's one reader, not a slew of people coming and going.  Once I've established all the info to that one reader, there's no need to rehash any of it.  Taking all that excess background noise has helped lighten the book considerably.  Or at least I hope.  I look through all my pages and most of the text is crossed out.  I've got at least 89 pages to cut so getting rid of the repetition and cutting out all nonessential information and some of the negativity will help me do that.

I know I keep on droning on about this stupid project and hardly seem like I'm making progress but since it's my first book, I want it to be as good as it can be.  Plus, I think all the time I've sat on it and waited and developed my writing skills has made the book stronger than it's ever been.  That's not to say it's even good at this point but it's miles ahead of where it was a year ago so I don't feel bad about not rushing it into publication.

I do want to have it published this year, though.

pavlolv's dawg

I feel like I'm constantly putting my hand in a meat grinder labeled hope.

fate and failure

"This is a lesson in procrastination
I kill myself because I'm so frustrated 
Every single second that I put it off
Means another lonely night I got to race the clock..."
-Brand New, Failure by Design

"How are you going to make an idol from the type of person you're trying to avoid in real life?  I'm afraid if America keeps letting people like that become the entertainers, pretty soon there'll be no one left to work at Rite-Aid."
-Natasha Leggero, Coke Money

Failure is isolating.  I should take comfort in the fact that I am not the only twenty-something floundering in the world.  I am not the only twenty-something with a degree floundering in the world.  I am not the only twenty-something with a degree who no longer desires to use it who is floundering in the world.  But it doesn't make me feel better.

All I can think of are the ones in similar situations as me who have prospered.  They had the same education and privileges and hardships as I did and yet they succeeded.  I stumbled.  That makes me feel like something must be wrong with me. 

I struggle with the idea of fate and putting faith in fate.  Am I destined to do what I love and, if so, should I take comfort in the fact that I will be where I belong eventually, even if things seem terrible at the moment?  Or is fate just a bandage for the broken-hearted, something people tell themselves to get through the hurt of shattered expectations?

People say, "Yeah, things suck now but I'm meant for more.  Everything will work out.  I will live my dreams."  But, is that really the case?

One of the great hardships of life, and death, is acceptance.  We have to accept a lot of failure, endure disappointment and oftentimes lower our standards just so we can get through the day.

But do we also have to accept that our dreams might never come true?  Do we have to accept that fate isn't real at all, that it's just a nice notion?  Do we have to accept that fate won't always sync up with what we want?  Why must we ache over something we can't even control?

I always dreamed of being an artist and recently, a published author.  But the insecurity and awareness of my limitations hold me back.  I can practice and get better but will I ever be good enough to actually make a living doing what I love?

The truth of the matter is we all have dreams.  A lot of people aspire to do great things but someone's gotta flip the burgers and fold the shirts.  What about their dreams?  Are they where they wanna be or are they just biding their time until their big break?  What if that break never comes?  What if they wait in vain?  What if they crack open and lose all hope? 


What about them?  What if I'm one of them? 

We all stare stary-eyed at those one television who tell us to work hard, to be persistent, to keep practicing and we believe them because they did that and they "made" it.  But we can't base our judgment of ourselves on people like that because the dirty secret is talent isn't as important as timing or connections or pure random luck.  Sometimes talent has very little to do with success.

And that creates a disconnect between our talents and expectations.  If we are so good, why aren't we successful?  Maybe we aren't good after all or maybe we have the talent down but not the timing.  Or maybe we don't have the right connections.  But how are we to ever know what keeps us from happiness and success and fulfillment?

People say to compromise.  You might not make it to broadway but you can do local theater.  You might not be in the bookstores but you can fill a spot on Amazon.  You won't fill a gallery with your art but you can fill a wall of a supportive friend's house.

Is that good enough?  Can we make it good enough?

I think it's safe to say the majority of people out there have dreams but not everyone can follow them.  But if we can't follow them, why do we have them in the first place?  What's the point?  What's the lesson to be learned from craving a passion we can't pursue?