Feel fear. Feel it rising the hackles up inside your mind like an insidious worm wriggling away beneath the hairs of your skin. Fear moves you, like heat, fire, anger, passion, strife and despair.

I haven't felt love. I mean I have felt love, just not the intensity of love that comes from love being reciprocated, i guess. But what disturbs me a litle is how anger moves me to that happier place. Te anger does not cause the happiness, the emotion does. It lets me feel something strong, something intense, and myself being a stranger to the wide variety of hallucinogens, it's the best I can do. But what a rush man, good times. It's just sad this is all I got, sad isn't the right wod, it's just... empty, hollow, a statement. This is all I have, and I like it. So ultimately not so bad.

Welcome to fantasy he heard, from a place far beyond what he could see.

He drifted, listlessly upon an ocean of his own thought, wandering the darkened echoing shadows of his mind until he entered wavering seas of open fields, flowers, petals alight in the gentle sunlight of morning. He was here, he was there, he was in a dream, long while the cold winter storm outside his window billowed and blew like the whispering rush of indifferent skies in the silent darkness above.

He was going to float here, in his mind, in his memory, in his thoughts in his feelings until the world around him swallowed whole, until life could begin to match the world he imagined in his own mind, r until something better could cocur. And until then he would be lost and alone in the confines of his skull, movement to movement, foot to foot, petal uon petal beneath a placid yellow sky.

Okay so a girl has been appearing in my dreams that I do not know, have never seen before but is quite nice and kind of cool and in the dream she seems to be in one of my classes, but is clearly not in real life. Bizarre.

What are you up to?
Cutting fingernails.


Mistakes hurt twice the second time around

Far from sexy.

My thighs touch
My stomach hangs out like a belt distended and large
My chin does not exist.

This is who I am?
I am not ugly.
I am ugly.
I am not ugly.
But I am far from sexy.
So far from sexy
So far from being with someone without the titters of
Gasp, look
Look at that
Look at him.
What is that
So far from being with you, and not bringing you shame.

So not, so not something to be proud of .
So far from sexy.
I can live like this.
I can’t live with someone like this.
Too cruel, too sad, too humiliating
Seen with me.
Is that he, miserable ugly
Fat by beautiful.

I don’t want to be that person.


I hate myself.

She came in through the door. Small, young, beautiful, elegant as any 20 year old could be. Pushed through the door, fell into his arms, her lips pressed against his, her dress floating away like wisps of smoke on the wind, she melted into him, loving him, desiring him, and hten as soon as she’d appeared she vanished, replaced only by the shallow grope of a hand against the nothingness of his apartment, chopsticks still clutched in his fingers. He opened his eyes again, disappointedly straightening up his position. This was all, he thought ruefully. But, in a small twinge of hopeful silliness, he put the chopsticks in the paper box of Chinese food and set it down on the table, his robe draping around his knees. He strode up to the door, his hand hovering over the doorknob, and then with a quick yank, pulled it open.

Of course, she was not there. Disappointed, he closed the door again. turning back to his kitchen table, he flipped through the newspaper, his eye pawing over where he’d cut out the coupon for Chinese food that he was now eating.

Pregnancy

Pee.

Shake

Wait.

She counted out the seconds. Her periods had stopped, this much she knew. A month, and they had disappeared. Now the scattered husks of empty pregnancy test boxes laid scattered on her bed, pink and purple labels done up in elegant florid cursive with exclamation marks joyously enthusing ‘Pregnancy!’ all along the outside. They were the only place where joy was to be found in the room. The egg timer dinged, the small plastic dial clicking into place with the cheap plastic click of objects purchased under a median price range. She ran over to the sink and picked up the small plastic stick.

It wasn’t there yet. But slowly, surely, with the inevitable creeping of a glacier the pink dots slowly filled in. Dot, dot, dot, a dot off of the central minus sign, and then another, until finally the entire symbol was filled in: a plus. She turned the stick over in her hands, rotating the small cylinder with her thumb and forefingers. Her reflection looked up at her in the mirror, stared back with worried, sallow eyes, and then turned towards the door and moved back into her bedroom. She fell into the cold, stiff sheets of her comforter, the soft bounce of the mattress pushing her up a few inches before she finally settled down onto the bed. She stared blankly at the ceiling, thoughts swirling through her head. Over on the bedstand, her cellphone sounded out a small rattle as it vibrated on the table. She picked it up and took a look at what it said. “WELL?” it asked in large block letters. It was her sister. She flipped the phone open to the keypad, then flipped it close again, thumbing her fingers over the cold plasticine sheen of the touchscreen.

She let her arms fall to her sides and her phone dropped limply out of her hand, careening gently off the side of her bed and falling to the floor with a muted clatter. Well she thought. Her expression changed, and then she thought it again, a heavier tone in her mind, Well. She stared up at the blank whiteness of her ceiling, the faint up-side down mushroom shape of her ceiling lamp and lost herself into the emptiness, the cold muted pastels of the grey afternoon sky, the dank sodden rain that poured down around her as she imagined her room filling up with water until she swam around in the depths, swimming and drowning like a fish. She ran her fingers over her stomach, running her fingers underneath her shirt, feeling up and down along the contours of her navel. How odd, she thought to herself. She continued staring at the upside-down mushroom. It had as many answers as she did, she thought to herself ruefully. She didn’t want to get up. So for a few more minutes, she continued staring at the ceiling, the soft pastel greys of the overcast sky filtering softly through her window.

A bullet ripped through another guard’s eye, impacting the cornea, popping it like a balloon, little flecks of eye fluid splashing out like a raindrop.

Suicide Fantasy

She wiped her tears away, soft sleeves brushing roughly against the saline residue on her skin. A few gasps, deeper breathes, and her breathing calmed down. And then, silence, tear streaked eyes and reddened cheaks, tired and exausted she sat on the couch, a slump in her shoulders and a gun in her hand. She imagined it, the motion lancing through h her mind. The cool, comforting cold of the gun against her chin.

She pressed the gun into her chin.

The cool hard click of the hammer back against the chamber.

The hammer clicked back

And the final, quick burst of hot from the muzzle as the bullet rushed through her chin, exiting through her brain.

Her finger moved, hesistated, lingered upon the trigger, waiting it, willing it, hesitating upon the image.

The bullet entered through her chin, hot gases of the bullet gunpowder charring and burning her skin as the bullet passed through her skin. Small specks of burning bits of gunpowder impacted into the skin under her jaw, leaving small sizzling craters in her skin, singing hairs and moving outwards in small little waves as the gunpowder hit her skin like meteorites impacting the surface of the moon. The bullet traveled through the roof of her mouth, shattering the bone and sending it spinning out into a radial pattern, a pirouette of bone fragments as they spun with peculiar synchronicity through the air, bouncing off her tongue and finally embedding into her cheeks. The bullet passed through her nasal cavity, shattering the blood vessels inside and causing blood to stream from her nose as though she’d had the world’s worst case of nosebleeds that a person could ever see. It passed her eyes, impacting the nerve and sending a quick jolt of yellow to her vision, her last thought before she would die would be yellow: yellow: everything would be yellow. And then the bullet touched the brain.

It took addition first. One two three four five, add two numbers together to make another number. Cindy, what is the answer? She stared blankly at her teacher, she didn’t know. She couldn’t add. Three millimeters up. She was four, she was learning to ride a tricycle, she ran into a rock and fell over and skinned her knee. Her dad ran over and carried her back to the house, and then the house disappeared, and her dad disappeared, the wound disappeared, and then it was gone. Four millimeters up. Blood rushed into the cavity the bullet left in its wake, short circuiting the neurons left behind, killing them off in a wave of acidic blood. A wave of blood stormed in towards her brain cavities, and her brain sent off another neuron. 7th grade, the school fair. Little Jimmy Parkson was showing her how to shoot a gun. She paid 5 dollars, shot three times, and missed every time. He gave her his duck. She kept it until it fell apart, which was three months after that.

The bullet ripped through her brain, a trail of charred and blackened neurons, sparking in the air behind it. a millimeter before the skull it touched it, pushed through, and the last neuron made it way into her consciousness. It was three weeks ago, two weeks ago, a day. He had gone, in cruel and unhappy ways he had gone and left her alone. And there had been a gun, a bullet, the cool embrace of a stainless steel muzzle pressed up hard against here vein. And then there had been a release, a quick burst of gas, and then it had disappeared.

The bullet exited through her brain, a small star of bone erupting out around it as the bullet sailed away from the earthy confines of her hair, long lashes of black hair reaching up to the ongoing rocketship, flying up into the air upon the waves of dreams, emotions, the great tunneling rocket that had made its way through the earth and off into space. And behind it behind, it all there was she, she a girl, she a person, it a gun, and this a moment.

Bodyworks

He was in love with her, the physical immediacy of her. How she felt, the soft plumbing curves of her body, her stomach, her breasts, the way his neck filmed up slightly when she breathed on him in the morning, the slight bitter tang of her breath when she didn’t brush. Eyebrows, plucked infrequently, odd and half-grown in, penciled infrequently still. Stray flakes of eyliner that flaked off onto the pale light of morning pillows. I was in love with her. I still was. I loved everything about her. Except for the things that I didn’t.

But girl, love, darling, madame, dear, she who I loved. Let it never be said that I did not love you completely, every aspect of who you were, every nook and cranny, fold and follicle, lash and lingering touch, let it never be said that I did not love it at all, all of you, and all of it. Never let it be said you are not beautiful.


now just to pin down this miserable voyeurism thing for the story.

Dogs

We are old dogs, lost, forgotten, old wanderers who linger around old places we used to go to and dream about old girls who used to love us.

Old souls who wander around the old places of the world where once people, lovers, the young hung, hanged, lived, loved, lingered listlessly in the lilting light of lost sounds and moments hung on a string.

We forget everything we ever knew except for the people who used to know us or we dreamed we knew them.

We miss them.

Days like these

Days like these you think about threading your fingers all the way through to the back of your skull, protruding out the base of your spine.

Community

I aimagine a community. Small and disparate like the corners of the world, bundled together into a knotted seam. They played out like colors on a television sitcom, representations of the archetypes of jung all bundled up into a location. The thief, the sage, the girl, the boy, I was the boy, the girl was small, slender, parted bangs that split off to the left side of her cheek. I was in love with her.

We played archetypes and beehives, laughed at the stereotypical nature of our existence and then lost ourselves in living, laughing, and figuring out the basics of who we were, how we were constructed and how our arms came apart at the wrists, unspooling into gigantic reams of paper.

I loved her and then she left, floating off into the winds blowing away with the capricious spirit of my imagination leaving me only with the various scraps of paper that scattered around me like the autumn leaves. I missed her. and the sage, and the trickster and the archetypes that'd laughed and poked ironically at their stereotypicalness, then disappeared into the wind.

I miss her, the Girl.

We are too busy.

On average the American worker works more hours than any other worker in a first-world nation. While there are many reasons for this, one of the major transformations of the social dynamic is that life has shifted from the family to the workplace, to life outside the workplace to entirely within the workplace.

You are your job, your job is you, and most likely you will find all your SOs at your job or related in some way to your job.

Now as for me that means that unemployed me who has been unemployed for almost ever, this means that well, things don't stay samelike.

Well I pulled this up because my friend works. A lot. She's constantly scheduled, poorly paid, but in this economy, it's a job. But, ionno. People are gone more. I stay home and write, but i'm mostly alone. Yes I'm a self-centered narcissistic little twat. But,


I forget people have lives outside reading and commenting on my story

Adventureland.

I'm a very big fan of this movie. It's beautifully choreographed, it's sweet, sentimental, the main character could almost be my clone, and the performances are awesome.

Carnivals are some of the best places to photograph ever because you have multiple light sources and so much to do with wide angle lenses to achieve the movie soft lighting effect with blurred out lights.

With James and Em, you feel this performance. Kristen Stewart is a good actress given the right role, and this is her right role, among one of many should she choose wisely in the future.

Heady nuances in the movment of her hands, a distinctly jewish aspect to various elemnts of her character. Jesse eisenberg mixes it up too as someone who is simultaneously very intellectual and nerdy but comfortable in his own skin, a degree of jockish cocky bravado in his physical perforamnce. James is smart, but he's nowhere near as unrelastically cartoonishly awkward as is Michael Cera's usual demeanor which at this point has become almost unbearable to watch. Think of Michael Cera's character, except done well.

This is a movie about people who kow their lots in life, who act like adults and individuals who make decisions based on their personalities and not genre conventions or anything else. The performances by Eisenberg and Stewart in particular are so absorbing they might as well be a stylized documentary. Stewart's lines falter at times, but a compelling performance makes this as good as any movie ofits ilk can ever be.

It shares the spirits and hopes and dreams and demeanor of its main character, soft, sweet, intelligently crafted, and fableistic, but only in the best way possible.

This is the cheap and tawdry world of our memory, but how we rememeber it, how it was beautiful to us.

So yes, I'll have no shame in pulling up this movie to watch James and Em falling in love time and time over again. It might be wish fulfillment, but. I don't feel like i need to make an apology for that.

I don't really want to know how many people read this blog, do I?

Prolly like talking to a mirror.

Ho-ly Shit (i.e. My current working story: aka My fanfiction: aka The Intrepid Adventures of Adenine and Kehanni (working title))

The relevant facts begin with the lineage of Victor Leonin. Victor Leonin was one of the greatest paladins to ever serve in the Alliance military. He was well-known as an able warrior, a cunning general and a charismatic leader. But after his return to Stormwind from war, a few under his command began contemplating a split away from the Alliance military, forming their own organization away from the seedy politicking of Stormwind. To stave off this cleft, the Leonin Lions were formed, to appease the militant right wing of the Alliance military, the Lions were formed with the stated duty to protect and guard Jaina Theramore. But, since Jaina did not actually need protecting, this served as only a premise to excuse them from accountability to regular Alliance laws. Such it was that the Leonin Lions were formed.

From there, Victor had three sons: the eldest, Marcus; the middle child, Francis, and the youngest, Richard. The eldest, Marcus was born of Victor’s first wife. Absent of his mother’s traits, he grew up in the stead and shadow of his father’s accomplishments, eventually rising to establish his own name as a daring and stalwart warrior, a prescient leader of his own strictly devout military unit. The middle child, Francis was born of Victor’s second wife, a senator. She was originally assigned as the liason between the Leonin’s brigade and the Alliance senate, and it was ultimately she who was instrumental in garnering the necessary political impetus to facilitate the formation of the Leonin Lions. Left in Stormwind as his father fought off with his organization, Francis studied through the university system in Stormwind, gathering a sizeable presence and understanding of the politics of Stormwind’s governing Senate body. The last child, Richard, was born sometime after both Francis and Marcus. At the time of Richard’s birth, Marcus and Francis were already well into their respective careers as militant religious leader and politician respectively. Richard’s mother was quiet, soft spoken, and died in childbirth. Accordingly, of the three children Richard was the only one reared by his father, at this point a tired, old, beaten man whose views on his preceding exploits had withered into hollow warnings to keep away from the field of battle and an absolute faith in religion. This lasted until Richard was eight, when Victor had a stroke and was paralyzed from the waist down and was rendered unable to speak. In the year that his father hung onto life, Richard picked up on magic tricks to try and keep his father entertained. A year later Victor died and Richard was passed along from guardian to guardian within the Leonin Lion’s estates, his brothers effectively garnering custody over his rearing.

Several years later, at the age of 21, Richard storms out of the Leonin household. His brother Marcus controls every aspect of his life, forcing him to stay in the Leonin Lions, dictating who he can and cannot see, and constantly berating him with his responsibility to uphold the virtue of the Leonin Lions. The final straw comes when Marcus denigrates Richard’s magic abilities, the only thing over which he has ever had any control. In the passing years, Richard has bounced around the entirety of Stormwind, going wherever his handler says he should go. Be it school, military, trade occupations or other things, Richard has proven to be weak-spirited, mild-mannered, and timid to the point of milkishness. The only thing that he has pride in as his only hobby is an amateur capacity for card tricks. He kept up with his magic abilities since his childhood, learning more tricks and card illusions from the various orphans at the Stormwind orphanage most of whom were previous street urchins. He performs occasionally for them as he sees fit, and for few other people. His life is reclusive and small, but he identifies with his magic. Such that it is that when his brother insults that which should not be insulted, he storms out of the house and resolves to never again set foot in that house, walking off into the distance.

He initially intended to rush to Goldshire, find a whore, and have sex with her to defy his brother’s puritan sensibilities. Unfortunately he decided to walk from Stormwind, so this takes several hours. He heads to Stormwind where he meets Lily. Upon discovering that she is a thief, and she discovering he is a magician, they fall in love. This relationship continues for several months until his brother Marcus discovers what he has been up to, and yells the shit out of Richard.

ACTUAL BEGINNING OF STORY

The story begins with the Goldshire burning down into the ground. Locke – the goblin proprietor of the establishment, escapes with Flo – eldest whore and the rest of the girls into the woods. Marcus has sent men to burn down the Goldshire inn and everyone inside.

The morning after, Adenine and Kehanni are on their way to the Goldshire when they discover it has been burned down. They find and meet up with Locke and co, and converse on what happens, Locke sends them back to the Goldshire to pick up a few important missing things for him

Meanwhile, a rider informs Francis that Marcus’s brigade of men have failed at their task. Francis pulls out his pre-written order to get his own specialized brigade of men to go find them and sends it out.

Adenine and Kehanni are at the Goldshire when riders rush by, heading towards Locke and co. They run back to the rescue.

The riders round up all the girls and pick out the girl Lily in particular. She is handed off to specialized riders and the remaining riders then proceed to attempt to kill the girls. Adenine and Kehanni stave them off, killing a good number of the guards and saving the group. It is mentioned that Lily was taken off to Stormwind so Adenine and Kehanni head off to try and infiltrate Stormwind with Adenine’s disguise spell.

Upon infiltrating Stormwind, Adenine searches for information in a magic store, but only comes out with new spells instead. Kehanni interrogates a nearby guard after spying horses of a familiar insignia going into the stables. After he provides her the necessary information, she kills him. Adenine and Kehanni meet up again, but are accosted by local guards because Kehanni refuses to comply with an order to put away her Felhunter. When the guard attempts to arrest her, she stabs him through the head and blows their cover.

Adenine and Kehanni fight their way out of Stormwind, then decide that they should meet up with their respective contacts for information in Undercity.

As they are doing so, Lily has been shipped off to a prison ship, which is headed for Brigston prison, which is off the coast of Silverpine. On the trip there she reminisces about her relationship with Richard.

A day after Lily leaves, Richard finally speaks up and demands his brothers to let him go talk to Lily. Francis acquiesces and Richard is able to reach land the same night that Lily is transferred to the prison.

Adenine and Kehanni arrive in Undercity and contact their respective contacts. Adenine goes to Grimcow, an ex-boyfriend. Kehanni goes to Varelse, a drug addict pseudo-friend whose drug habit she is enabling. They stay the night in Grimcow’s room, and in the morning they are introduced to Simurgh and Georgiana, mercenaries that Grimcow found for them. They head off for Brigston prison to break Lily out of jail.

The night that Adenine, Kehanni and co. arrive at Brigston, Lily has been transferred there in the morning. Richard is riding to the prison, and Adenine Kehanni and co are transferring there as well. They are able to easily infiltrate the prison, reaching Lily just in time to listen in on her and Richard arguing over how he ruined her life. They attempt to break her out, but Simurgh blows their cover when he has a panic attack due to the summoned guard dogs. The group fights their way out of the prison building and Georgiana destroys the entire prison structure with goblin explosives and napalm as they exit.

They escape back to Goldshire, planning their next reconnaissance on the Leonin Lion building, to see if they can get any information that could get the heat off their trail. Adenine, Kehanni and Simurgh head to the Leonin house. As Adenine and Kehanni watch, Richard argues with Marcus. As they attempt to leave, Adenine blows their cover, and Marcus shatters the glass roof sending them crashing down below. The artery in Kehanni’s arm is gashed open by a large shard of glass. Adenine cauterizes it as Marcus busies himself putting on his armor. Kehanni sinks into the protection of her voidwalker and Adenine and Marcus fight. Adenine manages to wound Marcus but overestimates the gravity of the wound and is nearly killed when Kehanni transfers the voidwalker protection to her and lifetaps her own dead arm to regain lost energy, causing permanent tissue damage to her wounded arm. She and Marcus fight, Marcus overwhelms her abilities, and he is about to kill her when Simurgh stabs him in the back of the head, mistakenly assuming he was a guard as Adenine and Kehanni had instructed him to kill any guards that came nearby.

Adenine blacks out, we transfer back to the Goldshire. A large part is held to celebrate Adenine waking up. During the party Locke informs them that the Goldshire is being rebuilt at all because he made a deal with the steamwheedle cartel and francis that they would have to come and visit him in Stormwind.

The following morning they go back to Stormwind, expecting death. Francis sits them down and explains that he will lift the death threats against theirs and their friend’s heads because he could not kill his brother to assume power, but they have done him a favor by allowing him to do so. He lets them go, he calls Richard in, allows Richard to go free to do as he pleases.

Adenine and Kehanni exit from Goldshire. Richard comes back to the inn to apologize to Lily. End story.

Viet is not entirely drunk

Today I awoke and discovered I was depressed. Here is how it happened. I woke up, as per usual and got out of bed. Checked how quickly my illegal download of Lost Planet: Colonies had progressed, then moved over into various other things. Games are a constant part of my world and I have an overabundance of games that I will never spend any full amount of time on. As soon as I wrote that I flipped over to a different pane and opened up my friend’s facebook, Lauren’s facebook. As I had a crush on Lauren that I’m sure she knew about but she’s how she is and we haven’t talked since she graduated last year. She is how she is means that she’s lovely and popular and I was an oddball run-in kid all.

Though good call on keeping your damn mouth shut for once, good call past Viet. Good decision for once. Good gut instinct.

Anyhow. Is this it? Sit around on a fat ass, house-delivered pizza and videogames and jack-all?

And Batman? While great, is this it?
‘
God I’m depressed. Bubbles.

Bottles of Bubbles, all to be sent to Talisa. Haven’t gotten it together. Her birthday was about a week ago now.

Hurm.

I don’t know where to go. Too unhappy with current situation but too scared to move.


Fuck all man.

On my relationship with the group dynamic.

Spurred by Roger Ebert's post on matters Alcoholics Anonymous, I began to wonder about my own relationship with various provably addictive substances and why exactly it is that I've avoided them.

I've avoided them for any number of reasons: laziness, lack of commitment to actively taking something. Shame perhaps. When I speak of chemically addictive substances I mean substances that produce an active and irreversible (at least naturally) chemical addiction to a substance. This includes but is not limited to nicotene, cocaine, heroin. But, after all, Ebert was posting about alcohol, so let's start there.

It's worth mentioning I was almost absolutely certain that by the time I was 21 at least I'd be drinking myself into a miserable stupor on a regular basis. Nobody made this conclusion for me, I predicted such a future for myself. I am a notoriously poor judge of what positive outcomes will arise in my future and this was simply a manifestation of that, but, it was grounded in more factual grounds than other considerations of emotions and angst or otherwise. I was consistently depressed, I lost myself into obsessions, and I figured it was only a matter of time where once I got hooked into something, I wouldn't let go.

Few problems:

You do not think about your ADD when you have ADD but clearly I underestimated the effects of ADD on me (rhyming intentional). Even though I did lose myself into obsessive quandries over various escapist phenomena, I flipped. Constantly. Batted through channels, interest, videogames picked up and dropped in th eflick of the hat. Furthermore drugs and chemical addictions reeked of this miserable and awful thing that I did, and still do immensely despise: and that is obligation.

Nothing is fixed in the world, I prefer my world with as many possibilities and chances to adapt as possible. So anything that removes that choice, I dislike. I like being able to flip around.

But by the same token this affects my ability to work in a group dynamic. I do like people, I love people, the presence of people is a joy and their interactions form the greater human canvas by which I observe and inform everything I do with. That said, working with them can ve tiresome. After all, why do things to make everyone happy when you could just make it right? Ultimately it all comes down to a lack of respect for anyone' sopinion other than my own when it comes to matters i care about. I meana, wow I'm just making myself sound like an asshole.

Point is: I prefer working alone. More than any depression, angst or suicidal thoughts (and there have been more than one) I value agency. You have to keep your options open, it's the only way to be adaptable. By definition of course.


Well this was a fun meander. Let's do this again sometime.

-Viet

Beauty

I forget what beauty is when I play videogames. Beuaty lies within the details, the small nuances and curls of a fig leaf as the light plays in soft lilting forms against the transparent green whispers of its fibers, tracing shadows soft and gentle on its form. Beauty lies within the details, be it objects, people, scenery.

Videogames, for all their artistry, so often amount to little more than a short jaunt through these universes. They are ultimately unconcerned with details, this is a world where life is concerned with the sword and fist.

the souls of men are purchased in dollars

If I were the president

President Kennedy famously said, in his inaugural address to the American public think not what your government can do for you but what you can do for your government. While it is true that he did not enforce the mechanisms that brought about the situation we are here, we can understand that it is this ethos that has brought us here today. So in this modern time, at this defining moment, I too return a question to you America: and that is, what can your government do for you? For too long have we sat by and watched our nation erode, the middle class disappear, the very cost of existence itself fly higher and higher and higher beyond any person’s dream of ever reaching the middle class. For too long have the wealthiest and most abhorrent Americans lorded above us all in palaces of gold and silver, lined with their ill-gotten opulence and greed. For too long have we worked, and worked, and worked all based on the faith – that simple faith – that we would all like to believe: that this is a free nation, that this is a just nation, that this is a nation where everyone who comes to these shores can achieve.

So then, we must understand that this statement too is true: freedom is not free. The freedom that we enjoy was fought for and purchased by the blood, sweat, and lives of our working men and women in the military and armed services. They share their kinship with every American soldier who has fought in every American war stretching back to the formation of our nation. But all too easily to those who have most commonly used this phrase over the past eight years, all too soon do they forget the other soldiers. The soldiers who fought against them, on American soil, to afford us all the liberties that we have today.

The soldiers by the name of Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King. By the names of Cesar Chavez and Malcolm X. Of Susan B Anthony and Gloria Steinem. Of Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt, who struck down the monopolizing interests of big business so that we today might have a middle class. These are the soldiers who have fought, and bled, and worked, and died here in America to make the world that we know today. These are the soldiers who have fallen by the wayside in the past eight years, for good reason least of all, for they are on the right side of history. You will not hear these soldier’s names come from the lips of the conservative moment. You will not hear their names invoked in glorious adulation. Because when they see these names, when they hear these names the sound that they hear calling to their ears is the million-strong voices of history calling again and again: you are wrong.

And such it is that we come to healthcare America. This which not even the 20th century’s finest president could accomplish, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. For forty years, we have felt the pinch of those who would purport to do us well. For forty years, we have felt the tightening purse strings of the moneylenders, schemers, and crooks at the heart of the insurance industry. For forty years, we have suffered under their tyrannical rule. So often do the Republicans incite the very spectre of our plan. It will ration healthcare they say, it will cause old people to die they say, it will result in care not getting to the most deserving people, at the most appropriate time.

To those who speak such words, and to those who agree with them, I will say this: Where do you live? Where do you live that this does not already occur? Where do you live where your fellow citizens are not routinely denied coverage, open to the fickle winds of bankruptcy the moment they lose their jobs. Where do you live where the majority of American’s primary health insurance is the local emergency room that will open them up to the exorbitant costs of the insurance industry? Where do you live, where the current system is fine with you? I understand why my compatriots on the right say the things they do. After all, they are in no position to suffer. They are already serviced by one of the best health insurance plans in the nation: the congressional public option. That of course, and 1.5 million dollars a day can make a man more certain to stand up for himself than stand up for his constituents. But these are the stakes America. These are the standards by which I will measure whether this succeeds or fails.

-A public option, at existing medicare reimbursement rates to drive costs down.

Sing

We were poor, so poor, and no easy pablum or empty philosophy of “we were rich in music” would change it. We did play guitar, we played guitar more often than ever we did before and then we played songs that we’d heard, that we’d written, that we’d wish people would pay for but didn’t. We played everywhere. And as the hunger crept at our knotted fingers we cramped and played louder until only the vibrations of our strings kept the sallow pit of our stomachs from dropping out of our bodies.

We were so, so poor. The worst of all was that we weren’t even richer for the music. We’d written so many things, of so many broken hearts, of so many stories of love and life. But faced with the inevitable rumbling of our stomachs, they seemed sallow and empty: as significant as a steady bead of rainwater running across a drumskin. We were so, so hungry.

You wished, you so desperately wished that you could ignore yourself. You stared blankly at drugs, alcohol, sex and lies only to look away and remember all who fell before you. It wasn’t the way, but neither was this. We were drawn, almost inexplicably to the music. Or rather, I was. Joseph left. David went back to college. We were our band.

This in turn leaves only me, but. The mind moves.


I know some things: I know that this is all I own: my clothes, my guitar, a few sets of rusted-out fiddle strings, and a well-worn guitar case whose only familiarity is with coins and the faces of Washington and sometimes Lincoln. I should be gone, so long gone away from here. No broken family to head home to, no drugs to run away from. But…

Maybe just another song.

Coraline

Je m'apelle Coraline.
C'est tout

Believe

What do you believe in Lyra?
I believe in a lot of things: fairies, sunsets, fireballs, I believe in what I want to believe in
Do you believe what people tell you?
Generally, yes
Well it's good. But, be careful.
Why?
The older people get the more they have reason to lie.
I thought only bad people lied.
Well yes, but the world is not filled with good people.
People are good enough.
Good enough, yes, but it might not be enough for you.
Mr. Alexander you are always like this.
He gave off a small smile.
Yes, I am. It's one of the problems of being old. Eventually you are no longer young.
He paused slightly, then bent down, cupping her hands in his own and gave them a comforting pat.
If nothing else, remember this. Believe in yourself, that there are things beyond what you know and that you can find them and understand them. Sometimes it'll be all you have. Make sure it's enough.
Lyra peered curiously at him, her eyes drifting slowly up and down. And then she nodded.
Okay

Currently Playing

A Love That Will Never Grow Old
Emmylou Harris - Brokeback Mountain OST

Something to Talk About
Badly Drawn Boy - About a Boy OST

Just a Thought
Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere

Personal Fridays: We're back in a big way

Yo yo yo yo.

honest to... blog (damn you Diablo Cody), I don't much like posting here. Personal things at least. But the situation warrants it so here goes.

WE ARE BACK, IN A BIG BIG WAY.

SO BIG THE SHIT WILL HIT THE SHIT WITH THE SHIT AND THE SHIT SAID ITWAS AWESOME!

Everyone graduated last june. I did not. Disappointed, but, i've been able to float since then.

Haven't moved from my room, much at all. It's okay though. I'm doing what I like:

-Writing
-Politicking
-PLaying guitar
-Stories, so many stories

this blog was never going to be well-maintained. I flitter and fleet, flutter on the wind from one obsession to the next. What's nice about this summer is that I've been able to do so, and realize at least: it's not so bad. I could be doing something I don't want to. Doing what you like for a while is nice, even if things don't quite work out the way you plan. What you can control is the now, and the now's okay. It's quite alright.

Ce qui serai, sera.

Au revoir pour le moment

(shit french, I'm aware)

-Viet

Joseph and the Maunch

Joseph took pills that nobody saw and nobody knew about, that no one had prescribed to him, given to him, sold to him, bought for him, or even mentioned to him, but he took pills nonetheless. Every day he trudged the seventeen blocks it took him to walk the long poured concrete sidewalk from his apartment to his office, and every morning right before entering the office, as his hand brushed against the clamming cool of the wrought-aluminum door handle, he would quietly flip the pill into his mouth, and swallow.

He did this for a few reasons. One: because the pills were not paid for, they were not taken from his deductible, and if you had pills just lying around the house, eventually – if you lived your life as Joseph did – you got around to taking them. Two: because – unbeknowest to everyone – Joseph liked to be left alone. This is not to say that he did not enjoy the company of his coworkers: he did. However his interactions with them were small, he did not express any particular desire to engage in the usual office conversational pieces regarding reality shows and politics and other mish-mosh, but for the most part he did not find them altogether disturbing.

No, what the pills provided for Joseph was a reprieve from the maunches.

The maunches was the name he had given to the sound, given because when it had first started occurring it had been the copy machine: one day out of the blue the seams in the plastic had opened, a long gaping tear ripped apart the machine, and long jagged teeth had appeared from the gap, trimming the abyss with strange plasticine molars. He remembered backing away slowly, backing out of the room as the copier hummed along endlessly, the sterile musk of ozone in the air, and the large gaping mouth flapping in the wind, sounding *maunch*maunch*maunch*maunch*maunch*.

He scampered back to his desk, frightened, afraid, unsure of what he had seen, and absolutely certain that the machine was printing out far more than the twenty copies of page reports that he needed. His eyes darted around the room: everything there, everything normal, but still the persistent *maunch* floated to him on the air-conditioned breeze, a perpetual reminder of what was there, and how he would eventually have to go get the copies.

After several long minutes, and just as Joseph was about to will himself to brave the emanating *maunch* and go get his seventy copies like a man, the sound stopped; replaced only by the familiar hum of the copier, copying away just like any other day. This initiated yet another bout of petrified contemplation for Joseph: what was going on, why did the copier have teeth, what was he going to do with fifty extra copies of page reports, and most pressingly: was he gone? He stared at his monitor: cracked, he thought marking off a mental check. He opened the drawer, dirty, he noticed, and closed the drawer. He picked up a red stapler, stared at it intently, then placed it down marking it off mentally red. Red replied the stapler, and Joseph’s mental checklist scattered onto the floor.

My justification for beating you with a shaving pole

"My biggest fear is that these terrorists would indoctrinate other prisoners... They would probably be quickly embraced by the various Muslim prison "gangs".


That's the last thing we need... Home grown terrorists are the one thing hardest to protect against."

Dear above dumbass poster from an IGN board detailing your reason as to why it is that you don't want Gitmo detainees transferred to US Superprisons.

Allow me to explain some very basic concepts to you.

1) the fleeting nature of information
There is only a certain time frime by which the information an individual holds is useful. How much useful information do you carry? Family memories are often not useful, and even in an ideal situation, the most you can remember back is a full year of participation in an organization, and only then if you were part of it for that period of time, in leadership, and that was all you did.

These detainees have been in there for SEVEN YEARS

2) You are confusing a good portion of those who convert to Islam in prisons as equivalent to those who commit terrorist acts. It is not a disease. It is not equivalent, this above fear exhibits nothing but your blanket, unforgivable idiocy with regards to how terrorism actually works.

3) THREE! *anger down* Terrorism evolves primarily out of local concerns. Al-Qaeda co-opts local issues and promises solutions through participation in their ludicrous global campaign to transform the world into an international caliphate. Case in point: the only thing these people could probably teach their fellow prisoners (if they even speak English, dumbass), is how much they wanted to get the security in their local village better. How exactly is that going to produce homegrown terrorists?

4) FOUR: WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?! TERRORISM ALREADY OCCURS IN THE UNITED STATES. IT IS A FUCKING TECHNIQUE, NOT A FUCKING IDEOLOGY. YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER.

5)Let's state finally, for all records that crime is not about ideology. It is about intent and purpose. Even if these terrorists, or alleged terrorists, are able to convince their fellow inmates, you are reliant on multiple, highly unlikely scenarios
a) They leave prisons. See: supermax
b) They actually get in contact with the main Al-Qaeda organisation. (Oh yes, this will happen. Because it's so easy Al-Qaeda has a phone line. 1-800 Al-Qaeda. Free Shipping and handling)
c) They actually get accepted in. (American? Sure! There's no way you could be a spy!)
d) they actually make it back and forth without being checked and scrutinized having both visited a middle eastern country AND been released from a supermax.
e) They actually evade police presence in order to
f) finally pull off a successful terroirst attack, in sufficient numbers.

So THAT is your great fear? Dumb fucking motherfucker.

6) As a final note, the greatest possible scenario of any real attack occuring lie this is organic. However, largely as a result of strong efforts on the part of the Muslim-American community domestically, there are no domestic terror cells anywhere in the US. They do not find havens within the larger Muslim-American communities. They are not welcome.

So at worst, what you have is the case of the Army post bomber, who operated independently. Was caught like a moron, and showed no possible sign of ever working with anyone else ever.

In short: a crazy.

So in conclusion.

This is why I'm going to impale you with a carrotstick

Note: apologies to readers for the violent, destructive tone of this post.

It comes with the territory (politics)

Jim

Jim pawed nervously at the hem of his coat, fiddling around for the watch he’d misplaced the night before. Before him loomed the stretching form of The First Store, on first and 9th. He gulped quietly, shifted his cloak around him and walked in. A brief wash of cooled antiseptic air later and he was inside: marble veneer and yellow-orange lights everywhere washing over decapitated mannequins in awkward poses. One particularly awkward pose caught his attention halfway down the escalator. He twisted his neck trying to look at it too long. He arrived at Diamantine’s; his neck twisted and his mind still invested in the strange contortionist mannequin, he paused right outside the door.

The interior was rich, ornate: a thick velvety purple ran all along the walls and floors imbueing the space with a regal, romaneque quality providing a pleasant contrast with the waistcotted black-and-white workers who milled behind the glass cases, pointing out favorable ornaments to rich, luxuriant customers. Jim spyed a woman in what appeared to be a mink coat and adjusted the coat even tighter around him, concealing even further his T-shirt and jeans.

Writer's note -

I am making the horrible mistake of leaving story fragments in here.

Deepest apologies to all readers. Gots to suck.

Mr R. Burris will speak to you now.

Editor’s note: The below text was fished out of the charred remnants of a diary lost in the wreckage of a downed Boeing 747 over Skokee, New York. The contents were transcribed into the official record in hopes of returning the diary to its owner. Richard Burris, the named party was never found.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror this morning. This if of course absurd in its entirety, the last mirror I owned was lost several months ago, but in the upside-down view of myself in the spoon I saw a suspended man with a gaunt face, what amicably might be described as a five-o-clock shadow but in all honesty has long advanced beyond five o clock. I am Richard Burris and I write my diary entries as though they will someday be published to the greater world with a significance imbued in them that they themselves do not actually have. And so unnamed reader let me inform you that I too can see your peering eyes, your veiled and judging gazes, let me tell you too that my life is not so much different from yours. I say this not out of presumption but out of fact: most people very regularly do not move out much beyond the medical normalities of their lives. You do not break your routine, it owns you, much as it owns mine, but we shall see if this sporadic breaking of routine shall not itself become routine and the upside-down man in my spoon may yet communicate something of worth to you, to me, to us; dearest, most beloved reader, let us see if any significance will be gleaned from my words.

SEVERAL MONTHS BEFORE (scrawled in dark crayon, a title, the journal entry is still consistent with the preceding words)

Rich, the fucktwat bitch is about his regular routine, a shirt and tie, smooth, combed back hair. A dispassive smile, a nonthreatening glance towards (from here on out, the shortened words of girl… love… and despair… are only legible from the tangled mess of scrawling black lines).

I have lost something. Something I cannot describe but two weeks from this day prior, or two weeks ago, I swear I felt it disappear from my life, like the retreating of the tide from the shore I… I have quit my job, my clothes are unchanged, my legs are dry and uncomfortable with the chalked up residue of my own excrement and I am slowly wasting away in my spot without idea as to what it is that is missing.

Piece it together; find it, two weeks prior, two weeks prior, two weeks prior I was at work.

HEADER – AT WORK – INT. – DAY

TEXT – RICHARD

MAN: Could you state your name for the record please?
RICHARD: Richard Burris.
MAN: Mr. Burris I am sure you are aware of the company policy regarding tardiness
RICHARD: Yes sir, I am aware.
MAN: Well then good, I hope then that from this point on you will be more punctual to your assignments. As this was your first demerit in some years, we are prepared to let you off with… Mr. Burris?

RICHARD is no longer looking at the MAN but is instead staring intently at the disappearing figure of a shapely WOMAN IN RED.
MAN: Mr. Burris!
RICHARD shakes out of his reverie.
RICHARD: Oh, hmph! Sorry.
MAN: Now as I was saying, our company is prepared to let you off at this moment, but future tardiness will not be looked upon as kindly. Now are we clear Mr. Burris?
RICHARD peers at the man with a look that seems to say “why did you break me away from her?” but then answers slowly back.
RICHARD: Yes.
MAN: Very good, then let’s have a productive work session today yes?
RICHARD returns sullenly to his cubicle, the retreating form of the WOMAN IN RED in his mind: her hips gyrating, the subtle movement of her thighs against red satin. He sits down at his desk, puts on his headset, and presses a button.
RICHARD: Hi I’m calling to inform you of a momentous opportunity to purchase the Wonder-Vac 3000! Now…

I wait two days before I start searching for her. It’s difficult to truly find someone when all you have to work with are the color of their dress and the exquisite perfection of their ass. Try describing the above sentence to a compatriot and more than likely yours will be the name they’ll be suggesting at the week end “who’s a serial killer now?” office party. I learn small things first, her name is Julie, she works in accounting, she’s engaged to Fred, they met in the company. To the queries of who is asking I always answer “Richard Burris”. I am not Richard Burris. I am Richard Burris’s shadow, the very hollow frame of his existence, his hopes and desires, pent up masturbatory frustrations. I am Richard Burris the shell of Richard Burris fuck Richard Burris the fucker. I am a living cliché of a man entering the 32s of his life with a balding head of hair and no sex life. Too often I see myself on television and movie screens and shout – not honestly, only while drunk – at me to get off. Julie inexplicably agrees to meet with sweaty masturbator Richard Burris for a lunch meeting. I will see how this goes.

The last time I was truly Richard Burris, the true Richard Burris was when I imagined myself playing the guitar. In college, in the early morning hours, the air wet and heavy with dew chafing the raw confines of my caffeine-seared lungs I raised a vibrant and decadent air guitar up to the sky, imaginary pinstripes of purple-red flames streaming down the sides of its glistening V-form body. To the sky I would raise an undying toast, reciting anthems of Queen, Metallica, or an Aerosmith Revolution, though in all honesty it was only Queen, and only ever one song. I say the last only because it sounds nice to the ear, but in fact I played any number of songs, though most of them from Queen. But in a flurry of motion, the Richard Burris I was, the true Richard Burris: champion of the world and ruler of the mid morning dusk with his crown of sweat, fatigue-charred lungs and scepter of pin-striped flaming guitar glory, this Richard Burris would look to the glimmering wink of the horizon and call out the name of the sun, and like magic, the sun would arise from across the eastern lip of the earth to gaze upon the shuddering frame of the king Richard Burris: collapsed upon the front of his school.

I communicate none of this Richard Burris to Julie when I first meet her. She is tall, slender, attractive and sweet. This naturally makes me feel threatened, unsure of myself, and bald so the following transcribed dialogue should primarily be understood to have the intended delivery of Julie: warm and kind, Richard: sweaty, nervous, and bald.

INT – CORPORATE CAFÉ - DAY
JULIE: Hi, you must be…
RICHARD: Richard, you’re Julie, yes?
JULIE: Yes, that’s me. So what can I do for you Richard?
RICHARD: Um *beat*, okay so this is going to sound awkward but you know Ryan, 4th floor office manager? I was in there the other day and I saw you from behind and I lost my attention.
JULIE: Well, um, thank you, but …. I don’t know how to say this but… I’m kind of engaged.
RICHARD: I know
Julie looks alarmed
RICHARD: I mean, I know and I asked around and I … please don’t go, please, it’s crazy, I know I’m not going to kill you please don’t tell everyone I’m a serial killer.
Julie sits down from where she was about to leave.
RICHARD: I am turning 32, in four days
JULIE: (quietly) Congratulations
RICHARD: Thanks
*beat*
RICHARD (cont.): You seem happy.
JULIE: I am happy
RICHARD: I’m glad.
Julie gives him a look.
RICHARD (cont.): Please don’t, look Julie it’s not about you. It’s about this company, it’s about me, it’s all about me I don’t want to be me, I’d rather be you, I’d rather be Fred, your boyfriend – please don’t leave – I’d rather be anyone else other than me: about to turn 32 and going bald, and all I have is just you, as a reminder of what happy used to be.
*beat*
JULIE: I should get back to work.
RICHARD: Sorry for… this… I guess. It’s okay if you tell everyone I’m a serial killer, they probably all think it anyways
Julie walks to the elevator, presses the button, and waits for a moment as it ticks down. As the door opens, she turns to Richard.
JULIE: It was our anniversary
Richard looks up. Julie holds up two fingers.
JULIE (cont.): Two years.
RICHARD: Congratulations
JULIE: Thanks.
Elevator door closes. Richard shuffles quickly out of his seat, the cups still sitting on the table.

At this point it is a somewhat trifling point for me to make that none of this was true. Yes, there is a woman named Julie Siles, somewhere in my company. No, I do not know if she is engaged to Fred Weimar. Ryan Liu does exist, but he has pulled me into his office so many times now that our conversations take on the dull back-and-forth of a couple who has lived together for decades, arguments over tardiness and company policy imbued with the tone of participants who know both the beats and counts of the script by heart, fully knowing that the other participant will never do anything to change the conditions under which such a scenario can be enacted. But this much is true: in four days I will be 32. I am fat, I am balding, I cannot find reason to enjoy my work anymore, and the greatest and saddest fact is that even in my projected fantasies, Julie is already engaged, and I am doomed to failure. But hopefully, come four days from now when the wheels of my existence click past their thirty-second mark, I will remember what it was like as King Richard Burris, the man who might have began a sordid and adulterous affair with shapely Julie Siles, who conquered the morning dawn with his sword of Rock, Caffeine, and Queen. Perhaps in four days, I will be that Richard Burris again, but there are never any guarantees.

My name is Richard Burris and I lead an imaginary existence.