A new place called home.

I've moved. If you care to read any of the shit I'll continue to write, go here:

http://amotherfuckingwerewolf.tumblr.com/

Diabolik Vs. Fantomas

When I was a kid, my favorite superheroes were The Phantom and The Shadow. Something about the - then unknown - world of dark 20's-40's quasi-noir/pulp quality dragged me in and struck a real chord with me. I got Doc Savage and Alan Quartermaine, too but not in the same way. Those two were ripped muscle men with a Hemingway style, "Great White Hunter" quality - which I didn't understand when I was 7 - which made it less exciting. None of that was even possible in my world, in my life. Sure, The Shadow spent time in the far East, and the Phantom spent time in the Amazon - both in their late teens/early adulthood, learning the ways of mystical religions and ancient teachings about the mind - but they lived and fought much more in the atmosphere that was real to me: the decay of the city.

I still have a soft spot for both of those 'Golden Age' heros, despite the awful films they produced in the 90's. But in the age of information, colliding with the obsessive nature of my own mind, I found two European characters who eclipse the depth and bizarre of either of the aforementioned heros. Granted, neither of these anti-heros can be considered good guys and - if anything - their both villains. However, they're the sort of villains you want to cheer on, the kind of villains you want to be drinking buddies with.

The first is Fantomas, a cryptic, French pulp novel protagonist. Through disguises and other strange trickery, Fantomas is able to damn near bring all of France kneeling before him and seemingly for little more reason than that he enjoys it as a joke. Over 35 Fantomas books have been written, several films, and a black and white tv series. Given his amoral and extremely dark view of the world and humanity, I remain continually puzzled how he was so famous in France (and how he remains fairly unknown in the US.)

The second comes from Italy in the 1960's. Diabolik is the brainchild of two sisters, who apparently loved spy stories. He is - again - an anti-hero type who, with the help of his assistant, Eva, steals a bunch of money and valuables from rich people; but all in the name of making himself rich, there is no "Robin Hood" mentality here. The comics, unfortunately, haven't been translated into english (a horrible trend that needs to be remedied, we'll have to start with Diabolik, Baba Yaga, Dylan Dog, and anything Alejandro Jodorowski ever wrote), but from what I've seen they involve a compelling amount of knocking people out with rags soaked in Chloroform, driving around while looking bad-ass, and having sex on huge piles of money - it's pretty much everything cool in the world ever. In 1968, Mario Bava turned the comic book into one of the greatest examples of both the Psychedelic Spy and the 60's Euro-Trash genres ever produced. It also spawned a great episode of MST3K, but don't let that ruin the fact that this movie is pure fucking gold.

The Vanguard is boredom//with plans for infection.

The plague is already here. Specifically within the post-modern context, it's easy to realize just how empty the space we inhabit really is; full of all the junk, clutter, noise, and distraction. We're meant to see nothing as it really is and in return we get clever packaging and promises of a whole new you. Although the bargain really is about you shutting the fuck up and ignoring the fact that we live in a pre-fab, sterile world that's been made so safe and clean that anything even remotely dangerous or true eventually becomes just another market. It's all been said much more clearly by much better writers, but again: within the post-modern context this is exactly what I feel. This is what comes pouring out when ink hits paper, or fingers hit keys.

------

And then it seems that I've become so goddamn frustrated that I just want to erase everything I've ever fucking written and replace it with, "fuck this." As though that will help me feel better. Not to say that a small act of destruction of my own creation may not be needed, but replacing anything with such a void and depthless expression merely veils the fact that the world hurts. Being in the world hurts me. I hurt when I can't express how I truly feel. I hurt because the world seems like a sick fucking joke played on all of us. Those who've really got it figured out end up laughing with the cruel joke, at their own expense, because that seems the best way to cope. So I fight for some kind of reason to not give up amongst the bullshit, within the vortex, outside of the abyss. Who knows, maybe my humanity is dying, but shit is starting to look more humorous as the days go on; but it takes a sick kind of mind to find this decay and excrement funny. The smell of rot can be beautiful, after all flowers emit gorgeous scents as they break down. Your love of daisies or lilacs or roses or orchids is a love of decomposing organic matter. There is an almost nihilistic beauty in this fact.

Fuck Art 2.0

I had some shading on the face problems, these are to be resolved once it all dries.

tiny keyboard

If I could make myself forget, through this sea of misery and self loathing, just how alone I feel most of the time - well then you might not want to ever say another word to me. The brief moments of actul and realized humanity make for an interesting little speed bump on this road to ruin. Don't kid yourself, there is no shocking sefl-discovery or triumphant actualization here; only the cold. Only the harsh and cruel moments of real life and the horror left in their wake.
So that leaves me here, cold from the sweat and the rain, with heavy breathing and an ego that's more than a little confused. I suppose it's all par for the course, but I'd totally be lying.to myself if I thought that what is will remain and what isn't won't rear it's fucking ugly head, as it has a thousand times over. So, what I really mean to say is that I'm sorry. Let me say that again: I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the fact that I won't make you feel better - I'll much sooner make you feel worse. I'm sorry that the earth is round. I'm sorry that you - none of you - are at the center of this annoying little Universe and lives of all the assholes contained therein. I'm sorry for all the assholes contained therein. I'm sorry for martyr complexes and the redundancy in which they are acted upon. I'm sorry that I stopped giving a shit five minutes ago, and I'm sorry if I come across as a dick. The honest and total truth about it all is simply that the world makes zero sense at all and I feel like a fool standing here, dick in hand, hoping it may open up to me for a mere moment; to have a true communion. But you can't be close to something which tells you a new lie every second of every day. It's a foolish venture to crawl into bed with a sociopath. And it's pointless to try to change a rock into air.

Trauma.

Every time I'm on the verge of something profound, I end up throwing it all away for comfort and safety. If I could ask myself a million questions and expect honest answers I'd start with, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" regarding just about all of my life choices. I'm not trying to be negative, just honest. It's not as though some drastic thing has effected me and I stand at a crossroads trying to make the right decision and knowing all the wrong roads I've gone down. No, this is more about a challenge to myself.

Don't get pulled back down, into nothing. I stand at the edge of the Abyss and spit - waiting to see how long it takes to hear it hit the bottom. Or, that's what I tell myself. If I were to crawl out of the empty, primordial void and walk away whole then I'd be doing well. If I were to crawl out with a fierce contempt and brash will, well then I'd be doing very well. What fear strikes out is that of a battle for survival in the deep which brings me to the edge of nothing and I slip at the top. Crashing on the nothing below; black and vacant.

Fuck Art.

"Where did you come from?"

I came from midwestern, pentecostal christianity and bullheaded atheism.

I came from love and neglect; from joy and pain; from laughter and tears.

I came from the poor-house below the hill.

I came from the poor-house above of the hill.

I came from the greatest lie ever told.

I came from a forgotten history and an unknowable future.

I came from fear and regret.

I came from passion, rebellion, and resolve.

I came from the depths of doubt and self-loathing.

I came from a classical background with a rock and roll attitude.

I came from a struggle for dignity.

I came from below, and it is here I shall remain.

I came from a mistake of chemistry.

I came from one last hope; and it's dying breath.

I came from the end and then the beginning.

I came from history and it's aftermaths.

I came from civilization and it's discontents.

I came from barbarians and savages.

I came from the prairie and the moorland.

I came from feather and stone.

I came from a small town in a big city.

I came from somewhere inside.

Fuck.

I go back and forth between the feeling that melodrama is actually hugely important and that it is merely a symptom of such an atrocious form boredom. After all, is it wise to think of all the small and insignificant details as extremely important? Or, are those details better left as that, mere details. What of those events which come to you and change - even just briefly - the way you see the world? Your life? Yourself? Are these such grandiose events that we should treat them with semi-sacred reverence? Or maybe it's best to recognize them as the less than minor details that they will remain in the annals of history...

I'd like to propose a thought: in holding the lens that life is a joke (and a poor one, at that), I've become increasingly more convinced that life should be lived as if it were cosmically important. In the very least, this will keep things interesting; and in the very best, life may one day be important and worthwhile.

And then I remember that it's all been said before.

The door wouldn't lock.

And suddenly, I'm fucking 14 again. That really cool, more experienced and confident girl at the party picks me out. Sure, I'm funny and have a sharp wit, and I say what I mean and don't pull any punches about it. Right now, where I'm sitting in this illuminated room with a cool breeze coming in through the window, yeah - I'm fucking 28 folks. I've lived, I've cried, I've laughed - I'd like to think I've learned a thing or two - I've loved, and boy oh boy have I felt the embrace of a woman. So why do I suddenly feel like I'm 14?

Those beautiful eyes and passionate kiss.

Fuck me. Not in the, actually fuck me way, no this is a much bigger and complex issue. Well, maybe it is that issue because the middle of the story is the non-complex version of the story: the fuck me part.

How is it that there is nothing more intimidating than a beautiful, hilarious, intelligent, and brutally honest woman who wants me to drive her home because she's too drunk?? Why is it that I feel like an ass for being the person I know I am?

The road makes fools of us all. And here I am, sleeping alone in a big, empty bed. Dreaming of things that may never happen. Hoping for a tomorrow full of passion, vibrance and hope; thinking that it may all be a sick joke. Here I am, embracing that joke. Here I am, hoping that the joke ends up, just this once, with some unexpected and brilliant punchline; not the same old, unimaginative one dreamt up a long time ago by a person we'll never know. Here I am, waiting - not indignant or naively - for a joke that brings ruin to all we know and starts a whole new world. Words are supposed have power - and if they ever really have, then they should right fucking now.

What does it look like?

I often wonder about the soft spot right behind and above my eyes. Not quite the brow-line, but not centered right behind the iris. It often feels like my eyes are these "L" shaped monsters, with the bottom part of the "L" being what you can see, and the rest creeping up towards my brain like florescent light-blubs that have been molded to resemble hockey-sticks. This is where the pain lives; in these shriveled little tubes of membrane and goo. When I was in 3rd grade, I had a stress toy that was a rubber tube filled with sand. One day, in class, it popped all over my hands and inside of my open desk. Muddy sand got all over, as the rubber tube reverted to the size of a popped balloon; I stood there, not knowing what to do.

I think my eyes might pop in the same fashion; and I'll be left standing here, not knowing what he fuck to do. Still that child, I suppose, the anxiety and confusion never really went away. And as troubling as that sounds, I don't think it would work any other way. Unless that's just the fear talking...

to the end of the earth

If at any moment I were to collapse, under the weight of myself, or the whole fucking world, what would be left would be the husk of an empty threat. Vacant and empty in that way where it goes on forever, but a forever which cannot even begin to be navigated. Don't worry though, I'm not special, you too are filled with a void of space which is both infinite and nothing. Call it anti-matter. Call it a mathematical abstraction, seen only within the minds and on chalk-boards of abstract scientists. Or, call it the Abyss and wonder, with awe along with the philosophers and mystics, how we came to know a place of absolute nothingness. Wonder how this place of absolute nothingness came to know us, always.

Song and fucking dance.

When the voices rise up, in one unified chant, dictating in near inaudible tones those things which I can't understanding, on this day - on these days - time will cease to have any meaning. The veneer of to world will be chipped away and all things in space shall lose the context in which we have ever understood them. The apocalypse is funny that way. And life, well life is the greatest joke ever told, and we're always at the center of the punchline. Maybe it's like those jokes you would play on yourself as a lonely child. Anything for a brief moment of laughter and some reprieve from the numbing boredom.

An essay was once written, from an anthropological perspective, that we are continually re-living ancient religious rituals and rites in everyday society, as though this is something we cannot escape but also refuse to acknowledge. I wonder if the same could be said of the games and tricks we played as children; we continue to set these up and watch them unfold, if only for our own amusement. This may explain far too much.

I suppose, if we're unwilling to acknowledge that these patters continue to self-replicate, that we don't really need to be worried, as we can't tell their occurring. Maybe the best course of action is to just sit back, watch it all happen, and play the game. The same song and fucking dance, forever.

Obvious day of reflection.

A mere 28 years ago I burst forth into a world I had no choice in coming into, and I'm not exactly sure if I would have entered it so easily had I known what would be in store. I didn't choose to be born, but as long as I'm here I may as well kick a couple of ideas around. I recall the week of my birthday last year, writing a now vanished piece on the reflection of the past 27 years on my old blog. I'm not exactly sure what it said, but my fear is that it isn't too different than what I will write now. It's a shitty feeling, thinking that you're pretty much in the same spot you were at this time last year. It's not true, actually, but the internal feelings are much the same, despite the obviously contradictory evidence of where my life is now vs last year. Don't worry, I'm not feeling the need to reflect openly about all the differences that a year has produced, both overwhelming and subtle, just that no matter what I feel on the inside the outside is obviously different.

Where does that leave me then? It leaves me with another year of experiences, another year to look forward too, and a solidified reminder of how little I know. And I'd like to keep it that way, at least for a large number of years to follow. All the apathy, depression, anxiety, self-loathing, misanthropy, and confusion keep leading me towards one solitary conclusion: Through it all, to see the beauty, passion, love, and to embrace the negatives, isolation, and authentic fright in the world, all of this, will help both leave you whole and able to appreciate everything for what it is. At the very least, this is my hope.

Awkward?

Try as I might, to never be the one to fuck someone or be fucked by someone - we may call this trying to be human(e) - why does it often feel like I'm left crumpled in a pile on the dirty concrete floor of a basement? I'm gonna be shitting blood for a week and the internal chaos brought to the surface isn't as cathartic as one would hope. Never mind this state though, because it's only made worse by the fact that I have blood on my hands too. Well, I suppose that in this analogy, I'd have blood on my dick; but I don't really want to split hairs, and it's all just ugliness anyhow. Honestly, it's not even this severe, it just feels like it for no reason. And the imagery is pretty ripe, right? But I still can't shake that nauseous feeling in the depths of my being and it keeps getting in the way of my life.

The way in which a small amount of fabric hiding the damp and erect parts of the body, I had a dream solely about this the other night. There begins this feeling, when fabric meets fabric, brushing together and breath is heavy. A tinge of anticipation and heightened sense of smell, taste, and touch. More than any of that though, are those indescribable feelings that only come along for the ride here. They swell and dissipate the moment of cloth less contact, to make way for other, even less hard to describe sensations, but this may be as important. There is an inherit awkwardness that they carry. A sense of dread and passion, inhibited but only vaguely. It feels like a totally honest and pure moment; completely real in all ways. And there is no faking it, no synthesis for it, no simulation. That touch, it's fiery and brutal, and in the right situation, indicative of an honesty that can't be corrupted - at least not in the moment.

I don't know why it seems so damn important, but dreams are usually that way. There was a pure joy in that dream world; it was full of laughter and fun, full of passion and the anticipation of the other. It showed me how readily my mind is to move on, that what is holding me back, in this place of sorrow, regret, and self-doubt, doesn't even exists anymore if I will but release it. Armoring is something I've always done, and it's time to let it all go - not just the recent, but all the bullshit and fear, all the pain and lying to myself. The world may be a sick, grey, soulless place full of monsters and kings, but if beauty lives anywhere, it's inside. Past the guilt; past the hatred; past the depression. Freedom is in there, I just need to know where to look, I suppose.

E & T

What they tell you, it's all true. You really are alone in this cold, dark universe. But that's the point; the unknown silence of being alive. Sure, it isn't discussed much, but those voices that reach out to you in the midst of the barren night, they speak the truth. It's not about fear, it's not about depression or loneliness. It's about the realization that you, and only you, are responsible for your life; responsible for being isolated or not - and while it's not totally irrelevant, you are still alone, isolated or not. The fact is that no one will ever know you, not in the way that you know you. No one will ever come close to understanding, really understanding who you are and what you crave. A small amount of people may briefly peer in, but it will be rare and fleeting. Treat it with reverence.

So, I sit here alone. I sit here alone and wishing I wasn't. Don't take that as a plea for pity, that isn't what I'm looking for and you'd be completely missing the point. They do speak the truth, remember? I can't seem to, not from one paragraph to the next - let alone one day to the next. These letters feel clunky, oversized and no sense of their own power and strength. The words don't always flow out in the way I'd like them to, not with the bottleneck between my brain and this type you're currently reading..

xz

The more "connected" I am, the less connected I feel to myself. When I have something to pour myself into I feel generally better about the whole state of affairs that is the world; well maybe not better, but there is a greater sense of absurdity and humor there. When I have nothing to pour myself into, or, better yet, choose nothing, nothing can stop the flow of foul decay running through my mind. Murky with death and plague, fragments of the discarded, and a very specific rotting smell that wafts up and never leaves your nose. That familiar smell of organic matter having broken down to the point of liquid, sitting in the hot sun, becoming a solid again - fungus.

Temporary reprieves help pass the time, but many make me feel worse in the end, like more of a failure, more of an asshole, more isolated from myself. Sleep doesn't help anymore, when I can even catch it. And I know that this will all pass, but knowing that doesn't seem to help right now. Apparently, nothing seems to help right now. Yeah, not even this, as I had hoped it would. Putting things into words, for me, often merely solidifies how I'm feeling and makes it immediate. The realization of how you really feel can be a great thing, but if I already am aware, slapping it across my face does little to relieve the tension. So why do I do this to myself? Fuck.

cx

From the very pit of my stomach - sometimes it just creeps up - this sick, nauseated feeling. A mix of remorse, fear, panic, and pain; but what better way to spend a Tuesday night? About 1/3rd of the time I feel like a fraud, 1/6th is spent feeling like the victim of my own stupidity, another 1/3rd feeling like said idiot, and the final 1/6th feeling pretty ok, all things considered. That makes a whole number, right? Yes. But not a whole person, never a whole person, apparently.

The other night, asleep, I thought that the only way to save myself, yeah - save myself...? - was to stand up on my bed and grab something from on top of the bookshelf next to it. I awoke to find myself doing just that. Now, whatever it was I was looking for wasn't there. Sure, there are a couple of books up there, a pile of zines, and a few bottles of Jameson and Bacardi, but not the key to my own salvation. As I came out of my dream I damn near fell of my goddamn bed.

Is any of this meaningful? Maybe, because even in my fucking dreams I'm in need of saving. Even in my fucking imagination, there is someone who will come around and help me live my life to it's full potential. Let's face it: my psyche is fucked. Let's drink to that!

Come, watch my world crumble. Watch my sense of self-worth destroyed before your very eyes. Tickets are only $6, plus you get to see the ape-man; a creature so foul and primal that no gaze meets his eyes. Today only, we're also throwing in a comedic act featuring "The Professor," who will regale you with knowledge from across the library that you just don't give two fucks to know! One night only folks, step right up!

Sacrifice to the gods of passion.

What a fickle bitch. One day I want one thing, and the next something totally fucking different. I'm not intentionally making my life painfully stupid, but when that's all you know what the hell else are you going to do? Doesn't age, this one here. Well, not in an emotional or interpersonal way at the very least. He's got a few more lines in his hands, a few less hairs on his head everyday, and the back pain is unrelenting; but really he's no worse for the wear than anybody else. It's the child that hid behind when the lines started forming, as the tattoos scraped on, and as the awkwardness of youth faded a bit. I think he was under that tiny desk, next to all the other tiny desks sitting before the enormous black-board and the teacher with a frantic night life. Small enough that no one would catch on that he is still there; years have gone by. The cramping in his legs, the hunger in his little stomach are both far gone. He can't even feel those short legs and his stomach scarcely exists - shrunk down to the size of a marble. Something else has taken that hunger that no longer exists and the pain long forgotten.

No one came back for him. He was just playing a joke, hiding for fun, not trying to hurt anyone. It was a game, like we use to play with the neighbors: you'd end up hiding behind the dumpster, or around the house next door. But they always, always came to get you. No hiding spot was good enough to fool anyone for too long; aside from up those trees. He could climb up higher than anyone, and once he got there he would all but disappear, as skinny as he was. There would be one final call, after everyone had been caught, and he'd climb down proud that no one could get him. Finally, he'd get to be "it."

This wasn't like those other times, though. No one made a final call, like in the game, like all those times he played that game without telling anyone. Hiding in the grocery store, or hiding in the brush, waiting to be scolded for not being ready to leave, or cleaned up to eat supper. No one made any noise. The group just got up and left. He was playing a joke and no one even knew he was gone. No one noticed, for a long time.

He's still sitting there, but his waiting has changed. The rush from the success of the hide faintly lingered after the initial shock of no one coming to get him, coming to scold him. But even that is gone. What happens to a child you ignore for sixteen years? Who does he become, bitter and alone. Wanting you to love him so much, but pushing away because you didn't come at the right time. Pushing away because you, in your absence, ignored him; and maybe you didn't even know he was gone. Like I said, what a fickle bitch.

Tired, dead thoughts.

They rise from the dead you know, the shadows of feelings you once held dear. To be brutally honest, they never really die - and they always come back. You try and fucking try to lock that shit in a coffin and bury it deep within the damp earth. The black lumps of dirt sticking to everything, making the burial next to impossible; the dream that just won't die lying in wait for it's unmarked grave. Eventually, after much cussing and back that won't stop throbbing, you get the fucker buried nice and deep; and, while remnants of the feeling may remain, the painful truth is that even within the black clay and mud, the whole totality of the feeling has a beating heart, and the blood will never stop flowing.

It may take years, but clawing through that bargin-budget coffin top, hands caked with blood and rich earth - black tar dripping on every surface - it will break it's way from the shallow grave. No matter how fucking deep. A wise man once said, "You can't kill an idea," and the thought remains valid that, try as you might, you can never really destroy an idea once it's infected who you are - much less wipe it from the face of humanity. No matter how poor the idea, no matter how absurd, tedious, stupid, or irrational, you can not eliminate it from your life completely. The zombies walk, and they are coming for you, for me. Each and every one.

The idea already pulls at your heart, tugs at your soul, and burrows into your mind; but now it's returning for you; and destroy, or conquer, it will have you. It will have me. The idea is the last great virus. The thought is the last unknown. And the dream is the last, and only, thing which will never be fully destroyed.

And then everyone went home, safe and sound.

I feel like I'm starting all over again from nothing. Dust and water shall be my building blocks, or some shit like that. And I just don't have the fucking energy or drive some days to feel it out, to read the script and act like I give two fucks. Because maybe I don't. Because it feels like far too much is actually at stake to just dick around and see what fits; far too much is actually at stake to trust my life with it all. In a room full of happy people, I often feel like a fool. Why isn't that me? Why so many empty fucking houses have to be passed to acknowledge that we're one and the same?

A brief part of me doesn't want to care anymore, it want's to tell me to fuck it all and let things run their course. But the larger part of me isn't ok with that, and it's a fucking nightmare. My brain is literally swimming right now and I don't know what to say or do to make myself feel better about my own life. My own fucking life. I own my problems. I own their solutions. And, I own the fact that they are hard-pressed to get rid of.

Look out world, I've got a filthy mouth, a urgency in my heart, and no fucking clue what to do with it all. Look out me, the world will eat you, and your fucking heart, alive. Look out.

A bit from earlier this year...

I always want to say something so profound and striking; I always want to let the pent up frustration, anxiety, and stress come pouring out in the most powerful and insightful of words, sentences, paragraphs…

Would another “Manifesto,” written by a cynical, romantic, depressed, asshole be any use to anyone, ever? Do we really need another self-serving, self-righteous, dialectically monotonous tome, cluttering up zine shelf-space at a few info-shops across America; being read by three fucking people? What intense and important statement do you even have to make? The high cost of living art, when you can’t even seem to roll out of bed most days – good fucking luck, asshole.

Sit here, fucking sit here – don’t you goddamn move – sit here and think of what you would say to the whole world if they were listening, as a captive audience, right now? The long answer is that it would take way to long to say most of the shit, to get into it and dig around for a minute. Well, fuck, say you have a book that WILL get published and everyone on the whole earth will read it; what then?

Would it go something like this?

Dear Assholes,

Today it occurred to me that I don’t know what I think about the human race; about the dying planet; about why I do the things I do; or how I feel about my own life. This having been said, who the fuck do I think I am to tell anyone what to do? No one. In total, unrefined, and without additives: I am no one. Some fucking guy who just reads a lot. I see a lot of shit that makes me sad, more that makes me mad, and probably more that even that which only causes me to laugh in disbelief. I’ll take the role of the cosmic schmuck, and should way more than I do, but even with that – ya’ll are fucked.

Maybe a retreat into fiction is the answer, no direct, self-righteous confrontation there. No smug absoluteness. In fiction, I could be writing about all the great sex I want to have instead of feeling bad for all the mediocre sex I’m not having right now. In fiction, the highs are much higher and important than they are as another numb, useless part in the living, breathing script of my life. In fiction, I can do all the things I’m too afraid, too selfish, or totally unequipped to do. God, reality is fucking harsh.

Welcome to the Megamachine.

The things set out to destroy me one day may come around to save me the next; this realization came to me recently. Not one of those realizations wherein you've never considered such a concept before, but the sort where an thought that you've flirted with in the past comes rushing back as a fully actualized truth. Or, maybe it just fits right now. The problem with a truth of this sort is that it may not remain true for long - or that's what perspective might teach us; this being neither here nor there.

Several years ago, I started down a path of isolation, a path forged by panic and fear. Today I know that I needed that path for a variety of reasons at that given time; but now that path exists as a lazy way of living. The goals I set out to accomplish through that time have not come to fruition fully, but other seeds were planted that are taking shape, however small they might be. I know now that the clock has run it's course. I know now that the clock is running. All this to say, when will this truth become nightmare? Eb and flow, perhaps.

Through a small amount of events, today served as a great example of a great day. Certainly not the day I wish to live over and over, but it was damn near perfect for today. But the ever-present questions remain, and the goodness of the day seems to make that much harder - at least right now. I'm struck by the image of a hunter putting blood on a knife, freezing it, and putting it out in the snow, sticking up out of the ground. The idea is to wait for a wolf to smell the blood and come lick it off; the wolf ends up cutting it's own tongue on the knife. So much blood brings the wolf to a panic level blood lust; the universal condition of pain, desire, need, and fear. If I'm the wolf, who's knife is sticking out of the snow?

The Outer Temple.

It' feels like standing at the edge of some dark, unknowable chasm; I don't mean in some desperate, 'should I jump in,' sort of way. Something cracked, or snapped, or clicked, or got removed, added or edited. Freedom. Hope. Possibilities, that's the real issue. Getting caught up on passion, fine. Getting caught up on possibilities can kill a person. But here I am, merciless in the absurd humor and true depth of the situation: somehow, starting over again brought me here. This is the Invisible Kingdom.

Continuing problems remain regarding action and desire; reality and novelty. What the hell else am I going to do with myself, anyhow? In other ways, I feel like I'm clawing my way out of an unmarked grave; my eyes and ears are jammed full of thick dirt and my hands will never return to their original shade of tan. Just keep clawing, air is eventual.