To All My Single Ladies

Yes.  I am aware that I berated Bey in a previous blog post;  The irony is not lost.  What can I say?  She is nothing if not popular.  This entry is dedicated to all my single ladies struggling out there with the opposite sex.  In my nearly 35 years in this form, I have learned a few things.  Literally, three.  Here they are, in no particular order:

Number One:  Eye contact is essential for letting know your beau that you're into him.  I have a hard time with this as eyes are the windows to the...so forth.  He needs to make contact with you.  You need to be vulnerable and comfortable enough with your vulnerability to let him see it, judge it and then want to get all up in it.  I put up resistance because I fear my weirdness won't be accepted.  I'm not special in this regard but it makes me feel so saying it aloud.

Number Two:  Don't be weird.  I mean, we all be weird.  But monitor your brain shit before speaking or acting.  My brain shit is constantly running turbo charged around a track built of insecurity, scrutiny and double-think.  I second guess every thought, action, and anything that enters my orbit during this absurd and self sabotaging time.  I do it to myself.  Also, not special but I'm in progress and denial is not conducive to change.  Calm down the stupid self defeating lies you tell yourselves and be responsible for your awesome.  There's some in there.  Quit burying it.

Number Three:  Don't bring another dude around even if he's only your dick-mate.  Let's be real.  Sometimes that's all a person is in your life.  Own it.  Don't introduce penis to love interest.  Any man worth his salt will either see it as a game and revolt against you and your juvenile tactics.  Or, he will sense dick, think you're taken and move on.  I've fucked up doing this.  I know in my head and heart that walking sex toy is not the guy for me but the guy for me doesn't know this.  He can't read minds, yet, and there won't be time enough in the world for you to clarify.  I know my patience is short.  No self respecting human is gonna wait around for you to fuck another.

There you have it girls.  The Great and Powerful OZ has spoke.  Go forth and be righteous.  

The Boy With The Neck Tattoo

I met a young man last eve that had a tattoo strategically placed on his throat.  Right under his chin.  Over top the ol' Adams' apple.  It looked pretty cool in all actuality.  However, he seemed perturbed that my friend and I were so engrossed in his explanation as to why that particular placement of his body art.  He didn't have one.  I interrupted at one point to save the scrambling child as he "uh-ed" and "uhm-ed" his way through some kind of cobbled together response.  

I interjected with, "It's about the experience, right?"  My friend mentioned being addicted to the pain of the experience and he shut her down rather quickly with an alarming amount of huff.  He began to get offended that we were asking him so many questions, all be it pseudo drunken ones.  We were curious about his intentions and my friend has an excellent nose for bullshit.  He was indeed full to the brim with the shit of the bull.  He feigned boredom at our inquiries because he had no idea why he did what he did.  Inflicting a large symbol for the entire world to see for the rest of your life is a bold and perhaps, courageous statement?  He clearly did the deed to garner attention for it and nothing more.  Tribesmen in Africa receive markings to mark moments in their history and hunting past.  It tells another person who this fucker is and what they've experienced.  This young man's neck art was not this.  Perhaps for him it captured a moment in space and time but shouldn't that then be something you hold near and dear to your heart and keep for yourself.  And then for those deemed worthy enough to view and share in it someday, you unveil the 'truthiness' of your very essence.  My body art is for me.  Always has been.  I capture things that are important life lessons.  Or I honour my ancestors with body homage.  I don't just throw some weird design on my body all willy nilly for all the world to see because it's trendy or will get me laid.  It made me sad really that this poor sap in his youth made such an ultimate choice and had no idea why.  Cuz it was cool, or like...whatever.  He had no bearing or sense of the impact that this choice would make on his life forever.  

Sure the world has become much more accepting about individuality but at what cost?  Now we have a generation of humans doing things just to do them.  Not connected to their choices in any real way, but you only get one, right?  A generation of vapid people showing off in drunken settings to pick up the opposite sex.  I for one would rather go fuck myself than a brainless, vacuous shell of a creature with no soul covered from head to toe with symbols void of substance.   

 

Moments of Clarity

Back in my day, people did what they say they would do.  You would tell another human being something and then, miraculously, you would do that thing.  Be it, show up when you'd say you would.  Or!  Surprisingly!  Do what you said you'd do.  Even if time had passed when you said it.  Even if something you deemed 'better' came along in the interim.  You would fucking say something and then take action in that department.  Is that called follow-through?  Fucking integrity?  Where has that gone?

People say things now.  People say a lot of things now.  There is no action.  There is no follow-through.  There is no "word" anymore.  There is just texting or messaging lame excuses that are so transparent it hurts and then nothing.  Then there is nothing.  I am a lost and forgotten fool in a sea of wandering minds and losers.  When I say I'm going to do something, I do it.  It's that simple.  Now, when things are said, buyer prepare to be tired and unaware that the person on the other end of things is immediately scheming words to somehow get out of the verbal contract made.  That's it though.  It's a verbal fucking contract.  If you tell me something, I am going to believe you.  Does that make me a fucking imbecile to trust you or you a fucking dick face for speaking words untrue?  The latter, for sure.  I have been bailed on more times than I can count.  But it never used to be this way.  Before cell phones, texting, messaging, instant this and that...there was only you and another human telling each other things that were true.  If you were dying, you would still show up and the other party would send you the fuck home.  Now?  Well it's quite another story indeed.  Now, there is talk and agreements and contracts written in the stars that are never fulfilled.  Perhaps in the moment all is well, and then...well and then whatever.  I'm over it.  I will not be the person who teaches other people that it's ok to bail.  Fuck me for being so naive in this day and age that I trust you at your word.  Fuck me for arranging my schedule thusly to accommodate your needs.  Nah, fuck you and the lies you rode in on.

Manimals

I took a few steps back,
In the progress of my mind.
I thought it'd be quaint,
to regress, I thought I'd
be kind.

Pity leaves a sour taste,
What's there?  Some lesson,
Some reason, a waste?
A Waste.
It's of no consequence.
I felt a failure at conversing,
My muscles were kicking
And screaming, the sitch was
Tense.

He couldn't tell,
I faked it well.
A piece, the piece that I trapped,
I could feel the drain,
Palpable was the collapse.

The Manimals are coming,
They're already here,
He, Him, They, it,
No matter my rejection,
He is near and he is no fit.

This is all, this is life,
No dress-ups, no resets,
I want the strife.
Between this and nothing,
I choose this;  Yet I am
remiss to trade integrity
for imitation.

Floundering, I knew my act,
I put it on, He ate it up,
I sacrificed my tact,
He couldn't get enough.

His eyes and mine hardly met,
He spoke much and said not,
I want someone to get,
What purposeless time is spent,
Talking much and saying little,
Is a worse fate for me then
Death.

L is for the way...

I watched the band file in and onto the stage.  I noticed that the guitar guy and the cello chick were acting awfully cozy on their stroll up the stairs to their night of cacophonous creative freedom.  Then as the band performed sound-check, an epiphany struck me as bold and soulful as the melodies themselves:

Love is simply the placement of a man and a woman in proximity to one another for an extended period of time.    

Think about that statement and find fault.  It sounds pragmatic and a tad rigid but so full of truth it hurts my heart to admit it.  Would the guitar guy and cello chick have ever found each other otherwise?  They were random musicians, selected for their talent.  They would have never knew the other existed if not for this random placement.  Then on stage, they were saddled in space and time near each other and voila!  Love springs eternal.  Or at least until the band dismembers.  If a man and woman spend enough time together in close quarters...attraction begins and love grows.  Whether that shit lasts is another topic altogether.

I met an interesting man on a bus.  After sharing my findings with him, he brought up the theory of sparks.  You know those things you're suppose to feel when being with another?  I guess it's been a while.  I remember laying on my floor, reading song lyrics with butterflies in my stomach;  Writing poetry and having hope.  Does aging beget a coldness that tends to taint every endeavor?  Perhaps sparks are for the young.  Perhaps I'm using growing up as an excuse to be fearful.  I miss the zeal I use to feel when waking up in the morn and wondering what the day would bring...what forms of love I'd fall in that day.  A deep pervading sadness follow my decisions as of late as I still haven't found what I'm looking for.  Doesn't seem fair really, to be granted this precious time and waste it lost in feeling.

I once thought love was music.  You could be caught up in daily life and then a song comes on that physically moves your bones.  Almost as though an unspeakable depth connects without your conscious awareness and connects you to the present.  Is that the spark, my bus-man was referring to?  I think so.  I long for that back.  I had it once but forgot where I put it.    

In My Day

When people reminisce about their childhood, they often refer to it as "My Day."  I believe this is a result of our most selfish time.  As children we are nothing but leeches on society and our families.  We suckle at our parents feet, whining and taking and giving virtually nothing back to the world until we grow into the roles society has created for us.  We add very little to the world during this time and yet our version of ourselves and the world we create are in fact the most important.  This is the time where we become ourselves.  Some of us become better.  Some of us grow and evolve and give back to others.  Some of us just become taller assholes.

Today I was witness to parenthood failure.  In my day, I was taught to respect people and their things.  People love themselves and their things so, this always made sense to me.  Some parents are not teaching their children this very integral lesson.  I watched as a mother shopped while her three children roamed a very busy aisle freely.  By freely, I mean the mother was so engrossed in her shopping that she ignored the fact that one little brat was removing product from the shelves and throwing it under the shelving, another was stabbing holes in boxes with a ten inch galvanized nail and the smallest of the little twerps was running in circles in the middle of the aisle.  Three kids can be a handful.  Especially with an inattentive mother that either gives no fucks, or is so overwhelmed with her life choices that she can't escape her brain long enough to manage her offspring.  

The chaos went on for some time until I had had enough of the one little bastard, gouging holes in things.  Politely yet sternly I said, "Please stop doing that."  It was crisp but by no means rude.  In my brain I thought, 'There.  I just helped out that poor overwhelmed mom deal with her shitty kids doing shitty things.'  

I was mistaken.

She comes barreling over to me and says, "You need to work on your people skills.  You. Have. Upset. My. Son." 

"He should be upset.  I caught him doing something he shouldn't have been and he got in trouble."  I said matter-of-factly.  Clearly her 'Son', was not accustom to being told no.  She decided to take this simple exchange way too far as she screeched up and down the aisle about how upset her son was and how she was going to the manager...you know, the nonsensical emotional stylings of someone clearly in the wrong but unwilling to sacrifice their ego for a moment to admit it.  She started to get all puffy and red in the face.  Another woman came up and attempted to ask me a question while the rant went on when the unstable lady started in on the other guest!  Then the two customers began a screaming match at one another, about nothing, for some time.  It was nuts.  The lady with the now traumatized children...although, I bet they see this shit once a week, stormed off.  Later I found out she found a manager and bawled like a petulant child, demanding an apology.  

So apart from the truly psycho people who decide to procreate, I feel very strongly that the majority of people are waiting to be offended.  Like, they are hanging on every word, every crooked look, hoping for the opportunity to pounce on someone and spread their vitriol like peanut butter on bread.  So quick to anger we all seem to be.  So quick to defense.  So quick to emotion.  If my mom ever caught me doing what those kids were up to, discipline would have come my way.  Not unnecessary scolding, but I would have learned right then and there that wrecking someone else's stuff was not cool.  This woman was teaching her kids that if you kick and scream and cry enough, you'll get...I don't know, something?  I don't know if she was having a bad day, needed some validation, or knew deep down that she was a shitty mother raising shitty kids and doing a shitty job.  Furthermore, I shouldn't have been the one who saw her childs actions as going to far and put a stop to it.  That was her fucking job and she failed.  Now her shitty kids will grow up to be shitty adults and commit the same act of cruelty on their own shitty brood.  The circle of shitty life.

Conversations of the Disillusioned and Empty

I am looking for my pod.  I've been told by people much smarter than I, that this will never come to pass.  My pod will be a few random loners I manage to piece together through a painstaking vetting process of pain and passing of time.  I attempt to punch through my comfort wall and do things foreign and scary to me.  That's life, right?  Tonight I went to a 'Graffiti Collective.'  'Twas a mishmash of artists, musicians, drugged out dopes.  I am drawn to the artistic.  Knowing what I know about artists, for I once was one, I should know better than to enter my energy into such outings.  I can't help myself.

Convo #1:

"I could do acid everyday and forever," says half in the bag corn-rowed chick, "Like, seriously...every fucking day."

"You could micro-dose," says random dude slowly being eaten by couch.

"I know, but then the micro would quickly turn into a full and then I would just be fucked."

This went on for some time.  I feel my IQ dipping so I won't continue further.

Where are my people?  Are all of the thirty-somethings married off, having babies and boring?  Needless to say I left fucking early after chugging two pity beers and feeling sorry for the state of the world.  Expanding your brain can come from more that saturating your body with chemicals.  It can come from within.  If you let it.  We are obsessed with the now, that nothing of gravity is given its due time.  I fear I will always be the one looking in from out, with greasy hands, tainted glass, and a sadness that permeates it all.