Samsara

It really is a cycle, isn't it? Ass-breaking semester, three months of ennui, then a rude awakening, punctuated by disastrous eating spells, hours playing Halo 3, and feverish reading. This is also the time of the year when I get sick, and not just like common cold-sick, but clinics-telling-me-I-have-meningitis-sick. I feel this, I feel it all-the cycle- and I'm just playing my part.

Well, to bring this up to speed, I guess I should offer a little precis of this month. I'll start with trips, you know, the big stuff. Um, well, At the beginning of the month, Susan and I went camping with Franz and his girlfriend, Yezi. My best friend Danny was supposed to come with his girlfriend, but he got held up. Danny had about as shitty of a month as a 20-year-old can have. It all started when his girlfriend's grandmother died. Danny said he and she were close, even closer than he is with his own grandmother, so the loss struck him pretty hard. Naturally, Danny had to go to the visitation and the funeral. Here's the kicker: His five-year anniversary fell on one of her visitation days. SO, Danny and Emilee postpone all romantic plans a couple days (Remember this). SO, after this catastrophe, Danny gets into a series of fights with his dad over bills. They must have been bad because you won't believe what happened next. Due to intense stress, Danny actually came down with SHINGLES! Super rare for a young person to experience, shingles is actually a pissed off, resurrected chicken pox virus. Danny described the rashes as ten times worse than the worst sunburns he'd ever gotten. He couldn't even wear a shirt. Well, of course, Danny couldn't work. When he told his boss he had shingles, she was amazed, mostly because she has the IQ of a goldfish. From what Danny said, Danny had to painstakingly explain his condition, only reaching an understanding after having to arduously lift his shirt and expose his seething rashes. Even after vouchsafing Danny a day off work for obvious medical reasons, she was still a little peeved, and she stayed on his ass for the rest of the summer. This was when I stopped over to bring Danny a shipment of hope: four tacos and a couple Arnold Palmers. His sister ate everything I brought later upon opening the fridge while Danny was downstairs. Next in the catalogue of misery, Danny's girlfriend's cousin dies. So, Danny once again donned the black garb and hit the pews. At the mass, another cousin gave his girlfriend a hug, bruising her ribs so badly, Danny had to take her to the hospital right after the service.

This is where I thought God was done with Danny, where I thought he'd tell Satan that the bet was off, Danny showed faith, and the game was over. I told Danny he just had to make it to the weekend, when we'd all be up North tubing down the Au Sable River, forgetting the world. Wednesday, Danny's girlfriend's friend's Grandfather dies, a man neither Danny or-I'm assuming- Emilee had ever met, but because Kendra, Emilee's friend, had attended Emilee's Grandmother's funeral, Emilee felt obligated to go to Kendra's Grandfather's. The funeral was to be on Saturday, smack-dab in the middle of our planned camping trip. "FUCK, MAN! Now I have to miss a day! Well, I guess Emilee and I will just have to head up there later and just have about a day-and-a-half with everyone."

Saturday rolls around. I'm on the Au Sable River, several miles from Glennie, just chillin'. Rain forced us to abandon our makeshift grill and head towards a fast-food alley. As soon as I get reception, Danny calls me, "Bro, I have all my camping stuff packed and ready to go. It's sitting in a giant heap. I have lanterns, marshmellows, fishing poles, tackle, baseballs, bug spray, clothes, snacks, matches, rope, and bed spreads-I just can't find my fucking TENT! I think it's at my dad's, so I called him. He said it wasn't there. Emilee isn't back from the Goddamn funeral yet. Apparently, 500+ people showed up, and they all want to pay their respects. So...yeah...I guess we're not coming..."

I took a deep breath, looked over at Susan, then answered him: "Jesus, man...Yeah, do what you gotta do, I guess. I'm sorry."

As for the rest of the trip, it went pretty well. It rained hard, but we made the best of it. We each had a tornado of insects around our heads, just no-see-um's and midges, but the mosquitoes weren't too bad. It was actually kind of nice hearing the pitter-patter of the rain while Susan and I were happy and warm in the tent. For food, the women tried their best at grilling; my hamburger looked and tasted like it had just been lopped off the ass of the cow. My dad would have licked his lips had it been on his plate, winking at the waiter who just lowered his food, "Now this is rare!" We spent most of our time tubing or fishing. We caught nothing, despite my dad's auction-won trout spoons. It was like we were fishing with dog turds. I saw one kid floating down in his tube with a pile of rainbow trout in his lap. "They keep hittin' me in the nuts, ma!" he said, grinning and wincing at the same time.

Our second tube ride was three hours, and Susan kind of ruined it for me. She'd been in a grouchy mood since we got there (maybe because she had to do all the driving?), and by the third day, her patience with bugs, weather, and, above all, me, was wearing thin. We were about a quarter-mile ahead of Franz and Yezi when I turned to her and said, "Aren't you kind of jealous of them?"

"What?" she said, voice low, eyes glowering.

A little taken aback, I proceeded cautiously, "Oh you know, it's just that they like get to have all the firsts, you know? First kisses, hand-holds, all-night talks, naps in each other's arms, that sort of thing."

The sun glistened a bit from the corners of her eyes. Already wet, I thought. Shit. "We have firsts left to have, too!"

"Of course, of course, honey! I know! It's just that...never mind."

The next half-hour was silent. Susan stared blindly ahead looking like the water just turned to ammonia, nose and eyes drawn up like someone trying desperately hard not to cry. You've all seen that face. Ever watched someone chop onions?

Things between us stayed tense until she dropped me off at home. I forced myself to nap rather than get embroiled in a highway fight with her. Susan hates my car-talk. Hm, I guess I would, too. Something about the open road gives my mind wanderlust, though. One time, I asked her why farmers had horses. After all, we don't need them to pull plows anymore, and they don't offer meat, wool, or milk. The only two benefits horses offered that I could rationalize were their droppings for fertilizer and the boarding business, when rich people keep their horses on another's property.

"Maybe they just like them," she said.

"Hm, I don't think so. There must be something more. I has to make sense, or cents, for these farmers."

I spent the next thirty minutes apologizing for being arrogant.

Things got better between us until early last week. She came down for the weekend to celebrate our six-month anniversary. Again, she was mopey. Nevertheless, I tried to make the best of it. We went to all our favorite restaurants (She has a Del Taco fetish. She munched on Churros the whole time), but still she moped. Like fifteen minutes before she had to leave, she said something that hurt me personally, BUT, giving her a pass for being hormonal and unusually mopey, I ignored it, let it fall off my shoulders like rain. I went to my counter, ate some cereal, and hummed to myself, while she walked around my house gathering her things, face stony and dour.

"Bye, love you!" I said, waving her off. No response.

Ten hours passes, then I get a text asking me whether my dog misses her. That pissed me off. I texted back, saying something like, "I don't think we should speak for a few days." That upset her, understandably so. A day passes. Then another. I was eating with friends when I got a text from her asking me whether it'd be all right for her to come down after work. "Sure," I answered. Whatever ridiculous point I was trying to make, it had been made, I thought. She came, we talked, and I blamed it on the cycle.

It IS the cycle. I'm behind a veil of ignorance, waiting to see what I'll be in another new world. Will there be equity and mercy? Will I finally get my car hitched to the train? Or will another fuse blow? Will another light flicker and die? Will doors open? Close? Slam on my neck? William James distinguishes two different types of people: the healthy-minded, like Walt Whitman, and the sick souls, a la me. Whitman was one of those rare humans who could enjoy and feel God/a higher power in everything. To him, the world was whole, pure, and good. His friends commented on how he could sit for hours admiring rocks, offering benedictions to the trees, rejoicing for the birds. Whitman simply ignored evil. It was left out of the equation, it had no place in his world. Sick souls are different. We've tasted evil. We can't be ignorant, even if we try. We've been tainted, touched by the black hand. We need to be, as James explains, "twice born." This is what most of the current creeds aim to teach or accomplish. Christians, Muslims, and Jews pine for heaven, a second, perfect life they earn through defeating evil in this flawed world. Eastern religions try to equip adherents for a detachment, a release, from this evil-filled world.

Susan always tells me that I see the worst in everything. "I try only to see things as they are," I always say.

Should we just jump ship? Is this sinking man-ruined leviathan a hell, an illusion, a test?

The abstractions jostling each other for supremacy in my brain are growing tired. I can't keep defending both sides of everything, saving myself for some kind of ultimate enlightenment, when I'll just smirk at all the "growing up" I'd suffered through to get there. This cocoon is bursting at the seams, even if it hangs above an abyss. I think I'd rather sink than cling any longer. It's time to pick a road and go. Nothing is worse than inaction. It's inert and fearful- a static, somnolent hell.

When I look back at college, will I have the photo albums of smiling people with red cups? Will there be me cradling some third-world baby with a guiltless smile? Will I have T-shirts with slogans and '10's and '11's on them? Will I have the stories to go along with them, the ones about people falling off fire escapes, pissing off balconies, getting punched, getting laid, getting stoned?

Will I be touched? Will someone drop a line in my brain and hook the big one. Will I even ever have an interesting conversation again? What if it's off to a desk after this?

The last last conversation I had was last fall. I was on a park bench reading "Absolam, Absolam!" by William Faulkner, when a pair of Mormons sat next to me. We talked about predestination, the Golden Tablets, ecumencial councils, redemption, Hell, sin, Young, Smith, eschatology, evolution. I can't get people to remember my name anymore.

And as I sit, as I type, I'm just swept up in cycle. Just flowing with the cycle. Spinning in the cycle. Packing like last year. Reading like last year. Scared like last year. Heart-pounding like last year. Fighting like last year. Walking around like last year. Starting conversations that die like a cough in the winter cold like last year. Bored like last year. Stalling like last year. Hating and loving the same people for the same reasons like last year.

I told Susan that I want to start over in Oxford. She told me to go for it. I laughed at her and at myself.

So here's to the cycle! Here's to not moving, but getting moved! Here's to not learning, but to learning how to do something for someone! Here's to the toilet swirl.

Sunny Weather

I've been in a pretty good mood lately. Oddly enough, it sprung out of a terrible mood. Monday, I was in a deep, deep funk. I tried dispelling the depression every way I knew how: I read, I wrote, I moped, I exercised, but nothing worked. There's only one fail-safe, sure-fire way to chase away bouts like this, and that's to read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. So, I whisked it off the shelf and started rifling through it, waiting for Marcus to tell me about how reality was just a sheath, waiting to slip away off my immortal soul or how my when and where is one pointless, listless locus on an infinite plane of existence. I wanted to feel minute, transient, silly, and distracted. Marcus had saved my life once before. In high school, paranoia gripped me pretty bad. I couldn't stand the people, their drugs, their fashion, their jibes, their fads, their insecurities. I asked Marcus, who was writing to me from the Danube River while holding off hordes of Macromanni and Quadi barbarians, whether I should even give a fuck about life. I mean, if my time here is to be spent among people, and I hate people, what was to stop me from hating my time left here? Marcus shook his head. Always dignified, always resigned, Marcus was. He told me people usually aren't worth it. They can be cruel, worthless, vile, destructive. But, we still have a soul, we still have a holy code to be good people. We are patient parents ignoring the stings of stupid children, we are rivers running against boulders and dams. We have to be stolid, steadfast, and strong. Whether or not there's worth in people, there's worth in being a person, a good person.

As a philosopher, Marcus presents some glaring holes. He posits the existence of a soul...I think that's ridiculous, at least for now. Anyway, anyway, who cares, though. Marcus was a man, and once again, he showed me how to let all the people I know and all their hurt, their small-minded assaults, their suffocating expectations, their self-serving small-talk, their jealous psychological war just wash away.

If there's a God, I'll finish the fucking Golden Bough tomorrow. I've been working on it for like four weeks now. It's embarrassing and time-consuming. It's not even really that good. I just...well, I wanted to both challenge myself and cross off another monumental work of literature.

Got clotheslined in the balls today. Some kid took a twenty-foot acceleration, then flipped his hand up and into my nads, not even stopping to see me wince. It's a good thing he didn't, too, else I'd a seen the bastard who belted my boys.

Today, I set a kid up to hit a wiffle ball off the tee. He took a few practice swings, his face the picture of concentration, then stepped forward with all his might. Unfortunately, he not only missed the ball, but toppled the tee. "FUCK!" he said. Did he just say "fuck"? I started laughing uncontrollably. I couldn't believe it. Five-years-old and he's saying "fuck" and saying it correctly? I couldn't keep from envisioning the same kid in a business suit realizing traffic will make him late to some big meeting: "Fuck!" I asked him what he said, and, clear as a bell, he answered me, "Fuck...," with a slightly confused look on his face. Aren't I supposed to say "fuck" when I fuck up? "Well, don't say that," I said.

I went to Susan's family cottage last weekend. It was pretty fun. It rained the whole time, but we made the best of it and squeezed in tubing where we could. A friend of the family, Chad, brought the Manta Ray tube, the one that lifts out of the water, pulling you behind the boat like a kite. I only got a couple feet of air on it, but one little girl must have been ten or fifteen feet out of the water. Susan herself got pretty high! After the Manta, Susan wanted me to do a double tube with her, saying it was "more fun." To Susan, fun must involve equal parts fear and pain. Needless to say, I agreed with a very reluctant "yes". The water was like a fucking washing board-choppy as hell. the compartment in which I was to sit was about the size of a hamster cage, and the 60 or so pounds I have on Susan tilted our tube in my direction. I was crusing for a bruising. "Don't be scared," someone called out from the dock. "Oh, I think you should be," said Chad, my driver, once again. Flooring it to 55, Chad shot out of the dock like a cheetah, leaving me and Susan eating wake-She was laughing, I was screaming. After three or four white-knuckled turns, I noticed a pain spreading through my balls as if they were being lowered into a blender. Keep it together, man; Don't show Susan how big of a baby you are, I thought. So, I tried to smile, but even through the spittle flying from our mouthes, the water drenching us from the wake, and the noise from the boat and all the cheering occupants, Susan could tell that I was scared out of my mind. "Cut the boat, Alex is in pain," she said. Shit, not only did you just get a tubing-neutering, but your girlfriend noticed what a big sissy you are! Oh well, knowing Susan, she probably thought it was more cute than anything else.

During the rainy bouts, I colored with Chad's son, Colin, a cute little kid absolutely obsessed with Nascar and, lately, "Born in the U.S.A." by Bruce Springsteen (The Boss! Hell yeah!). My poem for Susan was passed around most of the family while I was there. I was cool about it, though. I like having them read. Her cottage was four hours away from my house, and Susan and I spent a lot of time on the road together. We kept fighting about why farmers have horses. I maintained that there's no reason for them to have them: they don't serve any purpose; they're not used for food, fuel, fur, muscle, or milk. Susan thought there was no such mystery, and that farmers kept them sheerely for companionship. I think it's a good question, anyway. There must be some use... Glue?

I'm planning a camping trip with Franz, his girlfriend (AKA "the prospect"), Susan, my friend Danny, and Emilee, Danny's girlfriend. We're going to the Au Sable River next week, a really charming, clean river-I've been there once before. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm stockpiling jerkey and trail mix already.

As far as music goes, the only new stuff I like is the EP from Delorean, some Spanish electronica group that Pitchfork likes, and the latest album from A very U2-esque Australian band, the Temper Trap. They use a lot of good guitar delay and choir boy vocals.

I got my driver's license about two weeks ago. It's been all right. Of course, I'm now the family mule, meaning I'm the errand boy for everything- food, people-pick up, lottery tickets, movies, recycling, etc.

Susan has been great, but I'm still worried about my pessimism and the way I slowly but surely slouch away from people-all people. I'm confident she'll be the difference, though, i.e. the reason I won't retreat this time.

School starts up again September 8, and I would say I'm really, really, really upset by this and the notion of a return, but I'm trying to be optimistic (REALLY trying), so I'll just say that I'm nervous. A lot has to happen for me in a very little time.

Things used to just fall together, like a Jackson Pollock painting-random drips forming something beautiful and complete. I used to have epiphanies, where the light would just shine on my face and I just knew, I just knew I was doing the right thing. Now, to make my decisions, I have to buy a new bulb, screw it on myself, angle the lamp at my face, and decide whether it's bright enough to show me the way. Is this using my head vs. using my gut? Am I just to a point where I have to let myself make myself? Does it even matter what I make myself into? Can't I just adapt?

I noticed something about myself this week. One of the main grounds for my instability and my depression is my need to try and embrace two opposite or conflicting ideas at the same time. I ALWAYS try to hold two antagonistic opinions or philosophies in my head at the same time. I'm always trying to exist at both ends of the spectrum. I want to be social, loved, but cenobitic, isolated. I want to be successful, but unknown, small-time, local. I want to dissappear, but I want to reach people. I want to be happy and content, but I love to wallow, to drink in sadness. Am I trying to prove something to myself? Is it the challenge I like? Is it just scoffing in the face of the ever-changingb ever more pointless vicissitudes of human life? Do I just try to amuse myself?

Tell me, Marcus!

Late night blues

I wrote one cheerful poem for Susan last week, delivering it with a very apropos first bouquet of flowers, and also two really gloomy poems tonight. I might give a nice summary of my last couple weeks tomorrow, but I just had to add these now.



First Flowers


I think I know you best,
Still, the florist was a test.
Your hues blend and match-
Colorful, the perfect catch.

The clerk said, “May I propose
A bright, red, rose?”
Why not, I thought.
They’re lush, layered, and deep.
They drape the tombs of kings.
They line the halls of lovers.
Wherever the heart swells, plummets, or dies,
There, soon, a rose will rise.
But for all its passion and austerity,
Even your thorns would not
Suggest parity.

What about an Iris?
Sad, in my hands it seems to tire,
This purple, fleshy, fire.
But, though draped,
Its petals are so strong-
A stalwart, marching song-
Like you’ve been all along.

The tulip looked delightful.
It’s crisp, parabolic petals-
Walls of wonder.
It carves its place above the ground
Stem, protruding; flower, intruding.
But Holland’s prize cultivar
Wilts in the shadow of what
you are.

A daisy might do nicely,
A simple, honest flower-
White knives rim the golden sun.
They shake when I breathe;
Their needle-stems bending to and fro
As obeisance to nature and
to the girl I know.
Yet, for all its humility and charm,
I can find so much more with you in arm.

Carnations!
Now there’s a great find.
I see their lacey folds crowd, converge, caress
Between their red-rimmed reaches
A secret.
What makes the petals so beautiful and keeps
Them riding the same wave,
Rippling in the same current, like
Shivers of the ocean
Obfuscating sunken treasure?
But whatever answer I’d find
Could never surpass my joy
In seeing the layers of
your mind.

How could I forget the forget-me-nots
And their soft, Vermeer blue!
Beautiful, yes,
But where grows the flower that captures your
Thick, flowing sepia hair
Or your rich, loess eyes-
So healthy, so lovely-
Artifacts from a life we no longer lead:
When corn grew without the farmer’s hand,
When men could run without getting tired
Or losing the vault of the sky;
When music trickled from the trees,
Like rich sap, drawn from the calls of birds
The sigh of the wind, the moaning of boughs,
And time sat in the shade
To watch the grass grow tall.

Flowers can say a lot of things.
Send them to a funeral
Lay them on a wall.
Pin them to a girl.
Throw them down the aisle.
But what petals can I pick,
What bulbs can I buy
Worthy of the girl
For whom I would die?

I’ve grown from a seed,
Nurtured and watered by
your gentle hand,
Into a dazzling new flower-
A happy, young man.
Stunted, I’d sat-
Alone, cold, so dark-
‘till you cracked the window
And offered your spark.


The heart is born on a breaking wheel.
Lash yourself to the spoke and be torn.
But you and I can say one thing to
Spite the darkness that everywhere falls:
“Good things do happen to good people.
Love brings them together and
Gives them a joy above all.”



You can't follow me

I’m meant for something else.
I march to fate’s flute.
You have to let me go.
You have to let me go.

You weren’t meant,
To walk these roads,
Fall on these rocks,
Bleed on these bones

I’m drifting up
And you can’t hold on.
Gravity pulls you down
Slipping, you’re gone.

I’m alone-
Alone again-
Because I’ve been branded
Culled, chosen
To know no fear
And to have no friends-
To follow the light
And leave everyone in the dark.



Weltschmerz


What ideas have you been feeding on
That your mind has ballooned to
Fill the universe?
Where can you put your ego?
Are you glad that you can’t fit anymore,
That there’s nothing here for you now?
What will you do and where will you go?
Can you ever find a country, a home, a woman?
Will you ever attach yourself to the ephemeral?
You must, for how will your name be remembered
And sung, and quoted, and anthologized.
You want to be remembered
But the world doesn’t want to remember you.

Does it frighten you how you can’t project
A future, a life onto yourself?
That you’re a shade, watching it all through the glass?
You’ve been disengaged and set into orbit.
You tried to rise above, only to disappear.
You can’t even taste anymore.

Was it all worth it?
This divorce, this schism, excommunication?
Who can you tell your tale of heartbreak to?
Can you even speak?
Do we envy or pity you?
Are you a hero or a waste?

They happen around you, the things,
I know.
They swirl, condense, dissolve,
And you grin and observe
Cool and collected,
Free to opine and analyze to your heart’s content.

But you can’t get it back.
You lost it at the quickening.
You’ve been released and you’re bobbing on a new horizon.

Keep crying
Keep lying
Keep sighing
Keep dying.

I feel a melt down coming on

I've had a cold for a couple of days now. Seems to be a pattern- I like to write when I'm sick. Must be the down-time. I'm gulping sudafeds like air, and they're making my nose green and crusty, but at least I can breathe. My eyes feel like they are slowly poked out of my skull, as if by the handle of a hyperdermic needle. I kept waiting for them to pop today. My co-workers caught me blinking and swallowing, bull-frog-like, in a desperate- and stupid- attempt to keep them attached to my optic nerve. Is this what they call sinus pressure? I wouldn't know. Some people really take an interest in their illness, scouring WebMD for mutual symptoms or greedily feeding their paranoia to watch the rest of us squirm or to satisfy their hypochondria ("I have an itchy nose, too! It's polio!").

It really slowed me down at work today. I work for my city's Parks and Rec. Department, doing whatever they need- coaching, score-keeping, chaperoning, etc. Our boss summoned us a whole hour early to give us donuts and orange juice in exchange for forcing us to listen to her rant and rave- really the only thing she can hold on to, the real foundation of her authority, the sole claimant to her boss throne. The silver lining: we WERE paid. Oh yippy... After that, I dragged ass for six hours, letting kids hit me with baseball bats, hi-five me in the nuts, pelt me with mitts and hats, and try to "pants" me during our morning run. Any other day, I'd be grinning while recounting all the mischevious pranks and adorable quirks of the kids, but when I'm sick, I really start to feel like a punching bag. To make matters worse, my co-workers, who are already kind of annoying, kept pushing my buttons, asking me where my "sunshine" went and why I wasn't being my usual "Winnie the Pooh" self. Fucking gag me. I kept trying to work up a sneeze to blast them with when they made that caricatured droopy frown face, asking me questions in baby-talk, "Are you gunna be okeayayyyyyy?"

How's summer been? I really can't say. Too complicated an answer... My first inclination is to say "fucking terrible," but I really can't find the reasons, you know, except for the same bull shit things I usually bitch about in here- no ambition, no plan, no friends, no feeling of home, no good jobs. I've had plent of time to read. I finally finished the Dark Tower, and I got around to capping the two epochal dystopian novels that everyone who's ever been to a bonfire has had to listen to some asshole sermonize about- 1984 and Brave New World. After that, I read Portnoy's Complaint and A Passage to India. I'm working on Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer right now. It seems pretty dense and experimental, which worries me. Nothing makes me more insecure than when I feel I'm missing the subtlety in something.

I've spent a lot of time in Flint with my girlfriend. We have fun because we love being together, even if our love affair is split between the two most miserable metropolitan areas in the country. Sometimes, though, being with her saddens me further. "You have to love yourself before you can love someone else." The insecurities and shortcomings I can ignore with a book, a song, a day in the sun, reappear when she's around. Questions like "why do you love me?" or "but I'm a loser, aren't I?" or "do you know I'm not an adult, not even a little bit?" throb in my brain like a migraine, and they taint some of the good times I know we'd be having. Added to these are the fatal uncertainty and pernicious financial situation I've been grappling with lately. But, summer is warm, forgiving, lazy, listless, balmy, drowzy, smiley, sunny. . . I can be the grinning idiot, the prepubescent pococurante, for another two months.

J.J. , my brother, is making me download him music all the time now. I've always resented those people who say they have a "music guru" or someone who showed them "good music" and, thus, "saved" them. It's too personal, music, that is, to be picked out by someone like a store clerk. It's not like fashion. We don't asked to be dressed by someone with good sense. Whatever, it doesn't matter. Word of mouth is important to music, anyways. I guess I'm not sure whether that's separable from musical tutelage. Either way, I've showed some stuff I really like, and, much to my delight, he's liked it all. This summer hasn't been a complete bust. I've found some stuff I like: New albums from The Dirty Projectors, Phoenix, The Dear Hunter, Dream Theater (of course), and The Mars Volta have all been pleasant, nothing that's really knocked me off my ass, though, though Orca Bitte, from the Dirty Projectors, was exceptional. When he's not soliciting me for new music, J.J. can be found baking underneath a blue canopy, hugging his personal flotation device, laughing at his ironic smear of nose sun tan lotion- absolutely revelling in the thrill of his new job, a life guard for our local pool. Sarah, my sister, joins him there. It's pretty cute, actually, watching them strut off together, twirling their whistles, feeding off each other's egos, trying to out hard-ass the other with their morning threats, "Well, today, I'm not going to let anyone so much as SKIP on the deck. If they do, their ass is grass!" To this, the other will reply, "OH YEAH? Well I'm going to tell ______ that I'm sick of their @#$% and that she/he can go to a different pool if they touch pool rope one more time." "Whoa, that's awesome!" Power-tripping in the red suit!

My dad, I think, is starting to feel old, and it's absolutely awful to watch. He sleeps like a lion. In fact, he lives like one outright. He'll wake up, roar, scaring rivals away from his section of the wildebeest, gorge, then sleep and sleep and sleep until he's hungry again. Anyways, back to his nigh-silent senescence, he's been quieter, more irritable, less good-natured about his failing body, more defensive. I probably wouldn't notice his lonely descent if it weren't for his occasional bacardi marathons, when the graying layers of his mind are peeled back and he's jolly again, telling me, "It'll all work out," "Just keep doing what you're doing," "You'll find it," "Something's out there," making me engraged. Of COURSE, drunkeness would elicit that kind of shit. How nauseating is it that this "hope in the bottle" crap has to be spread before me, this bottle-tipping despair. But I don't hold my dad at fault. He's just feeling old; accepting age means accepting death, and there would be nothing to learn if we didn't have to accept death. It's the supreme challenge, and, frankly, the only thing worth LIVING for, as far as I can tell.

My mom is going through menopause, which means the water works are being flipped on and off haphazardly. She'll cry if a hug is too short or if a memorial is broadcast on T.V. (for MJ, for a veteran, for ANYONE). She's been irritable, too.

My friends? I really have nothing to write about here . If I haven't succeeded in isolating myself from all of them by now, I'll be truly surprised for the first time in a long time. My one good friend left in this city is pissing me off. I work with him, actually, and lately his butt-kisser laugh has become insufferable, both because it's insincere and because it's fucking working. My friend in Ann Arbor truly got lucky: three semesters spent conducting a booze and drug experiment, wondering whether he will remember the name written on his diploma when it's handed to him, landed him an awesome research job for the summer and tons of connections. Great, good for you, I say. And what does he do? Throws it back in my face, usually with my girlfriend standing right next to me (inadvertently stirring the self-pitying questions I just wrote about): "So, are you even doing anything?", "Aren't you going back home to the same job?", "Isn't that type of degree worthless? Unless, of course, you want to be a barrista?". I'm not charitable enough to try being happy for someone when that's my return back-clap.

Todash

I just got back from a 5-day trip to Chicago with Susan. I got back on Saturday, and I'm still exhausted. All we did was walk and eat Subway sandwiches. It was kind of hybrid trip: we did some touristy stuff, but we also just chilled. We figured that between the two of us we'd dumped our money on pretty much everything you can- museums, tours, pizza, hot dogs, the works. Really, it was just somewhere for us to get away. Helluva city, though, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you. Here's a couple pictures. Actually, outside the Field Museum, we decided to take a picture. We were both kind of drained from five hours of cadavers and cutting implements, and as I hoisted the camera, my fingers slipped. Susan's 8 mega-pixel camera skipped down like ten stone steps before it halted. I raced down to see it, not sure what I'd find- memory card mangled, battery ooze eating away at the stone, lens fluttering frenetically- but it was miraculously unscathed. Our masterstroke was our trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo. If you're ever in Chicago, you need to go, especially if you're a penny-pincher like me. It's a free zoo, but it's fantastic, definitely on par with our zoo here in Detroit. We used my parents' Hilton points to stay three nights in the Chicago Hilton, which is right on Michigan Avenue. It was a lovely hotel, and I felt like a huge brat for being there, but it was free, and my parents seemed excited to do this for me. After that, we stayed a night with Susan's cousin, also named Susan. She and her husband were really sweet for putting us up. I wouldn't mind living in their neighborhood some day. They had a nice apartment and were only a ten minute red-line trip away from downtown Chicago. Then, Saturday morning, we left for home.

I missed my friend Billy's baby's baptism (quite the tongue-twister. Susan and I enjoyed it immensely as we threw an annoying, robot-voiced GPS back and forth like a hot potato in the car ride back from Chicago). My best bud Danny tells me to expect a tidal wave of opprobrium. My friend Rob, who was dubbed "Strafe" back in high school, has already been giving me mountains of shit, telling me that "we're not friends anymore", that I've "failed as a friend". Things like this are typical from him, though, so I have to add a grain of salt to all of his abuse. Still, I don't think I should have to put up with all of this. I'm a good friend to my good friends. Some people just need to learn that I'm not that close to them. What can be more constantly heart-breaking than to see your best friend behave like a mere acquaintance? Well, before you line yourself up for that kind of disappointment, you should ask yourself whether or not this person IS just an acquaintance. People grow apart, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's natural, it's necessary, even. I just simply don't have the same investment in certain people, and I do NOT expect them to retain theirs in me. If this sounds cold, I don't want it to. It's just an unemotional account of the degeneration of friendship, something as natural and inevitable as the formation itself.

Coming home has always been a blessing in disguise. This one's been different, though. It's clear I need a break, but I still can't stand slowing down. This economy though has been one hell of a speed bump. I'm job hunting these minimum-wage, burger flipping, piece-of-shit, seasonal employments to extinction, but my prey is elusive. I've done the walk of shame down Gratiot Avenue like twice now, with no luck. One of the most poisonous consequences of this recession is this feeling of defectiveness. This economy already commodifies every aspect of our life, including ourselves. We're tools to be used. When there's no "use" for us, we lose our purpose. This is why people are jumping off of overpasses. This is why forty-year-old fathers of three are robbing convenience stores. I'm feeling it myself :/

That feeling of uselessness really kills me, and, the way I see it, there's only two ways to beat it: 1.) I can keep trying. I can persevere, find a job, make money, and just keep truckin' until things (if things) get better.

2.) I can dig deep into some philosophical mumbo jumbo and dissolve this whole concept of uselessness. Who says I'm useless? What is 'useless'? Is it even so bad to be useless?

Right now, I'm trying to run both at the same time, but it's a crap shoot, really. They're not very complementary, and by trying to reconcile them with each other, I might be losing any and all advantages each would give me by itself, without interference.

Pop/punk, sort of the guilty pleasure for all guys my age, speaks to me the most right now (Secret #34235 for you, blog). I've been listening to two bands a lot, lately: The Dangerous Summer and Valencia. First off, I fucking hate that name, "The Dangerous Summer." Why are bands doing this? Every name is like a phrase or sentence now or, even worse, a sentence that leaves out the object- e.g. The Academy Is... . Wow, what interesting syntax. I bet that would piss off my parents, to know that I listen to bands who are very playful with their names and run counter to the normative grammar of older generations. I'm calm now. The Dangerous Summer have some really good songs. "Northern Lights" is very powerful, with heart-rending narration and powerful vocals. On Valencia's latest LP, every track is strong. "Where Did You Go" might be the most catchy, with a super fun drum beat and cheery lyrics, delivered with a emo flourish, which makes it something of a happy curio, a true little gem of my summer. "Free" and "Carry On" are outstanding, too.

As far as new music goes, Camera Obscura's new album was okay, a bit formulaic and prosaic. I love their singer's soft, lilting voice. What else...Oh, Dredg's album was, hm, something of a disappointment for me. I don't THINK they're selling out, but this album seems like a ploy to get some much-needed fans and some mainstream notice. Known for their proggy forays with strange instruments and rad lap-steel humming, as well as some very recondite, but fascinating lyrics, Dredg have always stood out to me as a band that was breathing new life into a scene that seems a little too afraid to experiment. Yet, this new album sort of shed's their roots. The band even acknowledged that it was going to be "just a rock record". There's a couple funk songs on it, and they were about as misplaced as "Stand Up Comedy" on the recent "No Line on the Horizon" (I actually liked U2's attempt, though, even if it was a little out of place). Most of the songs obey the same-ole, same-ole verse-chorus structure that we like to chime with in the car, but hope bands like Dredg replace with something more creative. The two singles are freaking awful. "Information" and "I Don't Know" suck. If anything saves them at all, it's some funky breaks and the beautiful vocals. "Cartoon Showroom", "Quotes", and "Down to the Cellar" are my three favorites so far.

Dream Theater's two early releases from their new album impressed me. "A Rite of Passage" has one of the best guitar solos I've ever heard. "A Nightmare to Remember" is just the kind of winding, epic that we love from Dream Theater, one of the only bands who can make 16-minute songs that hold our full attention throughout.

I'm trying to get into Manchester Orchestra, but I just can't. They seem like they're going to be a huge force in punk for awhile, and I want to get on the bandwagon early. I hate how the vocalist winces out every other note. I like their slow songs, like "I Can Feel a Hot One", a surprisingly thoughtful and emotional song. Maybe it's because I heard this album described as "Pinkerton on steroids"?

Explosions in the Sky are sort of a one-trick pony, but incredible.

This last week, I've started listening to the Allman Brothers Band like mad. "Blue Sky" has one of the coolest solos I've ever heard. Yesterday, I had a religious experience listening to them outside on my trampoline, me bouncing up and down to the music, listening to Duane Allman melodiously dance up and down for like three minutes straight on "Blue Sky".

I haven't seen a good movie in awhile. I need to see Star Trek soon. Susan and I watched Apocalypse Now, and I loved it.

My Red Wings lost to the Ducks last night. If you can ignore the sexual innuendos, I'll talk about what I think we've been sucking at. We can't penetrate like Anaheim. We're not big enough (giggle). That team is HUGE; they're like all power forwards who can muscle themselves in front of our net, park it, and then score. We have a couple players like that- Hossa, Franzen, Holmstrom, to name a few. We still have three times more grace, skill, and finesse than Anaheim will ever have, but play-off hockey is a grind, and a strong, physically imposing team like Anaheim is well-suited to that kind of hockey, which is why they always enter the play-offs as a pretty low seed but turn it around. The wings WILL win this series (it concludes Thursday) because we're better. We just need to keep getting the obscene number of take-aways, face-offs, and shots-on-goal that we have been all along. I just know that Thursday night, with the Joe packed with fans chanting Osgood's name and beating on the glass, will have the Wings jacked up and hungry. Also, they have a poise Anaheim will never know. I mean, they just freaking won. Even the young kids are veterans.

The other match-ups have been fun. The Washington-Pittsburgh series has been interesting, filled with plenty of twists and turns. Carolina-Boston has been even better. The titan that is Boston was on thin ice with Carolina up 3-1, but they staved off elimination twice, despite my hysterical cries of anguish whenever they scored (I'm rooting for Boston now, ironically).

Calm

A lot has happened

I didn't get the Wolverine Summer Camps job that I wanted. Oh, well. I hope some suit-wearing prick got it instead, and I hope he's playing on his Iphone when some kid breaks a leg on the volleyball court.

This is finals time. They (I'm still saying "they"?) have a study week. It's pretty neat. At State, you had a weekend, and then finals week. So, since my classes are jokes, I'm just kind of chilling. I have a paper to write tomorrow, but I'm not that worried about it. I can do no wrong in that class. Anyone with a grasp of punctuation and command over a couple transitions (WHOA! TRANSITIONS, HOLY SHIT!) can ace the papers. If I'm feeling sprightly, I might conjure up a couple more tricks for this one. You know, it being the final paper and all. I might use a colon or two, maybe a parenthesis.

Spanish has kind of been pissing me off. We just had an oral exam. My partner got a 94% and I got an 89%. I guess she showed me up. It should be okay, I have great grades on the written exams. I don't know, there's just something about speaking Spanish. My mind is like a whiteboard. I see the phrases in-print, and I just sort of read them off. I'm like the Spanish Forrest Gump. I speak SO slow and SO deliberately.

There's this really cool song by Metric that I've been listening to non-stop. It's called "Help, I'm alive". Neat beat, very danceable. Great production (some have actually criticized it for this) Awesome vocals.

My friend, Franz, has a new "prospect" (his word. I call it a "cute girl"). Susan and I met her today. I want to give him a high-five right now.

Joe has been sick. Susan and I dragged him to a party last night. He was fine. He really hit it off with this one guy by the entrance. Then, as we're leaving, it looks like Joe is having his testicles chewed by a crocodile. By the time we get back to the dorm, he's popping pills and cancelling study sessions. Today, it was all sweat pants and day-time T.V. It's funny. He has like a sick suit. When he's REALLY hung over or otherwise ill, he puts on these grey sweatpants and matching sweater.

Over the last month, I've been calling in to this on-campus sex-themed talk show "Turned On." They actually have a blog on blogspot. I just prank them stupid with the most lewd shit you can imagine. Whenever I do it, I channel the voice of Carl Brutanandilewski from Aqua Team Hunger Force, which I don't even like that much. At any rate, he has a great voice for vile calls.

Susan is a dream come true. I'm madly in love with her. I brought her home for Greek Orthodox mass. Any shiksa who goes to that service deserves their own holiday. She said she had fun, though.

Here's a really good picture of us. It was taken yesterday.

Well, I'm a philosophy major now-on paper, at least.

My Red Wings have been destroying the Columbus Blue Jackets. They're primed for another parade. The Shark Tank has been punctured, and they're choking on cold, hard, air and their own suck. Funny, I had them going further. Boston swept, like I predicted. The Rangers are winning in the Capitals series, which is an ENORMOUS shocker to me. Sorry, Ovie :/ However, Ovie's attitute has been a little vociferous, a little too confrontational lately. Usually, he's content to just chest-bump the boards whenever he displays some on-ice bravura, but lately, he's been showing up to early morning practice sessions for the opposition. He got kicked out of one. When asked why, he said, "Because they're afraid of me." I really hope Datsyuk beats out his countryment for the Hart. He might be the best player in the NHL. Though his numbers aren't as great as Malkin's or Ovechkin's, bear in mind, Pavel skates against the top lines of the enemy, like on the penalty kill, and he skates far less than Malkin and Ovechkin. So, for what quality point-earning time he gets, I feel he makes the most out of it, more than Malkin or Ovechkin.

Susan's birthday was monday. I took her to the Macaroni Grille, and it was fantastic. Like an Olive Garden, only a bit nicer (almost identical, actually). I got her a Wolverine Ice Hockey jersey. It's a small, and she's swimming in it. She loved it, though, and, I have to admit, she's dashing in it. Yellow really complements her dark hair and eyes. Before I gave it to her, I dragged her in front of my mirror and made her shut her eyes. Then, I browsed through my closet for about ten minutes, just to build the anticipation. When it looked like she couldn't take it anymore, I grabbed the jersey and slipped it over her.

We've grown since my last post

I won't mince words: Susan is the best thing to ever happen to me.

Well, that's all for now.

I build it up to get it knocked down. I'm treading water. Not drowning, not swimming. Watching everyone else disappear on the horizon like freighters on Lake Huron while I fight the weeds around my legs. And I know, I know, that the slightest look from her can make it all go away. That the cloud can disperse, that I can be rooted, anchored to this world I'm spinning off of at terminal velocity.

Is that bad? That someone has this control. That I'm owned. That I can't make things better for myself. That I need someone to flick the switch, to tell me I exist "for a reason", that there's a place for me, that I'm great, that the world is lucky to have me.

And how much worse is it that I can't believe her? That I have to watch her say the most beautiful things and still take them with a grain of salt? I hate this filter everything has to slide through to get in my brain. The truth is putty. It's taffy. I love playing with it.

And, still, I'm getting ready to go drift through the same summer air currents, press my tired legs against cold porch concrete, nylon hammock, cotton blanket. Cushioning, stifling, stultifying.

There's a bunch of paradoxes I can't understand about myself. Knots that keep me so constricted, but can't be untied. I want to be a part of something, but I simultaneously despise any kind of organization, with their fucking name-tags, people saying, "resume builder!", and hours sheets. I want to be something great, but I can give it all up.

I need to decide for what and why I want to live.

My girlfriend is going away for awhile. But it's okay, we'll talk once a week, and I'll bum a ride off my parents to drive me half-way to some fucking diner to meet her for coffee.

I couldn't be more miserable.

Back to the same god damn, mother fucking, sorry-assed, piece-of-shit job. I'm the only person who can't make things better for himself. Everyone else can FIND things. People, scholarships, money, jobs. I sit with my thumb up my ass, blind to the world, groping my way through life.

Just when I think I could fade out, cease to exist, I find that I suddenly love life, more than anyone else. I'm an accordion, I'm a jump-rope, I'm a roller coaster, I'm a wave, I'm a string vibration, I'm a yo-yo, I'm a ship hull, I'm the sun, I'm a thermometer, I'm a volcano.

I'd rather be blind, deaf, and dumb than mediocre. I'd rather just succumb, just beat my brains out with alcohol and drugs, than spend my life like a dog trying to walk on two legs.

I need to leave and be alone. I need 5000 dollars to fall into my lap, and then I need to get out of here.

I have done nothing. I've met no one. I've written nothing. I've created nothing. I've said nothing. I'm treading water.

I fucking hate this school, too. I hate them all. They're a scam, a callous business, a piece of this world.

I hate this fucking post. It's terrible. Anyone could have written it. It's self-indulgent, it's angsty. It's seventeen-years-old. It's juvenile, it's puerile, it's pointless, it's selfish, it's ignorant, it's whiny, it's lazy, it's disgusting.

I think I've been depressed for awhile. I ignored it. I just thought I was weak (not saying I'm not). But I've been crushed like this before.

I'm at the bottom of a valley and the sky is black. The mountains are infinite and the land is barren. Guess I'll just stay for three more fucking years.

Coming here was a mistake. I lost a year. Even more, I lost a degree. I'm repeating things, I'm learning NOTHING. I'm learning not to think for myself, not to make decisions, because I'm always so fucking wrong.

I'm looking at a picture of me right now. I'm smiling. I want to vomit. As if the party could coax some happiness out of me? As if that was "what I needed"? I could sit here in this room for the rest of my life.

Something is wired wrong. Which wire can I cut?

And all this sadness, it's just not productive. It'll wrench my mind away from the things that could save it, it will keep it hopelessly dithering in my fear. I'll just keep sitting here, shaking at myself, trembling out of fear and rage.

Can I just have my fucking office job now? Can I just start dressing business-casual? Can I just start living for the water cooler chats? Can I just stare at a screen, make enough money to live, and then go home and be away from everyone and everything? Can I just be separate, at last?

Every time I laugh, I want to cut my vocal cords out. I would laugh. I have nothing to lose, I'm fucking daft. Those are the people who laugh like I do. The one's who are just too depressed to stop. Because what happens then? Well, it's not very funny.

How much money do I have to waste on myself? Enough to get professional help? Enough to go do something? To get an exciting internship? I'd burn it. I'll starve. I don't care.

How far can I go? Tell me, I'll go.

The more people I bring in, the more people I hurt. They're cockle burs. They cling to me, only to be deposited in a big pile of shit. Oh, I'm real good at latching them. I'm so fucking funny, and charming, and playful, and fun. You should see them fall. They jump right on to my sleeve.

I can't talk to anyone. They all remind me of things I hate to much. Home, this school, my past self, my future self. Being human has been hard.

Fuck this record. I knew "The Bends" would make me do this.