Tag: human condition

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personal

God the Car Salesman

Location: a green couch she hates
Mood: optimistic
Music: Hey, he said, grab your things, I’ve come to take you home.


Her: How can you believe in a religion where some people are saved and others aren’t?
Me: I don’t make the rules, I just try to follow them.
Her: What about girls that are raped and killed for just being? And children murdered for being children, where’s your god then?

It’s hard being a Christian in the big city. People look at you like you’re nuts. They expect me to be or act a certain way. A weird form of reverse prejudice.

I doubt my religion all of the time. But I doubt it hoping, really hard, that it might be true. S’ok to doubt, I think. Everyone does it. Abraham, Mary, Thomas.

A girlie I dated once called religion: a nice fairy tale. But fairy tales, and most religions, tell you that if you’re a good guy, you’ll do fine. Like god is some sorta used car salesman you gotta bargain with just right to get the best deal.

Unless I’m reading it totally wrong, what I believe seems to say that if you’re a good guy, you still get screwed. In fact, the gooder you are, the harder you get screwed. Consider:

  • John the Babtist did everything right and got beheaded.
  • Job did everything right and lost everything, everyone.
  • Peter, the head of the first church, was crucified upside down.
  • Mary, essentially a 16 year old kid, is a virgin and gets knocked-up only to live to see her son get killed as a criminal (I sorta feel she got screwed the most).
  • Joseph finds out that his first born son isn’t his either.
  • Jesus did everything right and gets nailed to two planks of wood.

So what’s the point of even trying then? I dunno. I also don’t know the answer the questions above. I’m not a theologian. Not anything, really.

But maybe we should go do good, not cause there’s a reward for our work in the end, but a debt we owe for our chances in the beginning. We owe it to the aether.

Her: I don’t think I need god. I’m a moral person.
Me: But we’re still just people and people fail all the time. I wanna believe in something bigger than my own imagination. Something bigger than my own strength of will.

What the human heart, if afforded one wish, truly wants is a do-over. A chance to get those chances again.

Spring, Easter, it’s all about rebirth. S’why we got all the pansy coloured egges. All about the do-over. My year always starts in Fall, yeah. But something about Spring, makes me hopeful.

Happy Easter for those of you that read the same book as me. For those that don’t, hope the sun is sunny where you are, you’ve got someone hot to make out with, and there’s something grand on cable for you to watch.

Actually, if you read the same book as me, I wish you the last three also.

YASYCTAI: List the good things you’ve got. (60 mins/2 pts)

Categories
personal

Static

Location: three hours ago, leaving office
Mood: drained
Music: got this crazy dream of stripping down to truth and bone

All the static electricity in my building somehow accumulates in my room. That’s cause about once an hour I’ll touch something in my room and a huge spark’ll jump from me to that thing.

My roommates must think it’s strange that I randomly scream out, “Dammit!” by the hour, on the hour from my room.

———-

Speaking of roommates, might have a vacancy. I live in a 1,700 SF duplex and the room is a 500 SF room with private whirlpool bath, separate shower equipped with all the fixings and the best high pressure shower head and three six-foot closets. Email, please.

———-

Speaking of static, got some from a friend over his buddy. Basically, buddy’s a jerk and my friend admits he’s a tool. In fact, the only good thing that can be said about him is that he’s entertaining. Like a clown. And that they’ve known each other for X amount of years.

I get both reasons – but it’s a poor excuse for poor character. Who’s got the time?

As a kid, heard that Nixon was playing golf with Nicklaus one day and missed a swing. So Nixon looks around and says something like, It’s just us, that didn’t count, yeah? Nicklaus thought it was weird but was like, Whatever. Years later, Nicklaus was watching TV when Watergate happened, and he said that he knew it was Nixon. He knew it. Cause he saw what Nixon’s character was.

(If you read me, you know I hate saying facts unless I can back it up, so the closest I could find to this story was this).

And that’s the thing. My buddy doesn’t see it. But I see it. People’s true character comes out in the little things. It’s how I knew my ex was cheating on me.

Got extra weight? Work out. Got no dough? Knuckle up and make some scratch. Got poor character? Oooooh…dude, sorry. There’s no cure for straight-up tool.

For serious; more than anything, feel pity for him. Cause there’s no cure for poor character and the Devil and I know this: y’can’t hide who you really are.

For better or for worse, we both know that we can’t help being the sum of our possible pasts. Which, is unfortunate, cause I’d like to leave a lot more of me behind me.

Dammit.

YASYCTAI: Remember when I said, Get ridda mosta your jerks? Y’really should. (time/3 pts)

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personal

Thanksgiving 2008/Your dumb luck

Colin: American girls would seriously dig me with my cute British accent.
Tony: You don’t have a cute British accent.
Colin: Yes I do! I’m going to America!
Tony: Colin, you’re a lonely, ugly, _____. You must accept it.

— Love Actually

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’ve got running water. You might even have a water softener. And, despite the countless articles that note that tap water’s probably cleaner and better for the environment than bottled water, you’ve probably got somea that too. Little more than half the world has tap water.

While we’re on the topic of the world, the axiom’s that 1% of the world has a college education. Dunno if that’s true (in the US, it’s about 27%). And you probably got a mobile phone, a fridge, and a tv. Hold that thought.

On a distantly related note, I got ill, viscerally ill, hearing about the 13-year old girl in Somlia that was recently raped by five-men. And cause she reported the incident, she was buried alive up to her head in a stadium of 1,000 men per Islamic law. She screamed for her life as she was slowly stoned to death. They dug her up when they thought she was dead. But she lived. So they finished her with more rocks.

As if that wasn’t ______up enough, an eight year-old boy that tried to save her was shot to death. The kicker’s that the men that raped her were not arrested.

Lemme get to the point: the world is horribly, ridiculously unfair. You’d agree with me, yeah?

But – and hear me out – I submit that the world is ridiculously unfair in our favor. Can’t speak for you so lemme talk about me:

That’s all just in the last two years.

Someone wrote me once, how do you not be broken? After two months, I think the answer comes in two-steps:

  1. Be grateful. The kinda grateful you are if someone paid your tab just cause they could. Cause, that, in essence, is what you got. You got to live in a place where you got enough time to read the random musing of a nobody like me. And water’s a twist of a faucet away. Where life, most likely, has value.
  2. Pay it back. You owe the aether something for your largess. Something. What that is, I dunno. As for how? Dunno that either. Sorry. I’m not that bright and get by mostly on fading looks and charm. But I suspect God’s given you some gift. Start there, I guess.

Now you might think this is some sorta pinko commie, holiday post. It’s not. The first step above is so you’re not onea those miserable people that bitch about everything all of time. So annoying. The second step above is so you’re not onea those miserable people that are happy for nothing all of time. Almost as annoying.

This isn’t so you can save the world, though that’d be nice. Rather – and I know this sounds strange coming from a barely sober nobody holding a tumbler fulla rum as I write this – it’s to save yourself.

Cause I read/know some of you. And I hear how angry and sad some (not all) of you are and, just cause you read me, figured I’d pay some of it back this way.

The saying goes that Wisdom is seeing things as they are. I disagree. Wisdom is the seeing things for what they can be.

Don’t accept when people tell you that everything sucks. They’re lying to you. Things suck, yeah, but you don’t gotta accept it.

Andy Warhol once said that They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. That sounds about right.

And I’m not saying don’t stuff yourself silly over the holiday, and enjoy it. I know I will. Quite the opposite; enjoy it more knowing that you’re among the lucky. The blessed. Your dumb luck. Said it before, God gave me everything. The thing is that I know it. And that’s why I’m not broken.

After you’ve had your holiday, try and make it a little less unfair. Ideally, yeah, do it cause the world’s broken and you got a moral obligation to pay somea the extra you were given back. But if not for nothing else, if for no one else, do it for yourself – to make yourself a little less broken.

Cause, maybe if you do that, you can see things for what they can be.

Colin: Never. I am Colin. God of sex. I’m just on the wrong continent, that’s all.

Location: in my black chair, staring at this screen
Mood: hopeful
Music: I’ll give you anything you need
YASYCTAI: Somehow return of that luck you have to the aether. (Lifetime / 4 pts – 5 if you let us know what you did)

Categories
personal

Aether Apologies

 

Her: Why do you always get so mad when I apologize?
Me: Cause you should only ever apologize for what you do, not who you are. You should never apologize for being what you are.

 

People used to believe in this thing called aether, which was an unseen gas that was supposed to envelop everything in the universe. No such thing but the literary concept of it still exists.

Heartgirl went on a date not that long ago and said the guy immediately apologized for being Indian. That irritated me so much.

I’m acutely aware of people apologizing for who they are. And when you put that out into the world, into the aether, it’s hard to kill it. The moment you let out a breath of, I’m not good enough because of what I am, or I’m so XXXX, it’s so very dangerous. Cause you can never be tall enough, thin enough, smart enough. And you are what you believe you are.

It’s subtle isn’t it? The idea that you’re not worthy of your three feet of space in this world. Here’s the thing, you gotta be. If you’re not, the world’ll roll right over you. Then again…

Her: I thought you said you weren’t broken.
Me: Maybe I’m just bruised.
Her: That makes me sad.
Me: Don’t be. It’s why I have the rum.

PCD’s…gone from this blog, per her request. But she said we’d stay in each other’s Venn Diagrams. I hope that’s true. Cause I could never tell if her eyes were grey or blue and would like to know.

I hear Caligirl’s laughter my head – wondering for a second if she’s right and I’m all just hot breath and lies. I gotta believe I’m not. Gotta.

Otherwise, I know the world’ll roll right over me. So I gotta believe I’m not. I just gotta.

Location: the basement of my brain again
Mood: pensive
Music: sometimes a man must awake to find that really, he has no-one

Categories
personal

A Tale of Two Conversations

Me: You ever read Tale of Two Cities? Charles and Sydney look alike and both love Lucie. But Lucie loves Sydney. Sydney’s arrested and about to be killed when Charles appears and takes Sydney’s place. So Charles asks, why would you do that for me? And Sydney goes, I’m not doing it for you; I’m doing it for her.
Him: If I break up with her, it’ll kill her.
Me: If you marry her cause you feel obligated to – that’d kill her. (pause) If you really do care about her, cut her loose. Then again, what do I know? Sometimes, you do the right thing and you hate yourself. Sometimes, you do the wrong thing and you hate yourself. After a while, you just get used to hating yourself. Hence, rum.

Caligirl: But I realize that there is something we have in common.
Me: And that is?
Her: (softly) Don’t you see it? I’m seeing someone else. PCD’s seeing other people, BEG’s seeing someone, the accountant never wants to get married and Heartgirl’s unavailable. You like the ladies you can’t have. Cause it saves you from the messy things. From having to look someone in the eye and telling them that you’re not the guy. (contemptuously) You’re such a sad and pathetic person, Logan.
Me: (pause) You’re in rare form today.
Her: I try, Logan. (pause) I saw that pretty blond at your birthday party and I knew you’d ____ it up. Just like you always do. You’re terrible at your two rules. What are you looking for?
Me: Something I can’t put into words. What you’re saying, has the ring of truth, but isn’t true at all.
Her: I wonder if you really believe all the crap you say. (pause) I hope you get your heart broken. Into a million little _____ pieces. Put this conversation in your sad little blog.
Me: I’ll take that under advisement.

Funny thing is, sometimes you forget why, exactly, you hate yourself but you get so used it to doing it that you keep doing it.

Location: 22:00 yest, parrying a dagger in the UWS
Mood: pensive
Music: A little less conversation, a little more action please

Categories
personal

Harvard

Not everyone gets in

Here’s a post I did on the fire in my hood.

Her: I don’t understand. Why do these things keep happening to me?
Me: Cause you give your blessings away too early. I think of myself like Harvard: Anyone can apply, but not everyone makes the cut.
Her: I’m not like that. I fall quickly and hard; I’m very passionate. I like falling in love.
Me: How’s that worked out for you?
Her: (pause) Touche.

If your life isn’t as you want it, I submit that it’s that way cause, whether you’ll admit it or not, you’re getting something from it.

If you’re the victim, the doormat, the outsider, I submit that some part of you wants to be that way. Cause you know your lines, you know your cues. You know the role. And there’s a comfort in that.

Change is tough. Sometimes it’s easier to be the victim – to blame things outside your control. But it’s a crap role.

There’s this saying that goes, If you keep doing what you do, you keep getting what you get.

Expect more from yourself, then you can expect more from others.

Look, why don’t you give yourself permission be the person you wanna be already? Then this stuff’ll stop happening to you.

Location: 6:15, awake in my bed
Mood: content
Music: my tongue is sand until the iridescent band begins to play

Categories
personal

No troubles

Met a girlie last week.

Her: I think I have you beat.
Me: I doubt that.
Her: (deep breath) Well, when I was in high school, my prom date raped me, got me pregnant, and, causa my dad, I got married causa it. Then I had a miscarriage so I was a divorcee before I went to college. He divorced me – can you believe that? Moved here, became a model. Now I throw up at least once a day so I can pay my rent and I hate, hate, hate men of every type. Can you beat that?
Me: (shaking head, pause, lean in and give her a kiss on the cheek)
Her: Why did you do that?
Me: I dunno…thought you deserved it. (she laughed, then frowned and nodded)

Didn’t give her my number or ask for her’s, and paid for her drink, which I never do.

There’s this comedian that says that children are a man’s receipt; children are the canceled check that proves that we were here.

The stuff you hear about happening in China is horrifying, isn’t it? 22,000 to 50,000 dead with 169,000 injured. But it’s actually even worse than that. With the PRC’s One Child Policy, bloodlines and family lose everything. For those that lose their one child and they’re too old to have kids again, they’ve no safety net to take care of them in their old age. Their history ends with them; they’ve no connection to the future. They’ve no child to love. Can’t imagine how that must feel.

My father once said that he loved us all before we were born. That didn’t make sense back then.

I’m getting sued (again). I’m working 12 hour days for negative returns. There’s stuff I don’t tell you about. But really, I got no problems. I got my life, my family, my rum, and the occasional girlie for company.

It’s raining here, but in my head, there’re blue skies. Told you before, yeah? God gave me everything.

Hope you have an amazing weekend.

Location: in my office, looking at the rain and thinking
Mood: grateful
Music: Won’t you miss me?

Categories
personal

Logan’s 35

The lies you tell yourself

I submit that your misery is the sum of the lies you tell yourself:

  • I’m not good at languages, that’s why I don’t learn Italian.
  • I need a drink to talk to her.
  • I’m too old to start something like that.

My favorite: I’m not that type of guy/gal.

That’s the stupidest one of all. Following that logic: I’m not the type of guy that drives because I’ve never driven before.

It’s all horse___, you know? The lies you tell yourself. It’s all horse____.

Put another way: you’re not the person you know you could be, causa the lies you tell yourself.

I’m pensive. Turning 35 today. Halfway to getting my ticket punched, and still waiting for my real life to begin. Been thinking, maybe it begins when you stop lying to yourself. When you take that nasty truth, bite into it and swallow. Then go in for seconds.

Wish I did it a lot earlier myself. Then again, wish I bought Google at 300 bucks, kissed Stella in 9th grade, and didn’t have my life’s savings stolen. But whaddya gonna do?

A pretty lady from a sun-kissed beach just dropped me a line and another pretty lady’s heading my way for a spell. Plus there’s the weekend. Hoping for some awesome to head my way.

Some awesome, and maybe another whole wheat donut, would be nice.

Now…wish me a happy birthday, all of you bastards that read me and never say anything.

Location: 13:00 yest, Harlem
Mood: excited
Music: Coming outta my cage and I’ve been doing just fine

Categories
personal

The Prodigal

Location: my own apartment for a change
Mood: anxious
Music: You’re like a favorite song to That melody, that melody I love

Was out this weekend with Paul. He got a killer Hong Kong gig lined up so if any of you are from there, drop me a line? He’s the guy I go out with the most so if you do end up showing him around, he’ll fill you in on about 40% of what I leave out in this blog.

Consider it a bargain. Plus he’s the gold-standard of wingmen.

Speaking of being out, a girlie and I got into a theological discussion at a bar recently about the parable of The Lost Son/The Prodigal Son. Yes, I like to interrupt my drinking with religious discussions. Of course, she’s a bisexual pescatarian – although not from NJ.

I always felt that the older brother got screwed. Here, the younger son blows all his coin, lives it up and comes back broke, only to be welcomed by his father. The older brother’s pissed.

He was loyal. He took care of his scratch, his family and here’s this messed up brother who gets welcomed back with open arms. A party no less. How’s that fair? Now I see it like this; the father loved all kids and so:

  • the older son will be rewarded for what’s he’s done;
  • the younger son is forgiven for what he is.

That’s what fathers do. Even when the kid a royal screwup, a father pulls for him anyway.

I think hope that’s what it says. Because I’m the family screwup; the cautionary tale for my extended family. But they’re all too polite to say it to me.

So I sigh, put on my brown shoes, my happy face and wait for the 1 train to roll in. And I hold my breath for the weekend to come again.

Hello, Monday. What do you have for me this week?

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personal

Safe

Insomnia is wretched misery

When my four-year relationship finally disintegrated, my sister came to see me. I hadn’t slept in days. She brought food and told me to go to bed, then sat quietly in my living room and read. I slept for hours. When I woke up, she was still there.

Over Xmas, I wasn’t sleeping causa the work drama. But my brother came to visit. I remember laying down on the floor where he was working and passing out. It was the first poison-free sleep I had in two months.

I suppose you’re all sick and tired hearing about Heath Ledger. I liked his films, but that’s about it. He might have been a prince or a scumbag, I dunno.

But I had myself a little freakout when I read about how he died. Cause he’s the same type of insomniac as me; his mind was “always racing,” he said and “pills failed to work.” That’s me.

Good god, it’s wretched misery.

There’s this line that goes, Everyone dies alone. But that’s just horses___. Most people don’t die alone. But what a way to go if you do. Poor bastard.

Sorry, I’m sick and moody. On a happy note, it was Chinese New Year yesterday (xin nian quai le!). I took the day off, saw the family and ate my weight in dumplings.

On an even happier note, it’s the weekend.

Location: in my apartment, cleaning
Mood: cloudy
Music: oh, how I need Someone to watch over me