Textcast from the Precinct Bar, Union Square, Somerville, MA
Olympic ceremony....Mexico! Population: 110 million! Athletes:....1.
Even the ugly girls on the New Zealand olympic team are hot. They are winning the fly-lympics so far.
Its great fun, Bryan Williams (it must be noted that I was drinking and managed to merge Brian Williams the Canadian reporter and Bryan Adams the singer into one person) is now leading a collection of Native Canadians in some sort of rollicking sing a long. New Zealand handily won the She's-Fly-Lympics and I'm drinking at Precinct with some buddies, how you?
What sort of reasons? Is it gaudily clad olympic athlete withdrawal? I think I can help.
There is some legit Lord of the Rings shit going on in the opening ceremonies.
we are entering the 'giant glowing bear' stage of the evening. I am predicting the wizard from earlier is going to tame it, or befriend it, whatever a Canadian would do. Perhaps tax it heavily but give it great benefits.
In more upbeat news the stadoum (ahh, drink) is overrun with what must be called spirit penguin.
aand spirit orca...big ones...in the snow. This is intense.
The stadium has sprouted totem-trees, which seem to have summoned Sarah Maclachlan...likely here to save the spirit penguins.
this ceremony is pretty awesome, probably moreso because I am at a bar with a reggae band playing and cant hear the actual music. They had a giant holographic/magic orca swimming through the place a bit ago..and there was a wizard...some sort of snow wizard.
hunter moon motif....with violin-playing cloud viking. Not making this up. Viking. Cloud canoe.
possibly playing the local favorite Devil went up to Calgary if the horns are any indication.
He just lost the helmet and has a mohawk, now there is a lady fiddler, the stadium is now constructed of holographic mapleleafs..oh, this is the cape breton poriton of the night, at least I understand now.
all much weirder with the slow, bedframe breaking reggae beat.
the viking is very metal, even while step dancing. I couldnt make this up. Not even me.
all the dancers have set their heels on fire and are hard shoeing, there is a lot of orange lightning annnnd they actually went to commercial.
Canadian petern pan stands in a field of wheat, space-walking the hologram....i'll assume this is Saskatchewan...aannnd he's flying...
The canadian peter pan, for the record, wears a lot of denim.
we have spirit horses...and upon closer inspection of his earring, C.P.P. miiight dig dudes. Whoa, storm mountain rave scene!
the canadian creation myth appears to center largely around glow sticks and flying boys.
flying boys with snowboards.
We're at a lull...still just flying boys and snowboards around a giant montage filled mountain.
we have roller-blades. has Charles given any indication why he isn't speaking? Did you tell him about the spirit orca?
the roller-blading folk might be a Tron tie-in, there is a lot of body light going on here.
now the univerce is centered by a kalaidoscope pillar of energy and there is a reasonably fat man with a neckbeard and a beret talking on top of it.
He has gathered a throng of white suited native canadians to him and apears, if the holograph montage is any indicator, to be telling them about Toronto.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
"Stay afloat, the key is hope, I'll never let a motherfucker break me, dawg"
It's been busy, lately, and I have.
I can't bring myself to cut my hair. We are approaching, as though at sea, seeing it only through stars and charts, a year.
I think I will let it grow until then and then I will make a decision.
I no longer question that he loved me, just feel this sadness occasional bundling that he never managed to tell me.
I can't bring myself to cut my hair. We are approaching, as though at sea, seeing it only through stars and charts, a year.
I think I will let it grow until then and then I will make a decision.
I no longer question that he loved me, just feel this sadness occasional bundling that he never managed to tell me.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
When she says she wants someone to love, I hope you know
I worry I have broken the bone that cares that you read what I say.
Pouring over these poems that other people write,
watching the way we choose to fix the window
through which we are perceived
it is so obvious, your love
the way she moves in your mind
and she knows.
So the truth is dressed, the angle tilted
you play at being obscure, vague
the dim, one-language
of the constantly waking up at night
I do not write her letters anymore.
Feel defeated, completely, by knowing she knows -
how it is we do not talk, the way we do not smile
the absence entire of touch
so I move away from the sound
no longer entertain it.
It pains me to see you do it still,
how many years from that first glance
some joyous accident in body
why do we not let this go?
Silence is not love.
The things she leaves unsaid
unwritten
the lipless, duskwords you read into -
these are not a window you have climbed through
this is nowhere for you to sleep.
Pouring over these poems that other people write,
watching the way we choose to fix the window
through which we are perceived
it is so obvious, your love
the way she moves in your mind
and she knows.
So the truth is dressed, the angle tilted
you play at being obscure, vague
the dim, one-language
of the constantly waking up at night
I do not write her letters anymore.
Feel defeated, completely, by knowing she knows -
how it is we do not talk, the way we do not smile
the absence entire of touch
so I move away from the sound
no longer entertain it.
It pains me to see you do it still,
how many years from that first glance
some joyous accident in body
why do we not let this go?
Silence is not love.
The things she leaves unsaid
unwritten
the lipless, duskwords you read into -
these are not a window you have climbed through
this is nowhere for you to sleep.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Not to be confused with 'Resolutions'...
This is more a list of things that, with the New Year rolling in, I intend to do or pay better attention to...let's call them...'Resolutions'.
shit.
1. Talk less in public.
2. Talk significantly less when I am by myself...ideally not at all. Baby steps.
2a. Listen better - what a neat trait, 'being a good listener', what an unfortunate thing to realize you are not.
3. Better manage grief.
4. Look at the horizon when walking - this is pretty neat and you should try it, unless you do it already, in which case you should look at a constantly shitting spot of ground 5 feet in front of you while you walk, for the sake of comparison.
5. Bullshit less, personal life, job, etc - this is a broad call to competency and production, i.e. write more, read more, be better, boast less
6. Stop biting my nails - not just that, manicure them, keep them clean, be classier, be space shuttle level.
7. Get back into college - don't let it be 2011 with a bunch of excuses.
8. Make less excuses by avoiding their necessity.
9. Hair cut?
10. Realistically pursue publication.
I don't generally roll into the new year intent on changing a lot - though I am not a great manifester of dynamic change in my own life, I tend to be consistently aware of the things I would like to be and how - or at least, have been over the last few years. Perhaps settling into this new 12 month stretch isn't a bad way to jump start it, though.
Another should be attempting to stop categorizing the things my brain does in piles of 'correct', 'weakness' and 'unacceptable' - here's me looking at this wide world viewing the turning of a particular moon around the earth as some revelation of change...I can't shake how little the thing we are standing on, and the vastness through which it hurtles, cares about a disco ball falling off the top of a building in New York.
Pessimism is, I think, so comforting because it is readily applicable in every situation. Let's get rid of that, too, shall we?
shit.
1. Talk less in public.
2. Talk significantly less when I am by myself...ideally not at all. Baby steps.
2a. Listen better - what a neat trait, 'being a good listener', what an unfortunate thing to realize you are not.
3. Better manage grief.
4. Look at the horizon when walking - this is pretty neat and you should try it, unless you do it already, in which case you should look at a constantly shitting spot of ground 5 feet in front of you while you walk, for the sake of comparison.
5. Bullshit less, personal life, job, etc - this is a broad call to competency and production, i.e. write more, read more, be better, boast less
6. Stop biting my nails - not just that, manicure them, keep them clean, be classier, be space shuttle level.
7. Get back into college - don't let it be 2011 with a bunch of excuses.
8. Make less excuses by avoiding their necessity.
9. Hair cut?
10. Realistically pursue publication.
I don't generally roll into the new year intent on changing a lot - though I am not a great manifester of dynamic change in my own life, I tend to be consistently aware of the things I would like to be and how - or at least, have been over the last few years. Perhaps settling into this new 12 month stretch isn't a bad way to jump start it, though.
Another should be attempting to stop categorizing the things my brain does in piles of 'correct', 'weakness' and 'unacceptable' - here's me looking at this wide world viewing the turning of a particular moon around the earth as some revelation of change...I can't shake how little the thing we are standing on, and the vastness through which it hurtles, cares about a disco ball falling off the top of a building in New York.
Pessimism is, I think, so comforting because it is readily applicable in every situation. Let's get rid of that, too, shall we?
easylover,she'llgetaholdonyoubelieveit
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at 1:47pm
Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio
"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.
It is the most-requested column I've ever written."
My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and
parents will. Stay in touch..
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck..
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their
journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God
never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is
up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no
for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie.
Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words:
'In five years, will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business..
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did
or didn't do.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
37.. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd
grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."
Its estimated 93% won't forward this. If you are one of the 7% who will,
forward this with the title '7%'.
I'm in the 7%.
Remember that I will always share my spoon with you!
Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves.
Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio
"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.
It is the most-requested column I've ever written."
My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and
parents will. Stay in touch..
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck..
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their
journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God
never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is
up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no
for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie.
Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words:
'In five years, will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business..
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did
or didn't do.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
37.. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd
grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."
Its estimated 93% won't forward this. If you are one of the 7% who will,
forward this with the title '7%'.
I'm in the 7%.
Remember that I will always share my spoon with you!
Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
In which the internet gets for really real.
In acknowledging the barreling pace of mortality, what have you done about it?
I went back to the gym.
It's astonishing how quickly 4 nights a week turns into none when one is not watching oneself - and how quickly one's devout adjustment in diet 180s and suddenly one is a fatty again. Like lightning! The body must be trained so long before it learns. Am still much stronger than I know what to do with - there is no small measure of joy in bouncing around feeling relatively lethal, back to the place where I am confident I could move necessary weights and pull doors off hinges if so prompted by situation. Am probably not ready to play at jaws-of-life, but it's good to feel that way - all this moving metal about and hulking around and feeling vaguely predatory. It's a good way to wash out the days.
Work has been close to horrifying - long hours and little satisfaction, it's consuming my conversations and seems to be all I think about; thus the gym and the rededication to being a bit more brutish is doubly welcome. What is missed most immediately is the energy - bouncing out of bed no matter the hour, being bright-eyed after that work day is over - life is much more lived, even if 2 hours a day are spent somewhat sweaty and in the tireless pursuit of lifting lumps of metal in tightly constricted patterns, it feels good.
Am still not pretty. Working on it.
Perhaps surprising no one, the writing has stalled - have two poems circling my head about Memphis and Manhattan, the punishing audacity in what I spent so long coloring love, how hard it is to properly eloquate what it is to act this fool. Am trying to find a balance between the earnest and less dangerous than I thought needing another person and the...blind possessiveness that seems to mark my earlier 'relationships' - which is to say the girls I pined after so miserably without a care for what they thought about the situation. I feel so young sometimes and usually about love - then so old looking back at who it was thought I could just...disregard the things in front of me, hoping on some song lyric resolution.
My love is no less unique for being my own.
Since my father passed I have been hedging around the things I feel might name me a man to whatever wind is listening - relinquishing some of these selfish ideas, adjusting the way it is I see those I purport to love, allowing a little desperate longing along the way. Think I know, now, what. But wonder how am seen in return. I'm sad a lot. I am confident when I tell myself that being alone is alright if I get this one more chance - but so scared at the time flying by if it turns out I am wrong and never get it.
All said and done, I am pretty sure it's still worth it.
I went back to the gym.
It's astonishing how quickly 4 nights a week turns into none when one is not watching oneself - and how quickly one's devout adjustment in diet 180s and suddenly one is a fatty again. Like lightning! The body must be trained so long before it learns. Am still much stronger than I know what to do with - there is no small measure of joy in bouncing around feeling relatively lethal, back to the place where I am confident I could move necessary weights and pull doors off hinges if so prompted by situation. Am probably not ready to play at jaws-of-life, but it's good to feel that way - all this moving metal about and hulking around and feeling vaguely predatory. It's a good way to wash out the days.
Work has been close to horrifying - long hours and little satisfaction, it's consuming my conversations and seems to be all I think about; thus the gym and the rededication to being a bit more brutish is doubly welcome. What is missed most immediately is the energy - bouncing out of bed no matter the hour, being bright-eyed after that work day is over - life is much more lived, even if 2 hours a day are spent somewhat sweaty and in the tireless pursuit of lifting lumps of metal in tightly constricted patterns, it feels good.
Am still not pretty. Working on it.
Perhaps surprising no one, the writing has stalled - have two poems circling my head about Memphis and Manhattan, the punishing audacity in what I spent so long coloring love, how hard it is to properly eloquate what it is to act this fool. Am trying to find a balance between the earnest and less dangerous than I thought needing another person and the...blind possessiveness that seems to mark my earlier 'relationships' - which is to say the girls I pined after so miserably without a care for what they thought about the situation. I feel so young sometimes and usually about love - then so old looking back at who it was thought I could just...disregard the things in front of me, hoping on some song lyric resolution.
My love is no less unique for being my own.
Since my father passed I have been hedging around the things I feel might name me a man to whatever wind is listening - relinquishing some of these selfish ideas, adjusting the way it is I see those I purport to love, allowing a little desperate longing along the way. Think I know, now, what. But wonder how am seen in return. I'm sad a lot. I am confident when I tell myself that being alone is alright if I get this one more chance - but so scared at the time flying by if it turns out I am wrong and never get it.
All said and done, I am pretty sure it's still worth it.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Death was waiting for me. He got in the car, I said 'Want to go to IHOP?' He said, 'Sure thing.'
She is sporty and hard-line attractive, speaks well, Harvard grad - and when, after a short conversation about wine, she introduces herself I am reminded again that I am wired slightly askance the norm.
'What's your name?' she says, offering a hand, 'Mike.' I respond, attempting a not too firm, but still firm enough that I obviously go to the gym all the time because those legs says she pretty obviously goes to the gym all the time handshake. 'I'm Jessica, thanks.'
And then she leaves. Doesn't buy anything.
Why do all strange women feel like opportunity? Why can't I just be cool? Why is it when I am just cool I get worried that the girl I might spend the rest of my life with walked away and I didn't do anything? Am constantly beset by the 'be cool' and 'be confidently active'...paradigm? I think that's the word.
All my language escapes me when vague connections, so tentative, are severed. Will she be back? What if I had worn a more flattering sweater? Why am I so lonely all the time? Why doesn't anyone call me on my birthday? How can I logically assume someone wants to be romantically involved with me for the rest of our lives when I don't listen, am largely selfish and am beset by all sorts of anxieties and, for all intents and purposes, have no future.
What I meant to say was
'Hi, i'm Mike, I have a ton of problems that I want to fix without working at, I build walls between myself and those closest to me because my moral standards seem at odds with what all normal people consider morals and though I talk a great game, I'm half cling, half loner. I think you're troublingly pretty, could we hang out sometime and maybe forget everything I said?'
Perhaps the saddest thing was learning that drinking didn't help things like this. You can only fix what is broken with the sun up.
'What's your name?' she says, offering a hand, 'Mike.' I respond, attempting a not too firm, but still firm enough that I obviously go to the gym all the time because those legs says she pretty obviously goes to the gym all the time handshake. 'I'm Jessica, thanks.'
And then she leaves. Doesn't buy anything.
Why do all strange women feel like opportunity? Why can't I just be cool? Why is it when I am just cool I get worried that the girl I might spend the rest of my life with walked away and I didn't do anything? Am constantly beset by the 'be cool' and 'be confidently active'...paradigm? I think that's the word.
All my language escapes me when vague connections, so tentative, are severed. Will she be back? What if I had worn a more flattering sweater? Why am I so lonely all the time? Why doesn't anyone call me on my birthday? How can I logically assume someone wants to be romantically involved with me for the rest of our lives when I don't listen, am largely selfish and am beset by all sorts of anxieties and, for all intents and purposes, have no future.
What I meant to say was
'Hi, i'm Mike, I have a ton of problems that I want to fix without working at, I build walls between myself and those closest to me because my moral standards seem at odds with what all normal people consider morals and though I talk a great game, I'm half cling, half loner. I think you're troublingly pretty, could we hang out sometime and maybe forget everything I said?'
Perhaps the saddest thing was learning that drinking didn't help things like this. You can only fix what is broken with the sun up.
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