be my veins

"Love is nothing, nothing, nothing like people say
you gotta pick up the little pieces every day..."
-Liz Phair, Love is Nothing

"For a heart beats the best in a bed beside the one that it loves..."
-Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Crane Your Neck

For a while, it felt like everyone else was falling in love and I was just falling apart.  It was like some kind of pheromone phenomenon.  Everyone around me was talking and dating, mating and relating, getting engaged and pregnant and coming together.  Normally, I couldn't care less about people and their paramours but when so many people were coming together in such a small amount of time, it threw me for a loop.

And I kind of felt down about it.

I never wanted to be the kind of person who was happy simply because I was in love.  I've said it before and I'll say it again:  you don't need another person to be happy.  I really believe(d) that.  I know my writing and whining about being lonely doesn't always (or ever) reflect that philosophy but even loners get lonely...right?

But what if I'm wrong?  What do I know about love?  I've always thought I had the level head, that my heart wasn't tainted by crushes or heavy feelings and I could dole out decent advice about the topic because I was removed from it.  I could think logically.  But maybe you can only know so much about love from mere observation.  Maybe the best way to know about love is to live it, to love and be loved.

But how do you start to love?  How do you know if you're doing it right?  How does any one of us know?  The heart doesn't come with a handbook.  Love is universal yet it seems the way in which we all come across it and experience it is unique.

And what if happiness, or at least some form of it, does come from love?  If you don't love, are you missing out on happiness?

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. 

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.

in spite of the frost

"You're not alone, you'll never be
just like the stars lay over sea..."
-Jem, You Will Make It

"This could be a movie, this could be our final act,
we don't need these happy endings..."
-Funeral for a Friend, Drive

Hands 10 and 2.

He watched the broken yellow lines slide beneath his car, one after the other, hypnotic in repetition. Gliding through liquid time and space. The drive, the road, the interior reaching different levels of quiet calm. The kiss of wind. The lulling hum of the engine. The soft squeak of leather from shifting matter and a thumping chest. He turned up the music and exhaled as the tempo traced 'round his ears. Steam from the coffee in his cup holder rose and twirled in the air.

He felt the warmth in spite of the broken heater and the frost outside. It wrapped around him. Around them.

He reached across the caffeine and crumbs and slid his hand in hers. He kept his eyes on the road, his concentration on the yellow lines, his skin on the other, foreign skin.  Cashmere atop tendons.  Cool and fragile.  A burst of nerve cell signals.

He had written this scene so obsessively, dreamed this dream for so long, a dream miles away from reality.  Was it possible that when she came to him, materialized in bones and blue eyes, he had willed her into being?  Had he etched her into the interior of his retinas, cones and rods vibrating, crafting her shape and angles? Or had the divine hand peeled back its palm and formed her with featherlight lips and sent her to him?

Did such mercy exist?

As far as his memory could reach, he had traveled with a knife in his neck. It was a pain he knew better than himself. An old companion. A disease he wore like a winter coat. And then she came and withdrew the blade with breathtaking ease. Without the obstruction, he was able to look up away from the dirt and into the sky.  Eyes opened with a mobile spine.  This was how humans lived, how they felt.  This was the way it always could have been.

He was a pauper turned to a prince. A bug into a boy.  He wasn't used to such delectable treatment from anyone. It was scary and unnerving and unrelenting. It was decadence and sugar and flooding. It was a revelation, a religious awakening.  God existed in the space between pressed lips and pounding hearts.

Despite his resolve, he smiled, sank into the seats and into the moment, fleeting pleasures of pavement and porcelain.  The sun was spinning back around to find him but for those moments, the world was asleep and they could sneak away to enjoy the shadow sky, just the two of them, reveling in the moonshine and kissing under the holes poked through the charcoal veil of heaven.

He said if only they could escape the sun, driving off the path and into their own world, from gravel to grass to galaxy, they'd be free of it all.  She whispered something but the music drowned out her words, consonants cut up and lost in the percussion. 

He felt her touch withdraw. He looked down and noticed the cold coffee.  He looked to his right but only saw a blur of green from the passenger's window as the trees rushed past him, felt the jolt of a popped valve, smelled the black streak parallel to the yellow lines. 

He found his answer. 

He watched, suspended, his neck tensed, as the trees lifted off the ground and tumbled in the sky.

let's get drunk and kiss

"Excuse me for this
I just want a kiss
I just want to know what it feels like to touch..."
Kelly Clarkson, Can I Have a Kiss

Tuesday was my birthday and I've been trying to write this entry ever since then.  I've just been so tired from the long hours at work and general exhaustion and sadness.  I also believe I have a touch of ADD because I seriously cannot concentrate anymore.  I used to be able to sit down and pound out entry after entry with no problem but now it takes me hours, sometimes days, to write.  For once, I don't blame it on nature or nurture.  I think I did this to myself.  I've conditioned myself over the years to become an inefficient multi-tasker.  I'm usually writing while watching television and listening to music, eating, clipping my toe nails, doing my taxes and tempering eggs all at the same time.  I need to focusss.

My birthday was pretty blah.  It wasn't bad.  It wasn't the worst day ever but it wasn't good, either.  I had to work, first of all.  When I looked at my schedule and saw I'd be spending my birthday in that crap factory, I didn't even put up a fight about it.  I just shrugged my shoulders and put on my big boy briefs (and a bow tie) and walked in like I owned the place.  When you get older, you have to do stuff like that.  You grow up and your special day isn't that special to anyone else outside you and your immediate family.  Sometimes it isn't even that special to them.  But it's no big deal.  Just another day.

But it kind of sucks that the magic is gone.

After work, I drove home.  That night drive was the best part of the day.  Swooping through the orange and white lights.  The darkness pulling at my eyelids.  I just thought it would be nice to have someone I could share my special not-so-special day with so I could feel a little less alone, at least for the night.  And if lips wouldn't help me forget my crumbling world, maybe liquor would.  We could go out and get drunk and make out.  A swirl of inebriation and untangled inhibitions, taking a break from my brain for a while.  Release and regretful decisions.

It's something that comes so easily, something is taken for granted.  What might seem trivial to so many seems tremendous to me.  The intimacy.  The charged current.  The confidence to caress.  But it's all lost on me.  It shouldn't be so scary or foreign or vital yet I need to feel the closeness of body, the intensity of mind, the comfort of desire.  Yes, I'm wanted.  Yes, I'm needed.  Yes, I can be touched and be made to feel worthy of someone else.  Yes, I can give and receive pleasure.  I know it.  I don't feel it.

I don't think I ask for much.  Just to be happy and lie on the cold ground and have someone hold my hand a while.

thoracic cavity

Wind separated leaves from limbs in the darkness.  They pirouetted down onto the boy and girl as they lay in the grass beneath an old tree.  Ligaments wrapped together, he supported her neck with his shoulder and she slid her hand underneath his shirt.

"You're not as dead as you think," the girl said.

"Oh yeah?  How do you know?" the boy asked.

"Because of this," she said.  "Us here.  Now.  Sharing this moment.  Connected to the earth.  To each other.  Isn't it beautiful?"

"It's sufficient," he said as he brushed a fallen leaf from the girl's hair.  

"You can't fool me.  You wouldn't be here with me, like this, otherwise."

The boy shrugged.

"It's all of us," the girl said.  "You are alive because I am.  Because the world doesn't spin for the dead."

"Oh, God," The boy rolled his eyes, stifling a laugh.

"No, seriously," she said with a giggle.  "Your eyes sparkle like the shooting stars above us.  Your stubble is gritty like the dirt beneath us.  And your chest," she said as she gently pressed on his sternum, "is warm from the blood rushing through us.  I know you're alive because I can feel it in you."

"Actually, I just had a sip of this white chocolate mocha," the boy said, raising his Starbucks container.  "What you actually felt was it pass into my stomach.  That's all."

The girl stared with blank eyes as the boy drained his cup.

that's amore, asshole

Yesterday, I talked to my work girlfriend (WG) about a co-worker of ours and her love life.  She had recently gotten back together with her boyfriend, although I never knew they broke up.  WG told me the co-worker found him talking to another girl.

This was after he had already knocked up a third party and then denied the paternity.  And he doesn't have a job (which is understandable in this economy and nothing to scoff at but he's not even trying, which is the scummy part).  But he couldn't deny he was talking to another girl.  Our co-worker walked in on them having dinner together at a Mexican restaurant.

Their interaction, as well as the burritos, got heated.

"What a scumbag," I said.

"Yeah, I know.  I think he's a piece of crap.  I tried telling her."

"But she still took him back?  Why?"

WG shrugged.

"See, I just don't get this," I said.  "People like him get girlfriends all the time.  And look at me.  Good guy.  Single."

"Yeah," she agreed.  "You just have to be an asshole."

"Oh, really?"  I said. 

"Yeah.  Like, if you're mean to us we wanna work harder to make you like us."

So, that's amore, huh?  Treat a girl like crap and she'll come running.  Of course, I know not all girls feel that way but I think the vast majority of them do.  Especially young girls like our co-worker.  I also wonder if she took him back because she didn't think she deserved better.

Sounded like too much trouble to me.  I just try to be as genuine as I can be.  Sure, sometimes I try to be on my best behavior or censor my dark sense of humor around some but for the most part, I'm pretty much me.  I don't go out of my way to deviate too far from my natural behavior.  And I don't feel like changing that to snag a mate.  If it means it will take longer for someone to appreciate me how I am, then that's fine.  I'm not looking anyway.

But I did want to have a little fun.

Before I walked away from WG, I turned to her and said, "Yeah, and by the way, you should probably get your highlights fixed.  They're lookin' jacked."

She gasped, her eyes wide with surprise, an uncontrollable grin spreading across her face.

"Yeah," I said.  "You're more attracted to me now, aren't you?"

She stood still, her hand on her chest, still smiling.

She didn't disagree.

fifty shades of what women want

At the behest of my work girlfriend (who I will refer to as WG for short), I read Fifty Shades of Grey.  I didn't really want to but she kept insisting and I thought it could be something new we could discuss.  We've never talked about books before so I was looking forward to an intellectual exchange regarding fictional characters and their motivations.

But as I read, I kept pointing out problems I had with the book.  Christian Grey was too perfect, too mysterious.  Anastasia Steele was too innocent, too inexperienced.  Early on in the book, she said she didn't know why she was falling for him.

"That doesn't make any sense," I mentioned to WG.  "He's super rich.  He's super handsome.  He's graceful and just distant enough to leave her wanting more.  That's reason enough to fall in love with him.  Any girl would.  Heck,  I think I'd fall in love with him, too."

WG laughed.  "Well, he does have some physical flaws, though.  He's not perfect."

"Oh, yeah?  What?  Is his penis so large he can't find comfortable underwear?  What a tortured soul!'

She laughed again.  Ah, such a nice sound.

"So, what is so appealing about him?"

"I don't know," she said, her kohl-lined eyes wandering off to the ceiling, pondering.  "I guess I just like that he's dark."

"I'm dark," I said.  Hello, I was dead for three years.

"No you're not," she said with a smirk.  "You're just emo.  And you choose to be that way."

Ah, not such a nice sound.  She really knows how to stab a guy right in the face.

"He had a really dark childhood," she added.

"You don't know about my upbringing.  It could have been dark, too."  It wasn't.

"Not like his," she countered.

"You don't know what I've been through!"  Nothing.

I just wasn't that impressed with the book.  I'll admit I jump on literally bandwagons.  I read the Twilight series and The Hunger Games series and I always tried to enjoy the books for what they were instead of what they were hyped to be.  And they were both all right.  But this one I just couldn't seem to get into like the others.  I guess I can understand it's popularity because it's so provocative but honestly, it wasn't as filthy as I imagined, which was admittedly another reason I wanted to read it.  I wanted to see how raunchy it really got.  Maybe I'm just a sick mofo but it seemed a little tame to me.  It's possible things get more extreme in the other two books but I think the first one walked the fine line between kinky sex and all out smut, just enough to titillate and not alienate, which is why it worked so well.  So I give her props for that but the writing is pretty amateur.

touch me, take me

"And I say baby, yes I feel stupid to call you, but I'm lonely..."
-Maria Mena, Sorry

"I'm addicted to myself
can't make time for no one else..."
-The Downtown Fiction, Get it Right

I find myself loneliest on the weekends.  I check Facebook and Twitter and all my usual sites and there's usually not much activity from Friday night to Sunday night.  I always assume it's because most people are out and about actually doing stuff.  With other people.  And I sit at home, refreshing every two minutes in a desperate hope for recognition, attention, connection.

I'm usually really good with my loneliness.  When I was younger, I hauled it around like a giant wooden cross on my back but now it's more like a pendent around my neck.  It's always there but much easier to carry.  But there are times when it weighs me down.  It's usually when I'm alone and bored and my mind isn't fixated on some other internal trauma.  The boredom opens a gateway for the dormant longing to come sweeping in again.

Sometimes I want nothing more than to have a good conversation with someone.  But no one seems to be around.  I've even thought about handing out my number and asking people to call me maybe.  The only problem with that particular strategy is I only want to talk to people for as long as I want to talk to them.  I want to fill a void without the obligation of continued conversations.

I fear once I open up certain lines of communication, there's a sense of having to keep them open.  Is it possible to have just one good conversation and leave it at that?

The problem is I don't like talking on the phone.  I never have and don't know if I ever will.  I only ever have small bursts of desire to talk on the phone, and that's really because the ones I want to talk to are the ones I can't see in person and it's the only other choice.  Texting is impersonal and because so many people are so far away, communication by phone is the only happy medium.

But talking on the phone can be frustrating with dropped calls and reception issues.  I have an acquaintance from high school who occasionally calls me and it's always more of a hassle than enjoyable because he always sounds muffled and his words are often lost in static.  Conversation doesn't flow very well.  But when it's my only option, I guess I take what I can get.  I just don't want it most of the time.

I don't want to give someone an intellectual booty call.  Minus the actual booty, of course.  And much like booty calls, I would be using someone, just utilizing their minds instead of their bodies.  I don't want to be that way.  I'd like to be reciprocal when it comes to communication but sometimes I think I just don't have the energy for it.  And that makes me feel selfish, which is the reason why I haven't tried to telephone anyone in the first place.  I don't want to call just to vent or to fill some kind of lonely void and brush them off once I have.

Separation is always slicing through me.  I'm so confused when it comes to people.  I want to like people but sometimes people make it hard for me to like people.  I think I even make it hard for me to like people.  I am a dick a lot of the time.  And I can blame that on the dicks in my own life but there's really no excuse.  I've allowed myself to become so vacant and distant because of a few nasty people and when the desire for human interaction comes barreling through my body, I just try to deal with it because I don't want to unnecessarily hurt anyone like I was hurt.   

I'm stuck in a limbo of lethargy and longing.

Of course, telephone conversations are more practical than a kiss and a cuddle, which is what I really crave when I'm at my loneliest.  I'd love it if I had someone to call up and invite over to stay with me.  But all I have is my extra pillow that I push up against me every night so as to have something filling up the space where someone special should be.  And because I have no physical interaction, I compromise by craving calls.

As I wrote this, I had a realization about romance.  Just like how I'm preoccupied with my image because I know I have the potential to be good-looking, I'm preoccupied with being in a relationship because I have the potential to be an amazing boyfriend.  Despite any hangups I have about people and myself, when you take all of that away, there's actually still a heart filled with love and a boy that wants to give it to someone.  That part of me has dwindled over the years but it's still there, underneath it all.

Naturally, it wouldn't be easy.  As loving as I think I can be, I'm also as jealous and insecure.  What I'm trying to say, though, is when things would be good, they'd be really good.  But I don't want to think about all of that.  I'd just like to have someone to hold.  People have sex buddies.  Can't I have a cuddle buddy?

I need skin on skin therapy.

Or at least someone to call and complain about not getting it.

masokissed

"I am a man that gets lost in a blush and a sigh
You’re nothing rare, I get snagged and thrown back all the time
But I’ll give you this much, I can’t slip your crooked smile
It’s always the one’s you can’t taste that you’ll never deny..."
-Sacha Sacket, Cruel Attempt

So...there's this girl...

Honestly, I don't even want to make a big deal out of this because it isn't a big deal but I just need to get it out because it's becoming too inflated in my head and that's what happens when I don't write what I'm feeling.  It starts as a seed in my brain and the more I put off writing about it, the more it expands as I keep thinking about it and I keep thinking about it because I can't write about it and so it grows, most of the time beyond what is necessary or relevant.

I've already blown this way out of proportion in my mind so I'm just gonna put it out there and then be done with it.

This girl is peculiar.  I can't quite place her in any of my categories I create for people I interact with on a regular basis.  She could be a friend but I don't believe in friendship.  I could have a crush on her but I don't believe in that, either.  I would call her an acquaintance but that doesn't seem quite right, almost like it's not enough.  So, where does she fit?

To keep it real, I think that I may have forced myself into thinking about her so much.  If I was alive, I might have a thing for her.  But I'm not.  And I don't.  Yet, I do think I am that lonely that I will make up feelings for someone just to feel like a normal, functioning adult with connections to other people.

And it's sick. 

She's pretty and educated and we have the same sense of humor and love for food and distaste for people.  Okay, I have more of a distaste for people but certain groups of two-faced banshees get on her nerves sometimes, too, so I think that counts.  And I can make her laugh and I enjoy making her laugh.  And...I don't know.  I kind of like being around her.  She, uh, sort of kind of, um, makes me smile.  I suppose all of those symptoms would equal a crush but I don't have a crush on her.  I'm above all of that (or below, depending on how you want to look at it) but I suppose she's somehow slipped into my consciousness anyway.

I don't like her, though.  I've come to the realization over the years that I am simply not wired that way.  I can't feel anything for anyone.  I've tried and the few attempts I made ended disastrously.  I'm just not meant to connect to others.  It's been hard coming to terms with it but I'm farther along than I've ever been and one day I think I'll fully accept it.  Until then, I'll just have to struggle with incidents such as these.  Maybe it's just another case of me not accepting myself, lying to myself to grasp for some sense of normality.  But I'll never be normal.  I'll never live the dream, get married, or have children.  Mostly because I don't want to, but also because I simply can't.

I guess I just latched onto her because she would be my type if I could feel anything real for anyone and I made myself think she could be something special just so I could have a record of a girl that I could say I once liked.  So I could have a history, something to talk about, something to look back on and reminisce over instead of an empty landscape, blank page after blank page in my little black book.

I don't think I'm attracted to her.  She's pretty and I like her style and I like...I don't know, seeing her.  Being around her.  But there's something there that holds me back.  I honestly don't think I'm holding myself back.  I try to step outside of myself and look at things logically.  I'm not making myself not like her.  I just don't.  I think I'm catching myself making myself like her.  Nah, I'm forcing feelings.  I'm so desperate to try not to believe that I am unattached that I will cling to something that doesn't exist, feign attraction that's not there.

But I think about what the definition of attraction is.  I'm not really sure.  The way I usually determine if I'm attracted to a girl is to ask myself if I would want to kiss her.  I don't know if that's good criteria to go by because, as we all know by now, I have the social skills of a twelve-year-old boy.  But I am a picky kisser.  I won't lock lips with just anyone and I don't want to lock lips with the majority of girls I've come across.

But I think I would kiss her.

feline valentine

True love will not falter.  Even through a window screen.

what is love (baby don't hurt me)

I really need someone to occupy my chest.  When it comes to love, I'm the 99%.  (Is it too late to use that play on a phrase?  In my defense, I've been working on this entry for a while so I came up with it way before it became played out.)

I've pretty much eliminated the word "love" from my vocabulary.  I kind of feel bad about it but I guess not bad enough to actually do anything to remedy it.  And, really, what could I do?  I guess I just don't feel comfortable using that word because I really don't even know what love is or what it means to me.  I'm not even speaking about romantic love but just love in general.  I suppose I've always assumed it to mean a great affection for someone or something but for some reason, it doesn't feel that simple anymore.

And I think I used to love.  I felt affection for people, cared for them.  I wished the best for them and hoped they were okay.  I suppose that was love.  But the one person I cared for the most, someone I believe I loved at one point, completely shut me out in an instant and  ruptured my world forever.  And that's when my idea of love fell apart.

Why does it seem like the people that you give the majority of yourself to are the ones who hurt you the most?  I guess it's because you invest your time and your heart into that person so that you are more connected to them than anyone else.  You become vulnerable.  Your defenses are down.  You are allowing someone else to come into the soft fleshy places, sensitive spots that hurt when tampered with.  I suppose the tightest ties bleed the most freely when cut.

And on a somewhat similar yet different strain of thought, why is it that two people who are so in love can end up hating each other so much?  It always perplexed me how girls and guys get into relationships, become partners in crime, then suddenly turn into each other's worst enemy.  Things turn sour, love turns to hate, and it takes a while for that hatred to boil away.  I suppose some couples who split do so amicably and remain friends.  But it doesn't seem to happen often from what I've seen.  The breakup is usually ugly.  And I wonder why that is.  What does it take to get to that point?  Abuse?  Infidelity?  A love that has died?  An understanding that you are on a different path than your partner?  When does heartbreak turn to hate and is it always justified or only under certain circumstances? 

So that whole experience with being cut off from my friend really screwed me up.  Now, I don't believe in love because it feels like someone who loved me wouldn't do that to me, no matter the excuse.  Some would argue that's not real love but I'd hate to think she didn't love me.  I used to have a hard time believing anyone could love a mess like me but she gave me hope, made me feel that I could be loved despite my plentiful flaws.  It wasn't a case of her saying she loved me and me not believing her.  I knew enough of her to know that she did.  It wasn't always in the words but in the gestures and actions, in how she made me feel, how we made each other feel.  I held onto that and it helped me to feel like a real person.  I'd hate to know that it wasn't real, that what I thought was love wasn't.  But what was love to me back then?

She made me not believe in love.  She even went as far as to make me stop believing in friendship.  At the same time, maybe there's a small part of myself that is making me not believe in it, or at the very least, not allowing the microscopic part of myself that still does believe in it to actually experience it because I'm not sure I can go through another rejection like that.  I don't want to work on something for so long, give so much of myself to another person just to have it all torn down one more time.

It's so silly because I used to council people in my predicament when I was in high school.  These girls broke up with their boyfriends and they came to me to vent and said they'd never fall for another guy, never let them get close because it hurt too much when they left.  And I always said that not every guy was going to do that to them, not ever guy would hurt them and they'd be missing out by keeping their hearts so guarded.

Now, here I am, the guy with the guarded heart, eating my own words.  Sorry, girls.

Zombie Honeymoon (2004) Review

In Sickness and in Health

Denise and Danny are newlyweds who are starting their new lives as one flesh.  Unfortunately, things get messy when Danny is attacked by a zombie and slowly turns into one.  Will Denise stick with Danny, even when he begins to rot and his hunger for human flesh grows too strong to ignore?

This is probably the first romantic zombie movie I've ever seen and definitely the first zombie movie that's based on true events.  Well, the zombie part isn't true but the characters of Denise and Danny are based on the director's real life sister and brother-in-law.  In fact, the entire movie reflects their real lives together.  The real Danny and Denise were newly weds who quit their jobs to move to Portugal.  Danny was a surfer and wanted to live where the waves were beautiful and accessible.  Right before they were supposed to leave, Danny died in a surfing accident.  The director created this movie as a valentine for his sister and her strength and ability to get through such a tragic loss.

As with the real people, Denise and Danny quit their jobs and beginning to build a married life together.  One day, at the beach, a zombie emerges from the waves and attacks Danny.  He dies in the hospital but then comes back to life.  Mistaken for a miracle, Danny is actually slowly undergoing a transformation into a zombie.  Soon, it becomes apparent that Danny is not quite okay when Denise catches him munching on a fat neighbor.  From then on, Denise struggles with this new found kink in their plan as Danny struggles (and often fails) not to eat people.

What I liked about this movie was the character development.  I really cared about Denise and Danny and really rooted for them.  The film wouldn't have worked if these two characters weren't likable.  The chemistry was great between the two leads as well.  I could really see the connection between them and almost read the heartbreak on Denise's face when the ugly truth about Danny's condition came out.  In fact, the movie slowly burns along and the zombie action doesn't take place until about halfway through the movie.  The director took the time for us to get to know these people and care about them before plunging them into terror.

Even the zombie mayhem wasn't overly done.  This isn't a typical zombie splatter fest.  Yes, there as blood and even a bit of gore but it was controlled and not done just for the sake of gore.  The focus here was not on eating hearts, but breaking them.  

My only problem with the movie was the uneven mix of drama, comedy and horror.  For example, after Denise catches Danny during one of his all you can eat body buffets, it is very much played out like he's been cheating on her.  Denise is frightened and disgusted and in a bit of shock.  Danny, covered in blood, tries to calm her down and explain his actions to her.  The tension is real and thick.  After a great deal of hesitation on Denise's part, she decides to work it out with Danny.  Suddenly, the couple's friends ring their doorbell and from there they launch into a bumbling, comedic clean up scene where they try to wash the blood off the floor and hide the dead body in the bathroom.  These kinds of jostling transitions in mood didn't feel right to me.  It almost felt like the flick didn't know where to go with its direction and so it went everywhere.  That's really only a minor peeve, though.  Overall, a great flick and a romantic and kind of sad one as well.

If you like your love notes written with blood and brain matter, you might enjoy this movie.

4 out of 5.

Snobby Snogger

Written February 2008.

I have struggled with some of life’s greatest questions in my short time on this earth, mysteries that have stmped even the greatest of philosophers throughout history.  Questions like:

If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn?

Why do we insist on pressing the remote control harder when we know the battery is dead?  (Don’t act like you’ve never done it!)

Why did Sally sell seashells by the sea shore when anyone can just pick them up for free?

How would you treat someone addicted to counseling?

How does Freddy Krueger wipe his butt?

Can cross-eyed teachers control their pupils?

If a pope goes to the bathroom, is it considered holy crap?

If quizzes are quizzical, then what are tests?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

There are an endless number of questions to ponder out there.  One question recently came to mind after I had a talk with an old friend.  When our conversation turned to a discussion on kissing, I had to reevaluate my stance on sucking face.  I wondered if my views were too old fashioned to keep up with this over sexed and under satisfied world of ours.  Perhaps it’s best to remain selective when snogging.  Or am I too much of a prude to pucker up?

I seem to be in the minority on this, but I don’t find being a kissing slut to be an attractive trait in a perspective mate.  I certainly wouldn’t pride myself in knowing I had kissed a ton of girls and hope my potential partner would be the same way when it came to her lip play.  I would like to be able to find a decent girl who hasn’t had her tongue down half the male population.  Is that too much to ask for?  I used to think it wasn’t, but nowadays kissing is seen as as innocent and harmless as hugging or shaking hands and more people are locking lips.  And I struggle with the idea of remaining old fashioned and the notion of being kiss happy.  It’s an internal struggle that I battle with anytime I see two people kissing and that old familiar craving for a kiss comes back to bite me.

In many ways, I like to think of myself as open minded and quite progressive.  I don’t think it’s a huge deal when other people have a lot of kissing partners.  I won’t automatically label you a big slut or anything.  But as for me, personally, I just don’t want to be that way.  I want to save my kisses for a special misses.  I guess when I think of kissing, I think of the person on the other end of my lips as being someone I genuinely like.  A girl that I have known for a while and have developed romantic feelings for.  I want that kiss to be infused with a feeling of fancy for her.  I want it to mean more than physical pleasure.  I want it to be a kiss that touches me deeper than the skin.  I want it to be special.  It’s that simple.

Yet, in this day in age, it’s hard to find that special someone.  I, myself, have found it especially difficult to find a girl I can attach romantic feelings to.  And because I’m still a normal, healthy male, I have those urges, those feelings of desire just like anyone else, and so I find myself conflicted.  I would like to express my desires physically, yet I have no one to do that with.  Naturally, I don’t have to like a girl to kiss her.  I realize this, yet I want to like her.  It doesn’t look like she’s gonna show up any time soon and meanwhile my hormones are horrendous and sometimes I don’t know how long I can hold out. 

It’s a battle between Horny Bran and Ho-Hum Bran and frankly, I don’t know who’s gonna win this war.

You know, I have done well when it comes to holding out for a phenomenal female.  Last year, when I was gang molested by three drunken girls at a bar, I held my tongue (literally) when they all insisted on making out with me.  Here I had these three beautiful and inebriated ladies ready to mingle with my mouth and yet I didn't want to.  I mean, I didn't wanna take advantage of these girls, didn't wanna do anything with them that they wouldn't wanna do with me while they were sober.  But, really, who's to say they wouldn't have wanted a taste while they were sober?  I suppose that's my low self-esteem talking but that's how I felt.  They ended up stealing my sugar anyway, while another one initiated some lip biting action that still gets me hot and bothered when thinking about it to this day.  And perhaps that's what will save me every time.  Maybe my morals will step in and intercept any indecent thoughts I might have.

I suppose I should hang on to the idea that, although I might be tempted, might be weak in the moment, perhaps I won't do anything I'll ever regret later.  And heck, maybe a little awesome lip action every once in a while wouldn't hurt me.  I mean, I am a young man, some would even say attractive, and perhaps it could do me some good to get some physical attention from the ladies.  Thinking back on it, I guess I don't have a problem with kissing girls who aren't girlfriends, just as long as I don't go too far with them or make it a habit.  Plus, I know no matter how many girls I kiss, they won't compare to the kiss that comes from the one I love.  And if it's as amazing as I imagine it will be, I think I can hold out a little while longer.