There’s some new essays up.

Read.

I watched my grandmother die.

It was a horrible way to go.  When they removed the ventilator, I couldn’t help but to think that she looked like a fish out of water the way she was gasping for air.  She wasn’t conscious, so I’m sure she didn’t realize how much suffering she was enduring, but I did.  I realized how much suffering she was enduring.

I realized how much suffering I was enduring.

When she finally flatlined, everyone in the room began to sob.

Except me.

I was stuck in the surrealism of the moment.  The moment she flatlined, a single tear ran down her cheek.  I had just watched my grandmother die.  I don’t think I knew just how to handle that.  

Before she passed, I told this funny story I remembered my mother telling me.  My grandmother had a green thumb.  There was nothing that she couldn’t grow.  She would grow them, give them to my mother who would then kill them and give them back, and then nurse them back to health.  Her house, her yard, the greenhouse - covered in flora.  So my wise ass uncle told her that she couldn’t grow pot because it was too hard to do.  Of course, she proved him wrong.  So she would grow a pot plant that would mysteriously vanish.  My uncle was picking it, drying it out, and smoking it.

Everyone chuckled at the story.  For the first time in weeks I felt good.  I smiled.  I thought that maybe this is how she would want us to mourn - with uplifting stories and good cheer and not somber expressions and tears.  Maybe that was why she shed a tear - we weren’t celebrating her 65 years life but rather dwelling on the single moment that the cancer would take her.  

Then I cried.  That was the only story I could think of.  I begged someone else to tell a funny story, but no one would.  So I cried because my grandmother died and I had one story.

I only had one story.

"Nobody is perfect. Hell, most people aren’t even great."

I just posted a new piano bit.  I have a few songs as well as some poetry and other things posted.  You can find them with those links on the left side of my page.

Right over there:

<————

If you have time, look around a bit.

When I was in the second grade I had this teacher, I forget her name, whom I had a strong and genuine distaste for.  She was way too stern and mean-spirited for children if you ask me.  

One day we were learning about syllables.  She had us all sit down in the floor in front of her and she would call out a word.  We then had to show how many syllables were in that word by holding up the number of fingers corresponding to the number of syllables in front of our chests, so that she and not the other students could see.  I wish I could remember what the word was.

She called out the word, which contained two syllables.  I held up two fingers.  I remember it taking longer than usual for her to reveal the answer.  I saw an opportunity.  While she was scanning all the other students for the right answer, I began to wiggle my index and middle fingers back and forth.  As I did this, I watched where her gaze fell.  At the right moment, I would wiggle my middle finger out front and flip her a bird.  It was genius.  I would flip this lady off and she’d never even know.

She knew.

As soon as I executed my genius plan, she spotted me and sternly said “Don’t do that again.  You know what you did, don’t you.”

“Yes ma’am” was all I could say.  This lady had me dead to rights.  I was frozen in terror just waiting for her to send me to the office to face the principal.  

She never did.

A few more moments went by, and at last she revealed that only one student had the correct answer - me.  

So it turns out that I was number one after all.

Haha… bitch.

So I was sitting in my apartment long ago people watching.  My apartment was always a revolving door for the nerds, freaks, and the various “shunned”.  

There was never a dull moment.  

Most of the people that came through were friends in one way or another.  However, some were not.  Some were people whom I downright loathed, but through some connection with so-and-so had some seemingly legitimate reason for being there.  Anyway…

So I was sitting around people watching when I noticed something.  Something that was very interesting.  Something that became exciting.  Something that became terrifying. 

One guy was talking to someone else when I started to notice him.  I started to look past and through him.  In this social setting, he was outgoing but reserved at the same time.  I could tell that social interaction was not his forte, but he was trying to learn to be more comfortable with it.  I could see this in him because it was in me as well.  

I noticed another guy who was there with his overly flirtatious girlfriend.  She was taken with anyone and it made him jealous.  He wasn’t exactly visibly jealous - but I saw it.  I could see his struggle to contain it.  I saw his conflict, and I understood it.

Another guy was hanging around in his punk uniform and perfectly groomed liberty spikes.  This guy annoyed me.  His attachment to an idea of what would make him cool drove me mad.  However, I saw in him an admirable willingness to do whatever it took in order to exemplify that ideal that he held onto - despite his mendacity.  I recognized his bad qualities as well as his good qualities.  I saw them because I had them.  

I watched everyone around me, and could see parts of myself in them - both good and bad.  

Which brings me to my point:  There is a fine line between madness and enlightenment.  

What is reality?  What is real?  As I watched all these people I started to wonder - what if none of these people are really here?  What if all the people around me at any given point in time are merely reflections of myself?  What if all these people are just different parts of my own personality that have been exaggerated and personified?  How could I know that when these people were not around me that they still existed?   When they call on the telephone am I just talking to myself?  

Could it be that I am nothing more than the quantity of my environment because my environment is nothing more than fractions of myself?  

So maybe we are not all mice in a maze with other mice, but a mouse in a maze made of mirrors.

I think that people are filled with emotions - both good and bad.  There is a reservoir that holds these emotions, and when the tank is filled more with one or the other an imbalance occurs.  As we live each day, we expel energy from this tank.  When the contents of the tank are more filled with good emotions, those are the fumes we expel.  When it’s more filled with bad it works the same way.  Other people are directly affected by us because they are forced to inhale the exhaust. 

Lately, all I’ve been able to smell are toxic fumes and it’s getting a little hard to breathe.  My tank has run dry, and the only thing I’m left with is the trash that has settled to the bottom. 

The tragedy of it all is that when I try to keep running on what’s left in my tank, everyone around me will be repelled.  The exhaust stinks.  But when I can’t seem to refill my tank with anything but the shittiest grade, what option am I left with?  A friend told me that “Life sucks and there’s no easy way to handle it so if want to give up and be real about it, cool. No one could blame you.”  The problem is that they would.  No one would see that when you give so much of the good of yourself to others and get shit in return, your tank runs empty of the good parts.  It would be “damn, that guy is an asshole”.  No one would stop to wonder why.

I’m not depressed or angry about it.  The best way I can think to put it is that I’m disgusted with life right now, but I’m not unhappy about that. 

So I’ll keep looking for a place to refuel and if anyone has any ideas - let me know.

"The good thing about not getting any sleep is you live longer."

Lately I’ve been in this state of despair.  I’ve tried really hard to make something happen, to the point that everything is feeling forced.  It’s numbing, really.

I can’t seem to bring myself to care about much of anything.  Are there successful people out there that don’t care about anything?  I need to hear a success story so that I don’t just slump over, drink to excess, and play video games for the rest of my life.  I’m not depressed (I’m actually in what I would consider a good mood), I just lack motivation to do anything.  I’m just a few classes away from graduating and I don’t care to go.  There’s no light at the end of that tunnel.  I’ll just be looking down the barrel of another 6 years to get the next 2 years worth of degree.  There’s no writing ideas that really have me tickled.  There’s no music happening right now.  I look forward to Battlefield 3 and a good glass of wine all day.

So I’m giving it to God, so to speak.  I’m going to sit back and let the music come to me.  I’m going to wait until my story calls.  In the meantime, I suppose I will finish my degree and patiently await the impending break through - or breakdown.  

At this point, I’ll embrace either one.

Chuck Palahniuk shaved his head once.  He said it was a way of throwing himself away after completing a book.  A couple of the fringe benefits of doing this were “you can roll down the window in your car because the wind isn’t gonna fuck up your hair,” and “you don’t worry about looking good, because you know you always look terrible.”

This is a perfect example of how I view life.

People these days are so concerned with health and diet, weight loss and exercise - and it kind of makes me sad.  Everyone runs around like mice in a maze trying to become stronger, slimmer, faster, better.  Fuck that.  I’m sure you’re no stranger to the social standards that we face every day.  I can’t help but to think that it’s a complete and utter waste of time.  Don’t get me wrong, if you want to quit smoking - quit.  If you want to loose weight - loose it.  If you want to spend a huge chunk of your day calculating caloric intake - have a blast: just make sure you are doing it for the right reasons.  If quitting smoking is consuming your every thought, then ask yourself this:  Am I going to live longer for this, or am I just adding years to my life?  If your waking thoughts are of the energy bar you get for breakfast and the protein shake you get for lunch followed by the very well balanced meal consisting of very little starch and no msg’s - are you living?  I love the old saying, “the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”  A lengthy and dull life doesn’t seem all that rewarding if you ask me.

So don’t judge people because they drink, smoke, do drugs, have wild sex, or otherwise live in a way that is contradictory to what you and society deems “acceptable.”  Instead, embrace these people for their merit and their flaws. Because of them, you don’t have to walk a similar road to see the results.  You get to learn at very little to no cost.  I would say “so long as no one gets hurt” but let’s face it - people get hurt.  I’ve been hurt, you’ve been hurt - it’s life.  With pain comes lesson.  

What is life, if not a series of lessons?

So I say live with your flaws - at least the wind won’t fuck up your hair.