so long 2009

untitled, heimdalsgate


i expected to be a little overcome today. in my head, i've spent a fortnight trying to plan what i'd think today. what i'd write about. but i've been having trouble writing. it unnerves me when i have trouble writing, i do not take it well. it makes me feel the way... the way we'll all feel when we go to bend over one day and realize by the stiffness in our joints that we're old. not being able to write makes me feel old. it makes me feel i have nothing left to contribute. and that, now, no one will ever love me again. why would someone love me if i cannot write them beautiful letters and emails and cards and texts messages for the rest of forever? wouldn't life be more lovely if you could spend it engaged in beautiful words with someone? i think yes. mostly, when i cannot write, it makes me feel like i am a liar. like some chord within myself has been severed and i am no longer able to be honest with myself. to be completely truthful about my emotions and my reactions and why they came to be and why they want to be. it is terrifying.


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i made some progress on the story. i would appreciate someone's eyes on it. if you think you'd like to read the start of a story and tell me if it's terrible or not, and why, then email me (scroll to the bottom if you need my email).


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POSSIBLE REASONS THAT WOULD JUSTIFY MY GF BREAKING-UP WITH ME, A LIST:

(1) sometimes i call her (albeit affectionately) jiggle-puff
(2) frequently, i disappear for days on end, without word, into a cave of myself, or a corner of the law library, or my bedroom, to write, or read, or overcome all the paranoias that i lose to
(3) one of my disabilities is a farmer's tan
(4) i recommended she watch the following films: when chumpy met champy, chumpest gump, saving private chump, chumpo cop, dr. doochumpill, chumplock holmes, brave chump, titchumpic, star chumps
(5) if she wakes me up too early i lean against the wall in the shower with my eyes closed and she has to sponge me. (admittedly, half the time, i am playing it up because it is a strange show of affection and one i must enjoy every neutron of because for forever i will remember it)
(6) i refer to her as my 'designated boobies'
(7) if she ever tells me she has decided to be a vegan i will delete her number and sever all contact
(8) some nights she comes second best to a certain delicious pillow that i'd rather hug


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2009, the year of unexpected surprises. a year of time-lapses and relapses. of sitting on my couch staring at nothing trying to understand how it had suddenly become sunrise. of amphetamine comedowns and energy drinks and cereal for breakfast. a year of being the only man wearing a bow tie. inundated with paper, everywhere, on my coffee-table and below it, on the desk i drag into my bedroom when i am nearing exams and drag back out after. a year that started with dancing and blowjobs on the beach while staring at the sun and ended with quiet moments in rooms studying and lying on couches kissing for hours (everytime starting with me whispering my my, i forgot how pleasant this was i must never forget, and she smiling into my ear i'm glad i could jog your memory). a year where, at least for the second half, i didn't hate myself. didn't think i was pathetic. didn't think i was not just a loser but a chronic loser and not just a chronic loser but always committed (voluntarily or otherwise) to being a chronic loser. this year when i put my hands in the pockets of my trousers i found sand. when i picked up my phone i never cared what it said. a year spent in orgasmic chemically-stimulated highs and too frequently unable to... grasp at my own emotions, formulate my own thoughts... lost in a geometrical redistribution of time and space, a pill-induced automaton. the year i finally gave hip-hop a chance. the year i finally gave women a chance again. the year i gave (maybe) myself a chance. a year with minimal push and pull, a year with a semblance of grace. of elegance. (i come home from my exam, my legs shake, i stop in the kitchen for a glass of water i lose my knee and fall over. i haven't shaven but i can't feel my face it makes no difference. what is it now, 50 hours? 60 hours without sleep? i crawl towards my bedroom, leaving a puddle of water but no broken glass, unbuttoning my pants as i go. leave a trail like a snail and a few shed snakeskins before i crawl into bed, take a minute to hear my heart out beat the seconds and wake up 22 hours later with the worst back-ache). a year ago today i was in Prague. a year ago a week ago i was in Haifa. a year ago a week more and i'd be in Chicago, in LA. in i-can't-remember. i'd be in Seattle on Martha's couch watching movies everyday trying to forget where i was. i was reading Ulysses. i was sitting out the front on Martha's stoop staring at the streetlight and blowing puffs of condensation, each wrapped in blankets like flight-delayed caterpillars. 2009, a year of such nasty crashes my mother, the most natural-health inclined person i know dragged me kicking-and-screaming to 'resolve this once and for all'. (and the year i discovered there probably is no such resolution to look forward to. just life). just life, just more. more of everything. more of apple pie. more of LA traffic. more of my sister's hardships, more of my own... twitches and spasms. more prayers, said with greater conviction, and more moments you wish God were a man so you could spit on His face and stab at His neck. more recognition of Awesomeness. days without inspiration, attending to your errands and your duties. more love. fast and slow. more drives in cars to unknown destinations you have to find in the map. more frozen cokes. more movies you wish you got to see in the movies, and more hours spent thinking how great a God there must be to have let you have this great moment you are having just this right-now (and then feeling bad about wanting to knife at His neck a few months earlier). more new bands. more mistakes. more failures. more just-when-you-need-them victories. more time waking up in the morning thinking dammit i am exhausted i can't keep this up, more quartets of gourmet cupcakes in gorgeous little white boxes that make pretty girls smile and kiss your cheek. more friends' children. more weddings, and, more and more now, funerals.


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it is hard not be sad when you start to understand the train you're riding in. the nature of it, this life i mean. the fact that, we're all going to wait and struggle to... to write the great American novel, or, find a cure, or a man, or get a Victorian house in the neighborhood we want. and mostly, we're not going to get there. and even if we do, we're not going to be happy in the way we think we are. (the way we deserve to be). it's not just the failure of the American dream as a concept, but a failure of the way a whole generation of little boys and girls has been socialised to want certain things that we ought not want. because, maybe my momma was wrong. it is soo unlikely that i will ever be a high-court judge. a pulitzer-prize winner. a president, ambassador of governor-general. any someone you've heard of. life is going to be a great big mass of grey. people better off, people worse off, people trying to make rent and women sick of reminding their husbands to fix the sink and men sick of hearing their girlfriends nag. children who don't get enough attention, because children deserve more attention then there are hours in this universe, and the parents who hate themselves for not knowing how to fit it all into a day - all this dammit baggage. this was a hard year for my sense of uniqueness, which... perhaps has not made it to the finishing line. everywhere i look i feel a death pang for that sense of... i can be a somebody! that i once had. on one level, it's positive. it's a hit to the demons in me. the egos and the (my therapist would remind me) narcissism. also, it's a calming force. to just 'be'. f*ck it, come what will, i've made my peace i'm not the next Obama, or, as she says when i disappear to study can you take a few hours off from saving the world to have dinner with me?


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MUSIC I HAVE LOVED THIS YEAR IN LOOSE-CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, A LIST:

(1) For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver
(2) So Far Gone (mixtape) by Drake
(3) Tha Carter III by Lil' Wayne
(4) ATLiens by Outkast
(5) Heavy Ghost by DM Stith
(6) Involv2er by Sasha
(7) Los Angeles by Flying Lotus
(8) Burial (and) Untrue by Burial
(9) XX by the XX
(10) The Dance Paradox by Redshape


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last words:

i don't want my money back.
it was worth it.