Secrets and Lies

So this post was originally supposed to be an alternative version of the threesome “how I really met Grand Inquisitor” story. It was going to be charming and witty and have a great twist at the end that turned the whole thing on his head. But I never could think of anything remotely entertaining much less clever and so gave up on the idea. But it started me thinking about the nature of fiction, which is a theme I intend to revisit from time to time. Many great stories are made up, in that the events they describe never took place. But they must be true at the heart of the story or they make no sense and, worse, no one cares. What I mean by that is that the people in every story must be motivated by true feelings that we can all identify with, even if they are fighting dragons or having great sex or doing magic spells at the time. We see ourselves in the characters that way and can laugh and cry and cast magic spells with them to our own heart’s delight. That’s what makes for a good story, in my book (Get it? Book!!) anyway… but what is fiction but a complex lie written down, anyway? Is that what it is?

We all tell lies. Some are necessary if we want to live politely with other people. “Of course your hair looks fine.” or “What an adorable baby!” are harmless enough. Others are slightly more dangerous…”I’d love to join your book club” is not quite as bad as “No, I’m sure you are right...he’s not cheating on you, he just has to work late.” These minor departures from the truth are accepted as unavoidable evils in civil society. We figure they actually improve our relationships rather than harming them and we’re probably right. The one person I ever knew who refused to follow these social niceties was truly terrible to be around. The unfiltered truth is not something any of us are conditioned for. The danger we face is in deciding where to draw that line.

“What she doesn't know wont hurt her.” We all know the phrase and in many ways it is true. Lies can spare other people the pain or anger of finding out something that they wouldn’t like. It seems a kind and merciful thing to do. The problem is that lies eat away at the foundation of friendship or love like a river running underground. And then one day, you take a step and find yourself plunged into a hole that you didn’t see and that is bigger than you ever imagined.

Unlike lies, I maintain that secrets can be maintained without spreading corruption beyond their boundaries. Secrets are thrust upon us sometimes without our signing up for them. Friends tell us things we didn't ever want to know and ask us not to tell. And we keep their secrets if we choose, or we don’t. But problems arise when secrets lead to lies…and the more central a secret is to the heart of a relationship, the more likely that becomes.

After years of living a life in which I’ve probably told more lies than any person should, I've come to a painful conclusion... Lies hurt the teller of them more than the listener. The more lies we tell and the more often we repeat them, the more distance we place between ourselves and the people we lie to. Brick by brick by brick. Lie by lie. We build a bridge away from people. And I’ve yet to learn whether we can cross back over it after we’ve built it. I’m certainly old enough to have learned this lesson earlier, and possibly I’m not very bright, but it seemed worth mentioning to anyone unlucky enough to have read this far. And the bright spot is that it’s a simple (if not an easy) problem to avoid. Telling the truth seems to build foundations quickly and build them strong even in unexpected places. People we haven’t known very long seem to become essential to survival when they know the truth about us. And the more truths we tell the stronger that bond is. Like a rope thrown to a drowning man, the truth can pull us to dry land.

I was hoping that by the time I'd gotten this far, I'd have figured out how to tie this all back in with what makes for good storytelling. I’m not sure i have except for this… that, whether that truth be a real event or a real emotion or even just a real idea, only a story with truth as the foundation is worth telling. I will take a quote from one of my very favorite movies to end with... "Playwrights teach us nothing about love. They make it pretty, they make it comical, or they make it lust, but they cannot make it true." And just like the character in the movie, I think playwrights, book authors, poets, and yes, the odd blogger or two can occasionally come up with the truth. It's just a little more difficult than many of us had hoped.

Rousse

There are blondes and blondes and it is almost a joke word nowadays. All blondes have their points, except perhaps the metallic ones who are as blond as a Zulu under the bleach and as to disposition as soft as a sidewalk. There is the small cute blonde who cheeps and twitters, and the big statuesque blonde who straight-arms you with an ice-blue glare. There is the blonde who gives you the up-from-under look and smells lovely and shimmers and hangs on your arm and is always very very tired when you take her home. She makes that helpless gesture and has that goddamned headache and you would like to slug her except that you are glad you found out about the headache before you invested too much time and money and hope in her. Because the headache will always be there, a weapon that never wears out and is as deadly as the bravo’s rapier or Lucrezia’s poison vial.
 
There is the soft and willing and alcoholic blonde who doesn’t care what she wears as long as it is mink or where she goes as long as it is the Starlight Roof and there is plenty of dry champagne. There is the small perky blonde who is a little pal and wants to pay her own way and is full of sunshine and common sense and knows judo from the ground up and can toss a truck driver over her shoulder without missing more than one sentence out of the editorial in the Saturday Review.
 
There is the pale, pale blonde with anemia of some non-fatal but incurable type. She is very languid and very shadowy and she speaks softly out of nowhere and you can’t lay a finger on her because in the first place you don’t want to and in the second place she is reading The Waste Land or Dante in the original, or Kafka or Kierkegaard or studying Provençal. She adores music and when the New York Philharmonic is playing Hindemith she can tell you which one of the six bass viols came in a quarter of a beat too late. I hear Toscanini can also. That makes two of them.
 
And lastly there is the gorgeous show piece who will outlast three kingpin racketeers and then marry a couple of millionaires at a million a head and end up with a pale rose villa at Cap Antibes, an Alfa-Romeo town car complete with pilot and co-pilot, and a stable of shopworn aristocrats, all of whom she will treat with the affectionate absent-mindedness of an elderly duke saying goodnight to his butler.

There are gingers and there are gingers, and they are few and far between, only about 1-2%  of the population, and we can't really count the male ones, because ginger men mostly look like circus freaks.  If you are lucky enough to like gingers, you should live in either Ireland or Scotland those two countries have the highest percentage of redheads per capita than anywhere else in the world. We don't count the bottled one, because like the pigment they place in their hair to become a ginger, they will fade as quickly as they came. Like a small shooting star, blazing across your sky for the briefest of moments, and only leaving behind a small, slightly dazzling after image upon your pupils.

There is the bold, and brassy redhead, hair burnt orange, and visible from space if you pay enough attention. The ones you see from around a corner, because their hair pushes out an aura in front of them that is almost physical in nature. The ones that laugh just a bit too loudly, and take up just a bit too much attention from their set of admirers to allow you to do anything but dislike them with the intensity of a pulsar. They know they are bold, they know they are brassy, and dare you to do fuck all about it. They usually should be avoided if you value your feelings. However, they do not really steal your soul,they just borrow it for a while, and then return it slightly worse for wear.

There is the deep, burgundy redhead with the eyes that glitter even though they are not gold. The type that make you think of Sunday walks in the park, and even the briefest thought of pushing a stroller along on that walk. The type you want so very much to trust with all the secrets that the brassy redhead would break you apart with, the type that never need to raise their voice in order to be heard. The ones that can just merely with a wave of a hand make you do what they think needs to be done. The solid, sexy type that makes you want to get, and actually keep a job. They will steal your soul, and if you are lucky keep it. If you are unlucky they will steal your soul, shatter it, but do you the small mercy of putting most it back together again before they sail out of your life like the Spanish Armada with much more important things to do.

There is the auburn redhead, which isn't really red at all, but a different shade of brown trying to pass itself off as the genuine article. They usually possess light coloured eyes that are able to share a ton of experiences with you with just a brief glance. They are a poorer cousin of the burgundy redheads, maybe you want to take a Sunday walk with them, but you soon realize the walk has no real destination, and no deeper meaning. It is just a walk. Pleasant enough, and maybe healthy, but eventually you are going to have to turn around and head back from whence you started, and they are unlikely to come with you.  

There is the occasional redhead that can actually tan, and posses darker eyes. Some sort of genetic pot luck that took a little bit of material from blonds, gingers, and brunettes and tried to make it seem natural.  It's not, and that is important to remember redheads shouldn't be dark, it lessens the effect, like putting an under powered engine in a fancy sports car. Generally, these gingers should be avoided, after all if your walking in the garden of ginger delights, then you should go for the real deal, not some cross-breed that lacks the true refinement of a real ginger. They aren't really the soul stealing types these doppelgangers of real gingers. They understand, most of them, their place on the genetic food chain, and only a rare few of them ever really get ideas above their station. You can take them home to mother, but mother isn't going to fully approve.

And just like blondes, there are the showpiece redheads. The ones who's hair is just simply RED, not auburn, not orange, not burgundy or any other shade, but just simply red. They walk into a room and heads that shouldn't turn and stayed turned just a moment too long for their respective dates to be happy about it. They crave attention and usually receive it in spades. They are universally the tall ones, because tall girls are distracting, and tall really RED heads are as fascinating as watching the inner working of a well made Swiss watch tick away the time until you can see them again. Redheads don't go grey, and this type of red head will defy that Swiss watch and all the time it ticks away, and stay as bold as brass for more years that you will be able to remember in your dotage. They are the ones that give all the other redheads the yardstick by which they are defined. They are soul stealing, but you don't mind. In fact, you generally hand over your soul to them lock, stock, and barrel in the (vain) hopes they will be kind. Most of them aren't. They can get souls such as yours by the dozen like a clutch of bananas at the local fresh market. Therefore, which is it extremely difficult to do, they really, and truly should be avoided. Admire them from afar, but admire them nonetheless.

One part of the above post was written by me, and the other part by a pretty famous author. I sent the part written by this author to two different people as an example of, in my opinion, great writing. I did not tell them who had written it when I sent it, just sent it to be read. They both asked me if it was "a new blog post" of mine. It seems they thought that I had written it. At first, I thought it was a lark, a joke to attempt to stroke my ego, but after telling them who had actually written it, they both said that it still sounded like something I would write. I was flattered very much by this, and therefore attempted to write my own view in reply. One is mine, one is Raymond Chandler from "The Long Goodbye." I figure that most people will be able to tell the difference, one is good, one is shite, and we all know which is which.

 M. Chandler's first novel was published when he was 50 years old, an age that I am quickly approaching. Perhaps there is hope for me yet. If I can pass off to at least two people, neither of which are retarded, both of which have opinions that I generally value, then maybe it is time to turn to a blank page, and start filling the hours with something other than empty words, and thoughts.  If only. 

There goes my Hero

You are dead asleep, safely tucked away in your bed, alone as usual, but the reason for that is not the reason(s) that I am here, and are a different story entirely. Alone, or accompanied by some random hussy you've convinced to share your bed, neither matters to me. I am here for you. You toss and turn, mutter some nonsense under your breath as I take over your subconscious, but that is normal it happens to everyone. I try to take control gently, most of the time, but now and then, you lot either resist me, or are assholes that I care less about being gentle with when I take control. You are a bit of an asshole, but your resistance is not particularly strong tonight, and I gently force it to crumble in front of only a modicum of my power. After all, you admire me, I am a hero to you, why ruin the love fest by running over you like a Panzer division? At least not unless you force me to, then well, then, you take your chances just like the rest of them.


As I mentioned I am your hero, a title you bestowed upon me and 365 other people throughout time and space. Some of are 'real' people, some of us are fictional characters, some of us are animals, and at least one of us is a number. You picked fairly decent range of heroes from all sorts of places and all sorts of times, and given your relative limited imagination, I am slightly impressed. Not that it matters, I can assume the guise of any of those 366 people or things that you put on your hero pedestal(s). Though I choose not to pick the number or the horse, because that would make communication a little more difficult. Not that I have to speak aloud or your language to communicate with you, after all I am mucking about in your mind. You don't get to talk, and I don't really need to speak aloud to make myself understood. But, I figure a talking horse, or number would make this take over just a little too weird for you to take seriously. 


And it is time you took something seriously, even if it is a visitation in the middle of the night from a hero of yours that may or may not really exist. But to you, and for as long as I want to (tonight at least) I exist. Therefore, I am going to make myself at home in this train wreck you call a mind, and dispense with a few home truths that you need to, but don't want to hear. They are nothing you don't really already know. After all, you are, for your age group and time period, a fairly clever fellow when you apply yourself. Obviously, the problem is you rarely apply yourself, and a couple of people left some serious self-doubt in your mind for you to carry around with you as you wander through your day to day existence. That makes it difficult for you, but no more difficult than it is for a lot of other of your kind. At least you have the sense to realize the self-doubt isn't true, but not quite enough sense to dispel it, and be the clever fellow the world sometimes needs you to be. Which is, in many ways, a true pity, but something that need not detain us at this time.


The main home truth that I've been elected by our various guises to impart to you is pretty simple. We aren't heroes, either yours or anyone else's. Most of us don't give two shits for our place in history, and we don't care that you think we are worthy of, or even need, your idolatry. You've never met any of us, and we agree with your statement that one shouldn't meet your heroes. There is very little chance that you and any of us would get along. Most of us would find you an annoying little shit, and you would probably be appalled at some of our lesser publicized life decisions. But, fuck you, we didn't ask your opinion, and if we did, we would give it to you in terms which even you could understand. These ivory tower like pedestals that you've constructed for us, aren't suited for the vast majority of us. Certainly a couple of us were very close to being saints, but we are your heroes, and you are not the saint worshipping type.


In order to qualify for the dubious distinction of being one of your heroes, you judged us. Mostly for the good, but we didn't ask for your judgment. In fact, most of us could care less about you, or what you think. We are (almost) all dead, or fictional, and are past caring what someone, anyone, you think.  You look up to us like some star struck teenage girl going ape shit over the Beatles (which we notice are absent from your list, a fact that pleases most of us), and we are not amused.  Granted we are a talented lot, we went down in history for (mostly good) reason, and we understand how people could fall into the trap of admiring us overmuch. However, like the song says, we are mostly ordinary, there are a few of us that would dispute that, but in the main, we are ordinary. Not so much greater than you could be, if you tried. Which of course you seem to be incapable of doing.


You use the hero worship of us to attempt to explain away your own failings. And you have failings, lots of them, a string of failures that would make a particularly clumsy inventor proud. However your multitude of failures is, and this is the point you miss so very badly, not anymore lengthy than the average person in your world. You at least like to think that you stand out at something, even if that something is failing. Certainly you do a fine job of failing, and you seem remarkably prone to making the same mistake(s) over and over again, but none of your failures are particularly remarkable in their scope. This is a lesson, or an idea that you need to wrap your fragile, eggshell mind around, and move on with your life. Being defined by your failures isn't noble, it won't win you any friends, and won't make you cool.


Tomorrow marks the tenth anniversary of this blog, granted it is mostly dross, and needs an editor in the worst possible way, but it is still something of an accomplishment. Not many of the people in your life would ever think you were capable of such dedication. This is as close to praise as you are going to get from us. Maybe it will help, maybe it won't, we don't particularly care. What we care about is ourselves. We care that by making us your heroes, by hiding behind our achievements, and accomplishments, you are stunting (we think on purpose) your own growth. You aren't getting any younger lad, and at some point you are going to have to come out from behind our skirts, and become your own man. We would like for this to happen sooner rather than later. We wouldn't have bothered hijacking your mind if we didn't think that maybe you may be made of sterner stuff than you think.


We are well are aware of the mess you've gotten yourself into at present. It is a fine mess, and you did a fantastic job of dropping yourself into it. You have (we know) scoured our collective pasts looking for one of us that had been in the same situation as you are now, in the vain hope that we would provide you guidance. Quite a few of have been in very similar situations as you are now, but you just haven't figured out which ones. Your current situation, while not as bad as you think, is a bit dodgy, and it is yours and yours alone. You are the one that needs to sort it out, and relying on one or more of us isn't going to help. We are (for the most part) of a different time, a different set of social mores guided or constrained us, and we each reacted in matter most suited to our personality. You didn't need our lines to get into this situation (or at least not many of them, we suspect you poached a few, we do mainly approve), and we don't believe that any of our lines can help you get out of it. If that is want you want to do, and we suspect you don't.


Quite simply, we are going to pay you back your blind faith and worship of us with a little bit of the same for you. As a group (though the vote was close between the "he will be fine" camp and the "he will fuck this up in an explosive manner" camp) we think you can do this. We have decided that you need to be your own hero, and take your current situation as a defining moment in your life. Something that people might actually remember YOU for doing, for better or worse.  We have determined to have a little faith in you, after all, you did have enough sense to pick each and every one of us as heroes, and while that annoys us to some degree, it is still a bit flattering. We are not immune to flattery, but don't get carried away. We are not gods (or at least most of us, some of us are almost convinced they are), and we are almost all dead. That doesn't really matter as the few living ones wouldn't deign to speak to you anyway.


Dawn is about to break, and that alarm clock sitting on your bedside table is about to jolt you awake, and send you off to whatever tasks the world has set before you. However, the world can wait, our task is more important, our task which is now your task is to be your own hero. There are, much to your and our shock, a few people who actually think you can do it. One or two of them have enough sense that you should believe them. We think you can, and since we are your heroes, you should listen to us. If only for the fact that if you don't we will be back in your dreams, and our return visits will be less than pleasant. Bon chance. 

L'idiot

Suppose you are an idiot, and then let's give you the benefit of the doubt and suppose you aren't a drooling in the corner of the mental ward throwing feces at the attendant type of idiot, or the knuckle dragging, mouth breathing type of idiot. Let's also suppose that you aren't the idiot savant type either, with some insane type of skill that allows you to count all the jellybeans in a jar with just a moments glance. No, you are the average, run of the mill type of idiot. The type of idiot you complain about when one of them cuts you off in traffic, or the type that makes you wonder how they got themselves dressed, out the door, and to work in the morning without the aid of some gentle, loving, caregiver.  You are just an average idiot, with an average idiot's problems. Problems that may entail all or parts of things like rent, work, school, kids, accidentally sexting your boss at 3 a.m., donuts, elephants, your fear of flying, your fear of elephants flying, all sorts of problems that beset the average idiot on a day to day basis. Some of them are real, some are them are part of the idiot's overactive imagination, and quite a few are caused by the idiot themselves.

The word itself doesn't really do any damage, after all it's just a word. Derived from some long, hard to pronounce Greek word (like a lot of words are) meaning person lacking professional skill, private, or one's own. Different meanings all from the same little innocent word. None of those meanings are quite like the meaning we attach to the word today, and none are particularly mean spirited. "Lacking professional skill" could be a bit mean, but it could also just mean that no one has properly trained you (yet) in your job as horse masturbater. The saying "practice makes perfect" could very well move you out of the idiot category into someone who can get a horse off  with a steamy glance, and a naughty word whispered in his ear.  Private or one's own might have to do with somethings that are best not spoken aloud at all those fancy parties your wife makes you go to "because that's what people do, not just sit at home and plot the death of all of their co-workers in a large, but accidental fire." It was Latin, and I assume those tricky bastards, the Romans, that changed the definition to mean "an uneducated or ignorant" person. Again, not necessarily a mean spirited word, I am uneducated as to speaking Swedish, it's not that I am stupid (which is actually probably true) it is just that I've never been exposed to the language enough to fill that gap in my education. I do know the word for awful, and I know how to say I love you in Swedish. Which, in theory, may be the same thing, but that's not the reason we are here today.

It wasn't until the 19th century that the word idiot started to take on the negative meaning that we apply to it today. Shockingly enough we owe that to doctors, one of the many crimes for which all doctors, except maybe Dr. Who, will have to answer for when the end of the world comes, and makes all men even, and not the gods that doctors think they are.  Idiot became to mean someone with a mental age of less than three years old. A rather low bar for people to get over, but I suppose there is a group of people to which the act of just putting on pants remains a bridge too far, and not as an act of civil disobedience against the tyranny of pants. After the doctors decided to put a negative spin on the word, lawyers, not to be outdone in the asshole Olympics, decided to add the word to the penal code. However, being the kinder, gentler type, lawyers cut the idiots of the world a break, and classified them as one of six types of people that were unable to commit crimes. We (lawyers) also decided that a further crime idiots couldn't commit was to vote, and we took away that right as well. Which, given the current choice of candidates for the highest office in the land, is probably quite a favour. Idiots shouldn't be allowed to help elect idiots, that would queer the whole system.

The author to which is blog is dedicated, wrote an entire, lengthy book called "The Idiot" in which his main character's idiocy is not his mental age of less than three, or an IQ of under 30, but based upon his honesty, kindness, and humility. Perhaps that was a gentler use of the word, but if an idiot is defined by those words, then the world needs a whole lot more idiots, and a whole lot fewer doctors, and lawyers.  Nietzsche went so far as to describe Jesus as an idiot because of his aversion to the material world, Wonder how that conversation worked out if the Christian view of the after life is correct, but that is Nietzsche's problem.

Let's step away from the evolution of the word, and get back to our average idiot, and their problem(s). Let's also narrow the field down a bit, and put before this particular idiot, a particular problem that doesn't involved Dumbo throwing exploding donuts at him at 3 in morning. No, our idiot's problem is much more mundane, and much more complicated. How it is possible to be more complicated than exploding donut throwing elephants is an accomplishment, but nevertheless it is. Our idiot's problem is not one of kindness, honesty, or humility. Very rarely are any of those words applied, in seriousness, to our idiot. Like most idiots, our idiot has his own unique way of looking at the world. Or at least he likes to think so, originality is a very hard thing to accomplish, and creativity is sometimes merely a matter of being able to successfully hide your sources.

 Our idiot knows this, he has an IQ over 30 and a mental age slightly over 3, therefore is not the medical definition of the word, he is also quite capable of committing, and has in fact, planned several crimes for which he would serve a whole heap of jail time, therefore he is not the legal definition of the word either.  He knows that his problems in general, and this problem in particular is not original to him. He is fairly convinced that somewhere in an alternate universe, where the Vikings are four time Super Bowl champions, a nearly exact copy of him is sitting at their keyboard typing a very different, and probably more successful story. At least he hopes it is a nearly exact copy, he hopes for the sake of the other him, that he (the other him) has navigated the minefield of their duplicate existence better than he has. It is probably a forlorn hope, but it is a hope nonetheless.

That bit of hope coupled with just a modicum of self-awareness, is the one thing that may just take our idiot to the upper echelon on the scale of idiots. He's not out of the idiot forest yet, but he can at least see the edge. Not that it does him a whole lot of good. That hope is being slowly dismantled like a warehouse in what has become some newly developed posh district of town. It has outlived its usefulness, and needs to make way for the realities of the more modern world. The self-awareness foundation remains, and therein lies the rub, our idiot is just smart (using the term very loosely) enough to understand he is an idiot, and moreover, not equipped to solve his problem(s). The paradox of this sad tale of woe and misunderstanding is that the idiot knows this, he knows he can't solve the problem, partly because he is a large part of the problem, partly because he's an idiot, and partly because other, outside forces beyond his limited control are the other part of the problem.

However, the tragedy of the idiot is that he is the only person on this rock, in this version of his universe(s) that could, with the help of a miracle or three, solve the problem. It must needs doing, and he realizes this, he pounds himself with that thought daily. But, he is an idiot, and sending an idiot to fix the problem that the idiot was a large part in creating seems to be an exercise in futility that would make Sisyphus proud. However, the band aid that is the idiot has to be applied to the gunshot wound(s) that are his problem(s) in the, probably vain, attempt to staunch the bleeding. Otherwise, the rock (from the myth of Sisyphus) wins, and that is a universe/fate/future that our idiot isn't sure that he can bear. 

Bon matin, Je suis Henrik

Ok, I'm awake that's a good start, I appear to be alive though my head is screaming at me that I am at least close to a near death experience. However, I do not appear to be at home, which is a bit disorienting. I am in a bed, just not my bed, also a bit of a puzzler. As I try to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of the last 12 hours, I notice that not only am I not in my bed, but I seem to have a companion in the bed I am occupying. Until my eyes gain the focus that my mind seems to lack, all they are is a vague, womanly shaped lump on the far size of, what I can only assume, is their bed. Think! idiot. Think! You went to the bar, no surprise there, you got drunk, again no shock, you saw a girl? You talked to a girl? You went home with a girl? These last three items on the list of my evenings "to do list" seem a bit hazy. Surely the memories exist, it is just a matter of finding the right neural pathway, kicking it open, and accessing them. Hopefully, before my companion wakes up, and starts asking what, I can only assume will be, some very embarrassing questions.

"Live a life of sin," he says," life is no fun in a boring office pushing paper and people around from one inbox to the other" he says. Fine, It seems I attempted to follow that advice a little too vigorously last night, and am now about to pay for the wages of my sin. And as the morning light begins to limp into the room of the girl I don't remember, would probably like to forget, but happen to be lying next to, those wages seem a bit on the high side, and I am not sure I am going to be able to pay them, not all at once at least. A small groan escapes my lips as I shift myself slightly further away from my latest playmate, and a returning moan/snore/grunt emanates from her in reply. She probably has a name, she probably told you her name, and she is sure as fuck probably expecting you to have remembered that name, pity that you don't. It is probably going to cause a few awkward moments of conversation before she hurls insults at you, and then you, out of the door. Susan? Ann? Katie? Jane? no, no, no, and no. Maybe Allison? Allison's a common enough name right? Right, it's Allison. Peering over to look at her, I see blond hair, and a not unpleasing shape, that's encouraging, but blond? I'm not much of a fan of blonds even drunk GI knows this, is this a way of adding some flavour to our life of sin? The bastard should be here to sort his mess out for himself, but no I had to wake up sober. Pity that.

Well, she looks a bit like an Allison (with two L's), whatever Allison's are supposed to look like, therefore we will go with Allison, unless of course I can somehow extract myself from her bed, and her house (located gods know where), figure out how I got here, and how I'm getting home, without waking her up. Hmm, all that seems a bit unlikely, and would require the luck of the entire fucking Republic of Ireland. Pity that I'm also not Irish. Luck, which may or may not have gotten me into this mess, has probably left the building, and forgot to take me with it in its hasty departure. The good news, if there is to be any good news, is that sleeping in my contacts has at least left me able to see, the bad news is I think my eyeballs may fall out from the experience. If you can see, you can find your pants right? If you can find your pants, you can make a quick and dignified exit right? Let's hope Allison is a deep sleeper, or still drunk. Either one will serve.

She seems to be deeply drooling the drool of what will soon become remorse, into some brightly coloured pillow of will become the pillow of regret, and fortune favours the brave, this seems a good time to collect my wits, and my clothes and get the hell out of here. Quietly, and quickly, for the this isn't the first time I've gotten dressed in the dark, I find the majority of my clothes, enough to pass as decent if not respectable, and start trying to navigate the maze of the house that I need to escape from, and sharply.  Allison, or whatever her name is, groans a couple of times, and shifts a little too much for my comfort, like a woman coming dangerously close to waking all the way up, and expecting me to be by her side in some happy state of mutual bliss, rather than the bounder standing next to her bed with his shoes in his hand, ready to hare it the fuck out of there like some thief that just nicked the good silver, and is headed towards the nearest pawn shop in hopes of a payday that will fund a lovely day at the races.

"Back to sleep, Allison" I coo reassuringly, like some parent trying to coax a baby with the colic to calm down, and let me get some bleeding sleep as well. Thank fuck it seems to have worked, she rolls back over and nestles deeper into the bed, and seems to be asleep for the duration, or at least the duration I need to get out of here. Out of the bedroom down the hall, a longing look at the bathroom because I have to piss like a rushing racehorse, but can't risk all that noise.  Wait, what the hell was that noise? Stop, take a listen, and a deep breath. Figment of your over active imagination old boy, no noise coming from the bedroom. Allison is sleeping the sleep of the dead, or the dead drunk, whichever either one is to my advantage. Wait, godsdamit, that was a noise, it's coming from some other room. Jesus, does Allison have a roommate, or a child, or maybe it's just a dog. That's it a dog, she seemed the type to have a dog.

Laughing at my own overly developed sense of paranoia, I continue my stealthy escape from this sticky situation, and head for what I hope is the back door, a person in my position should leave by the back door, show some respect after all.  Back doors are my type of fellow's friend, and I eventually figure out which direction to head, and hear more noise. Fuck me that was no dog, unless Allison possesses a dog that can sing, in which case awesome, but highly unlikely. This has to be a roommate right? Not a child, please jesus not a child, that will be way too difficult to explain, or not some elderly aunt that came over to cook her a surprise breakfast, also very tricky to explain to her who I am, why I am here, why I am leaving with my shoes in my hand, and why I don't like my eggs over easy.

It dawns upon my, not quite fully functioning, brain that I am now trapped. Trapped between "the devil" that is Allison and her bed, and the "deep, blue sea" that is the unknown person in the kitchen blocking my access to the back door. Back doors love them some kitchens.  Ignoring the "better the devil you know, than the one you don't" theory, I attempt to redirect my escape route to the front door, knowing that my odds of success have been drastically reduced. Still hope springs eternal right? Stranger thinks have happened, I mean they made 7 Fast and Furious films right?

Sadly, the little luck I had retained from last night decided, at this unfortunate moment, to run out, and not take me with it. For that was the moment that the occupier of the kitchen, the singer of morning songs came around the corner coffee mug in one hand and wearing nothing but their mortal sins for cover. "Jesus Christ!  Ladislaw!!! What in the ever loving fuck are you doing here? What the hell happened last night, I thought you had climbed out of a tart's bed and wasn't returning?" Before Ladislaw, looking very bemused could reply, Allison (which as it turns out that not her actual name) came around from the other corner, and said "well, hello lovers, glorious morning isn't it? Oh, excuse my rudeness Ladislaw this is Henrik (pointing at me)." Henrik, this is Ladislaw."

Ladislaw, that glorious bastard, stuck out their hand and with a wink as broad as the Mississippi River said "Damn glad to meet your Henrik, I'm afraid that I had rather forgotten your name in all the confusion, and err stuff last night." And that is how not Allison, to this day, thinks I first met Ladislaw. It certainly wasn't, but that is a tale for another time. So much for waking up with no one to answer to, and nothing to apologize for.

St. Christopher is Lost

I was given a specific assignment for my next blog post, and I appreciated that since my last one was mostly about how difficult it is currently for me to come up with ideas. Thankfully this assignment was more of a vague question and less of a demand for an exegesis, so you'll all be spared my less than brilliant literary analysis.

"Now I lost my St Christopher, now that I've kissed her."

The Inquisitor takes a more optimistic view of this line than I do. St Christopher is indeed the patron saint of travelers (as well as of poor mortals suffering from a toothache as well, but that's a subject for another day...). Inquisitor likes to think that the poet doesn't need the St Christopher any more because he has found someone to take its place. But the poet of the song didn't abandon his St Christopher or it lay aside, he lost it. Its not tucked safely in the top drawer of his desk. It is lost.  Which leads me to believe that he too is now lost. If the St Christopher was protection during his travels, then he no longer has it and is adrift on the tide. Being lost, as Inquisitor says, has its own kind of reckless appeal. There is a great deal to be learned and experienced when one is lost.  It is the stuff of fantasy... to get in your car, leave your life behind, and drive as far as you can go. New people to meet, sights to see, food to eat.  The desire for those things is one that most of us don't lose, in fact it seems to get stronger with age.

However, I have spent a great amount of time actually lost. Like, I took a wrong turn on the way to a place I've been seventy-five times and now I'm in Mississippi, lost. My sense of direction is bad enough as to be almost a disability. GPS directions on the iPhone have been an absolute life saver for me, not to mention salvaging my dignity from the scrap-heap of having to call my father repeatedly and try to tell him where I am so he can talk me through getting home. So, unfortunately, I know all too well what getting lost feels like.

The difference is that Inquisitor is lost on a solitary and exciting adventure. He is lost on purpose and with a purpose.  I'm usually lost and therefore late to wherever I'm supposed to be and panicked because someone (my mother or my friend or my child) is going to be upset about that. Lost, for me, brings no adventures and no lessons... It brings stress and anger and too many gray hairs. So I envy Inquisitor his ability to get lost and embrace it.

And maybe that is why I read that line so differently. Our poet has kissed the girl and been spun out into space by it. And it is a Romantic (Capitol R) idea that she may take the place of his St Christopher and now anchor him to earth. But that sort of cataclysm holds no appeal for me. I see only that his former anchor is gone and he is lost... And all of the accompanying stress and anger and gray hair that go with it. More than likely this girl is nothing special and will leave the poet high and dry when someone with a steady paycheck comes along. Then he'll be, without her and without his St Christopher, well and truly screwed.

The line is beautiful and heartbreaking, like most of my favorite poems. But in life, unlike in poetry, I prefer to turn on my GPS and not take the wrong turns. Wrong turns do tend to lead us to tarts' beds on occasion, and as I have climbed out of one in order to write this, I'm going to stay out.

You and I

I suppose I should start with an apology for drowning, it seems odd to have to do, but for reasons that I somewhat understand, you seem to be holding a grudge against me for drowning. Trust me, when I slipped into the W____ River that night 19 years ago, I had no intention of drowning. It was not a suicide, it was a lark, a spur of the moment decision that tragically turned into the last decision I ever made. I drowned that night in Memphis, and it took nearly 5 days for my body to be found. I took my voice, and my talent out of the world, but it was by accident. We live in a culture that kills artists, it wants them to die, people that talk poetically are devalued, and while culture didn't kill me that night, the river did, it was bound to happen sooner rather than later.  Therefore, I apologize for drowning, I hope that you accept this letter as a mea culpa, and as our 'last goodbye.'


I was an artist, and I carried a light that you refused to carry yourself. You admired me and you let it stifle your art. We all do it, I did it, and you will do it again with someone else, but your art, while not music like mine, is still art. You let me carry the light that you were afraid to carry yourself. But, I drowned, and now it is up to you to pick up that light, and maybe carry for yourself. If you are lucky, and I hope to fuck you are, then you might even carry (if only a little way) for other people as well. Be the inspiration you wanted me to continue to be, you are still alive, and can do it much easier than I can. There are people who tell you regularly that you are a writer, you scoff, and pretend you're not, and maybe you believe that deep down in your soul. People tell you that it must be a terrible place inside your mind, and I get that. I understand that it really is a terribly confusing place inside there. There are these half-formed ideas screaming at you like backbench members of British Parliament trying to shout down the Prime Minister's speech that they disagree with. These ideas aren't arguing with you, they aren't fighting with you, they are pleading with you, "write me DOWN, godsdamnit.."

I understand you try, you do what you think is your best, when we both know you could do far, far better. You let the critic's stones and arrows wound you too deeply, and retreat into sullen silence, and refuse to write. By doing that you let them win, they silence you, and the light you need to be carrying is extinguished. Here's a little quote that explains it much better than I could, not that you didn't already know this, but sometimes we all need reminding of the obvious.

 "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."

 It is like abusive parent, that adore the oldest child, but give them the worst of their behavior, be prepared to get it, accept it, and move on. It is one price you are going to have to pay, if you want to express yourself poetically, and try to create art.  It is not the only one, there will be others, and you will have to pay them as well. Maybe, all your art is just a dream your soul is having in order to reach out to other people in order to communicate with them from a safe distance. You are going to have to close that distance, and get close to a few of those people, and it's going to hurt. They are going to love you, adore you, and then condemn you, but never truly understand you, and that's fine. That is called living, and you have to do it, because I can't, I drowned.

Don't stay with me under these waves tonight, the river that took my life is mere miles from where you live right now. The city that was the last stop on the tour of my life, is where you are living yours. I just happened to get there about 6 years earlier than you did, you walk the same streets I did.  You have, I am certain, taken the time to find the places that you know I hung out, to visit, and ponder, in your anger, why I am not around to carry that light for you anymore. Don't give yourself up to the desperate trend of hero worship. I was no hero, and neither are you. But you can try to be, and maybe you will be to someone like I seem to be for you. More than likely, you won't ever be as "famous" as I was, and that's ok, you don't really want to be. You don't create mass art, you create personal art, don't want to be famous without content, that is as awful as awful can be. You don't use your physical voice, but you still have one. People have told you that when they read you, that they can hear your voice like you are talking to them, that my friend, is a quality to be admired, and exploited. If you are in their head, then you are halfway into their hearts.

Don't let those slings and arrows wound you too deeply, that you reach for that gun. There will be someone who finally loves you for real, when you are out of fuel and understanding, unfreeze your heart, and go get her. She won't just dawdle there in the middle distance waiting for you to get your shit together. She will be worth having, but you have to not be afraid. You might die a little in your art, and that's fine, art is, in many ways, dying in a very public, very poetic way. You will climb into an empty bed far, far too many nights, but those lonely nights will be worth it, they will teach you the value of the nights that she climbs into bed with you, if you are lucky. You will create many an artistic moment with her. Spend nights making love, stripping your ego down, expressing yourself wordlessly, collaborating on a moment that is inspirational in a way you can never imagine.

Pay the cost for the life of sin that your art (in many ways) forces you to lead. Good stories, like good songs, rarely come from working some office job for the majority of your adult life whilst shuffling paper, and people from one inbox to another. Don't let the fact that the rent is due deter you from living the live you art is going to demand of you. It is a demand, and it is a price you are going to have to pay, whether you like it or not. The rent, in the grand scheme of things, isn't.  You are certainly going to have to keep body and soul together, but don't sacrifice one for the benefit of the other. Of course, this is easy for me to say/write, for two reasons. One, I'm dead, I've felt the soil falling over my head and the cares of this mortal coil are no longer of any concern to me, Secondly, I had talent, and the guts to try to live by it. I am not so sure you do, and that, dream brother, is your tragedy to live, I am sorry for you and for it, but there is fuck all I can do about it. Even were I alive, and I know you really wish I was, we would have never crossed paths. Therefore, any help I could have provided you would have been minimal at best. This is, at the end of the day, your burden you are going to have to bear it.

As you stand there in the half light looking out upon the river that took my life, I hope you understand that you will never happen unless you choose to happen. Let the sea (river) take me again, say your last goodbye to me, let go of the resentment you have at me dying, go kiss her out of desire, not consolation, and carry the light I dropped in front of you. It must needs doing, and I can only hope you choose to do it. The risk is worth the reward, and when you die, and trust me you will, and it will be much too soon, someone like you might just look back upon your (wasted) life as well spent, look down at the light that you have dropped, pick it up, and carry it forward for you, for me, for all of us looking for a state of grace in our art.  

your dream brother,

JB

Lost, one Saint Christopher

Now I lost my Saint Christopher now that I've kissed her

My musical tastes were once described by someone who knew them well at the time, as being of two types, death music and hate music. I am not exactly sure they aren't the same, but after some careful consideration, I figure that assessment was pretty close to the mark.  I like to think my tastes have, unlike me, matured over the years, but they probably haven't. I would maybe tweak the variety to add "thinking music" but that probably still falls into the former two types as well.

The above quote is from a song called Tom Traubert's Blues by a fellow by the name of Tom Waits. It is a lovely song, and you should give it several listens, it's imagery will make you wish you had one hundredth the talent of M. Waits. I lack even that much talent, but I can still appreciate the song, and the story it is telling with such amazing power. My collaborator, Ladislaw, from what I have been able to tell during our brief time as collaborators, has musical tastes that border on the awful.. I did not like the idea of attempting to impose my own taste upon them, but some times people need saving from themselves.

One of the first songs I recommended to Ladislaw was Tom Traubert's Blues or as they know it Waltzing Matilda (it's other title), they loved it (as if I would recommend a bad song), and we've had several listens to it since. I explained that I had a favorite line in the song, what that line was, and how one day I should write something expanding on it. Well, that has never happened, and it may or may not ever happen, but the theory is sound. Ladislaw chose the above quote from the song as their favorite line, and this post is a small, terrible tale about what that meant.

I am a card carrying cynic, and a bit of a brooder by nature. I have been called gloomy by a few people, the few people that actually know me, and I figure that they would have a pretty good idea. It has has been said of me that "he doesn't like a lot of people, but those he likes, he likes." A pretty good summing up of my view on the world. Trust is a very valuable commodity, and I do not trade in it particularly well or often. However, once you obtain it (like some sort of knighthood) it is pretty much yours, barring some unforeseen disaster, for life. It is not given lightly, nor should it be received lightly. It is just the way I operate in the world.  The "truthful slander" of pessimist has been hurled at me by quite a few people, and in the main, I don't believe it was intended to be a compliment. I am a huge (not just in size) fan of Arthur Schopenhauer. Herr Schopenhauer is not for the faint of heart, and one of the things he is known for is the idea of "cosmic pessimism." It seemed brilliant when I first read about it decades ago, and nothing in the intervening years has happened to change my opinion of it. I will leave it up to the curious among you to Google it at your leisure, if you so choose, if not well then you are just reinforcing the theory. It need not detain us here.

Since we had nothing of any real importance to do, Ladislaw, and I discussed what that line meant. I am of the opinion that since St. Christopher is, among other things, the patron saint of travelers, that the fellow in the song lost his St. Christopher after kissing "her' because he has found love right in front of him, and no longer needs to wander. Wandering is a lovely thing, and I have been known to take a good, solid wander from time to time. Some times in the hope of finding something, some times in the hopes of just getting lost. Being lost is, in many ways, both a terrifying, and wonderful experience. Terrifying in the sense that, you've no clue where in the universe you are, and no real idea how to get back to where you think you belong. If you belong anywhere at all.  Being lost is a lot harder to do in this day and age, but I highly recommend it. Get lost, but do it properly, by that I mean get really fucking lost, get lost at night, get lost at night in a rainstorm, and get lost at night, in a rainstorm, in a shitty part of town. You will, if you are sober enough to form the thought, start to think that being lost isn't exactly what you had planned in the first place, and you might even want your mother, or at least some other warm, welcoming companion.

However, being lost can be, if done correctly, a wonderful experience. Lost can be freedom. If done properly, lost is the lovely state of having no one to answer to, and nothing to apologize for. No one knows (or likely cares) where you are, and no one will come looking for you to add the weight of the world to your wandering shoulders. Lost is a very personal thing, and you can choose how lost you want to be. Do you want to be lost to the entire world, or just a portion of it? You can with the push of a few buttons give your location to whomever you chose, or at least a general idea of where you think you are. Your last known whereabouts given to the right person, can be a lovely starting point to a wonderful, shared, and exciting time.  Or, do you just want to be lost to a certain group of people? Your boss, your annoying as fuck co-workers, the bank, the student loan people, wives or husband (your own or other people's), crazy ex-girl or boy friends who stalk you even whilst saying they hate you, or that group of clowns that beat you up in grade school. There are an infinite number of groups or people that you prefer to think of you as lost.

The word planet comes from some impossible to pronounce or type Greek word that loosely translates as "wandering star." I like to think of all of us as wandering stars, and it is upon our wander through the universe of life that we encounter other wandering stars. Some we like, most we probably don't, some we have to try to avoid collision with, and some that we attempt to wander in the same direction as for as long as possible. It is your wander, it is your Saint Christopher, and hopefully (if you are very, very lucky) you get to lose your Saint Christopher after you kiss her (or him), and get to wander a lot less for a while (maybe a good long while, but nothing is written in stone). Enjoy that wander, but remember you are, in many terrifying and wonderful ways still lost.

P.S.   I was going to expound upon Ladislaw's theory, as told to me, about their favorite line, but decided to let them do it for themselves. After all, it is their theory, and they are quite capable of writing it themselves. Therefore, Ladislaw, when you climb out of whatever tart's bed you are warming for the nonce, and get sober enough to form what passes, for you, coherent thought, you are now welcome to write your reply. I am sure our vast readership awaits with bated (not wasted) breath.

A new first time

Introducing ones self to a group of strangers is always awkward, no matter how clever you are. And I'm not very clever, but rest assured that I am a real person, despite allusions to the contrary, and not a figment of anyone's imagination. The hard work of introduction was already done for me in a previous post and expectations were set intimidatingly high, so it's probably past time for me to contribute something. 

I had no intention, when I volunteered my services as a grammar nazi, of being recruited for actual material. But once the invitation was extended, I couldn't resist. In a past life, I wrote every day. It was therapy and expression and entertainment all rolled into one and I loved it. But then I got a real job and a real life and got distracted by them. So it has been a long time since I was in the habit of gathering and storing up ideas to write about. But like a fat squirrel hiding nuts for winter, I'm hopeful that the instinct will come back to me. Ideas for poetry have always seemed the easiest. One image or a single idea can get you through a whole sonnet. And you only need half of an idea for anything shorter than that. I've written some truly terribly poetry in my time, but I maintain that the ideas were good. And ideas for fiction are pretty simple too. Just make something up and run with it as far as it takes you. None of this guarantees that the end result will be worth reading, of course. It only means that something does get written. I've never written anything like a blog, so my apologies in advance if my contributions bring down  the atmosphere of this establishment. If I wait for a good idea to strike, we'll all be a thousand years old before I write anything. So I'm just going to tell a story and let you decide if it's any good.

When I graduated from high school, to have called me a nerd would have been understating things dramatically. I made Anthony Michael Hall look worldly and sophisticated. And in the course of my sometimes-painful nerd trajectory, the July before I went to college, I was awarded a trip to Arizona for super-geek summer camp called The American Academy of Achievement. It was a week of lectures and seminars given by speakers who had supposedly accomplished something noteworthy. Most of the other participants skipped the speakers and sat by the pool sipping fruity drinks. But I was a geek among geeks and never missed a lecture. The guest list was a little bizarre in retrospect... Who thought it was a good idea to put Laurin Hill and several five star generals on the same agenda? I don't remember much about any of the speakers except that one spilled his coffee all over the podium. However, on the last night, there was a banquet. We all got dressed up and had assigned seats at fancy tables. There was a speaker, of course, and some other presentations to conclude the week. When I finally found my assigned seat, I remember glancing around and the names to the right and left of mine. The name card next to mine read "James Earl Jones." I looked frantically around to see if there had been some mistake, but sure enough, he was walking towards his seat. He was instantly recognizable, if heavier than I'd seen him in movies, and he was breathing hard when he sat down. I introduced myself when he did, but I didn't have the nerve for much conversation. Mostly i just listened to his voice as he spoke to other people. It's been a long time, but I specifically remember what it sounded like when he laughed... That deep, warm chuckle that I've heard so many times in movies but sitting right next to me. When the dinner was over and everyone said good night, he shook my hand and said, "It's been my pleasure, Lucky." Now this blog is semi-anonymous, but my name is not Lucky. Not even close. I'm not sure how he came up with that, but I didn't have the heart to correct him. So I just said "Goodnight, sir." and went on my way. But now when I need encouragement on a particularly shit day, I just remind myself that James Earl Jones thinks my name is Lucky.

And if you say so, Mr. Jones, it must be true.

Deus ex machina

In those horrible (or is it horribly) brown eyes, I can see the past, the present, and the future. The past we didn't share, but are beginning to spin out like a spool of cotton candy at the fair. Wrapping our pasts around each other, trying to explain the things that make us the people we are today, and trying to figure out if those two people will ever have a mutual past. Your past, that does not contain any large R romantics like me, and my past that is littered with the graves of far, far too many failed attempts at expressing that Romanticism fluently. The past that is somehow managing to haunt us, even though we haven't fully explored it yet. The map of our past consists mostly of places marked with the designation terra incognito. Undiscovered areas of each other than can only be revealed by asking the proper questions, and the giving of open, honest answers. Honesty, like teamwork, is essential. It allows those blank, scary areas to become vistas that we want to revisit again and again. There will surely be things in both of our pasts that we will be terrified to reveal, but that shouldn't stop either of us. Nothing has stopped us yet, and simple things like "someone we used to know" shouldn't stop us now.

 The present, the day to day conversations that probably go on for far too long, and monopolize our time to the exclusion of others. The excluding of others because when you are in the room, it doesn't matter how many other people are there, you are, for me, the only person in the room. The present that has exploded upon our placid existence like a flight of Savoia bombers blasting Barcelona into submission during the Spanish Civil War. The present that consisted of my awful alarm clock blasting me awake far too early in the morning for this shit, and as I pound the snooze button into submission, my first coherent thought is about you. Wondering what you are doing, wondering how you are, and wondering if you are doing any wondering as well. The present that consists of "all our yesterdays" and is right here in front of us, demanding our attention like a four year old child that really, really has to go to the bathroom. The present where I really want to start one of those overlong conversations with you, but won't because (for me) the last one ended so poorly that I am not sure how to make it better, or even if I can. The present where I want to make things better, but am realizing just how difficult that task is, and how inadequate I am for it.

 The future that we are trying to negotiate like it is the Treaty of Versailles, fraught with all sorts of boundary disputes and obstacles. Some we are making ourselves, some that are seeming insurmountable, some that merely dificile (the French word sums it up much better), some that are tricky, and some that are like "dreams in stone" seemingly hard, but really just constructs of our fevered collective imagination. Daring to dream, but dreaming in stone just to be on the safe side, and tethering those dreams to a glass ring that we keep beside the phone for just such a purpose. The future where I have climbed down from the mountain of seclusion that I was busy scaling to its peak, and turned away from the "five year" plan I had carefully constructed to meet you somewhere in the middle of the plains, where I begin to make new plans that are struggling to include you, and to keep pace with the radical shifts in both our moods. There has to be more than one plan, because there are many possible futures in front of us. The four futures that I have already envisioned, and the multitude of them that I have yet to ascertain. Lacking a TARDIS to project myself into the future, and to see if there is a future that exists where we are together as I think we should be, I have to resort to my rational side, and begin to concoct  the dark plans that involve me killing the large R romantic side of me that got us into this awful, but great, situation in the first place.

The problem that the murderous rational me faces is that he has also looked into those horribly brown eyes as well, and sadly sees the same thing as the foolish large R romantic in me sees. That, as far as we have been able to tell, has maybe happened one other time in our collective, but separate existence. We have yet to find the Deus ex Machina that will allow us to solve what seems to be a unsolvable dilemma, for that what Deus ex Machinas do, they solve the unsolvable problems that people like me create by being a special kind of fool. However, the mad man in this tale doesn't have a box that allows for time travel, all he has is you (for the nonce) and however loose that grasp may be, he is going to try to hold on for just a little bit longer in the hope that past, present, and future come together into one moment of pure luck. 

Noir et bleu

Everyday, if you search hard enough, is an anniversary of something, or some one's birthday, or sometimes both. There are way too many things, and way to few days for it to be any different. Some of these things or people are important, and some are only important to one, or maybe (if you are lucky) two of you. Some of the occasions are happy ones, some are sad, some are tragic, and some just really should never be celebrated again. Today falls into the latter category. Thus, the image above. It is, quite obviously, a cemetery a place where things, usually people are buried. However, cemeteries can be useful for the burying of all sorts of  other things, and they don't all have to have a physical address. There exists cemeteries of the mind, places in the dark corners of your brain that need never to be explored again. Wastelands that would made T.S. Eliot proud. Doors that the part of you that still likes to pretend you are sane have locked, and hidden the key in a far, far away place. And speaking of Mr. Eliot here's a bit of his "The Waste Land" just for dramatic purposes.

The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries

Of course, that is said much better than what I have to say, but I am going to say it regardless of my lack of skill. Most things undertaken in a moment of awful daring need not be found in our obituaries. Some of those moments need to be written out of our (shared) history, and never spoken of again. Life is, in the main, a series of unfortunate events, with the occasional flash of brilliance to keep it from being entirely as black as Monty Burns' heart. Sometimes the things we can't remember suddenly become the things we can't forget, and the gloom descends even further. But, and it is a rare occurrence, sometimes those flashes are just as bright as the summer son of York, and they rehabilitate the gloom

I have written about cemeteries of the mind before (see "The Third Time"), they are places in my mind where the past, failed relationships of my life are buried. There are many gravestones in that cemetery, and each has a name, and some dates engraved upon them. The dates are tricky, sometimes there are four dates. The date I first met the occupant of the grave, the date we first decided to hitch our wagon to each others star, the date that it all went terribly wrong, and the date of the actual burial. Sometimes those dates are the same, or very close in time, sometimes they are years apart, sometimes there aren't four dates. The fourth one is the hardest one to engrave, and many times I avoid doing the engraving due to a combination of moral cowardice, and foolish hope. But as with most things it must needs doing, and the time always comes where the fourth date has to be engraved in stone, not merely penciled in, in the vain hope of some Lazarus like resurrection of a dead relationship.

Therefore, like Antony, I have come to bury you, not to praise you. The praise I gave you was mostly ineffective anyway, let us hope the burial has more sticking power. Not to say you didn't have praiseworthy qualities. You were fond of saying that when I "looked at you, it made you feel as if you were the only person in the room." And that wonderfully lyrical statement, so unlike your usual prosaic view of the world, was spot on true. During the time between the second and third dates, you were the only person in the room, even when you weren't even in the actual room. The first date, and the last date on your particular gravestone are quite far apart, and that speaks volumes. It speaks to both the foolish hope I mentioned earlier, and to the "large R" romanticism that afflicts me. It was that romanticism that made second date possible, it was the over bearing usage of it, that made the third date happen way too soon. Now it is the realization that the monopoly on my romanticism that you once possessed has been broken by another, that makes engraving the fourth date necessary.

The ground in the above picture looks hard, baked by the sun and as tough to dig in as concrete. It was soon to receive a wonderful, softening rain, but that came too late for the burial that I was there to do.  I know all of this because I took the picture with just this burial in mind, and was later drenched to the bone by the softening rain. However, just because something is hard to do is not a reason to postpone or cancel doing it. In many situations it is the opposite, because something is hard it needs to be done, and sometimes it needs to be done with all deliberate speed. The spadework had already been done, shared between us like the partnership that we once were. You dug with real determination once you came to the realization that we needed to be buried. All that really remained was the lowering of your figurative body into the yawning hole in the ground, and some talented soul to say a few remorseful words as the band played the pipes and the chorus.

 But, maybe that is where I am missing the boat, maybe the graves in my cemetery contain not just the memory of the second party in my relationships, but maybe they contain a little piece of me in them as well. Maybe in the neat little row upon row of (mostly) silent graves there is the sum of the parts of my soul buried as well. It is a soul made black and blue by the bruises you so skillfully placed upon it, when you were inspired, and I did inspire you (at least in this context.,You could make someone (i.e. me) feel very, very bad about themselves. Flaws that seemed to be merely quirks of ones personality, became the San Andreas fault line under your careful, painful tongue lashings. Those remain, in many ways, the most enduring memories of the history of "us".  The fact that, no matter what I tried, it didn't seem to be either the right thing, or good enough. I eventually realized that was your fault not mine. It wasn't that I couldn't make you happy, it was that you didn't want me to make you happy, and that made all the difference in the world. Figuring that out is a painful memory.

That particular brilliant insight was not easy to come by, and it took more than the three wise men or four horsemen to help me to obtain it.  Some considerable thought, and distance both of the physical kind, and the figurative kind were necessary to allow me the sense of depth to make  this decision.  Things begin to look smaller as they fade away into the distance, and as you put more distance between us, you eventually reached your vanishing point. You didn't flee out into the night after some turbulent argument, and leave me staring off the balcony after you. No, your disappearing act was both more subtle and more obvious than that. Some doors, in spite of our best efforts, just aren't made to slam, they just click with what is (when you think about it later) some awful finality.

It is blessed finality that I desperately seek as I pile the last sod of dirt upon your grave, and  as I hammer the fourth date onto the tombstone that bears your name. I seek the finality that will allow me to dust myself down, and not have to reopen this grave anytime soon, or maybe ever. That is clearly yet to be determined, because one day's resolution is sometimes followed by the next day's weakness, and a third day's folly. Finality is as hard to obtain as zen, and it remains a struggle (mostly uphill) that I fear I may have to fight for a long time to come. It makes no sense, nor is it going to anytime soon, but it's just the way the world seems to be working. Time causes as many wounds as it heals, but it is time for me to close that cemetery gate, and face the fact that it might be time for someone else to have the chance to wound me, hopefully they won't, or hopefully that won't as badly as you have, but without me closing, and locking the gate to your grave they won't have the chance, and that is unfair to them.

When they come to write my obituary, if they can be bothered to do so at all, I can only hope (at least for now) your name is not even mentioned in passing. I suppose the timing of the obituary may have something to do with whether it is or not, and truth be told, I'll be dead, and passed caring. I rather suspect you feel the same way, and look back upon this all as a mistake, a rather large one that you rather wished you hadn't made. We may be able to bury each other in mental cemeteries, and whitewash ourselves out of each others history, but full blown erasure is not really possible. Whatever stage upon life's way we reach after this funeral, and I figure you are a stage or two further down the road that I am, there will always exist an us (even after we stop existing). This cemetery may become overgrown from neglect, and the sands of time may wear away the tombstones, but the graves are eternal.

Therefore, I will, with as little regret as I can manage, lock that gate, and turn away to face whatever future awaits me. That is yet to be determined, but the good news (if there is any good news) is that as I walk away so hurriedly from this relationship graveyard, I am not exactly alone. However, that is a story for another day. A day that you won't be around to celebrate. I am in many ways, truly sorry, however I am also, in many ways, blessedly relieved to have reach this stage upon my life's way.  Bon chance.  

 



 














 

Collaboration

The sharp eyed among you will notice an addition to this blog. The few of you that still read it might care enough to wonder what the story is behind the addition. This simple little post will be an attempt to explain that addition, and to keep me from falling asleep at work. Dual purpose blog posts are the best, and if that line contains some foreshadowing, all the better.

The addition to this blog is a collaborator, not in the Vichy French sense, but a fellow human (I made sure to check), that will (hopefully) from time to time lend their writing skills (of which I am also hopeful) to this blog. Christ knows it could use some real skill. My collaborator (if it is another person, and not just my literary personality fragmenting), is a bit of a grammar Nazi, but not the Himmler kind, more of the Speer type, i.e. the "Nazi who said he was sorry." They correct my numerous mistakes, but do so without the regular disdain, and overbearing conceit practiced by the majority of their ilk.  Content is sometimes rather important, and this particular grammar Nazi (again if it is another person at all) understand that, and is willing to take on some editorial duties around this dump as well. More power to them, if they can track down all my typos, and other sins against the English (and sometimes other) language, and repair them enough to make them coherent, then maybe they deserve the Iron Cross, or whatever medal grammar Nazis hand out to each other in their overdeveloped sense of smugness.

They (if there is a they) have chosen the nom de plume of Ladislaw, taken from the novel Middlemarch by George Eliot. The classically  educated among us (of which I used to count myself) know exactly what that means. At least I didn't make the mistake of confusing George Eliot with T.S. Eliot. But every once in a while, being clueless is not as terrifying as it seems. Sometimes ignorance is actually bliss. Knowledge is power, but usually in the obtaining of knowledge you have to give a little knowledge in return, and that can be much scarier than is strictly good for one's heart. A little mystery is good for the soul, and if you don't believe that then ask your mechanic a whole lot of annoying questions the next time you take your car in for service, and if they answer you, see how you feel having certain mysteries explained to you. Mysteries come in all shapes, and sizes and sometimes even in boxes. Whether you choose to unwrap them, or wait for them to be revealed is your personal choice. If Ladislaw ever decides to reveal their (possibly separate identity) that is their decision, and one you (and possibly me) will just have to accept.

The hope of this collaboration is more content, actual readable content would be a bonus, but we are not going to get our collective hopes up too high. After all, as of yet Ladislaw has yet to contribute anything (or maybe they have).  Being the prole type, and rather egalitarian we have decided that this collaboration does not have a leader. It is a more partnership based upon a mutual disdain for the rest of the human race, and a firm belief that if no one is in charge then the blame can be firmly placed on each other equally. Teamwork (that bane of modern society) is essential, when things start to go wrong, it allows you to blame someone else.

Introductions, like acceptance speeches, should be short, and this one has probably wandered into the overlong category. Therefore, I will merely end it with a hale, and hearty welcome to Ladislaw the new person to blame when shit goes horribly wrong.

Pie for Porn

To steal a line from the poet "I gave her gifts of the mind." She gave me pie. I like to think I got the better of the exchange. After all, anyone who knows me in the illusion we call "real life" will quickly tell you that I am obviously a lover of pie, and they won't be talking about Maths. As a very disgruntled receiver of some fairly awful gifts, I try to do better with the few gifts I bestow upon people. I try to figure out something that will push the simple "joy of getting a gift" button, and I try to make it a gift that defines what they mean to me at the time of getting the gift. Sometimes that is a very, very tricky proposition. A gift that will tell them this is something you will enjoy because I've taken the time, and put in the thought to figure out the type of stuff you will enjoy. That is why I gave her porn, which I consider to be, broadly speaking, a gift of the mind.


To be fair it wasn't the DVD  of some donkey show in Tijuana that I may or may not have filmed (or made) while I was struggling to pay the bills in college. It was what she labelled as "antique" porn. Porn of the literary type. Porn that was written long before the Internet obliterated the written word as a way of delivering quality porn to a generation of awkward sods. It was porn that was commissioned by a "collector" some fellow who just wanted to have his own personal collection of porn to have a private wank to when he felt the need, and had the money to find someone to write it for him. It was written in the 1940's, and not published until after the author's death about 30 years later. It was written for a dollar a page, which I guess was close to the going rate in those days, and far more than I will ever earn for anything I write, pornographic or not.

Unlike the poetry that I had given her, this was not designed to help the wooing process. It was written by a woman who referred to herself as "the madam of this snobbish literary house of prostitution, from which vulgarity was excluded". I must confess that I read it a million years ago, and had forgotten most of it until I decided to gift it to her.  I casually re-read some of it, and was scandalized by page 5, it caused to briefly rethink the idea of giving it as a gift, but fortune favours the brave, and if she likes this, and I am fairly certain she will, then I believe we have a future in the gift giving business together. I mean all she has to do is buy me more pie, easy enough.  Sometimes things are just as easy as well, pie.

Not that she was in any shape, form, or fashion easy.  Like most things in my life, she was difficult like an unbroken filly that doesn't  have time for my usual brand of bullshit.  Headstrong, stubborn, and just a bit wild if given her head.  Nothing wrong with any one of those qualities, but taken together, they made things quite a challenge. Then again, I doubt I would have given her porn if she wasn't all three of those things rolled up into one very pretty package. She was a racehorse built for speed, and I was more than willing to see how fast and how far she could "run".  I am a fellow that  loves a challenge, even if I generally fall at the first hurdle. However, that is usually my own fault, since I am generally the one that sets the height of the first hurdle. There have been times in my life where I had to be coaxed over the first hurdle by brazen acts of obviousness that Mr. Macgoo would be hard pressed to miss.

She wasn't obvious or even brazen, she was as understated as a well tailored Savile Row suit, freshly made for a fat man made skinny by the worries of the world. Which was a risk because, since I considered her about two hundred miles out of my league, I would have never guessed her interest if she hadn't been clear. It is possible to be clear without being obvious, it just takes talent, and thankfully, she had talent. I would have merely wandered through my days in her occasional presence, clueless as to the potentially wonderful thing that was directly under my nose. Oblivious to the fact that this wonderfully talented woman was looking at me with anything other than indifference. I had shopped in the "eye candy" store before, and found out to my cost that sometimes pretty things are just more expensive, price isn't always reflective of quality, or something that I am willing to pay.

 Often times, new relationships (using the term very broadly) never really mature past what I call the "new car syndrome". New cars are fantastic, and you immediately want to show them off to your friends, drive it around town, test all the features, and generally treat it like you have discovered the cure for cancer. Well, you haven't, and it is best to not attach yourself too firmly too quickly,  because after a few thousands miles you start to realize it might be the exact cure you were looking for. You bought it, and it was wonderful, but you were so busy enjoying the new, that you didn't learn the intricate details that it possessed, and now suddenly you feel bored. Boredom, and over sudden familiarity are very dangerous to new relationships. The Scylla and Charybdis of the relationship pleasure cruise in a manner of speaking.

  However, people aren't horses, and they sure as hell aren't cars. Cars, if you possess the means, can be traded fairly easily, people are a mite more difficult. You can't just drive/walk them back to the lot, and say to the dealership you can have it back it's defective. People "dealerships" do not exist,and I doubt frog marching someone back to their mother would be an effective method for getting shed of them. Also, you cannot just stop making the payments, and wait for the repo man to come and drive it back to the bank. The "new" will, if you are lucky enough to stick around long enough, wear off, and then it becomes incumbent on you to have forged something more solid that just simple newness. Either that or you are back where you started which is alone.You just have to make sure, and making sure is very, very difficult, that you do not allow the new to cloud your judgment overmuch.

It will cloud your thinking a bit, that is just the way of the world, but the world, when it is not trying to kill you, has a way of evening things out if you are careful. And I resolved to be careful with her, many a relationship had foundered on the rock of my impatience, and that (at least) was not going to be an issue in this case. Patience was going to be required because she was fond (overfond in my opinion) of telling me that my odds at achieving the final goal were long at best. "Better than some, but still about _%" (that percent never left the single digit mark).  Long shots are fun to bet, because when they pay, they PAY, but the problem is they rarely pay. Either way, I resolved to at least put down my bet, and see how the race was to be run, after all she was lovely.  Lovely enough that, without even seeing her undressed, I told her she was in danger of becoming my muse. She replied that "muses usually wind up naked, and your chances aren't good" and then proceeded to tell me my single digit percent chance again. She liked to throw the occasional bucket of cold water at me, just in case my hopes got too high. I was too busy shaking off that cold water to reply that Petrarch never saw his muse Laura naked, but I also figured she already knew it.

I was merely hoping for her to become a positive muse, naked or otherwise (obviously I had my preference as to which). Too many times in my life I have chased what ultimately became negative muses. Some people would claim that I write my best (using that term broadly as well) when I am sad, but those people didn't have to endure that sadness, I did, and it generally was not the most pleasant experience.  I have, when particularly sad, made people cry with these lines, and even made a grammar Nazi cry, and forget to look for mistakes in a post, it was a very happy moment for me. The idea that sadness makes (for me) great prose is all well and good, but sadness generally sucks, and sometimes has an annoying habit of sticking around and making itself a general nuisance.

All of this is to say, that perhaps my massive readership of four might see some posts that pass as "happy'. Of course, happy for me is probably a little different from the classical definition of happy, but who's to quibble. If the quality of my writing declines, which I find unlikely, then I hope the reader won't begrudge me the reason. It seems more than a fair trade to me.

You, of the Sixth Part

This blog is like most things in my life, neglected and in want of a retouch. It is a sad thing to realize that not writing becomes a habit almost as quickly as writing. The "I will do it tomorrow" approach rarely ends with "it" (whatever it is) being done tomorrow or the next day. Suddenly you find yourself on a streak of non-activity (whatever the activity may be), and you are in a rut of laziness that deepens with each passing day. There exists no real, definable reason for my lack of writing, I still have the occasional (for me) brilliant idea. I still compose lines, and blog posts in my head before sleep, and sometimes remember enough of them the next day to recreate them, I still can't type for shit, and my grammar is going to get me stood up against a wall, and shot by some local, thuggish grammar Nazi (of which I am honoured to know several). However, I have decided to take that first dramatic step, and attempt a new blog post for the two people (if I am lucky) that still read me, and hopefully still think I have something beautiful to say. Without further ado, and for your reading pleasure (I hope), I give you the latest dross that stuck around in my head long enough from last night's adventure in thinking.


You weave in and out of my life like some sailor made drunk by the combination of hard drink and dry land, staggering down the forlorn alleyways of my memories intent on the destruction of my sense of self. Granted, you aren't singing any bawdy songs, I've never heard you sing, but I doubt you have any particularly bawdy songs in your personal play list.  No, your songs are more melancholy, songs that are designed to make lusty men of every nation forget their happiness, and look out to sea, remembering all that it has taken from them. You seem to be content with your occasional berth upon the ship of my soul. Taking your rare turns at the helm, and seemingly attempting (with varying degrees of success) to steer it into the shoals of a personal disaster from which I would be unable to recover. You do this with both the ease of Picasso painting a picture, and the glee of a child turned loose in a candy store with a freshly minted pile of money that is dying to be spent.  You don't seem to mind the rain that your presence inevitably brings, soaking the sails, and making the decks slippery as a ski slope in December (at least in this hemisphere). It seems to invigorate you, driving you on to take even greater risks/liberties. Where the sailors before you would at the very least reef in the topsail, you call for more canvas, and steer into the wind causing as much havoc as you possibly can.

If there were torpedoes (and who's to say there aren't)  you would damn them like Admiral Farragut, and sail full ahead into whatever disaster that lurks just over the horizon. Disasters do love to lurk, hiding in the shadows waiting for people to make a wrong turning, and come into their wheelhouse. But not this ship, not with you at the helm. No, this ship under your malicious (it has to be malice doesn't it?) steers directly for those disasters, daring them to "come out and play" almost pleading with them to combine and do their worst. Perfect for you, after all, you won't be around when the actual worst hits. You chart the course, you ignore the warning signs, and you steer, purposefully into as many disasters as you can humanly find, and then "poof" you are gone. Like some incompetent magician performing a trick that he's never been able to get quite right, YOU disappear, not the lovely assistant that you picked out of the audience, but YOU. There isn't even the customary puff of distracting smoke. You just calmly, gleefully desert the wheel, leaving it spinning like a child's top and the ship lurching drunkenly towards whatever doom you've selected in your own mind.

You do this with the knowledge, and I would suspect the faint hope that, in spite of whatever disaster you have found for me, I will recover steerage, and sail far enough away from the storm you've found and/or created. You are convinced I won't be scuppered by the event, just slightly swamped, with just enough water below decks to slow, but not swamp me.  Certainly you expect that I will try to sail away unscathed, but that isn't a part of your plan. Just as certain is the fact that you won't be around to repair the damage. No you aren't a healer, you prefer to wound and then watch your victim bleed, content in the knowledge that the wounds you've inflicted aren't fatal, and positive that it will provide a learning experience for your victim. Victim is an almost fatally charged word, and I don't use it lightly. You would say, it you could be bothered to comment at all on such a triviality, that I am a willing victim. You might even say (with some small degree of justification) that I am more of a co-conspirator, a willing actor in whatever disaster we find. After all, you would argue, again with some degree of justification, that I allowed you to sail into waters too deep, and did it too soon. Knowing that neither I, nor my ship was ready for the deep ocean voyage to the lovely climes where the sky is just a bit bluer than it should be. You will claim that I am not a victim at all, but someone who should be standing in the dock beside you to answer the charge of willful destruction of his own soul.

Often as not your weapons are words, and you use them with almost surgical precision. Cutting away just enough flesh to make it hurt like hell, but leaving enough for the scar to form and not be too terribly noticeable. I think this is based upon the theory that, on the off chance, I find another pilot to attempt to steer away from you, they won't notice the damage until it is too late. Realizing that when they do, I will sail limply back into your port, sails slack and in tatters, asking for another trip to parts dangerous but at least semi-known with you.  Not surprisingly this has happened before, and since I am as predictable as a summer squall, you take out your sextant and beginning plotting me a course for those dangerous parts with the grim determination that would make Captain Ahab proud.

I remain convinced that eventually I will mutiny like Fletcher Christian, and put you, my own personal Captain Bligh into a long boat with just enough supplies to provide you with a slow death, and retake this ship that you sail around like a plaything, and sail it off into the glorious sunset without you. Without a glance back to check on your progress, or hopefully lack thereof. It is probably a bridge too far, and I realize that if you were to be piped aboard, I would allow you to order the anchor raised, and stand almost idly by, as you begin to chart my course into another purposeful disaster.