"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once." 

--From Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37) 

Hamlet was my nigga!

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, 
That I, ... 
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words

wistful thinking

there is a darkness in my head
surrounding your light
it is closing in on you

soon you will be gone 

baa baa white sheep

(A) First, recommend to me:
1. a movie:
2. a book:
3. a musical artist, song, or album:
(B) Tell me your favorite episode of the Simpsons. If you don't have one stop reading my journal, go away, and never make contact with me again you cultureless human void.
(C) Ask me something you want me to be devastatingly honest about. 

"it's a beautiful beautiful beautiful day, and the sun is still shinning shinning shinning shinning over the James"

I've had a lot on my mind lately, and I think I've been using certain vices to alleviate the pressure that builds in my heart from doing exactly what I am supposed to do. There's always been this instinct, in my mind, I guess, to do the wrong thing. Not bad things, or evil things, just the opposite of the right thing. Play with my friends instead of do homework. Skate instead of study. Call out instead of go to work. Go to Canada for breakfast. Buy a guitar instead of pay off my credit cards. Get tattooed and let my insurance lapse. Fuck all, do the wrong thing. I don't really know where it came from. Most of my family is very grounded. My ancestors were all working class, blue collar folks who did their bid and made good lives for themselves and their families. In these uncertain times, I sometimes wish a bit of that had found its way into my DNA instead of this irrepressible wild streak that continues to send me astray. I'm a real "fly by the seat of my pants kind of guy" (to paraphrase Julia Roberts) and it will almost certainly guarantee me a more difficult life than I could have, should I ever decide to buckle down.

I work part time, granted, it is at two jobs, six days a week, but still... I make pretty good money, but I'm not really all that up on what it costs to actually live in the world around here. I could never afford a house, I barely have a car. My motorcycle is still in pieces. I can't afford to get my dog to the vet. I'm really a mess. Yet I've won and lost more money gambling in the last month than I make in that period of time. It's not even compulsive, I just keep having the dough to blow. Usually I win, but when I take those winnings to pay off my last bit of credit card debt, or the monthly loan payment, there's no satisfaction there. I'd rather take it to the next poker table and see what else I can make of it.
I am a damn good poker player, but I think I have to slow down. All of this may be indicators of a problem looming on the horizon.

The worst thing lately, is something else that's been dwelling on my mind since the end of the summer. Did I make the right decision regarding my relationship with Lauren? There is a great debate raging between my head and my heart. My head is the honest one, realizing that all I want from her is a romance and that anything else is gonna involve a lot of me trying to shape all our time together one way. And heartache every time I have to accept that she doesn't want that at all. Then my heart is the more quixotic one. She's a great girl, attractive, intelligent, talented. Fun to be with, and she likes me too. But it overlooks the nature of those feelings. She likes me as a friend. We tried the other thing and she decided she didn't want it. So I am relegated to second tier, relationship wise. Her reasons are valid, though they range from goofy to accurate to downright insulting. So my heart says labor on, wait her out, she's just young and afraid. My brain knows better. Leave it alone, she made up her mind, move on. Better off not mixing things up in that area. 
And there are other options...

But that's for another time.

In any case, I don't know what to do about her and I. And I'm not so sure I'm ready for the police academy, should some miracle happen and they take me. So I need to work that much harder at the gym. And I'm still very bad at being a writer, so that dream is on a respirator in the same hospital room as the musician thing, which actually has a feeding tube. And I keep getting farther and farther away from my childhood, which is a good, natural thing, but makes me sad none the less.

Let's try some extemporaneous Thanatopsis/shite.

channel 9

in a mixed media dream,
easeled on steel bones, exist
wax paper documents behind a shield of
cat's eye marbles.
the constitution of the republic of fear;
signed by each and every childish soul.

we are waiting out the floundering fathers.
expecting a sequel to an
unfinished work. whistling the tune
of a demon piper, leading us down
the mountain trail around bends of shame,
through caves littered with dead
potential.

finally reaching the bottom, we close our
eyes in a last ditch effort to ignore
the fact that every one of us loses this world.
work. word.
dying is not un-living is not burying is not loss.
living is not un-dying is not carrying on is not winning.
each is the cool side of the other's blanket.

invite no fear.

11.9.04
manic 

I am much better employed from every point of view, when I live solely for my own satisfaction, than when I begin to worry about the world. The world frightens me, and a frightened man is no good for anything. ~George Gissing

I've felt a bit of its sting before, but I've always assumed we would pull through ok. Today, however, I am not so confident. I am truly ashamed to be an American today.

awesome with an "E"

so here I am, 30 years old, singing hardcore songs and mashing it up to OpIvy when along comes this b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l day, smack dab in the middle of dreary old autumn. it's a spring day, and I'm fairly convinced it's just for me. so I drag my old bag of bones out to the field this morning and play some football with the boys. out-f'ing-standing. I still can't run, but my recovery time in between plays is one of the best on the field. I throw for one touchdown and catch another. we play for just under an hour, my team winning by one score. beautiful day marching on. I didn't escape unscathed, my knee and prolly my back are going to be screaming at me in the morning, but today was worth it.

home for breakfast. proving everything is better with bacon, I have some for my meal and the day gets even nicer. sun shinning, cool breeze blowing. all this plus the natural multi-cultural display that is the turning leaves. i wait around for the phone call so I can go bike riding, something I had agreed to pre-football. I knew I wasn't gonna make that 15 mile run from Washington's Crossing to New Hope, so I convinced the lady friend that Mercer Park would be a suitable alternative, and boy was it. Gloriousness to the left and right, more sun, more breeze, more colors. Today was the exact opposite of a sensory deprivation tank.

so we're heading home and I have a hankering for chicken, rice, stuffing, gravy. my favorite old school dinner. we are in agreement that food is of the order, so it's to the supermarket. after spending more time than one should ever spend in one store looking for gravy, we make for home with the goods. i whip up a fantastic meal. we scarf, then decide that pumpkin pie might just be the best way to finish everything up. I casually mention that for all the things they do wrong, Denny's has some kick-ass pumpkin pie. we make for bordentown and purchase a whole pie, which they spitefully give to us frozen. home again, after twenty minutes baking it is at least thawed enough to eat, so we partake of dessert.

some lounging around, a kindly back rub for yours truly, the king of new found aches and pains. she's off to study. I piddle around here. Soon it's off to shower all the remnants of the day off. Then some light reading and bed. Days like today make a man glad to be alive. Part of me wants to say it's sad to see it end, but if it didn't, how would I have my next adventure?


coda: oh, yeah. I hit all my picks, plus the GIANTS BEAT THE VIKINGS!