she looked at me like i was crazy.

i should have known then. she would never love me like i wanted. so i asked this girl out. sort of. i was drunk and asked for her number, she gave it hesitantly. a few days later i call. i get the machine.. "..so there's this place i heard of, on south water st. they do thursday night swing dancing, it could be fun. if you're interested give me a call, ###-####. thanks." i don't know why i said 'thanks'. i think a combination of nervousness and the habit of ending machine recordings with "..give me a call back, thanks!" so now i just thank people for listening to my awkward recordings by default. she didn't call. thank god.

chameleon

sometimes we find we've been so many different people that we forget the reasons behind the things we do.

fall cloud, fall

all this planning, all that trouble, trying and hoping and risking it all. only to find that she doesn't even care. just another person she'd rather forget with the past. of all the things i've had to do in my life, of all the thing i've had no control, this one i wish i wasn't blamed for. i don't think this thing i did was wrong, but she'll have me think otherwise. despite the fact that i came back, every reply she makes could just as easily be followed with,
"YOU ASSHOLE, YOU FUCKING LEFT!"

it's true.

can i tell you a secret?

it all blurred into one meaningless orgasm. i was ready to give up because of the lack of meaning. everything since i left has been a sort of afterlife. afterlives probably have less meaning than actual lives, only you can't take them away. i've been going crazy. i think it has to do with sex. binge and purge. never in moderation. we can't go back to who we were exactly, we just take something from it with us. we like to think there are certain things we can't lose. i lost it. fuck up. i've been watching walls fall in. just sitting and watching, not doing anything about it. i was unhappy, but everything was better.

hedonist despite.

he's likely to never know the pain of masturbating when the one you love is, has, or soon will be making love to another. it's a horrible feeling. it's something he'll miss out on. predatorial habits evade some, some avoid them on purpose. some lives are like flowers, preserved in a greenhouse growing to perfection, allowed to die of old age. we never know more than what we've experienced. people die for less.

pretty bitter

when i think of love these days, not much good comes to mind. i guess i'm pretty fucked up. though i know this doesn't make me special or rare. it seems to be common these days. expecting things to end. best case scenario, one person will be glad that it's over. now when i talk, i'm lucky if i don't say something horribly insulting or humiliating. i should be happy to just get out a good "hi" with a fake smile. they should be happy to get it. they don't even know what's going on in my head. love is what happens when we can't tolerate existence as it is, lonely and indifferent. love is a reaching outwards. love is a cake with two people holding hands. love is something to be admired. to love someone and be loved without knowing what love is, this is naive, this is lucky. i have forgotten how to love and yet, this assumes i have loved in the past and that it can be learned again. as if love is something that comes and goes. more often going. coming only as a reminder that it will go away. one day we will be without it again.

she explained and justified, but it still seemed so irrational.

she came up to me while i was reading alone. she looked and acted a little crazy, like she was seriously stoned. she asked if she could join me. i said sure, after all, i was there to meet people: i went to a coffee shop, ordered a drink, sat against the wall by myself with my head in a book, to meet people. so this girl was sitting across from me now. i don't remember thinking her ugly or pretty initially, but definitely strung out. this became more apparent as her words and personality exposed themselves to me. she said something, then i said something, then she mentioned she was in a band. what kind of band, i asked. rock, she said, as if there were infinite other kinds of bands she could be involved with. then she mentioned some musicians, one i'd heard of, one i hadn't. she asked me if i'd like to come back to her place and listen to music. i hesitated, but ultimately agreed considering the lack of harm that could come from it and maybe she'd get me high.

so we get to her apartment which is surprisingly nice. spacious or empty, depending on how you look at it. she had a keyboard in the middle of her living room and not much else. it should be noted that on the walk over she explained her name and the names of her band members. her name is artemis, or will be once she has it legally changed from candice. her band members follow suit with names of various greek gods. so she put on some music by some chick who sounded like she was trying too hard to be lou reed. because i noticed this, i mentioned lou reed and she got all excited. it seemed like she had to be on something. so since the keyboard was there and she said she was in a band, i asked her to play something. she didn't hesitate to oblige. she played the massive keyboard sitting like an elephant in the empty room and sang. she could play the keyboard, for what it's worth, but the singing left much to be desired. inbetween songs she got up to blow her nose and did so facing the door to the balcony, away from me. cocaine, i thought. i bet she's on cocaine and faced away in fear her nose would bleed. she sat back down next to me on the couch. i wondered if she was trying to seduce me. if this was all about some nympho- adventure. she asked me if i had a girlfriend. i said no. good, she said. then she showed me her band's website and some books. it's around this time i realized her shirt was transparent, exposing her entire upper torso except the small area concealed by her bra.

we went back into the living room and sat next to each other on the couch. there was a feeling that something was about to happen. a feeling like something had to happen. just then, something did happen. her phone rang. "come on up," she said. it was a friend of hers. he came in carrying a small plastic bag. he set it down on the floor next to a chess board which was apparently already set up. we introduced ourselves like gentlemen. his name was not that of a greek god. his name was matt. matt and artemis almost immediately sat down on the floor and began a game of speed chess as if it was all they ever did together. as if it was understood that this is what would happen. they played a fifteen min. game, which was over in 5 min. because artemis lost. then i said i should probably go. but she wouldn't let me leave without hearing her favorite poems which she performed in front of matt and i. there were three and while they contained nice words and explicit content alluding to intercourse and misconceptions of love, they were typical. i walked to the coffee shop and sat down, hoping to meet someone. no one else approached me that day. no one else came close.

i just want to buy a car and not feel like a sucker.

with my world view this is probably impossible.

15,000
15,500
16,000
no? eh?
16,800?!?
oh. jez.
14,200?
please?

i never liked sex...

i never liked sex as much as being able to have it whenever i wanted.

i was exactly who i wanted to be and then who i wanted to be changed.

in college, you study some, go to parties, try to get laid and whatnot. experiment with drugs, do the college thing. you try to do the things you saw in the movies, on tv, the things people expect you to do. you try not to disappoint. the world is a frightening place when you don't know what is expected of you. all our lives we know exactly what they expect of us. they tell us through their stories, through various media, in the way they represent us and teach us and make subtle suggestions. we are entirely familiar with what they want from us. but what do we want of ourselves?

make love like a texas chainsaw.

taking yourself seriously is what being an adult is all about. it seems so clear now that all our education is in order for us to become comfortable at the idea of sacrificing our lives for something considered productive. happiness is power; having control over your perceived world. control over outcomes. godliness. a smarter person would have reason behind every action, or at least be able to justify it.

my answer to everything uncomfortable: run away.

92 colors was tempting, but i settled for 48.

they're not much for motivating, more for demotivating. sometimes i think this world cultivates a certain amount of insanity with its constant buzzing and flashing. sometimes i wish everything would stop for a second or two. sometimes i wish i could stop the things i do that make things worse. if i do leave here, i wont ever return. people don't pay attention to most colors anyways, it's just something they're used to.

casual day.

sometimes i like to get dressed up to go to work, just to pretend i have a job that requires me to be dressed any sort of way. every decision i have made in my life was based on blind curiosity. aimless and thoughtless discoveries only leave you an observer of an indifferent world that you have little to no effect on.

looking for something to eat in the medicine cabinet.

thinking back on the best of the past few years, you cringe a little. giving a small awkward chuckle, for yourself, since no one's around. the only people who talk to you anymore are strangers and you never say the right thing back. though you never realize it until they're gone. with just the right amount of idiocy to function on the same level as everyone else. realizing you don't fit your own standard of normal, not knowing if anyone else does. acknowledging an amount of it has to be the everpresence of self-dillusion. think about the people who think they're good enough, or better, more worthy than everyone else they've ever met. rich kids think the world owes them. we're all living in a world that doesn't quite fit. like a really bad puzzle with all the pieces dented and torn. it's not even supposed to make a picture. the contest is only to see how much of it you can make fit right, or at least think you made fit right.

you're gorgeous hon, don't worry about it.

so i sat there all morning, i hadn't eaten. it was about 11:30. i wasn't really doing any work, there wasn't any work to be done really. so i went out to lunch. i told the girl who works with me i was leaving, not that i had to, or that i had said anything else to her all day. just to say something. walking down the street at lunch hour, you see a lot of people. different kinds of people. business people, non-business people, weird people, ordinary people. i walked by a lot of these kinds of people on my way to get food. i saw two girls, one of them was stopped, looking at herself in the mirror, like she was fixing her hair. "you're gorgeous hon, don't worry about it," i said. i don't know why i said it, i normally am not so forward and outgoing. she just looked at me and awkwardly grinned as i walked by. i mumbled "it's cool" kind of as an awkward default statement. i don't know why i said it, it's like it came out of my mouth as the thought entered my head. i don't know why i said it, and i don't know why it bothered me for the rest of the day. also, i haven't shaved in about a week. so i'm looking pretty grizzly. i don't know what that has to do with any of this. but it should be noted. i don't put a razor to my face without motivation.

it's standard.

keep your standards and "the way things are". i want to know a good reason. a reason to do things like you do. one day i stopped having fun at parties and bars and just doing things in general. things seemed to change around me, even though i knew i was someone different. someone who no longer wanted the things people around me want. none of it. searching for an example of a life i consider worth living, not only tinkering.

"you have a blessed day, mam."

she only said it when she was really pissed at someone. they often said, "you too," with a scowl on their face. our memories of people become caricatures over time. it is no wonder we have love affairs with the past. we only remember the parts of their personalities that stood out. it seems like such a cartoon when we think back. like everything had meaning and purpose, not like now at all.

some people want to have nothing when they die:
having money is not happiness, maybe spending it is. maybe just not enough.

you should have tried harder.

some things are easy to say without considering context or pretty much anything it involves. most people may agree, even you may agree, but it doesn't change the result. not counting the losses, just pick up and move on. go where they smile and mean it. don't forget to zip your fly. the pretty ones are where you want to be.

he sits there, all ass-wise and sure, and yet..

he's never fought for anything in his whole life.

maybe he would have killed me.

maybe that guy would have killed me if the couple didn't happen to walk through the parking lot just then. or maybe he would have just pestered me until i got irritated and went in my car, maybe then he would have tried to use force. maybe i could have reasoned with him and told him i was a really nice guy and that he shouldn't do anything to hurt me, maybe that would have worked. or maybe i could have told him that i didn't care if he hurt me, that it wouldn't make him any richer and that we're all just suffering through these lives together, maybe that would have made him think twice about things. maybe he had a knife and just would have threatened me some. or maybe he would have stabbed me somewhere so i would be injured but still live. or maybe we would have had some sort of fist fight there in the parking lot. not that any of this matters, because that couple happened to walk by just then, and he left.