a love story

name game

i have this habit of cataloging people, arranging them in categories, flows, color codes and equations in an attempt to statistically resolve heartache, or something like it. for example: if alice plus billy was divided by kelly, does billy therefore equal bad news bears? answer: statement holds true if and only if alice was less than or equal to kelly. i've been collecting statistics on names for a while, trying to figure out the common denominator to people in my life. these are my conclusions thus far:

alan's are smooth criminals.
ashley's will be your friend for life.
dan's are strung out dreamers.
davids are upstanding, sometimes too much so. davy's are cool, and beware of dave's.
emily's will invariably remind you of your mother.
jill's have sloping noses and high cheekbones.
josh's are mentally unstable, but lots of fun.
lauren's are all-american, and lots of fun.
martha's thrive in winter.
meghan's have long brunette hair.
michael's are collected, expedient, and have a dry sense of humor. mike's are significantly wackier.
molly's you always want to love.
reed's have good posture.
ryan's will always be just friends, but gawd do they make you smile.
tim's are troublemakers.

and carol? i've only known one other carol in my life, and we both were quietly kooky.

love bites

sometimes the shape of, uh, convenient bruising can be a good point of departure for temporary tattoos.

i forgot to mention last time that the area outside my apartment complex has been smelling of coriander lately--one of my favorite spices.

this needs to persist on the internet

via discovermagazine.com

celebrity men who redefine normative conceptions of sexy

1) justin timberlake


2) steve buscemi


3) the reid brothers


true story: i once bought the music video of 'happy when it rains' for the express purpose of watching jim reid touch himself, his brother, and his microphone in slow, pixellated motion.

and hear his glorious voice, sing

every three months or so a certain someone from past calls me up and while i not without some guilt dance around the subject of emotional investment, i find myself spinning the same record for the next couple of days in, mmm, not exactly his memory, but the memory of every troubled dharma bum from the deep south that ever existed. the record is 'prayer of death', by entrance. at its best it reminds me of watching the sunset from a mountaintop overlooking lake austin as lights in the opposite hills quietly flickered on like fireflies. leaning my head against yours, talking about nothing at all, feeling something wild in the wind enter through my face and into somewhere deeper than my bones. i wonder what my fellow angelenos think of me when, windows rolled down, i fly down the highway with my speakers avowing, "i want to die without no fear".



p.s. today is the anniversary of something whose meaning for me has been an incredible work in progress.

bread

i am taking the night off to myself. for the first time in a while, actually. possible courses of action involve: cleaning my room, watching art 21, watching andrei tarkovsky, reading dickens, reading camus, graphiting, painting, doing my dishes, and/or lying around senseless listening to my bloody valentine and pretending i am a thousands-year-old mummy plotting the moment in which i throw off my embalming linens and make a triumphant return to the stage.

watch for a somewhat solidified life update after monday.

drawings made in the dark

stumbled into a church foyer at 9:00pm drunk last night, only to discover a few things during the inebriated piano playing that ensued:

1. my fingers are woefully out of practice
2. chopin etudes require absolute sobriety
3. the muscles in my hands are beginning to change from my current practice of stop-motion animating all day, every day. not sure how i feel about that. i think i would rather be able to play the piano.

notes on estrangement

two truths and a lie

tomorrow will be a doozy. prepare yourselves.

the last word

me: [to therapist] so, i think i'm really weirded out by this current relationship because it doesn't involve drug problems, sexual perversion or mutual co-dependency.

thought

that edward scissorhands in spanish would be 'eduardo tijeramanos'. awesome? yes. i think i would be carola grapadoradedos.

from the memoir

Wes. Oh Wes. Drove a fucking El Camino that handled curves with grace and verve. I watched in amusement as my second-in-command tried to get in his pants the entire year. It was understandable. He had perfect golden curls falling down to his shoulder and a devil-may-care attitude coupled with the stoicism of the Hemingway volumes he pored over while playing hooky behind the dumpsters. At night, he sat on top of his roof playing his didgeridoo. One time, he picked up and left school for a week to do heroin in Mexico. The other time, he drove out West searching for peyote--only God knows how far he went before the delirium of the drive took over and he gave up on the mythical drug. Imagine my surprise when he asked me one day to tutor him in Government. We had nothing in common except a love of old books and, for now, his goddamn graduation requirement. I think he didn't even need me there, he just wanted some company. He would tell me about nights spent sneaking wine into movie theaters, picking fights, and smooth-talking girls under the open canopy of a warm Texas night while I sat quietly and nodded, every now and then directing his pencil to the correct multiple choice answer. All of a sudden, he turned to face me with a look of absolute curiosity and bewilderment, asking, "What do you do on Friday nights?". I couldn't answer. I was a recluse. I played loud music and staged my own photo shoots. I could only dream of breaking out of my house and into the world he described. I could voice none of this to him. He shrugged, closed his book and bought me a delicious tuna sandwich before driving me home. When graduation neared, I gave him my yearbook in hopes that he would write something incredibly profound and life-changing. The only thing he wrote was, "We graduated, and that's cool, right?". The last I heard, he had shaved his head, and joined the Marines. He is set to marry an American girl he met while stationed in Japan.