My cell phone “froze” at 6:40AM. I cannot get it to work (blank screen, can’t make calls, etc.) and I cannot turn it off to reset it. If anyone has some secret knowledge of how to fix it, let me know. It is a Motorola V300.
All posts tagged Life
Bad Boys
Just before 6:30AM this morning I was awakened by banging on my door. When I asked who it was, I was informed it was the police. Sure enough, there was what appeared to be a SWAT team huddled in the small hallway outside my door. They burst in, sweeping my apartment with their assault shotguns and pistols. They had armor and everything. It was like something out of Rainbow Six.
They got me up against a wall (my movie screen, actually) and started searching my apartment. They kept calling me Mr. Greene, which was the name of my landlord. I was concerned that my cats might get out the open door and I told them so, but no one seemed to care. They didn’t frisk me. I guess they could see I wasn’t packing heat in my undershorts. Well, you know what I mean.
Then this severe black dude right out of a movie comes up to me and asks, “Where does your landlord live and don’t give me no bullshit because we know he lives here.” I told him the landlord didn’t live here but his brother lived across the hall. I could see them searching my bedroom and bathroom and closet and kitchen. No, no meth lab in there, boys. Just to be thorough, they tore the lid off my House of Whack game box and checked in there too.
Then they decided to try the door across the hall. RB, my neighbor, asked several times who it was and said he was naked. They said they didn’t mind and then burst through *his* door. There was RB, a nice friendly kind of guy, all naked and up against his kitchen counter. They said they had a warrant for his arrest. One of the police asked if they should take me in too, but they decided not to.
I can still hear them over there, doing something. I’m afraid to open the door and look.
ADDENDUM: I couldn’t stand not knowing, so I opened the door just now. RB was seated out on the front steps, handcuffed, under the watchful eye of a police officer. RB looked up at me and gave a rueful grin as if to say “Ah, well.” I told him I had called his brother. The police guy said it was best if we didn’t talk to each other. I saw into RB’s open apartment. There were huge bags of pot on the floor along with large scales. Ah, well, indeed. I feel bad for RB; he seems like such a nice guy. He installed my swamp cooler.
Everything’s Not Lost
Tonight I realized that, if I’m not careful, I start running a script in my head about how things “ought” to be in a given situation. Like at a concert, you’re supposed to do certain things, act a certain way. It’s game theory, really, the semi-conscious response to unwritten social rules. I find that when I obey the script and not my heart, I am very unhappy. The script said I needed to be at the concert with someone, perhaps a pretty girl. I was supposed to be a big fan and shiver in anticipation. I was supposed to jump around and be excited that someone was playing on the stage. I find that I can’t even walk straight when I’m going against my own path, let alone put on some facade of “thrilled concert goer.” As soon as I stopped scoping out women, stopped feeling sorry about the fact that I was there by myself, stopped being concerned about what I should do when the band was playing, I became supremely happy and at ease. It was perfectly okay to sit and write and occasionally remember that Coldplay was putting on a great show. I didn’t want my thoughts interrupted. I didn’t want to worry if some hypothetical date was having a good time. I didn’t want a script to interfere with my sense of self or my peace.
I Miss You
“Don’t waste your time on me, you’re already the voice inside my head.”
I miss everyone tonight.
I miss my friends, even if I’ve just seen them.
I miss how some friends were a few weeks ago.
I miss girls I should never have kissed.
I miss girls I should have but now it’s too late.
I miss my ex-girlfriends.
I miss my lovers.
I miss Cathy.
I miss how my friends were in college.
I miss wine and cheese with Beth.
I miss Neal.
I miss my best friends, separated by distances physical and psychological.
I miss my mom.
I miss my sister and my neices.
I miss my grandmother.
I miss Kevmo and The Airliner.
I miss road trips.
I miss being in love.
I miss church.
I miss God.
I miss the little red haired girl.
I already miss Christopher Eccleston, you fucking heartbreaker.
I miss Buffy.
I miss Serenity.
I miss poetry that isn’t about fear.
I miss Michael Hutchence.
I miss Dumbledore, JK, you cruel woman.
I miss garage sales.
I miss my Apple II+.
I miss floppy disks.
I miss not needing money.
I miss inventing games in the back of the school bus.
I miss recess.
I miss feeling safe.
I miss not knowing.
I miss the way it used to be.
I miss you.
Light my way
I got these great new accent lights for my back patio! They are recharged by the sun, so there aren’t any wires. They look like lights one might find on a landing pad for various spacecraft.
Artful Dodger
Alucard just ran into the room carrying something which he dropped and began chewing on. It was my wallet. Not only that but he had managed to pull out all the cash. Thankfully he left it in the bedroom, being interested only in playing with the wallet itself.
Solitary Shell
Solitary Shell
- Dream Theater
He seemed no different from the rest
Just a healthy normal boy
His mama always did her best
And he was daddy’s pride and joy
He learned to walk and talk on time
But never cared much to be held
and steadily he would decline
Into his solitary shell
As a boy he was considered somewhat odd
Kept to himself most of the time
He would daydream in and out of his own world
but in every other way he was fine
He’s a Monday morning lunatic
Disturbed from time to time
Lost within himself
In his solitary shell
A temporary catatonic
Madman on occasion
When will he break out
Of his solitary shell
He struggled to get through his day
He was helplessly behind
He poured himself onto the page
Writing for hours at a time
As a man he was a danger to himself
Fearful and sad most of the time
He was drifting in and out of sanity
But in every other way he was fine
He’s a Monday morning lunatic
Disturbed from time to time
Lost within himself
In his solitary shell
A momentary maniac
With casual delusions
When will he be let out
Of his solitary shell
Friday Night
The film ends and the lights come up on a single empty wine glass and utter silence.
Story of the Ghost
Despite the grief this whole saga caused me, this has recently been filed under Amusing Anecdote.
I typically do not discuss my relationships here, since I don’t believe it is fair to discuss the details of some other life without their permission. But I think I can make an exception here because this person doesn’t actually exist.
A couple months ago I was contacted by someone on my MySpace friends list, wanting to get to know me a bit more. I had a tendancy to add people to my friends list for no good reason. So I had some people on there I didn’t really know very well. So I started having a conversation with this woman, Chassity, and it turned out we had a great deal in common. We had phone conversations that lasted hours and hours. We really seemed to be hitting it off.
After about a month or so, we decided to meet for coffee. This precipitated a series of debacles in Chassity’s life that I won’t go into now because it would take too long. Anyhow, we weren’t able to meet. I was disappointed, but understanding. She said we could have dinner the following week, which didn’t happen. From that point on, whenever I brought up the topic of meeting for coffee or whatever, I would get no response. Somehow, despite wanting desperately to meet me, she never had a single spare hour in which we could meet. So I eventually gave up on the idea and we communicated less and less frequently.
A few weeks ago I was contacted by one of Chassity’s MySpace friends. Her friend hadn’t heard from Chassity in a while, she didn’t return emails and her home phone had been disconnected. Her friend thought that surely she would respond to me. By now our online relationship had become the stuff of legend amongst all of her MySpace friends. So I wrote an email, checking in on this mysterious woman. Of course, I received no reply. Her phone was indeed disconnected. Since her friend seemed really worried, I called up the radio station where Chassity had worked for the past eight years. No one there had ever heard of her. The receptionist, the radio personnel, her “boss”… none of them knew her name or description.
I felt the floor drop away from me as I entered some other realm. I wrote this guy I knew had met her in person because Chassity talked about hanging out with him, watching a movie. He said they had never met. I reported this all back to her worried friend. Then she said, “Well, YOU’VE met her in person, right?” I explained Chassity and I had never met. Her friend thought this rather odd because Chassity had given a detailed account of when we met at a goth club.
I was completely floored. Who was this person? Why had she fabricated this completely fictional life and deceived all of her friends online? Not just me, but at least 20 people. What did she have to gain from this?
I wanted to see if anything she had told me was true. Chassity had claimed to have performed in a play produced by a local theater group. I contacted the theater to find out more about the play. They had never produced the play she described nor did they recognize her. For whatever reason, she made up this play, described to me the plot and her role in it. Just like that, without missing a beat. But why?
What was true and what was a lie? The performance she gave was Oscar worthy. The nuances and tedious details of her daily workday… why would someone take the trouble to concoct all of that? For a while this really intrigued me. I wanted to know what had motivated this person to lie so convincingly about her life to so many people.
But then I got angry. I had trusted this person. We had discussed at great length the value of being genuine and how I had been burned so many times by fake people. She insisted she was real. She said her friends doubted *my* existence, that *I* sounded too good to be true. Everything we talked about, the emails, the long conversations, the discussions about spirituality, art, movies, video games, they did not add up to someone who was a liar. It still doesn’t add up.
After this roller coaster of feelings I rode with Chassity, I am left with this waking dream lesson: The person who is genuinely attracted to me and interested in me as a person does not exist. Chassity is the last in a long line of women who either vanish or only want me for something in particular, discarding me when they are done. I have seen little evidence that there is any other kind of woman.
So if you happen to see this person, chances are you don’t know her. Chances are that no one does. Chances are this isn’t her at all.
Theme Song
Salome continues to haunt me from the day I heard it. For me, Salome isn’t a woman in particular, but the sentiment of lost love, a relationship disillusioned by reasons inexplicable and shifting.
While the original Old 97s version is good, I’ve come to prefer the cover by Ryan and his friends on “Passing For Normal.”
Salome, uncross your heart
I know what goes on inside it’s over before it starts
Well I’ll stay all night, I’ll wait right here
Full moon might work magic, girl but I won’t disappear.
And I’m tired of makin’ friends.
And I’m tired of makin’ time.
And I’m sick to death of love.
And I’m sick to death of tryin’.
And it’s easier for you
Yeah it’s easier for you.
And it’s easier for you
Yeah it’s easier for you.
Salome, untie my hands
Well I’ll find another lady
And you’ll wreck another man.
It’s over now, and so are we
My blood’s turned to dirt girl
You broke every part of me
And I’m tired of makin’ friends.
And I’m tired of makin’ time.
And I’m sick to death of love.
And I’m sick to death of tryin’.
And it’s easier for you.
Yeah it’s easier for you.