How to not GAF (Variations on a theme)

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. - Tom Robbins

It seems to me that politics bring out the worst in us.  Doubly so in an election year.  I so very much hate the hate.  I know how I feel on all of the topics.  I know that I'm not likely to change the way I feel.  I suspect that those with opposing viewpoints are just as unlikely to change.  So really, what's the point of debate?  It simply becomes heated.  It becomes angry and vitriolic.  For the next few months there will be a whole lot of talking at, but not a lot of talking to.  There will be yelling, and screaming, and the most absurd of all, un-friending on Facebook, all because we can't seem to share the same rock. All because of the simple attitude of "The way I think is better than the way you think, so fuck off."

Lately every time I go on Facebook, barring a few exceptions, I always feel at the end of it like I've been beaten with a stick.  It's tiring.  It's exhausting.  It is to be honest, a bit soul crushing, to read so much anger in such a small fraction of time.  The funny thing is, its not even directed specifically AT me.  Its simply there.  I absorb it.  I process it.  I walk away battered.  And I thought fight rehearsal was kicking my ass.

I no longer engage in political discussion.  I don't want...no that's wrong...I can no longer emotionally handle the overwhelming amount of negativity.  I don't have room for it in my, for lack of a better word, soul.  I feel the same way about religious discussion as well.  If the point of religion is to bring us closer to an all loving deity, how then have we missed the mark by such a wide margin?  The religious system, the political system, the legal system, all of our systems it seems, are broken.  I have no desire to see them fixed.  I have a separate, personal agenda.

Salvation is for the feeble I think. I don't want salvation.  I want life.  All of life. The miserable as well as the superb. - Tom Robbins

There is no known system that allows for living ALL of life.  The way it can be lived.  And I don't mean the sex drugs and rock n roll.  I mean the joy, and beauty, and fullness that is available if we choose it.  To continue that thought...

I cannot believe that the most delicious things were placed here merely to test us, to tempt us, to make it more difficult to achieve the grand prize.  The safety of the void.  To fashion of life such a petty game is unworthy of both men and gods. - Tom Robbins.

There is so fucking much to do.  To taste.  To experience.  We get this incredibly brief period of time to breathe, and laugh, and dance, and instead we fight and bicker like 9 year old school kids at recess.  We could be creating.  Instead we destroy.  We could be building and instead tear down.  Instead of reaching together for Utopia, we are fighting separately for nickles and dimes.  I don't want to live in that world.  I will fashion my own.

Our individuality is all, all that we have.  There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures and rides it in, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life's bittersweet route. - Tom Robbins.

I love who I am.  For all my faults, fears, and failures, I am still the only me I get to be.  One shot.  One single roll on this rock, at this point, in this time period, at this location, in this moment.  I will very often eat by the handfuls, the proverbial shit, but I will also drink ambrosia.  I will suffer through the mundane, in order to achieve a the perfection of an instant.  I will come in contact with hundreds of people, to find the one that stargazes with me.  Every single second, is my only chance to live it.  I am not getting any younger, but I will never be younger than I am right now.  Time is so very fleeting, yet so very casual with its destruction.  I don't want to fight time, or beat time, or race against it.  I want to gut it, skin it, and wear its wings on my back as I fly through the cosmos.  I'd like you to come with me.  If you want.  I hear there are some pretty amazing things to see out there.  Things that will make us forget all about this bullshit we've invented.

We have failed our systems, and as a result they have failed us.  So let go of them I say.  Don't invent new ones.  Don't replace broken with broken.

Sing your own song.  Learn your own dance.  Find your partner or partners for this little road trip and make up the words together as you go along.  Forget the systems.  Fuck the systems, they have certainly fucked us.

For me, the systems don't provide the opportunities.  In fact, they do all the can to make certain the opportunities become less and less available.  I must seize them for myself.  Take them back.  Make them mine.  Live with the results...or the consequences.  Either way, I will have experienced something that otherwise would have been impossible.  I will pilot my own ship, and if you'd like...race you to the moon.  It's pointless.  Its ridiculous.  We may laugh, we may crash, we may end up on Jupiter instead, but one thing I guarandamntee we won't do, is fight about who should be the next figurehead of a broken ideal within imaginary borders.

I'm pretty much done here.  I think I've tackled what was on my mind today as well as I can.  All of the above quotes were from the book Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins.  Jitterbug Perfume is the answer I give when faced with the question "What is your favorite book?".  If you've never read it, give it a look.  It is purely my own meek and certainly unprofessional opinion, but in my view, Mr. Robbins is the greatest living working wordsmith out there.  I'm not saying he's necessarily the best author, although I might be able to make that argument as well.  I'm simply saying he has a way to make words play, that if you give it a chance will absolutely tickle your brain.

A New Kind of Romance

Years ago when I lived in Las Vegas, I found myself living alone for the first time in ten years.  It was strange.  Lonely.  Sad, and exciting all at the same time.  I was brand new to so many things.  It was just me and my cat sharing so much space.  He became my voice of reason.  I would bounce ideas off of him.  I would talk to him.  I would fight with him.  I was a little bit insane, placing so many human traits on my new constant companion.  That cat will not make another appearance in this post.  He's not relevant to anything I'm going to say.  I might be lying, at this point I have no idea what I'm going to say.  

One night coming home from work I passed my neighbor going up to her apartment which was directly across from mine.  She was a cute young thing.  I don't remember her name, though I'm sure she told me at some point.  We exchanged pleasantries, as we usually did.  It was always friendly although we weren't friends.  We saw each other in passing almost daily, and our routines caused us to more often than not, briefly occupy similar space.

She always had a smile, and a kind word, or words.  Sometimes we'd spend ten or fifteen minutes just casually passing time, and on a few occasions shared a cigarette in the parking lot.  In retrospect I should have invested more.  More time.  More interest.  More something to pursue an actual friendship.  I didn't.  I was fresh off a divorce, and not really sure of myself around strangers.  I've always been that way.  I still am.  More on that later.

This particular night, we said our hello's and see you later's and went into our respective apartments.  I went into my bedroom and turned on my light.  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that out my window and across the way her bedroom light turned on as well.  Her room was in direct view of mine.  I looked up, and saw her standing there in her window.  I was taken off guard.  I felt embarrassed.  Awkward.  I felt that I was intruding into her personal space, looking into her bedroom.  Watching her.  As I went to close my blinds she waved at me.  I guess she didn't feel the same awkwardness.  She simply smiled and waved...and then...proceeded to strip off.

Strange right?  

This doesn't happen in real life.

This is something out of a bad teenage sex movie.

This is my life in technicolor.

I can't say she was putting on a show...per se.  She wasn't dancing around her room.  She wasn't performing, although she knew she had an audience.  She was simply going about her nightly routine.  Get out of clothes.  Stop in front of mirror.  Go shower.  Whatever.  She was simply living behind glass, and I was well...

I watched.  I'm hesitant to admit this in an open forum.  I realize this sets me up for all sorts of judgement.  I understand this pretty much fully qualifies me as creepy.  I did have permission though...I guess...so to speak.  It certainly didn't bother her.

I saw her again the next day.  Same routing.  Same crossing of paths.  Same words exchanged.  As if the entire episode never happened. No comments.  She didn't bring it up.  I sure as shit didn't.  What the hell was I going to say..."Hey, saw you naked.  It was nice."  Yeah, I didn't say that.

It didn't happen again the next night.  I did happen again though.  A few times.  I'm not sure she knew I was watching every single time.  I know for a fact she knows I watched more than just the once.  She always acknowledged me when she was aware.  It was as if nothing to her.  It was very often the best part of my day.  At some point it just became a thing.  Sometimes it happened.  Sometimes it didn't.  It simply was.

She played exhibitionist.  I played voyeur.  Those were our assigned roles in this scenario.  

In my entire life I think I've told only one, maybe two other people about this little episode in my life.  This is something I've kept largely to myself for all these many years.  So why am I talking about it now in such a public forum?  Allow me a moment to explain.  Although this be madness, there is a method to it.  I'm going to take the long way.  Bear with me, or don't.  It's your time, if you feel its a waste, then feel free to move along, but I will get there eventually I promise.

Today at work I had a small, and brief epiphany.  It wasn't grand.  Lightning didn't strike.  I was a moment of realizing something I already knew about myself.  Simply confirmation of a known fact.

I don't easily make friends.  The ones I do make are for life, but they are few.  I am closed off.  Reserved.  I keep myself to myself.  I've always been this way.  I can't explain it, it just is.  

I looked at all the people I've worked with for just under a year now.  The same faces I see almost daily.  I talk to these people more than almost anyone else in my life.  I interact with them.  I hear their stories, and their problems.  I know the names of their children, and spouses.  I know what movies they watch.  What they had for lunch.  What books they're reading.

They know nothing about me.  They are not my friends.  I am not close to them.  I don't care.  I honestly don't.  I will not miss them when either they or I am gone.  This may be horrible, but its how I am.  I don't intend to change this little thing about myself.

I am an alone person.  I am not lonely, but I am alone, and I'm pretty okay with that.  There are a few I let in, and I love those that I do so deeply that for all the words I'm familiar with, and its quite a few, I don't have the right ones to explain how I feel about these people.

For the most part though, I pass you by.  You pass me by as well.  We exchange pleasantries.  We smile.  We say our hello's and see you later's.  We may share a cigarette, and then we go our separate ways.  You go into your room, and I go into mine.  You turn on your computer, and if you're reading this, that means that you find my blog, and you watch me strip off.  

I don't dance.  I don't perform.  I simply do.  I put down my words.  I bare myself to you, and I know you're watching.  Sometimes.  Sometimes I don't.  When I am aware of it though, I acknowledge that you're there.  I am not ashamed, knowing that you see me.  I simply do what I would be doing otherwise.  I may hardly know you, but I show you things, that I don't show the people I see every single day.  This is our moment.  This is our dance.

I want you to know that I watch you too.  When I can.  When you let me.  You may not always know it, but I'm very often there.  And for it all, we know each other, although we don't know each other at all.  Its really the neatest kind of magic.

According to my page here I have six followers.  This number in and of itself is really not that significant to me, other than being a measuring device.  I am often amazed when I find that someone else read what I wrote.  People I would never imagine, have taken the time to share these words with me.  I am being blogstalked by all sorts of folks, and quite frankly...I kinda love it.

I'm blogstalking you too.

We are all voyeurs.  We are all exhibitionists.  We share ourselves best behind the safety of glass.  

By the way...I love your words.  I may have told you this.  I wasn't lying.  If I haven't told you this, I'm telling you now.  I love your words.  Please keep giving them to me.

I'll keep giving you mine.

ANATHEMA

This will probably come out a bit different than it was when I first had the thoughts.  That's what happens when I'm allowed to think.

While eating lunch with a friend today I had a realization that occurred as I was speaking it.  This happens to me often.  

We were on the topic of sex and relationships.  And why not, this is a favorite subject among many.  I realized in the course of this conversation, my biggest conundrum on the idea.  What will most likely prove my downfall in the end...if I get to live so dramatically as to actually have a downfall.  More likely it will be a long lasting minor annoyance and inconvenience.  Something I'll deal with, or find a way to deal with, or not deal with at all.  Who knows.

My problem...my conundrum...my personal paradox is this.  I don't want a relationship.  I've stated this before and it remains true.  I believe it will remain true for a very long time.  I'm not so wise as to be able to read the future, or so stupid as to fix my self so solidly in one way that I become forever unchangeable, but the fact remains.  I have no real interest in pursuing a romantic course of action with anyone.  I don't want to commit myself to another person on any type of emotional level.  It becomes a paradox when I realize how much I hate meaningless sex.

I've always been pretty open in my attitudes about sex.  Especially after leaving my religious childhood behind me.  It was one of the endearing qualities of my last relationship.  Finding someone who felt nearly identical about it as I did.  Funny thing is, it is not, as some would believe the thing that ended the relationship.  Not even close.

I hate the term "Swinger".  It works for pretty much everyone in that lifestyle, but for me it just carries such a negative connotation.  It seems so slutty.  In implies an idea of fucking anyone, anytime, for the sheer sake of fucking.  That's not who I am, or even remotely where my inclinations lie.

I always simply preferred the word "Open."  That's what I am.  I'm open.  Open to new ideas, new experiences, new places, tastes, foods, feelings...whatever.  I don't care what the experience may be, I'm open to the idea of it.

I know in a lot of ways the truth in the difference between "Swinger" and "Open" is purely semantic, but its what works for me, so I'm sticking to it.

So on top of all that there is "The Lifestyle."  This is really not so much a lifestyle as it is a group or groups of people who similarly identify.  Websites, parties, get-togethers, meet-n-greets...whatever.  The people who don't fit into the social norms.  Outcasts who meet in not so secret to practice and celebrate and play together because they have the emotional and mental liberty to do so.  Hooray for them I say.  Do what makes you happy.

The undesirables of this group is of course the single male.  Anathema.  This is the person who by long tradition of bad behavior brings nothing to the group other than just another hard dick.  As the stories go, this person is usually rude, traditionally pushy, and an overall parasite.  There are exceptions of course, but this is the standing attitude.

So now here I am.  After such a long time, an outcast among outcasts.  To tell the truth I'm more than okay with this.  For a certain time I attended said parties, get-togethers and meet-n-greets.  I'll be honest...I never really enjoyed them.  Even as part of the accepted, I felt that I didn't fit in.  My attitudes were similar, but yet oh so very different.  I'm honestly NOT slutty enough for said group interaction.  And please know that slutty is simply the term I choose to use.  I don't use it in a derogatory way.  I'm not making any attempt to place moral value or quality on there preference over mine...their type of enjoyment over mine...what they want over what I want.  It's simply the best way for me to communicate the difference.

I'm too introverted for those kinds of meet ups.

I'm also picky.

My being picky is not dependent on body type or image.  It doesn't have much to do with varying levels of personal attractiveness...at least by contemporary social standards.  As far as that goes I have a very wide playing field of what I find attractive.  I'm not going too much into it because frankly for the purposes of what I'm trying to communicate, my tastes in other human beings are pretty irrelevant.

Don't get me wrong.  The physiological ability is there, but that's simply not enough for me.  I need more.  Perhaps I take shit too seriously.  Perhaps not seriously enough.  Maybe I'm a snob...I have considered this, and not entirely discounted its possibility.  I just don't get off on simply getting off.  

I need a connection.  I need to relate.  I want to like you.  I want to in my own completely noncommittal way ...love you.  Not as a romantic partner.  Not as someone who wants to be with you and only you for the rest of my life.  Just the idea gives me claustrophobia.

I want to love you as one human being loving another.  Sharing something.  Consenting to an idea that this is fun, and awesome, and we are now even closer friends than we were before.  

Some people call this selfish.  I understand what they mean.

Some people call this childish.  Perhaps it is.

Some people call it unrealistic.  Maybe...but...

but...

Always with the buts...

I've had it.  It is rare, I won't say it isn't, but it is possible.  I'm also not saying I want that very thing right this moment, with whoever might be reading this.  I don't.  I simply don't.  I don't want every single piece of cake.  Like I said...I'm pretty picky.

So maybe wanting the benefits without the commitment really IS wanting my cake and to eat it too.  I'm not denying that, but it is something that I know from experience can exist.  

Some people don't understand.  That's fine.  You may not understand.  This too is fine.  I'm not trying to justify...simply explain.  Why bother explaining this now?  Because its my blog goddammit, and this is what's on my mind at 1 in the morning.  Thanks to a conversation I had at 1 in the afternoon.  My conundrum.

The thing is I'm fully aware of how rare what I'm describing is.  The truest sense of the words F'sWB.  I know that some people believe it to be SO rare, that it actually doesn't even exist.  

It does.  

Its also something that for me...if the friendship is close enough, I will forgo ALL of the WB to keep the F.  

As much as I like it...

Nay...

As much as I LOVE it.

There is no sex worth sacrificing a good friendship for.

Not quite random thought in B Flat Minor

Sometimes you steal my breath. 

I'm always glad when you do.  I love to be reminded of my frailty. 

I think about you a lot.  You are probably different in my imagination, than you really are.  That's fine...I'm probably different in yours. 

I imagine you smiling.  You are always smiling.  Sometimes innocent, sometimes devious, sometimes just plain mirth...regardless its always there.

I wonder about you a lot.  If you're happy.  If you're sad.  If you're making new discoveries.  If you're okay. I hope so. 

I want to talk with you.  So much.  Not the surface bullshit that most people start and stop with, but really talk.  Connect.  Seriously...have that kind of conversation where we both feel at the same moment the imaginary umbilical holding us together.  The kind of sit down chat where the words end long before the moment does.  We haven't talked like that for a while, you and I.  Hell, maybe never...but I bet we could, and I bet it would be glorious.

I want to hear about all your beautiful things.  I want to understand your perspective.  I want your words.  Oh god your words.  You use them so well, its like sex wrapped in chocolate.

I want your opinions, because sometimes we share the same ones, and this makes our connection even stronger.  And sometimes they differ, which can also help connect us...if we let it.

I am all the time so much inside myself, that I can't help but love you when you show there is an outside.  You do this often, and you do it well.

Your talent is staggering.

I am often intimidated by you.  Almost always.  I can't help it.  This sometimes makes me seem shy when I'm around you.  I'm not shy, I just don't know what to say.

Sometimes I overcompensate and say the most ridiculous thing I can think.  Also not the most wise decision, but I've never pretended to be wise.  Wisdom is for those who would know what to do with it.  Maybe I'll reach that point someday.  I'm not there yet.

For now I'm still the dancing astralnaut.  Soaring the innerverse of my own imagination.  Screaming in a vacuum to be heard by no one because well...sounds...and vacuums...and it doesn't really matter, because what I'm screaming is complete jibberish.  I just want to see if you'll scream with me.

I sometimes think that when the caterpillars is in his cocoon, if he knows how horrible its going to be.  You see, I could be wrong, but I just can't imagine that kind of metamorphosis would be painless.  He goes in one thing, and comes out something entirely different...that must be hell. 

Sometimes when I know a friend is in pain, if they realize how beautiful they are going to be when they come out of it.  I hope they do.  I also hope they don't fly away, something so new, and so glorious, that they entirely forget what they were, and what they had before. 

That may be how I justify the pain, but it works for me that way.  It changes us, if we let it.  Sometimes we have to wrap up in it entirely and hide away.  That's okay though.  That doesn't make us weak...it simply makes us.  That's all.  Something new.  Something more beautiful than we were.  Always more grand, more glorious than we thought we could be.  Just had to let the change happen.  It always does. 

We are ever evolving, and I think in a lot of ways we get to choose the direction of that course.  Sometimes maybe not as much as we would like, but there are choices, and there are results. 

I love now.  I will love you then.  I will love every new version of you.  And every new version of us.  I can't help it.  I was not invented for the hatred, or the bullshit, or the insignificant little pieces of superficial reality.  I was invented to love.  All forms and faculties of who and what we are.

I also think that you were too.  If of course...that's what you want.

The Devil Made Me Do It.

Now comes my favorite part.

Hmmm...Perhaps I should back up a bit.

I am of course outraged.  Is that what we're saying?  Outraged?  I'm actually more enraged.  All of my own personal initial responses are internal.  I've spent a majority of my life learning how to control and focus my rage, and don't really let it out much, so I guess I can't say I'm outraged.  I do however, I'm sure, feel quite similar to most people who heard the news today.  So is it too soon to say I have a favorite part?  Probably...but I'm going to say it anyways...and so to re-start...

Now comes my favorite part.

The Blame Games.  The circus of speculation.  I love this.  I really...REALLY do.  I wish I could communicate to you how incredibly entertaining I find this.

Not the tragedy itself of course.  I wish it had never happened.  I wish people who had gone to that film last night were with their friends right now talking about it.  Sharing pictures of their cosplay.  Planning to see it again, or not depending on how they felt about the movie.  I wish that James Eagan Holmes would have dropped dead of an embolism on his way to the theatre...only to be found later, in an alley with guns and tear gas bombs strapped to his body.  Or even better I wish that 24 and a half years ago his mother would have realized what a mistake she had made and reached for the coat hanger.

Unfortunately none of that happened, and so here we are.

Here we are.

Now comes the part that I shouldn't talk about yet.  Because as they say...Too soon man, too soon.  I can't help that it is.  I'm not the one doing it...I'm simply the one taking it in for what it is.  I am just about ready to cook up some popcorn, turn on CNN and FOXnews and laugh my balls purple.

Every political figure from the President down.  Every religious figure.  Pschoanalysts, reporters, entertainers, celebrities, man on the street, woman on the street, and bum on the street gets to chime in now.

How does something like this happen?
How can we prevent it?
Who's to blame?  Who's to blame?  Oh dear god...who's to blame.

Blacks
Muslims
Christians
Atheists
Video games
Violent movies
Violent books
Violent Comics
Batman himself
The homosexuals
The liberal media
The conservative media
Energy drinks
Too loose gun control laws
Too strict gun control laws
Higher education
Bad education
The theory of evolution
Godless society
Moral decay
Chlorine in the water
Chemical inbalance
Mental instability
He was bullied
He was raped
Sociopathy
Psychopathy
Chemtrails
Marijuana
Cocaine
Coffee
Corporations
1%
99%
The Koch Brothers
Guy Fawkes
The New York Yankees
The Colorado fires
The oppressive heat
High rent prices

And I could go on and on and on and on.

The funny thing about all of that is through all of that bullshit...I might...maybe...once or twice perhaps if I'm lucky...hear someone put all of the blame.  All of the impetus.  All of the responsibility where it belongs.

Despite all other outside factors.  All the political bulletpoints.  All of the debatable arguments that will win and lose favor points within certain peer groups there is really only one person to blame.

At some point, James Eagan Holmes made a conscious decision to pick up weapons, regardless of how easy or difficult it was to access them based on the laws making that possible or even nearly impossible, and turned them against his fellow human beings.

Everyone with an opinion will search for cause, or reason.  Find someone/something to blame, and that someone/something will very easily and coincidentally be exactly what the person making the opinion is already against.

Little Jimmy Holmes did it.  Find whatever cause or excuse makes that fact more palatable to you, but realize that even with ALL other factors included...He did it.  He made the decision.  He knew what he was doing, and he knew the consequences of those actions.  To defend him with anything beyond that is to place more value on his life, than all the lives he took.

I don't care about the gun laws.  I honestly don't.  If he wanted a gun, he'd get a gun.  Laws don't stop crazy.  I've heard all the arguments from both sides. On all sides.  About pretty much every single argument on the above list.  None of them stop crazy.

He made the decision.  He followed through with the decision.  The blame starts and stops at him.

At least that's what I think.  And for as horrible as this might make me...  I am really going to enjoy the next few days.

Midnight ramblings of an astral clown

I give my mind the liberty to follow the first wise or foolish idea that presents itself... My thoughts are my strumpets. - Denis Diderot

I don't judge you.  I love all the things about you.

I hate body shaming.  I hate that there is supposed to be some simple ideal of what we are supposed to look like.  Cookie cutter images of supposed beauty.  How boring.  You are not too big or too small.  You are not too fat or too skinny.  Regardless of how you may feel about yourself, I personally love how you fit perfectly into your own body.

I hate slut shaming.  Why must we make someone feel like less of a person for enjoying one of the best feelings they can possibly have, with whoever, however they choose.  Go to I say.  Live your life.  Share everything, however you want.  Whenever you want.  With whomever you want.  Make no apologies for your choices.  Even the bad ones.

I hate all shaming.  It is nothing more than infantile manipulation.  Forcing your code on another person.  Attempting to make them feel bad for following a path different than your own

I do not live with shame.  I live with mistakes.  I learn from them.  Sometimes.  Sometimes I make the same mistakes over again.  I can't say I've lived perfectly, but I can say I have lived.  I do not, I can not, I absolutely will not apologize to anyone for choosing my own path, based on how someone else thinks I should have walked it.  I will apologize for hurting someone, if I do, but that's something else entirely different isn't it.

New thought.  Sometimes my mind wanders like that.  I choose to let it.

I want to eat your fruit of knowledge.  Over and over and over again.  With every new person.  I want to know two things about you.  I want to know your what, and I want to know your why.  The who, when, where , and how are less important to me.  I want to take your hand, and dance in the garden of delights.  Where everything is eatable.  Edible.

I want to interpret this existence through your eyes, and sometimes...maybe...let you see through mine.  You see I'm a little bit selfish that way.  Guarded.  I'm a taker, its true.  I am not so much quid pro quo.  I may share if you want me to, but mostly I'm simply curious.  I'm also an enabler.  I am not an altruist.  I have no morals, but I am not amoral.  I love chaos, but I believe in balance, or would if I believed in anything.

I don't hope, but I am not hopeless.  I'm a dreamer, but I don't dream.  I love to breathe.  I love to share your air.  I love to learn the things about you that are so much more important than all the little things about you.

I'm patient to a fault.  I love the long seduction.  And the long con.  The payoff is always best when time is the investment.

I want your stories, and your secrets, and many other words beginning with the letter s.

I want your fears, and your dreams.

I want you to know that your anxiety is safe with me.  So is your other name.  I'd love to babysit your inner child.  I want to be friends with that demon inside you.  I want your light, and your darkness.  I want to find that place where you are split into pieces, and instead of trying to fix it...celebrate it.

You see it's our little faults that make us interesting.  All those things we are taught to hide, and fear, and be ashamed of, are the things that make us unique.  I will never judge you for the things that you judge in yourself.  I will love you for them.

The reason for all of this is simply my own personal experience.  There are a few people who I have shared all of these things with...and well...these are the people I'm closest to.  These are the ones I trust, and who trust me.

Mostly I want you to know that everything really IS ok.  It really is.  Is all the shit fucked up?  Of course it is.  Will it get worse???  Maybe.  It also gets better.

Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. - Kurt Vonnegut

The joyful bliss of quiet solitude.

Its that feeling that something is about to happen, but I have no idea what it is.  It could be monumental.  Probably not.  It could be life changing.  Just as unlikely.  Something however just feels like...I dunno...buzzing.

Granted I'm going through a tumultuous time right now anyways, and on top of that there's the rest of my life.

So perhaps its nothing more than that.  The gentle grind of slow transition.  Apprehension and anticipation constantly battling.  Waging war.  Eating the leftover space.

Or maybe I've had too much coffee.

Its simply a feeling.  And all the gods, both old and new. All my friends and loved ones.  All the people I hold dear, or even those I hold at a distance, know that I am not one who easily connects with what I'm feeling.  So although its there, I simply can't explore it.  I can't trust it.  I can't shine a light on it, because, well... I don't believe in feelings.  But like all the other ghosts I don't believe in, it still haunts me.

Once upon a few years ago, I found a list.  It was simply the top ten signs of diagnosing sociopathy.  Of the ten I had a solid hit on eight of them.  That was neat.  Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware of the dangers of self-diagnosis.  I have never actually been tested for anything, and I honestly...truthfully...do not believe for a moment that I actually AM a sociopath.  I simply found it interesting.

Because it is true that I don't connect to my emotions.  I do feel them.  I do experience them, but kind of only halfway.

Allow me a moment to try and make sense of this.  You see there is a stopping point.  I feel everything intensely.  Burning.  Radiating.  Pulsing.  I feel it start in the center, and grow.  And then...

And then?

And then I don't feel it anymore.  I watch it.  That's the only way I know how to describe it.  I watch it.  As if on the other side of glass.  Its still there.  I can see it.  I can observe its movements.  I can watch it play with all the other little creatures that are kept over there...but I can't feel it.  I can't relate to it.  I can't connect to it.  Except... and here for me is the real kick in the ass.  The cherry on top.  The frozen dessert in the cardboard box of my non-existent soul...

Except.

Except. Except. Except.

Except when I'm someone else.

When I am on stage.  In a moment.  When I have discovered that connection with someone else.  As someone else.  I find my honesty.  The truth hidden inside a well rehearsed lie.  Like cracking open a plastic bauble and finding a diamond inside.

This is rare.  It doesn't happen every night of a performance, or even in every production.  But it does happen.  I have had moments of more beautiful intimacy on stage with strangers that have transcended any experience I've had off stage.

Is this sad?  Probably.  I honestly don't know.  I don't have a comparison point.  This is simply my life.  My scale of measurement.  My ability to relate to all those pretty little lights inside of me.

I apologize.  I kind of went somewhere tonight I wasn't planning.  I typically don't reveal this much about myself, and as I re-read this I was incredibly tempted to erase it all and call it a night.

Then I decided to take a big ole dose of fuckitol and let it ride.  So here it is.  And it all started with a single goddamn feeling.  That still persists.  That I still can't identify.  Perhaps you are part of it.  I truly don't know.

So I wait.  I hope I recognize it whenever it happens.  Whatever it is.  I hope I'm perceptive enough to recognize it, and take appropriate action.  Whatever action that may be.  I recognize this is a very passive, Taoist approach, but of all the spiritual texts I've ever read, (and that covers pretty much all the significant ones), the Tao Te Ching is the only one that really resonated with me.  So I will let the river run its course, and try my best to not swim up stream.

 I guess.

Man Is The Animal That Laughs

Although not true on a person by person basis, it is estimated that the average baby laughs about 300 times per day.  The average adult laughs about 20 times per day.

I think this is sad.

And indicative.

As we grow, we grow into a code.  A rule of ethics and values that for the most part is constant, with limited variables depending mostly on geography.

Religion.  Government.  Politics. Custom. Ceremony.  Tradition.

None of these things are natural.  We are given these things at birth, and wear them like our first pair of shoes.  Some of them, much like shoes, we grow out of.  Most of them, we do not.  We may alter them.  We may decorate or design them.  Draw on them with the little crayons of colorful inspiration that we from time to time pick up, and make these things more our own.

A prude is a person who thinks that his own rules of propriety are natural laws. - Robert A. Heinlein.

So we adopt these rules of propriety.  We cling to them.  At some point we all must realize that we are here without an instruction manual, and that, I guess, is very scary for some.  Some will cling to any book of mythology and call it an instruction manual.  It isn't.  It simply is someone else's words with a part or whole of what you have already adopted, and gives credence to what you believe, or want to believe.  Since it is written, it must be true.

Nothing is true.

Explore that idea someday if you want.  Its a big idea.  Kinda frightening.  One you may disagree with...however...tell me a truth.  Not a fact.  Facts and truth are NOT the same thing.

Tell me a truth.  I'll show you its subjectivity.

Everything is true.

How can this be?  I don't know...I didn't do it.

We are all so full of anger, and so much of it is aimed at people who do not accept our own truths as theirs.  Gods, governments, or television programming.  Its all the same, and so much reason to pass our own brand of judgement.

So much reason to hate.

And it was all created by someone else, so you could get wrapped up in it.  Follow it.  Dedicate yourself to it. Build your own tower to look down on all those who disagree with it.

And me?  I think they were all created to keep us from laughing.

Bear with me.

Who is more free than the man or woman who laughs?

Who is more dangerous to "the system" than a free man or woman?

I don't mean that kind of laughter that comes from hearing a naughty little joke.

I mean the kind of laughter that so many people are missing.  That laughter that starts at the bottom, and works its way out, because it must come out.  That kind of laughter that is in fact celebration of being alive.  The kind of laughter that is not much more than an extension of your life's breath.

Despite religious, or political, or sexual, or racial differences, it is nearly impossible to hate someone you have laughed with.

We focus oh so much on the differences, and forget that we are all so much the same.

Personally I do not live for anger.  I do not live for hate.  I relish my pain, and trials, and difficulties, because I know someday they may make a fantastic joke.  I intend to die with a smile.

More importantly, I intend to live with a smile.

I honestly hope that at the end of my little trip on this floating rock, people who remember me, do it with a smile.  I know that all won't.  I can't possibly be a 100% success...

...but goddammit...that's not gonna stop me from trying.

The Big Break Up

I'm not getting into the hows and whys.  I know that we are programmed to want all the juicy little details, but I'm not giving them.  There wasn't any cheating.  Anyone who ever truly knew us... I mean really knew us...knows how nearly impossible that would be.

There wasn't any lying.  No sneaking around.  No broken dishes.  No yelling.  No screaming.  None of that really good juicy stuff.  There wasn't.

There was pain.  Of course.  How could there not be.  There was open dialogue.  There was long discussion.  There was hurt.

There was nothing that would make for good water cooler gossip, and I'm sorry to those of you who may need that in order to remain interesting at said water cooler, but the break up? It was pretty mundane as far as something to talk about with your friends later.

Initially it was her decision.  She made the move, and you know what...it was the right one.  For both of us.  That doesn't make it hurt less...maybe even hurt more, to know that you are exactly wrong, for the person you love the most.

That's pretty much all I have to say about that.  No more information is needed to communicate what is really between her and I.  The rest is personal, and I hope you can respect that.

So now I'm single again.

This is not my first breakup.  Previously I had been married for ten years to an amazing woman, whom I am still friends with, and that ended in similar fashion to this relationship.  Upon being single again that time, I discovered that I got along rather well with myself.  I enjoyed it.  I adjusted well, after a time, to the company of me.

Then I began my next serious relationship.  The one that is ending now.  I told a very dear friend of mine that if for any reason it ended, then that was it.  Two and out.  I meant it then.

I'm sticking to it now.

I'm tapping out of the love game.  I know at the top of a breakup this seems like something very easily said.  I know a lot of you will be thinking...oh just give it time, you'll find someone else.

I don't want someone else.  I really don't.  I've been with two amazing, incredible women in my life.  I have been more lucky than a person like me ever really deserves to be.  I have given my everything to both of them, and both times it was phenomenal.  I can't express that enough.  I have no anger, or bitterness, toward the idea of love.  I find it to be the most beautiful thing on the planet, and the greatest source of joy.

I'm just not built for relationships.  Some people aren't, and that's okay.

Friendship?  Yes.
Love?  Yes.
Sex?  Oh yes.
Relationships?  Not so much.

I aim to dedicate myself to bachelorhood.  Truly.  I want to be a much less good looking, much less wealthy, probably much less interesting version of George Clooney.  The kind of guy who makes a career out of being single.  The guy who has his shit together because he has dedicated himself to himself.

I don't know what the future holds.  I really don't.  I am going to focus more than ever on theatre.  That has always been my first passion, and part of the reason my relationships fail.  I might as well make my mistress my bitch.

I will suffer through the pain, and I will not share much of it with any of you.  This also is my nature.  Then I will move on.  I will continue to discover, to live, to laugh, to obsess over the things that make people uncomfortable.  To say the things we're all thinking but never talk about.   To go into the deepest darkest most horrible places, and find the jokes that live there and bring them back out with me.  Because that's who I am.  That's what I do.  And those who understand me will know that everything I do is dead serious, and nothing I do is serious at all.  Everything I say is a lie...except for the things that aren't.  Here is a truth...I probably care very deeply about you.  And if we haven't actually met, and you've made it this far through my little diatribe, I could probably care very deeply about you.  I probably love you.  And if I don't, I probably could.

Your friendship, your love, your laughs...these have all added so much more color to my life than I can ever tell you.  I will never have the words to properly express how much this means to me.

Single or not single.  Alone or with someone.  I am simply who I am, and if you have given me your friendship, knowing full well who I am, well that says something pretty amazing about you.

So thanks for bearing with me.  Thanks for being there.  I can't wait to see you again...or meet you for the first time ever.  Whatever the case may be...

There is always tomorrow.