Be For Real

Are you back in my life to stay
Or is it just for today
Oh, that you're gonna need me?
If it's a thrill you're looking for
Honey I'm flexible. Oh, yeah

Just be for real, won't you, baby?
Be for real, oh, baby
You see I, I don't want to be hurt by love again

So you see I'm not naive
I just would like to believe
Ah, what you tell me
So don't give me the world today
And tomorrow take it away
Don't do that to me, darling

Just be for real won't you, baby?
Be for real won't you, baby?
You see I, I don't want to be hurt by love again
Been hurt so many times
You see I, I don't want to be hurt by love again

I don't give a damn about the truth, baby
Except for the naked truth. Oh yeah

Just be for real won't you, baby?
Be for real won't you, baby?
You see I, I don't want to be hurt by love again
Oh no, oh no
It's just that I, I don't want to be hurt by love again

Thanks for the song, Mr. Knight

-Leonard Cohen

Terry and Morgan

The mid-April Saturday had been the warmest of the year so far. Terry and Morgan hadn’t waited for their dinner to digest before getting back outside to take full advantage. Actually, Terry had insisted they get back outside, but Morgan had no desire to resist. Now they stood facing each other in Terry’s front yard, Terry’s arms stretched to the heavens like an Evangelical overcome with the Spirit.

Leaning sideways with concentrated precision, Terry planted her little hands into the ground and shifted her weight to them. Focused on the task at hand, Terry did not notice that the grass was suddenly due for its first trim of the year. She pushed with all the strength her seven-year-old legs could muster. Terry, barely older than Morgan, would be quick to remind that she’d soon to be eight, but did not have the self-awareness to realize that she wasn’t currently strong enough to force her knees straight. Toppling around in a sort of semi-circle, Terry returned to her feet and threw her arms back into the air, beaming almost as bright as the setting sun, which was possibly paying more attention to the feat than Morgan was.

“Okay, did you see how I did that? That’s how you do a perfect cartwheel. Do you get it now, Morgan? Now you try it again, and just do it how I did.”

Morgan threw her hands in the air for what seemed like the hundredth time, realizing that this was the most important part of the stunt but unable to summon the enthusiasm to give it much pizzazz. Bending down, Morgan kicked her feet into the air and, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, crumbled straight to the ground into a pile. Then she swiftly but dramatically rolled onto her back, grateful for the soft, embracing grass. Morgan looked up to the sky at nothing in particular, although consciously avoiding the direction in which Tammy stood, laughing robustly and genuinely.

Tammy stomped into Morgan’s field of vision, hovering above her. Impatiently interrupting the laughter in an attempt to make it stop, Tammy scolded, “No, no, stop! You didn’t do it right, Morgan. Have you been watching how I do it?” Tammy sighed dramatically as the laughter finally faded. “Get up. I’m going to have to show you again. Watch this time. Okay, are you ready? This is how you do a perfect cartwheel….”

Plume

Oh yeah
Another day
Oh yeah
Gotta play
What it is
It never was
I don't care
To give enough

My boredom has outshined the sun
It's all down low
I just want to have some
Little fun

Oh yeah
Another day
Oh yeah
What a waste
What it is
It never was
I don't care
Or give a fuck

My boredom has outshined the sun
It's all down low
I just want to have some
Little fun

Bring me down
Bring me down

- Billy Corgan and James Iha

Ocean Size

wish I was ocean size
they cannot move you
no one tries
no one pulls you
out from your hole
like a tooth aching a jawbone...

i was made with a heart of stone
to be broken
with one hard blow
i've seen the ocean
break on the shore
come together with no harm done...

it ain't easy living...

i want to be
as deep
as the ocean
mother ocean, yeah

some people tell me
home is in the sky
in the sky lives a spy
i want to be more like the ocean
no talking
all action...
no talking
all action...

-Perry Farrell

Dating Material

I find it humorous in retrospect that I spent some time last year wondering why the women I’ve loved more than anything all left me. It’s pretty obvious, really. I’m too selfish, stubborn, irresponsible, hedonistic and predictable to be long-term relationship material.

The one that lasted longest and didn’t leave me per se was my best friend more than a lover. Friends are awesome, but I am a passionate person that can quickly overbear them. I hear people say, “I’m not interested in casual sex because I don’t want to get too emotionally attached.” First, casual sex is a total misnomer. If it’s casual, you’re doing it wrong. The closest I’ve ever come to casual sex is on the occasion when I’m mostly asleep while spooning someone and it sorta slips in and I groggily think, “What? Oh whoops, I mean, oh well….” Second, what is this fear of emotional attachment? I’m the type who is emotionally attached to all kinds of people, including those I’ve barely met, will never see again and have never slept with. I’d be a little disappointed if the only way you could become emotionally attached to me was by having sex with me. The only way I know of living is intensely- “Right up to the hilt,” as Doc Holiday suggestively put it in Tombstone.

Girlfriends have accused me of talking too much about everyone I’ve ever loved. Don’t they get that after they dump me I will continue talking about them lovingly too? I don’t fall out of love. I even still love the ones I’ve broken up with. From my point of view, everybody is different and so loved in incomparable ways. Similarly, I don’t have a favorite color- I see existence as a rainbow of beauty clouded by ignorance and greed.

I don’t get jealous, so I admit I don’t empathize well with jealousy. Both of these drive most people crazy. “How can you love me if you don’t care what I do?” Huh? I don’t follow the logic. How could I love you if I caged you in? I’ve noticed that relationships are often grounded on the hope that either the other will change or that they’ll change you. Sorry; I’m just not interested in either of those things. Am I emotionally damaged? Yes. Have I ever met anybody who wasn’t emotionally damaged? No. I’m okay with that. I don’t have all the answers and can’t stand those who think they do. My interests are to live, die, let live, let die, have fun while doing so and speak out against oppression here and there along the way….

Panic Attacks

Sometimes I like to pretend I am impervious to anything life can do to me. Maybe it has something to do with watching all that television growing up during which automatic weapons were being fired all over the place and nobody ever got so much as a scratch. But if that were the reason, I’d be negating my own premise, wouldn’t I?

The reality is I’ve started having panic attacks lately. It began a little over a month ago on my way to a party. I attributed this to social anxiety, which made sense, as I had spent months prior to that essentially alone. Still, I am a person who has performed in front of thousands of people and never even thought of getting nervous.

After that, I’d notice it happening whenever I drank coffee. “It” consisting of my heart pounding out of my chest, having heat flashes, breaking out in sweat and having my hands shake like an unbalanced washing machine. Easy fix, there, although that sucks because I really like coffee.

Then yesterday, while pondering the state of the economy and my job, it happened again. Now, since when have I worried about the future? What happened to “Carpe diem; Eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we may die; calculatedly irresponsible” Andrew? Am I that scared? C’mon, me, pull it together.

Fuck it, dude. Let’s go bowling. Except I don’t like bowling. Mah jong, anyone? One of many things I love about that game is that you can lose and still win.

Passivity

I have a very difficult time comprehending passive communicators. I see how it can be advantageous in business dealings, when you’re trying to con someone out of something, but in our personal lives, where we, to a large degree, get to choose who we hang out with, it doesn’t seem to have a place. Why try to con a friend or attempt to fool someone into thinking they like or agree with you?

It seems unfathomable to me that others expect me to read their mind or are too cowardly to express themselves forthrightly. In my view, life is too short to be hinted at. I wear my emotions on my forehead, and am often accused of over-sharing. It is rare that anybody wonders what my opinion on any topic is. I have no shame- if I want something, I ask for it; if I’m wrong, I admit it.

Some don’t like to be disagreed with, but I’m used to it. Most people disagree with me on most subjects, and yet I bluntly feel my philosophy on life is more accurate than any other I’ve come across. My arrogance is indomitable. I’ve been falling backwards on chairs my whole life, regardless of my mother’s countless warnings, simply because I enjoy leaning back on them.

Social and cultural taboos are ridiculous to me, so I don’t bother heeding them. An ethos’ sustainability is a horrible indicator of credibility. Few people honestly question anything; which allows nonsense to be believed for millennia. If you need evidence of this, you are evidence of this.

I do understand that many humans are fragile creatures that need to be treated delicately. Frankly, I avoid these people, because I do not relate to them. Call me immature. I relate much better to the culture of Star Trek’s Klingons, where the best way to earn another’s respect is with a strong right hook. I haven’t been in a good brawl in years, despite that fact that I am a loud-mouthed and brazen S-O-B. I think this is evidence enough of a real flaw in our system of etiquette.

Sphere of Existence

My sphere of existence
What will it take to fill up this hole?
I dance around in eight figures
This comedy bouncing off this lost soul

I get lost, I’m last, I forget
Yeah, I dance

Could you be my reflection?
Could I be your exception?

Can you read my mind?
Stuck here in my own eternity
I’m looking through the backside of a mirror
To me you don’t see what we could be

You’re like my inverse reflection
You could complete this dimension in time

Could you be my reflection?
Could I be your exception?

I observe my fear thing
Will doesn’t stop it if I just run away
My heart bangs around this garbage can
Try to lift my mask to reveal my face

Maybe I’ll see what you think
I could be your fool forever someday, yeah

Could you be my reflection?
Could I be your exception?

-NED Grimes

Desire

Not long ago, a bratty but attractive girl told me she has found she can get anything she wants out of life. I implied, “fuck you,” but framed it much more philosophically.

Three tries later, she proved herself right. She never returned a call after that.