the devil and god are raging inside me

"And over the sea in a warm sunny place 
men and women sit watching TV 
they say, 'it's a shame anyone has to die
but it was either them or me' 
all safe and snug, tucked away in our mansions 
we smile feeling comfortably safe 
and over the sea there's a dark cold place 
out of sight, out of mind, out of reach, washed away..."
-Showbread, Escape from Planet Cancer

"The death, the rape, the tragedy

the world is an ugly place

what's capable inside of me

is going to rear its ugly face..."

-DIES, Aesthetics of Violence 

"And in my best behavior 
I am really just like him 
look beneath the floorboards
for the secrets I have hid..."
-Sufjan Stevens, John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

Several years ago at my former job, I sat down at my makeshift desk, which was really just a folding table propped up against a wall.  I was a temp, hired on to help the company catch up on their paperwork and they had no proper office to give me.  So they made due and assembled a desk from extra parts they had in storage.

As I sorted through the stack of files, I noticed the room grow dim on my right side.  I looked up and saw the florescent light on the ceiling had gone out.  I looked at the wall three feet in from my face and saw the light and the dark encompassing the same portion of polystyrene.  To me, it felt like the technological equivalent of the angel and devil on my shoulder.

When I was a child, as I came to understand myself and the world and people around me, I realized I wanted to help people.  I lived in a small town with small minds.  Religion reigned over everything.  God was not at the center of people's hearts but at the center of social normalcy.  And with that warped sense of religion came a warped sense of right and wrong.  They did not look to the Bible but to their biased pastor to see who should be shunned or celebrated and a mess was made of everyone.

Fortunately, I was able to avoid such brainwashing.  I did not grow up in the church and it spared me from being taught to discriminate (disclaimer: not all churches teach hate, just all the ones I attended).  I wasn't told to hate the gays or keep my distance from the blacks and shun the atheists and fornicators and underage drinkers.  In fact, all these "bad" people comprised the majority of my friends.  I liked them and I was a good judge of character.  How could they be bad?  And how were they any worse, open with their vices, than those who hid their sins on Sunday and resumed their wicked ways the rest of the week?

Although this "Christian" behavior was hypocritical, it didn't anger me at the time.  It only inspired me.

I realized I wanted to help people. I wanted people to love each other, to realize we are all the same underneath our skin and sexuality. I wanted people to know we all have the same desires and defects. I wanted to use my art to inspire and incite revolution. All I really wanted to do was open people's eyes.  I just didn't think I was good enough at the time. I wasn't quite ready yet.

I was a child, still developing my skills and message. What did I want to say? How was I going to change the world? I had lofty ambitions and I didn't want my life to go to waste. I grew up deformed in several ways and I felt so much pain inside because of my feelings and fears. I didn't want anyone else to go through that. I didn't want anyone to feel as alone as I did. Despite my personal demons, I thought people were basically good. The world was bad and we would get corrupted but we could be saved. We were worth saving.

art

"'Cause we all know art is hard
young artists have gotta starve
Try, and fail, and try again..."
-Cursive, Art is Hard

"Art is not the world, art is in our hearts..."
-Showbread, Stabbing Art to Death

"Let me ask you something, what is not art?"
-Unknown

I used to draw.  A lot.  My childhood was spent with a Slim-Fast in one hand and a pencil in the other.  I often sneaked into my sister's room and pulled out her charcoal sketches of dragons and Axl Rose she kept underneath her bed.  And I copied them.  I learned about lines and shading sitting on the floor of her room, surrounded by the waxy smell of drugstore makeup and wall-to-wall posters of hair metal bands.

An artist was born.

I devoured sketch pads and ground colored pencils into stumps.  As much as I loved toys, I loved drawing utensils equally.  I couldn't wait to try a new type of marker or a new color of crayon.  I drew my favorite superheroes and created my own action figures out of paper.  But I was never incredibly creative.  My artistic endeavors were derivative of the enormous amount of Saturday morning cartoon I consumed and my eventual discovery of anime, which I was into way before it became so huge here in America.  I was ahead of the game back then.

I learned to shade and highlight.  I learned about depth and perspective.  All from doing it on my own, from observing, from drawing, from constantly creating.

I was good at copying.  Any attempts to be original were mediocre at best.  But when I was younger, I wasn't preoccupied with being original or unique.  I just genuinely enjoyed drawing and having fun with it.  I was good.  It gave me pleasure.

But sadness and insecurity crept in and my mind became poisoned and I became a perfectionist.  People noticed my talent and were impressed.  And somehow, people began to inflate my abilities.

"Brannon drew a picture of my daughter and it looks just like her!"

"Brannon doesn't even use an eraser!"

"I heard Brannon doesn't need to draw from pictures, or from life.  He can draw from memory!"

"One time, I saw Brannon sneeze on a piece of paper and then when I looked over his shoulder, his snot was in the shape of Mona Lisa!"

None of this is true, of course.  But for some reason, in some people's minds, I'm better than I actually am.  And that was a part of the insecurity.  I felt I could never measure up to people's outlandish expectations.  I was my biggest critic.  Eventually, nothing I drew matched the image I had in my head and it frustrated me.  I knew I was better, more capable, but for some reason, I couldn't translate the image from head to paper.

There were times when I got away with reaching people's expectations, or at least that's what they told me.  I did a few commissioned drawings.  But eventually the stress became too much and I stopped charging because my art was not worth anyone's money.  And eventually I stopped doing drawings for people all together because I couldn't afford to jeopardize the reputation bestowed upon me by others.  I never lived up to the hype, never went along with the adulation and as much as I tried to downplay what I could do, no one believed me and I suddenly I was a small town art prodigy.  And wanting to please everyone, I didn't want to produce low-quality work and prove everyone wrong.   

I had been painted into a corner, so to speak.

Art became a source of frustration instead of pleasure and so I stopped drawing as much.  And then I went to college to study art.  No one had any preconceived notions of who I was or what I was capable of and suddenly I was a clean slate, an out of practice clean slate.  And I felt like I was starting from zero while all my classmates were already prodigies themselves.  I was in over my head and terrified I had made a huge mistake.

But I finished college, got a degree, and graduated with honors.  I guess that means something to someone but it doesn't mean anything to an animation company.  They want to see your demo reel and it doesn't matter how great your grades were in college, if you don't deliver mind-blowing art, you're done.  There's hundreds of other wide-eyed kids in line behind you who have dedicated themselves to their art.  They didn't hide behind rumors of grandeur.

I abandoned art after college.  I didn't feel good about my abilities and wanted to go in a different direction.  I just wasn't sure about the direction I wanted to go in.

Let me let you in on a little secret I've been keeping about my relationship with art:  I DON'T FREAKING GET IT.

consumed

"Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us."
-Peter De Vries

"Well, I hate myself.  I already have a pint of ice cream, a pizza, and mini eclairs.  I don't need these cookies.  I'll have to put something back.  Pizza.  I'll put that back.  I have pizza at home.  But no, that's why I came here.  I want this kind of pizza, not the kind I have at home.

"I'll just put back these eclairs.  I can do without them.  Yes, I feel good about this.  Actually, no, these eclairs remind me of the time when I was in college and went to Publix and bought eclairs and ate them all in my car to soothe the pain of being a gigantic loser.  Those were good memories and I think I want to re-capture them.

"And I really want this ice cream.  And the cookies.  I haven't had the cookies in a long time.

"I'll make chili dogs when I get home.  I don't need this pizza.  But if I bought the pizza, I could have that the day after.  That way I could satisfy my cravings for chili dogs and pizza.  Yeah, I have to keep the pizza.  But I have one at home.  But this one has a cheese stuffed crust.  I'm definitely keeping the pizza.  Nah, the one at home is just as good.

"Okay, pizza is gone.  Too many sweets here.  Okay, ice cream gone.  Just eclairs and cookies.  That's not too bad.

"Okay, the ice cream is back.  I know I can do without it but it will literally be on my mind, making me crazy, until I eat it so it's better to go ahead and get it so I won't drive myself nuts.  But that means I'll have to, have to, put back the cookies.  I've got to compromise.  I don't want to spend too much money.  Or calories.  But my diet is already shot.  What's another weekend binge?

"Damn it.  Okay, keeping the eclairs for sure.  It's just...I'm so annoyed right now and these frozen foods, these processed pizzas, is what soothes me.  I know I'm hurting myself.  This is not normal, healthy behavior.  But I'm sad and so I just don't care.

"Screw it, I'm gonna get the pizza too."

This is an average conversation I have with myself when I go to the grocery store, except I use a lot more foul language and stand around being indecisive for a longer period of time.  People passing by probably think I'm lost.  And in a way, I am.

I've struggled with my weight over half of my life.  You'd think it would be easier to deal with by now but it's not.  I think about food and my weight every single day.  I think about everything I put in my mouth.  I chastise myself for the bad things because I know it will lead to weight gain and I complain to myself about the good things because I know it won't bring satisfaction.  I have to assess my wardrobe every day and wonder what I can or can't wear because I've gotten too big or small.  It's a struggle between calories and comfort.  I get lost in the swirl of butter cream and bat shit crazy and there are days when I wish I could just get it under control.  There are days when I wish I didn't care so much.  Or at all.

There's the logical part of my mind that knows I can lose weight.  I've done it several times before.  But there's the insecure hurting child deep inside that craves the satisfaction that only sugar can provide.  And when it comes to logic and pain, pain will always win out.  It's the underlying weakness that's the strongest force within me, popping up and making its way to the surface during my struggles, filling my cells with the urgent need for food, any carb to curb the current crisis.

It's embarrassing to lose weight and have people notice...and then gain it back...and have people notice.  It's like, "Have you seen Brannon?  He's getting fat again.  He was doing so well.  It's a shame he's letting himself go."  But they just don't get it.  I didn't suddenly find myself overweight and then took control of my body and lost it and that's the end of the story.  It's a constant, brutal struggle to stay sane, slim, and satiated.

It's made even harder because you can see my struggle.  I wear it around my waist.  I feel exposed, like my pain and shortcomings are out there in the open for everyone to see.  It gets tiring and I think it's especially hard because I can't avoid food.  It's in ads in magazines and on television.  It's in my kitchen.  It's always in my head.  It's cultural.  It's social.  Celebrate with food.  Gather the family around a buffet. 

But for me, it's not cultural.  It's not social.  It's emotional.  It's sacred.  It's spiritual.  When I meet someone for dinner, I'm more excited about the meal than the company.  And I want to gather my food and go into a private room and eat it alone.  I want to go through my ritual of chewing and swallowing and savoring, of experiencing different combinations of condiments and mixing all the sides and seasonings.

Every time I eat, it's a religious experience.  Pasta is like a prayer.  It calms and centers me.  It takes away the hurt and the pain.  How could I not want to recapture that transcendence again and again?  Especially when my head is in chaos most of the time.  It's a legal high, a harmless elevation.  But it's only harmless when experienced occasionally.  Otherwise the side effects add up and suddenly I can't button my pants anymore.

I don't want to blame my crappy job or lack of friends for my unhealthy relationship with food but those things really do drive me to eat.  I'd like to say if things were better, I would eat better.  I don't know if that's true.  It's not even a good excuse.  We all have our problems but not all of us deal with them in such unhealthy ways.  Sure, a lot of us do but a lot of us don't.  I just wish I could be one of the healthy ones.

But it hasn't all been a series of failures.  Through writing about my struggles with food and emotional eating, I think I've come about as close as I can to identifying why I eat the way I do.  Unfortunately, that's about as far as I've come.  Despite determining many of the causes of my caustic relationship with food, I have yet to find a way to fix it.  All the multiple episodes of weight loss have occurred despite my bad habits and habitual cravings.  I never cured them, only temporarily deflected them.  But there comes a time when I feel too good, too accomplished, and the ugliness, that weakness, bubbles up again and I'm put back into the clutches of agony and the resulting addiction.

Eventually my body is going to give up.  How many times can you bounce back from extreme weight loss to extreme weight gain?  I also fear eventually my heart will give up.  How many times can you bounce back from extreme accomplishment to extreme failure?

It's mind over matter, food vs face, health and heft.  It's nothing new.  But it doesn't get easier with your head in the way.  And no one understands unless they've been there before, as many times as you have been.  Can I beat it?

I want to sit down to dinner with someone and not have food be the main course.  I want to be satisfied with one slice of pizza.  I want to skip dessert without feeling like I have deprived myself.  I want to go to the grocery store without getting into a mental argument with myself.  I want to be able to skip the candy and enjoy a glass of water.  I want to use food to celebrate, not medicate.  I want to feel normal.

I don't want to starve anymore.

cannibal magnetism

"Now that I am opened up, let me do the same to you
I can't digest your insides but I can still chew
you look so beautiful, you look so sweet to me
you look so edible, it's time for me to feed..."
-Knife to Meet You, Guts

"I sing for the damned
soulless hand in hand..."
-William Control, Damned

"I am not your friend
I am just a man who knows how it feels..."
-Brand New, Sowing Season (Yeah)

I just don't know how people see me.  I don't even know how I see myself.  I constantly go back and forth between thinking I'm good-looking to thinking I'm ugly.  It goes beyond the skin.  Sometimes I think I'm an ugly soul as well.  And no one understands because they don't see what I see.  They don't know what I know.  I can spot every imperfection on my face and body and mind and I do my best to cover it up with spot spell and sarcasm but I fear if people see me as I see myself, they won't like me.

People tell me I'm attractive.  Smart.  Funny.  And sure, I can come up with a good joke every now and then and I can clean up well when all the elements combine and I'm having a good hair/skin/body day, which is rare.  But most of the time I feel like a mess and it messes with my perceptions of myself.

Another fact that should be pointed out is most of the compliments come from the Internet.  I don't want to negate the positive comments but I wonder how these Internet entities can say such things when I get no interest from anyone in real life.  Where's the disconnect?  Am I different person online?  Am I some inadvertent catfish?  Am I "hooking" people by presenting myself in some falsified manner, some idealized version of a tortured soul, but displaying an uglier, more genuine version of my vexations once the connection gets closer than a tweet or blog post?  If anything, I would have guessed the online viewers would think I'm a freak show based on the things I write about.  I think I'm actually more subdued with my psychosis in real life.

But I guess that goes back to not knowing how I present myself to others, not knowing what they are picking up despite what I'm putting out.

I spoke with a co-worker several weeks ago and told her about some of my insecurities and she said, "Don't you see how everyone here gravitates toward you?"  It was a simple statement but it was also something I never thought much about.  I know I get along well with everyone I work with but I think it mostly has to do with the fact that I don't do drama.  I wouldn't say anything necessarily "gravitates" toward me, sans work girlfriend.  I just don't get caught up in gossip and backstabbing and when I see it coming my way, I do my best to circumvent such scenarios.  People know they can just have a good time with me and a good chat with me and I guess that's a good quality to possess but I just see myself as a reprieve from all the garbage that goes on at work.  I'm a safety spot, a place to stand still among all the whispers and dirty looks.

But so what if I am?  That's still a good thing.  It's still a desirable quality in a co-worker and, yes, even a friend.  Does it really matter why people like me?  It doesn't have to be because I'm the best looking guy in the room or the funniest or smartest.  Maybe dumb jokes and an open ear is enough.  I don't need to change someone's life to be good company.  I need to know and realize that.  I put too much pressure on myself to be this perfect human being, the guy who has it all and knows it all and can fix it all.  I don't have to be everything to everyone and I need to learn that it's okay not to be.

Several months ago, a high school classmate randomly texted me and we filled each other in on what we had been up to.  I told him I didn't do art anymore and he was shocked because he thought I was so good.  I explained that I was good for my tiny town but once I stepped out into the real world, I wasn't as good as I needed to be.  He said he was jealous because I was talented and smart and was friends with everyone.  I told him I thought I was a mess and he said he was shocked to hear it because he thought I was so put together.  And I was shocked to hear that.

Again, I just don't know how people see me.  I can't help but to think of all the things and people I missed out on because I thought I was too hideous to participate.  All the while, they sit around and think I have it all together and never know the depth of my pain.  Kind of tragic to think about.

So I'll try not to.

What is my attraction?  I'll concede that I can provide a decent presence.  With a little photo trickery, I can give a good picture.  I have time to think of a good pun between text messages.  Maybe I'm just attractive enough, just tortured enough to catch someone's eye.  Maybe I'm open enough to provide a voice to the vagrants.  I'm a beacon for the berated, a magnet to those who have been torn down by people, violated by misfortune, killed by the world.  I search the littered bodies and pick them up and cradle them one by one.  My words are tiny visits, palpable connections through a recognition of pain.  It's a safe spot where the blood can be cleaned away for a while, a respite from the ravages of body and circumstance.

I'm not an expert on pain but I think I've felt it for so long and have written about my own struggles to the point where I can convey it in such a way that is accessible and easy to understand.  Suffering is universal, after all.  It's not like I'm tapping into a niche market with my musings.  People can walk in and sit down and take in my madness and appreciate it.  Some stick around and stay for something else.

I think I'm so hard on myself because I have potential I'm not utilizing.  I could have been an amazing artist had I not stopped drawing.  I could have been an amazing writer had I not stopped writing.  I could have been well read had I not stopped reading.  I could have been a good boyfriend had I not stopped trying.  I could have been all these things but I just stopped for one reason or another and now I feel like a waste.  Sure, I could continue drawing and writing and reading but it feels more like starting over rather than picking up where I left off.  I don't have the energy for that.

Despite the pressure I've placed on myself to be perfect, I've made strides toward just accepting that I am not.  I don't know if it's wisdom or old age or just looking in the mirror and giving up but I've grown to realize this is all I am and I can only go so far with my looks and my talent and my personality.  I'll never be a model or find my books in the stores or be the life of the party but I can do my best within my limitations.  I can do my own thing.  I can keep creating.  I can keep striving to be the best person I can be and find acceptance with that because there's no logic in wanting to be something I'll never achieve.

Maybe I just need to try to see what others see.  Maybe I need to try shift my perspectives and trust that I am more than a waste.  The potential can still be tapped.  The progress can still be made.  I can still reach out.  Maybe one day I'll touch someone and it will resonate within them and they'll be better for it.  And maybe I will be too. 

After all, we're all feeding each other energy.  Sometimes it's bad energy but sometimes it's good energy and it's that nourishment that helps us get through the work day or the school lunch or the lonely nights at home.  We take in other people's pain through their art or their pleasure through their laughter.  We use it like medicine and pull it out when needed. 

I've always said I wanted to do that for other people.  I want to help.  I want to make a difference.  I know what it's like to be lonely and weird and different and I want to make someone's loneliness and weirdness and differences easier to digest.  Maybe I already have.  Maybe I've just been looking in the wrong direction.

heterotaxia

"You love, love, love
when you know I can't love
you love, love, love
when you know I can't love you
so I think it's best we both forget
before we dwell on it..."
-Of Monsters and Men, Love Love Love

If someone says they love you but they don't show it, does it really count?

It's like living in poverty with a million dollar bank account no one told you about.  You're rich but you're not rich.  You're blessed but you're not blessed.  You're loved but you're not loved.  

I don't want to say not being in a relationship has been detrimental to my self-worth but I don't think it's helped.  I just keep thinking how I'm 27 and have never connected with anyone on a deep, meaningful level.  And the one time I thought I did, well, it disintegrated and completely changed the way I saw people.  If that strong of a friendship could crumble, there was no hope for me and anyone else.

But stuff happens.  People form relationships and those relationships sometimes end due to any number of circumstances.  And sometimes you're left wallowing in your own cesspool of self-doubt because no one else comes along to help you correct your interpersonal errors.  Sometimes locations and circumstances make it hard to hone in on a partner.  Or even a friend.

There must be some benefit to being told your loved by someone outside your bloodline.  They can be with anyone but they choose to be with you.  They open their hearts to the possibility of pain and see through the marks on your skin and the mistakes in your mind.  Someone out there came to you and decided to stay because you were worth getting to know.  For me, people have come into my life but it's the staying part that seems so difficult.  Do I subconsciously drive people away?  Do they just get tired of my incessant self-deprecation?  Or do they get bored with my personality?

I often feel like a novelty act, a brand new Brannon still in the cellophane and once the protective casing has been cut away and I've been squeezed of jokes and encouragement and conversation, I am discarded.  The newness wears away as the imperfections poke through the shellacked surface that's eventually worn away through long exchanges and lots of laughs and eventual awkward pauses.  Then missed e-mails.  Unanswered text messages.  Phone calls not returned.  There's something about me that hooks people in but once they've penetrated whatever "thing" magnetizes them to me, they realize I am too flawed, too flat, too frail to stick with and they eventually pull out.

I'm not trying to make myself look like a victim.  I know you think I am.  But I'm not.  And I am not blaming anyone who has gone away.  I wouldn't want to put up with someone like myself either!  The novelty becomes a nuisance after a while.  And everyone says they aren't like everyone else.  They'll stick around.  They never do.  Some stay longer than others, but for me, it's just a waiting game.  Classmates never called when class was over.  Co-workers never kept in contact when they found better jobs.  Old roommates haven't written.  It hurts.  It hurts so bad.  But I'm not bitter about it and I don't blame them.  I just take it for what it is: another form of rejection, just a slow kind, a knife plunged inside by inches. 

duck, duck, noose

"I'm sorry for the way I am
I'm tired of waiting for the past
I'm lookin' for a better place
I'm longin' for findin' my way around..."
-Groove Armada, History

I feel like we are living in an age of one-sided relationships.  We as social network users put ourselves out into the world and allow anyone with an Internet connection to get to know us through our words or art or music or favorite movies, etc.  And we never know who's watching, who has taken an interest in us, who forms feelings for us based on mutual love for zombies or writing or puppies or Sweet Brown memes.  We build our personalities through our blogs and Tumblrs and other sites and that creates the potential for trouble.  

The problem with following someone through their social networking sites before you get to actually know them is you've already taken the time to shape who you think they are in your head, forming a one-sided sense of who they are through their words.  And you see these commonalities and connections and when you finally talk to that person, you expect the two of you to click and hit it off right away.  Sometimes it actually happens.  Sometimes it doesn't.  And in the times it doesn't, you feel disappointed.  I've been let down.  I wonder how it didn't work out.  We have so much in common.  We've walked the same paths.  Maybe I'm ugly.  Maybe I try to hard.  Maybe the other person is just looking for a certain type of person to befriend.  Maybe the other person just doesn't have room for one more friend.

I think we've all been through this.  We all know how it feels to follow someone who doesn't know we exist or couldn't care less if they did.  It's definitely disheartening and as painful as it can feel, we shouldn't take it personally. 

I try to remember it's not my fault and it's not the other person's fault.  Sometimes two people just don't connect.  Sometimes you're the one with no interest and sometimes the other person has no interest in you.  I've been on both sides of the situation and both are difficult but at least I can understand when someone does not want to talk to me and I can leave it alone and deal with my issues without pulling the other person into my muddled mind.

Those polar opposite examples sum up my relationships with everyone throughout my life.  It's almost always been one-sided.  Any mutual interests have been superficial friendships or genuine good relationships I eventually wrecked due to my insecurity and selfishness.  But despite these many mishaps, I feel like I've tried to continue to branch out, connect, and make new relationships.  I have not been very successful.

The only problem is when I meet someone new, especially someone I admire or respect as an artist, I over think and over analyze my words and actions.  I want to be cool and smart and easy to talk to.  I want to be funny.  I want to be liked.  And sometimes I think the stress of trying not to show my craziness becomes more trouble than the relationship is worth.  I just don't know how to interact with people in a natural, effortless manner.  I feel like every move and word is calculated and it's exhausting.

The stress makes me want to withdraw.  I don't feel cut out to be a sociable creature.  Nice effort, Bran, but no success.  It messes me up because I don't want to be isolated.  I want to be able to reach out and have someone there.  But am I deserving of it?  Can I handle it?  Have I been mishandling all my relationships and that's why I don't feel fulfilled by any of them?  Or am I just over thinking again?

There is an ebb and flow to every relationship.  I'm not going to be great all the time but I'm just so terrified of losing people that I feel like one awkward moment or social slip would mean the demise of the relationship.  And as lonely as I might feel, the frustration of dealing with forming a fellowship doesn't feel worth the hassle anymore.  Maybe I'm alone for a reason.  Maybe I'm mean to be a loner.  I can talk with people and share and give and take but at the end of the day, all I have is myself, which would be fine if I liked myself, but you've got to like yourself before anyone can like you.  Or some horse crap like that.  I always end up feeling empty.

I walk around this circle of people and inspect and analyze and hone in on those I feel have potential and when I choose, the race is on and they chase me down and knock me over the head with my own insecurities.  But they aren't really doing anything.  I think I'm in control, that I'm choosing carefully, that I don't just let anyone in.  I think I'm being particular in picking these people out but I'm really just picking myself apart.

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.    

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."

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.

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.

pavlolv's dawg

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

double d's

Several weeks (months?) ago, I spoke with a fellow blogger about some of the things going on in my life and in my head.  After giving him a couple of my symptoms, he mentioned a lot of them correlated to the dreaded DIABEETUS.  He has it and knows the adverse affects of the disease. 

I never thought even thought about having it but it's always a possibility.

You know, I walk around and do my thing and feel these crazy thoughts and wonder about the source of my psychosis.  For the longest time, I thought I was depressed.  But I never felt comfortable with that label because it feels like an "easy" diagnosis.  Someone has a bad day and they have depression.  I have bad days every day.  I don't feel good about anything.  I float through life, my nerves pinched to numbness.  But I can also get out of bed each day and don't feel those aches and pains associated with depression.  

Diabetes can make you feel bad, too.

So, what's the deal?  Is it diabetes or depression that makes me feel like such a basket case?

Or what if I really do just play the victim?  Or what if things are a bit heavier?  What if theres' a third "D" swimming around my gut?  What if I really do have a demon inside?  Holy crap.  I just want to know what's wrong with me.

How does anyone know what's wrong with them?  Does anyone ever get to the heart of the hurt?  Or do we flail around and fudge our way through our frustrations?  Depression is an easy answer.  Diabetes can be a catchy conclusion.  Even possession, while not as practical, is possible.

Writing has been one of the most effective ways of trying to figure myself out, to organize my thoughts and fears and lay them out in an organized manner so I can identify and try to solve my problems.  So far, all I've managed to do is express how I feel without getting to the heart of why I feel the way I do.  I've got to figure out the cause before I get to the cure.  Is it a creature or is it chemical?

How do we ever know?  How do we find out?  And how do we go about solving the strain of sugar and spirits? 

english is my second language

While at work a couple of months ago, my high school AP English teacher came in to shop.  I walked up to her, excited to tell her about my newly acquired passion for writing.  I haven't seen her since I graduated high school in 2004 and thought she'd be happy to hear about my venturing into her field of expertise.

After we caught up for a bit, I told her I liked to write now and she smiled a small smile and I told her I was even published in my college's literary journal.  Not a huge deal but it was something.  A good start.  I might have made a misstep, however, because I said her class helped me enjoy writing and I thought my writing grew while under her guidance.  I even bragged a bit and said I thought I wrote some pretty good essays during the times I had her in 11th and 12th grade.

She smiled again and mentioned my science teacher's daughter, who was one grade above me.

"Yes, I still remember her essays.  She was one of the best students I ever had."

I didn't understand why she chose to compliment some random girl who had nothing to do with me but I pressed on and casually asked her if she would like to read some of my writing.  She was retired by this time and so I thought not only would she have the time to read it but I hoped she'd be interested to see how I've grown as a writer.

Instead, she let out a sigh.

devil on your back

"And every demon wants his pound of flesh..."
-Florence and the Machine, Shake it Out

Do we all have demons?  Are we all required to claim a vice at the beginning of our lives?  The world is stained red and we have to suit up with sex or alcohol just to make it through.  We all feel the pull of pain and we choose different methods of self-medicating.

My method's with the marshmallows.  I eat my feelings.  I stuff down my pain with pasta.  I'm fat.  I'm in the fat group.  That's my addiction.  That's my comfort.  That's my demon.  And it's disheartening to know I'm a part of such a problem.

I'm the fat stomach the camera from one of those news segments covering "Fat America" zooms in on as I walk across the street.  I'm the open mouth stuffing fries into my face.  I am the target audience for diet pill advertisements and fat burning exercise infomercials.  I am inundated with Burger King coupons and thin model magazines.  I'm torn between the temptation and the torture.  My brain is assaulted by all these mixed messages of decadence and deltoids.

The holidays hit me pretty hard.  I have to admit, despite my weight loss and my new healthy attitude toward food, I'm still addicted to the (good) bad stuff.  And for the past two months, I have shoveled food in my mouth at any given opportunity.  Naturally, I let myself go during Thanksgiving and Christmas but I also went wild in the days between.  Let's not forget my birthday was also wedged in there so I had to celebrate with a gigantic pizza and cake.  I ate a lot of fast food and couldn't wait until dessert so I could dig into marble cake with whipped icing or Mom's homemade peanut butter balls with almond bark.  I ate with abandon and didn't give a crap.

I always justified my eating habits by saying it was a temporary holiday thing and I would go back to normal after Christmas.  But now that it's the new year, things are hard.  All I want is more cake and that's something I wouldn't have dreamed of five months ago.  Did I somehow change my chemicals by eating healthier and then changed them again by eating garbage?

If so, the transition begins yet again.

vent-ricles

Feel free to skip this as it has no significance other than me ranting about retail and who really gives a crap?

holding severed hands

"You wish that you won't wake up but you can't even get to sleep
six feet under for these six months, just dying to be buried..."
-Sacha Sacket, Sweet Suicide

"I'm waiting for blood to flow to my fingers
I'll be all right when my hands get warm..."
-Dashboard Confessional, The Best Deceptions

I've come across peculiar customers throughout my years in retail.  One gentleman used to come in through the rear entrance of the store and always went through my area to get to the jewelry department.  He was a tall man in his late 40s with a big, round belly.  He always wore polo shirts, shorts, and white crew socks that stuck out from tennis shoes, no matter the weather.  His shaggy hair was brown and unkempt, swept across his brown eyes and over his ears.  He had bristly hair that hung down from the nostrils of his Roman nose. 

He liked to pass the time talking to the jewelry associates, sometimes spending a whole hour looking at jewelry and chatting.  Sometimes he branched away from jewelry and talked to other associates in other departments.  Eventually, he made his way to my department to talk to me.  He spoke with a deep, booming voice and also with a lisp.  As he talked, his tongue darted between his small, brown teeth, muffling his "s" sounds.  Right away, I could tell he had a mental handicap.  He often spoke in circles, repeating himself as he stood with his hand propped on his jutted hip.  He talked about the weather a lot, hoping for rain or wind to break the southern heat.

I noticed he wore women's jewelry.  His hands waved in the air as he talked and I noticed several rings on his fingers.  The bands were thin gold that supported small diamonds.  He also wore a delicately thin necklace with a heart pendent nestled in the hair that crawled up over his open shirt collar.

I inquired about his taste in jewelry to one of my coworkers one day and she said the rings and necklace belonged to his dead mother.  He wore them to feel closer to her.  I didn't know if I thought that was touching or creepy.  Maybe a bit of both.

He also bought a lot of women's panties and his name was Roger.

But out of all his eccentricities, his incessant talking was the most problematic.  He talked about things I was not interested in, therefore it was painful to stand through one of his rants or daydreams.  He also often showed up when I was busiest and, not wanting to be rude, I stopped what I was doing to listen to him talk about hoping to win the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes and what he would do with his windfall.  I mostly nodded and even chuckled when appropriate.  Sometimes I folded a stack of shirts and then picked them up and slowly walked away from him to give him the hint that I needed to get back to work but he never picked up on any of my cues.

He made me uncomfortable in a way I couldn't articulate.  He wasn't rude or intimidating.  He was just awkward and I'm awkward as well so we didn't make a great pair.  I found myself hoping a customer would need help or the phone would ring so I could shimmy my way out of his conversational grip.  It came to a point that when I saw him stomping my way, I sprinted in the opposite direction so as to avoid his laser gaze.

I've known him for years.  He was one of many customers that I'd see and feel that sense of familiarity coupled with a bit of unease, but nothing I couldn't handle.  In his own way, he was a part of my routine, a consistent face, an expected presence during my time at work. 

While I was on vacation, he shot and killed himself.

One of the scariest moments of my life was when I had to talk a good friend out of committing suicide.  We were only children back then, in the middle of our teens and awkward with acne and agony.  I wasn't writing down my life back then so the events are foggy at best but I remember I caught wind that she was thinking about taking her life and so I called her on the phone at two in the morning and tried to calm her down.  She sobbed and I stuttered to find the words to talk her out of it.  I threatened to drive to her house in my threadbare pajamas if I had to just to get her to not hurt herself.

I remember the panic in my stomach and this heavy feeling of hopelessness that wrapped around me like a lead blanket.  I suppose she was feeling the same hopelessness, just filtered differently than mine.  I asked her to consider how killing herself would make her parents feel, would make me feel.  Through sloppy sobs, she told me she didn't care how it would make us feel.

I was hurt and offended but I pushed through my feelings to try to save her life.  Eventually, through an hour of calm coercion, she settled down and decided not to do it.

I didn't realize until several years later what it meant to not care about the ramifications of suicide.  I went through life with darkening eyes.  I felt the pain intensify every day, the hurt bubble up and bloom out over everything until it was all I could see.  All the laughter in my life didn't make a difference and was rendered ineffective, like putting sugar on a suture.  I realized I wanted out.  I realized how selfish it might be.  I realized I didn't care.  I saw how my friend's unconcern for my feelings was not personal.  I didn't want to hurt anyone but I was hurting more than anyone realized, more than I could express.  I was living in a skin that sizzled and the only way to stop it was to slide out of it.  Sometimes, pain is stronger than love or fear and you find yourself willing to do anything to end it, no matter who it might hurt.  It's not something you want to do but something you feel you have to do.

I think my friend didn't kill herself because she wasn't really ready.  I don't think I had much to do with it.  I was an ear and an assuring voice.  She just made a rash decision, a moment goaded by a bad day or dialogue.  I think if she was really ready, I wouldn't have been able to change her mind.  We always hope we have some kind of influence, that our love or language will steer the outcome toward life.  But I don't think that's so.  When someone is ready to go, there's no stopping them.  It may seem like a personal blow to you but it's not.  You can be there and try to create a connection.  You can reach out and hold their hand to comfort them but then you realize their hand is severed from their body and you're only holding onto a few fingers and a fledgling hope that somehow you'd be enough to make a difference.

You're not.

I kept thinking about Roger.  I didn't feel bad about him.  I wasn't upset over his death.  I wasn't going to miss him but he stayed on my mind and I wasn't sure why.  I guess I knew him enough to think it was a shame he passed away but it was also mixed with a perverted kind of reverence.  Some people think suicide is taking the coward's way out but I think it's kind of brave to belly flop into the unknown like that.  He was the first person I actually knew who had committed suicide.  This guy I saw around my store for years wasn't going to walk in with his tennis shoes and shiny gold rings on his thick knuckles anymore.  Why did he do it?  How had he summoned the sadness or courage to pull it off?  What was going through his mind?  Did he have anyone to talk to?  Did his impairment have anything to do with his death?

The possibility of ending my life is always there, always peeking its head out from under the shame and rage that fills my body.  It calls to me, reminds me it's there, waiting.  It all presses down on me until I feel crushed under the weight of every person and voice and insecurity and I have to put my hands up and wonder if I really want to die at all.  I say I do, under my breath when things go bad.  I say it almost every day.  I joke about it too much to be healthy.  But do I really mean it or am I exhaling empty threats?  

I keep imaging scenarios in which I'm faced with true death. What if a disgruntled customer comes in and points a gun at my face? Am I going to press my head against the barrel and tell him to do me a favor or am I going to piss myself and scream for mercy? If a truck comes barreling toward me, am I going to whip out of the way or am I going to stand still with a welcoming smile?  If I'm ever diagnosed with cancer, am I going to fight it or fall frail until I break apart?  Am I all talk and no toxins?   

I guess I'll never really know unless I'm confronted with the true possibility of biting it.  There's a wholly undiscovered world on the other side of a gun.  But I'm scared that world is as empty and cold as the one I'd be leaving and that's why I haven't pulled the trigger yet.  It's the unknown we fear, the possibility there really is a hell or there is nothing at all waiting for us.  We wake in emptiness and live in it and die in it and then we are extinguished.  We have to face the possibility that we are not important and our lives don't mean anything and neither do our souls.  We're all born and suffer and die and then grafted onto the Great Void and it's terrifying to think that there is no point to anything because pointlessness leads to chaos and chaos leads to death and no one wants to die. 

I have no roots, only regrets.  I have no wings, only chains.  I have nothing.  I think about my friend's nothing.  I think about Roger's nothing.  I think of the nothing hidden away inside everyone.  One day, I will be nothing.

I'm just exhausted.  It's that simple.  I'm tired and I want out.  I'm tired of living inside my head instead of living in the world. I'm tired of constantly feeling like there's nothing more to life than what I've already experienced.  I know there's more to life than what I've lived and that's almost worse because I know there's love and happiness out there and the fact that it dangles out of reach is what corrodes my insides.   My life is shallow and trivial and I've become petulant and pathetic.  I see the world through morose-colored glasses glued to my face.  The tentacles come out and lap at my face and neck and chest and sink thoughts of death and dying into me.  They slide the slime of self-hatred across my body, slicing at me until the light pours out.

I'm not ready yet.  But I'm making plans.  I've said to myself that I'll give it a few more years.  I'll give things a chance to turn around.  I'll try to turn things around myself.  I'll be proactive in producing better days.  But if I don't see a change, I'll have to get up and get out because I can't go on like this much longer.  And the consequences won't matter.  The words won't make a difference because I've come across worlds my whole life.  Words feel good on the surface but it's the actions, the feelings, the love behind them that make them effective.  And that's what's been missing all this time.  And it's kind of too late to correct that because that love would have kept me from ever getting to this point.  I'm beyond it now.  I'm coasting. 

One day, I will sever my hands so no one will be able to reach me or come running in their threadbare pajamas.  I'll be beyond help by that point.  In a lot of ways, I already am.

It'll take a miracle to move me.

dented hearts

"It's so easy from above, you can really see it all
People who belong together, lost and sad and small
But there's nothing to be done for them, it doesn't work that way 
sure we all have soulmates, but we walk past them every day..."
-Ben Folds, From Above

"Some men die under the mountain just looking for gold
Some die looking for a hand to hold..."
-Brand New, At the Bottom 

Work girlfriend (WG) went on vacation a week or so after I did.  She scampered off to Tennessee with her boyfriend.   Naturally, I didn't hear from her the entire time.  When I was gone and she had no one to talk to, she blew up my phone but when she was gone and had her boyfriend to hump and hug, she forgot my number.

A few days before she left, she sent me a text:  I'm so freaking lonely.  I say I like being a loner but I hate being alone.

Oh, I had to groan.  She has a boyfriend.  She shouldn't be lonely!  And then I stepped back and tried to examine the situation and see it from her perspective.  I try to understand that you can be in a relationship and still be lonely.  You can be in a crowded room and be all alone.  I do try to see that.  But, I just found it annoying that a girl in a happy, healthy relationship complains to me, the lord of loneliness, that she's "so freaking lonely" because she doesn't have her boyfriend right beside her at that very minute, although she was about to embark on a week-long vacation with him.

It's like going up to an Ethiopian child and saying you're starving because dinner is in three hours and you're not sure you can hang on 'til then.  And you say it while eating a bag of chips.  Ya feel me?

So, I wanted to shake her.  And days before, she told me she hadn't been single in five years.  So, again, she shouldn't be lonely.  Right?  Going from one relationship to another for five years straight, I think her perception of loneliness has been skewed.

But I stepped back again.  Who am I to say she doesn't feel loneliness?  Maybe she just feels it in a different capacity than me.  Maybe her loneliness stems from lacking a physical connection.  She knows her boyfriend loves and cares for her and if that was me, I would like to believe that it would be enough.  Even if I couldn't see the person every single day, knowing they were thinking about me and caring about me would make me feel better, less alone.  But maybe it doesn't work for her like that and she needs that physical closeness.

For me, I feel loneliness in every aspect.  I have no physical, mental, emotion, or spiritual connection with anyone.  I'm not just talking about romance, ladies and gents.  The only connections I share with some people are a mutual enjoyment of writing and maybe zombies and a couple of dick jokes.  Not exactly deep and meaningful.  So while my loneliness is all consuming, it doesn't negate hers (although it feels like it should).

Her loneliness is transient.  Mine is chronic.  But both are valid.  I try to believe that.

And it's just hard because I want to tell her she should be grateful for her boyfriend.  It's not like she's in a relationship just to be with someone.  But she seems genuinely happy.  She's not hanging out with him until something better comes along.  No, that's what she does with me.  And so I just wonder what more she needs.  At the end of the day, despite how she feels, she has someone she can "come home to" so to speak.  I've got my pillows and a carton of ice cream.  But I can't be like that because, as I said, her troubles are no less significant than mine.

But when it comes to loneliness, I'm an expert and I can't take her seriously.  In fact, if it were doled out in credits, I'd have a Ph.D. in Dented Hearts by now.  It's hard for me to understand because I've never been in the position of being with someone and still feeling hollow just as she can't understand my emptiness because she's been attached to a string of guys for half a decade now.  I try to be reasonable.  I really do.  But I don't feel bad for her.  It's hard to when all I can hear is the crinkling of her potato chip bag in my ear.

book notes #11: collaboration

Holy crap.  About a week ago, I finished the first edit of my book!  One step closer to publication!

And it only took a couple of months, which is good considering it took several years just to write the first draft.  I hope the second edit will go even faster.  I've actually already started it and it's amazing and slightly disheartening how I keep finding things I want to change/cut out.  I just keep wondering how I didn't catch all of that stuff the first time around.  But no one ever does so it's okay.

I read a quote from an artist (who I can't remember) that said (I'm paraphrasing [this person really resonated with me as you can tell]), "You never really finish a piece.  You just stop and move on to the next."

I can relate.  I think I usually stop drawing or writing because I get tired of it.  I create stuff as a means of expressing my thoughts and feelings and once I've properly poured out my heart, I'm over it.  When I feel the content is there, I'm satisfied and don't get caught up in the technicalities of grammar and punctuation.

But then there are times when I want to make something really important and really good.  I spend more time on it and polish it up and try to make it something that rises above my normal mediocre output.  And with those special pieces, I'm never really done.  I go back and tweak and perfect but it's never perfect.  Eventually, I stand back and realize it's the best I can do, although it's not what I pictured in my head.

But I don't want to perfect something to the point I poison it, you know what I mean?  It's like you say you're going to fix just one thing, a brush stroke or accidental charcoal smudge or improper syntax and then you see something else that needs to be fixed, a bum note or flat delivery of dialogue, and by the time you've ironed out all the little blemishes, the final product has become grossly altered and no longer represents your vision.

Maybe that happened to Picasso.  He saw the nose on one of his portraits was leaning to the left so he fixed it, which threw off the eyes so he had to shift them around, which screwed up the mouth and by the time he finished swapping and sorting, he had created Cubism.

Anyway.      

The next step is to get a couple of test readers to tell me if it's any good.  I'll be looking for more of a content critique rather than grammar and punctuation.  I just need to know if it's a good book!

I've gotten some positive feedback on my writing here and I appreciate it so much but the compliments are based on reading me a few times a week.  As we all know by now, I'm quite a downer.  I think reading my depressing ramblings spread out every couple of days or so is fine.  People can handle that.  But when I pour all that negativity into one long book, I am afraid it'll be off putting.  So much cynicism.  The reader will have to pop a couple of Zoloft to make it through chapter 5.

The other day, I was thinking about singer/songwriters.  A lot of times, they collaborate with other more seasoned singer/songwriters to elevate their ideas into better products.  It seems common with music but not so much with books, unless it's a real writer helping a celebrity put together a memoir or cash in on their fad success with books written about fictionalized versions of themselves.  Sure, sometimes well known authors collaborate together but I see them doing it more for fun, rather than one writer helping the other create a better book.

Sometimes, I think it would be great if I had a writing partner.  I've stated before that I don't have a ton of ideas but I do have a couple of small pieces of ideas stashed away collecting dust because I don't know where to take them or how to bring out the value of the ideas.  I have lines of poetry and very few short story ideas but they stay shelved because I am not good enough to bring them to life.  But I could if I had a collaborator. 

I think it would be nice if I could have a fellow writer to bounce ideas off of, someone I can feel comfortable sharing possibly bad ideas with, someone I can be totally open with and trust they'll steer me in the right direction, tell me when something is good, tell me when something is cheesy, and turn that cheese into a masterpiece. 

I think it would also help my productivity.  I often stay stuck on a topic for days or even weeks (I even have ideas I've been sitting on for years) because I can't break through the wall of confusion/insecurity/cluelessness.  But if I had someone to write with, they could help me break down the barriers that keep me from a good poem or awesome essay.

But the problem with collaborators is I often wonder how much input these singers and/or authors have in the creation of a song or book.  Do they simply add a sentence or two or change up a couple of lyrics and slap their name on it and then say they wrote it?  When I hear artists say they write their own songs, it often annoys me because their liner notes say they wrote the song along with three other people.  How much credit can you really take when you are one of several?  How much is yours and how much are you saying is yours? 

I wouldn't want people thinking that about me.  I don't want to be known for great art or writing if the majority of it wasn't mine.  Heck, I'm not even sure I'd like it if I couldn't claim 100% ownership.  What if someone came up to me one day and said a particular line in a poem or a particular piece of dialogue from one of my books completely changed their lives and it just so happens that one line or that one passage was the one line or passage I didn't write myself?  I'd feel fake and icky.  I don't want to feel that way.

But then again, it's all art and it's all about creating and putting it out there for others to enjoy and does it really matter who it comes from?  As long as I'm always straight up and honest and say I am only one person in a team effort to create the best art possible, then what's wrong with that?

And really, does anyone ever create something 100% themselves?  Even great writers who can write an entire book on their own have to report to editors who give suggestions. 

Then there's the challenge of finding a collaborator.  No one I know in real life likes to write so I'd probably have to joining some kind of writing group but I hesitate to do that because I'm not really a writer.  I write but I just can't take myself seriously enough to go that deep into it, to step into a literary world where poetry pulses through people's veins and books are stored in their heads waiting for them to sit down and extract them.  The only thing I've got floating around in my head is fart jokes and dessert recipes.  I wouldn't want to be laughed out of a group. 

I'll just have to settle with doing the best I can on my own for now, maybe getting help here and there and if I'm lucky enough, stumble upon someone who gets my writing and gets me so they can help me elevate it to the level I want it to be so I can feel like a real, accomplished writer.  

vestiges of humanity

"I am so scared of what will kill me in the end
for I am not prepared
I hope I will get the chance to be someone
to be human..."
-Ellie Goulding, Human

"I'm not attached to your world
nothing heals and nothing grows..."
-Marilyn Manson, Great Big White World

What does it mean to be human?  Is it our physical makeup, the fact that we get up and walk around on two legs?  Or is it something more abstract and intrinsic?  Is it logic and intricate thought?  Morals and judgments?  Is it love?  Faith?  Boredom?  Is it the invisible wires and nooses or the concrete machinery and hands that hold us to humanity?

Is it textbook or contextual?

I go through periods of wanting desperately to make a connection with someone, to feel grounded to the earth by love and affection and mutual respect and admiration.  There are also periods when I want to be completely isolated and left alone to rot away inside myself.

The unfortunate fact is I usually get my wish when I don't want it.  When I'm by myself, I want company.  When I'm in the presence of people, I want to dash away.

Loneliness once made me its bitch but one day I turned around and drop kicked it into the ether.  I've been better ever since.  That's not to say I still don't feel pangs of loneliness.  It's an unrelenting feeling always scratching at the skin on my chest, begging to get in and make itself home.  But I keep it away with distractions.  I go through an assembly line of lethargy consisting of waking up, eating, Internet, television, eating, eating, pooping, eating, more television, eating, going to sleep, and repeating it all the next day, all in an effort not to face myself or what my life has become.

I'm going to die and it's just not going to matter.  I don't think I've greatly affected anyone and it makes me a little sad to know I quietly slipped into life and will exit the same way.

To some degree, all of our lives are meaningless, at least when you look at the big picture.  The husband who dies doesn't matter to you unless you're his wife.  The child who dies is quickly forgotten unless you're her parent.  We all come and go and the world does not stop to scream and that's okay.

We all can't be in the history books but because I am not influential to anyone in my personal life, my ambition spread to the world.  What if I could impact the masses?  I always hoped I could leave some lasting impression through my art.  But I'm not an artist anymore.  I hoped I could leave a legacy with my writing.  But I'm not a writer anymore.  Okay, so what am I?  What can I do well?  What can I accomplish?  What kind of mark can I leave on the world?  Wait, maybe I need to lower my standards.  What kind of mark can I leave on people?  Still not so sure.

I'm not the boyfriend who taught the girl how to love.  I'm not the child who taught the parents how to think.  I'm not the artist who taught the world how to see.  No one carries me in their iPod or Kindle or in their hearts or minds.

"He's dead.  That's a shame.  Who's on Letterman tonight?"

I've kept my capillaries to myself and consequently, I've converted into a claustrophobic outcast.  I don't know what it means to love another person.  I can relate to people and their situations but beyond that I just don't get it.  What makes you like someone as a friend, as a lover, as a spouse?  I can't comprehend dizziness over another individual, kisses that weaken muscles, love that causes tears.  Is that what being human is all about?  Is it connecting, sacrificing, giving oneself to someone else?  Or is being human a process, a journey of faith and interaction and giving?

I've given humanity a shot.  I've tried to be kind and considerate.  I've sacrificed my own comfort and happiness many times to improve the quality of other people's lives.  I've been respectful.  I've been a team player.  I've hurt with a smile, cried with a laugh, died with a joke.  I've hugged and held hands and kissed and never felt anything but a sweeping sickness in me telling me it wasn't right.  I wasn't meant for it.  Sometimes I keep trying.  But mostly I'm over it.

I cut people out of my life easily these days.  I used to hang on in hopes something would spark but I see now it's mostly useless.  The only genuine relationship I had was something I screwed up, which tells me I am just not capable of maintaining a connection.  If they don't leave me by their own volition, I will force them to with my frustrating nature.

I'm consistently disappointed with people because they do not carry out the roles I have set for them.  It's not their fault and I don't know why I do it.  Maybe because I never had a group of people in my life who came along naturally to fulfill certain needs.  Now, I have to make up for that lost fulfillment by coming across those with roles to occupy.  These people don't know they are playing a part and it frustrates me when they don't act the way I want.  I construct these elaborate dramas to feel included.  To have a story to tell.  To cover up the truth of my deviancy.

"Yes, I've been involved.  Yes, I've had my heart broken.  Yes, I've loved and I've lost.  Yes, I've experienced."

No, I haven't.

Instead, I fall apart and break bonds.

I can't accept anyone for anything other than what I want them to be and that is selfish and shameful.  But no one sees that because I'm playing a part, too.  I take on the role of human, someone who complies with love and decency and understands the value of relationships.  But inside, emptiness is the only thing I understand.