all is fair in love, and we're in love.

transition

2005-05-09T21:48:00.000-04:00

the move to the new blog has begun. there will be nothing new here. the future will occur at www.jagermeta.com

all is fair in love, and we're in love.

2005-05-09T11:30:00.000-04:00

new website--please update.

www.jagermeta.com

the horses used to run faster

2005-05-07T19:00:00.000-04:00

my horse lost the ky derby. i thought buzzard's bay would pull through in the end, but no. i should have expected this.

sarah silently returned the spare key to me, while scott told me half a story about a dead raccoon. i wish this metaphor made more sense.

sloane and david met me for coffee, and introduced me to her hot friend. i wish i wasn't so shy all of the time.

everyone at the bar is drinking mint juleps. i remember my grandmother, smoking cigarettes and watching the horses. i wish that poem wasn't about you.

crushing defeat at windswept fields.

2005-05-07T14:25:00.000-04:00

so, i now have a weekly tennis date. the joy that this brings me is beyond explanation, especially since monster plays just like me, with lots of cursing and a minimum amount of skill. we played yesterday afternoon, and then had a post-tennis beer, during which i told everyone at the bar that i had kicked her ass, which may or may not have actually been true. the truth is so arbitrary, these days.

so i know that blog posts have been less frequent lately. i'm just going through a transition of sorts, point a to point d, i think, and don't really know how to document the in between. there is a chance that the new blog will be live as soon as tonight, which will make things much more interesting. if you go to www.jagermeta.com, all of your wildest dreams will come true.

i am realizing that making new friends is going to have to be a priority this summer. yes, i have friends, but may of them are leaving for central america and points north and west of here. i feel that i've done some good work reclaiming some friends i lost, so we'll see if i can continue that and turn it into something bigger better faster more.

heading out to get lunch at maartens... i'll be back, with more different stories to tell, and more and more and more and more and more.

WHEREAS, Uncle Rico's football skills are a testament to Idaho athletics

2005-05-01T02:30:00.000-04:00

the scariest thing is that i think that this is actually real. this is too good to be true. i now have faith in government again, finally.

more possible new blog titles... seriously, vote!

2005-05-01T01:15:00.000-04:00

hyper-sensitive.com
jagermichael.com
overly-punctuated.com

i think those are the final three contenders... please, someone pick the one that they like most. i love them all very very very very much.

writing about writing about writing.

2005-05-01T01:12:00.000-04:00

so, i had a conversation with rusty the other day about how i have become so entwined with my blog that i, from time to time, do things specifically to write about them in my blog, so that they will make interesting entries. i realized as i was having this conversation with him that i was doing that also solely to write about it later. my life has become more meta than meta. it's funny. when i was a kid, i would have thought that i would be continually trying to become more metal than metal. just drop the l, little michael.

i share a birthday with several individuals. my friend margaret from high school, my friend rob from the bar, sadaam hussein, and now, brynn's new horse. not a bad bunch of folks. i would gladly be smoked out of any spiderhole to get together with at least two or three of those people.

my new blog will have comments. meta-meta will definitely be one of them. okay, off to do more laundry and preparing to ignore someone. rock.

welcome/gutenberg/girls

2005-05-01T00:31:00.000-04:00

so, some of you may have noticed that i kind of stopped writing in here for a while. it wasn't deliberate, i've just been busy. i've been catching up on emails and age. at some point thursday, i turned twenty four. it was nice. my friends bought me shots of jager. i don't know how many i had. somewhere between nine and fifteen. there is still some discussion as to the precise number. it was good to be around the people that i love.

friday, to celebrate my birthday, j took me and eric and kaitlyn to his friend's apple store, and loaded us up with goodies. i am so so so lucky to have friends like this. also, i am so lucky to see the faces on the apple store employees when j just walked into the back room, and the manager didn't mind. it's nice to have such strange experiences every now and again.

so, there is a small chance that the blog may go on hiatus for a while. i am contemplating making it a real blog, buying a domain name and some server space, and learning to use movable type. wouldn't that be killer? if anyone has any suggestions for a domain name, please let me know. it's either going to be skinny-and-unloved.com, or jagermichael.com. they both mean so much to me. there is another possibility, hypersensitive.com, but i haven't checked to see if that domain is available. hmm, sounds like a project for tonight.

i am in a sticky situation with an amazing girl. there are two sides to this coin, the what-i-want side, and the what-i-have-to-do side. it keeps landing on the edge. is there any middle ground? doesn't look like it.

well, yes, i'm back. i have a real entry i've been working on in my moleskine; that will probably be posted later tonight. sorry for any delays.

delay

2005-04-22T02:18:00.000-04:00

mole-blogged, maartens, 7:10pm

so there are two couples i always see in maartens, sitting at the corner of the bar. they meet here every night, it seems, and tell stories about their neighbors, lawnmowers, and the other things that homeowners that drink nightly complain about. the women smoke cigarettes--one of them drinks only champagne. they laugh such that the entire bar laughs with them.

the point of this? i want to someday have someone that will come here with me and do this.

someday.

until then, i laugh with them.

///

real-blogged, home, 1:41am

my interweb is down. i just got back from mellow mushroom with eric. we talked about trusting people, web design, girls that fucked us over, fourteen piece ska bands, and why we both use Canons. i finally got to apologize to him, and it felt good. also, i was drinking, so that had a lot to do with it. i need to get my interweb back. blogging must be done!!!

pbr for the course

2005-04-21T17:54:00.000-04:00

there may or may not be a colony of wasps building a nest in the gap between the inner and outer glass of my bedroom window. the uncertainty comes from the fact that i am too scared to open the blinds. let's look at this as metaphor, perhaps. i know what is happening in the world around me, but if i don't look, i can pretend i am not sure.

my daily routine of writing in here before i fall asleep has come to a halt, somehow. it's not because i have less to say--i think it has more to do with how i have less that i want to say to the world. the fusion of public and private that i strived to maintain here doesn't really work all of the time, especially when you are paranoid, like i am. also, the wasps limit my sleep, what with the incessant buzzing; EDIT--the buzzing in the wall that is possibly being caused by the colony of wasps. sigh, might better.

i've been spending time with majkin again, which has been perfect. it feels like that strange pause in our friendship never happened. we find places to sit outside on uncomfortable iron chairs and drink. we talk about lawn sports and criteria lists, and how living situations are never as great as we hope. i hope to regain BFFFF status.

the countdown begins--one week until i am... older. i'm thinking about getting a few kegs of PBR for the house, or having people meet at maartens. in any event, it will be called 'michael's birthday PBRty.' sigh. so clever.

i found these drawings of proposed soviet buildings from the late twenties and early thirties, and i want to show them to brynn. i need to get on that. she's the only person i know who might actually appreciate that.

so, i am going to take my not blogging freqently, garlic smelling, disappointed in the abilities of other people to return phone calls self out to get some coffee, some food, and a drink. my weekend starts now, and will never end, well, until sunday.

she's a jellyfish.

2005-04-19T00:42:00.000-04:00

so. night out with majkin was extraordinary. we had bistro adventures, talked about pests in our homes, went to starbucks and the lucky, and skipped like school girls down university avenue.

talked to rae and sloane on phone, two of my favorite people. on phone with rae, i talked about my birthday resolution, to accept that there is nothing wrong with never finding the one. she asked me why i felt that this would never happen, and i told her this, that i had found the one, and that she wasn't interested. there is no episode of sex and the city to explain this.

i am writing a screenplay, based on text messages and the last 5 months of my life. it is semi-autobiographical--the same outcomes, but done more poetically.

i can't wait for summer, and i am dreading it. the roots of my life here will be leaving, and i will be staying, uprooted. i need a plan. i am fortunate, though, to have an unexpected brother/long lost cousin here.

also, i am giving up, and succumbing to sleep.

disclaimer

2005-04-17T03:25:00.000-04:00

i wrote a new poem, and i am kind of upset by it. a month or so ago, i thought that i had a muse; rather, it seems that i have found some sort of unholy poetic succubus. poems about arnold stop being about arnold, but become about her, and i don't want them to, but they do. my own words betray me. his words become hers, the lines that i wake up thinking after i dream of him coming home are replaced into her lips.

but at least i am writing.

i have this constant fear that someday a friend will describe me as a 'former poet.' i would rather write poems about her that upset me than not be able to write anymore, again. in the end, we are our art.

hipster fidelity

2005-04-17T02:31:00.000-04:00

so, i can't sleep, and i am doing what i usually do during periods of insomnia... thinking.

what does it all mean? katherine wanted to be with kevin, and not me. allison wanted to be with erik, and not me. stefanie--bless her heart, i can say nothing bad about her, but for the sake of listing major exes and almost-exes, she's here. brynn wanted to be with trevor, and not me. sloane wanted to be with dave, and not me. mollie wanted to be with jordan, and not me. sarah wanted to be with eric and alone and with brandon, and not me.

i am frequently told how nice i am, how this and that i am. everyone thinks this is a good thing. lady macbeth thought her husband had been spoiled by the milk of human goodness. i think i had a soy version of that milk, and i have been spoiled to niceness, and by niceness.

so, i am going to take arnold's advice. from now on, i will be mean to girls, and perhaps they will like me more. i will yell into telephones that i do not play games. i will check out other girls, including her friends, and my roommate's girlfriend. i will talk about 'pulling mad bitches when i move to cali.' i mean, these things work for arnold, and beds of poison ivy and such. we all need a little more of don solomon in the world.

***

free meal at bistro, just for knowing how to cut and paste? i am king.

why do i continue to care? maybe that's all i can do.

death & taxes has been replaced by taxes, then death.

2005-04-16T03:59:00.000-04:00

this morning...
in the movie of my life, it would have gone more like this.

S: so... you bought me coffee, brought me breakfast, drove me to class... why are you doing this? i thought i broke your heart.
M: don't worry... it's still breaking.

also, today i paid for the deaths of three innocent iraqi children. great.

i have six new archival pens.

for my sister, providence. i hope that she is ready for four years of the same ani song being on every mix cd.

one more thing... does he wear the backwards baseball cap in bed? does he turn it around? is there a certain etiquette for this? are you really who you say you are?

moleblogged quote--
carly: i remember everything until...
michael: remembering is overrated.

4am addition--i am turning off the text message feature of my phone ASAP. too scary.

now that everybody's dead...

2005-04-12T23:56:00.000-04:00

so.

firstly, i'm drinking again, for those of you who didn't know. say whatever you want, but i know what i am doing.

secondly, with this news item as something coincidental, i think, i've started writing again, poems, real ones, with beautiful lines. i'm writing one that is dually about arnold coming home and about you know who and you know what. it works equally as both right now--the next stanza will decide which way is home.

thirdly, i feel somewhat disconnected from my immediate surroundings. doors close quickly around here. text messages are brief.

finally, i have decided that i have a biological clock, and that time has come for me to do the unthinkable--get married/committed to someone and have a fucking adorable and brilliant child-thing. i see people with kids, and i am jealous.

additionally, i saw a girl in the bar tonight that looked like katherine did, the time she drove to new york to visit me at the end of the summer, when she had cut her hair and was wearing lots of red, when i picked her up at the train station at 1am. it was such a strong burst of memory, like face wash that smells like costa rica.

lay me down in a bed of poison ivy.

2005-04-10T03:47:00.000-04:00

mole-blogged, maartens, 1pm.

so a girl i used to hang out with frequently to talk about theory and Ani and cigarettes didn't recognize me last night. any other night this would have bothered me, but last night, i was invincible.
i think that arnold is bulletproof, and by extension, so am i when i am with him. from opposite sides of a long table, we said everything we had to without words. everything was as it should have been. the jager was cold, and went down easy, just like i remembered.
if you'll excuse me, i just got a text message that may make me vomit.

update--the magnetic fields said it best. i don't really love you anymore.

mirah yam tov zeitlin: "if we sleep together will it make us friends forever?"

2005-04-07T02:59:00.000-04:00

you listening, boss? i'm sorry. i picked a fight with you because i let my emotions bottle up and ferment and explode. i haven't been able to find the balance between corking up things i don't want, and not letting my cup run over, you know? and yes, i am deliberately using alcohol metaphors.

i get jealous and lonely and feel betrayed easily. i have good reasons to be like this, but it isn't a good thing. every moment of my life keeps coming back to that night i turned twenty, like it is sole pushpin holding up a stack of papers. that one night has touched everything i've done since, and i don't know if this is good or bad.

one more day of work, and then a two-day weekend! and possibly seeing arnold?!!?! and possibly getting the fuck out of this one-horse town for a little while!!

skip--so close. also, i wish i could use words as perfect as yours to describe how proud of you i am.

anonymous poster--who are you? let's find a cause.

can i go by just "m"?

2005-04-06T08:57:00.000-04:00

I haven’t spent a morning in starbucks in months, enjoying the isolation of white headphones and the reach of the local text message, typing memories and worries to be archived later onto the semi-permanence of digital type faces, Gutenberg times forty. The quick and too much gust of the air conditioner, the steady pacing of familiar and strange faces, seconds pass. Voices carry from the corner of the room, metered by my steady pace of 75 wpm, a tiny metronome that doesn’t work very well.

In the musicality of my daily life, I find regret and remembered hope.

I am realizing tonight that I don’t really have a cause, something I am dedicated to. I have my passions, but they are more for me than for anyone else. There are mornings when I don’t know what to write here, and as such I can’t figure out what it is that I contribute. Nothing comes of nothing, I am reminded.

My music fights against the sounds pushed into the air by the speakers above me and the harsh growl of the blender downstairs. This is obviously a metaphor for something.

I have started making a list of possible aliases in my moleskine.

i am comforted by the fact that, in a parallel universe, you and i are madly in love.

2005-04-06T01:42:00.000-04:00

the fact of the matter is, i can't actually talk about anything that i've done in the last few days. it's all falling into place. i've done the best i can with my assignment, and now, i just have to cross my fingers and pray.

home was anywhere with diesel gas.

he should be my new best friend

2005-04-02T16:34:00.000-05:00

an article in today's Times talks about the new revolution of dating and sex, and it doesn't apply to me. apparently, one night stands are dead, but lately, it's all i have. the paper of record? perhaps not.

this, however, does sound familiar... "A relationship isn't the easiest thing to maintain, but swearing off boys isn't a viable option either," the chapter on "Defensive Non-Dating" states. "The result of this epiphany: You refuse to put yourself out there. Instead, you just put out."

i'm not my body, or how i choose to destroy it.

2005-04-02T01:46:00.000-05:00

i've decided that charlottesville is a real life version of friendster, where everyone is connected to everyone through an intricate network of you-know-who's, with former baristas serving as hubs. just the other night, i found a maartens waiter that knew j six years ago through a girl that worked at gap. ridiculous. everywhere i go, i see more people i know. a former yww kid came into bodos tonight, with his parents, and i realized that his dad is the guy that used to come into starbucks every day looking for salads, and would get mad when we didn't have them. effing ridiculous.

there's this really long post i want to write about memories of georgian accents, and allison. my weekend trip up north to run an errand for j was cancelled, but i had strange deja-vu-ish premonitions that recalled a trip to new york with allison, and the elevator to a future not followed. that's one of those spots in my life where the bifurcation is obvious, and there is regret and relief, and the knowledge that i don't know if i made the right choice or not.

lately, i'm feeling like i am not in sync with myself. i was a few years behind where i should have been when stef and i met, a few years ahead of myself with mollie, etc. i've never had a grasp on time, but time has grabbed me, and i am pulled away from shore by it's tide.

there is a chance that i may be entirely changing this blog to be about memories and dreams. i can write less and less about my real life. i mean, i traded my soul to someone tonight, and i can't really discuss it at all.

my boss has been trying to catch me up on bodo's gossip. it's ridiculous--why are restaurants always like this? i think i finally fit in, even if it is in some strange liminal spot, as the baby-manager. i'm only a little older than the kids--and they can tell that i am not going to be a bad-cop manager.

day off tomorrow--i am going to recharge and rewind, and see where memories take me.

linkety linkety, click click click.

2005-03-29T01:05:00.000-05:00

some matters of business before the post.

1. i'd like to welcome my big brother to the world of blogs. The Soapbox will probably not be like my blog, but we do supposedly share some genetic material, so it is sure to be entertaining. also, he's definitely one of the smartest people i know, so check it out from time to time.

2. also, the new former and future former employees of starbucks university avenue blog is now online. We used to work at Starbucks should prove to be entertaining for at least me, which is all that really counts, now, isn't it? if anyone knows how to get in touch with other former partners, please comment and let me know. i invited as many people as i could find addresses for.

***

i finished the last page of my first moleskine tonight, in the bar, alone, at maartens. it felt appropriate. i've started a new old poem, about glass bottles. for the first time in a few months, it's about me and not a girl. i am sure that it will go back to what it used to be about, though--the first girl that wrecked me after drinks at maartens.

i've realized that i've sat at the same table at maartens with the last five or six girls i've dated or kind of dated, and all of those relationships ended, and for the most part, ended badly. new bar? no. new waittress? no. new table? definitely. i'm sitting on the far side of the bar from now on.

sleep sounds wonderful, doesn't it? i am sure tomorrow will bring more adventures. oh, also, if anyone is lucky enough to know about my secret blog of qualities that i am looking for in a significant other, it will be updated sometime in the next twelve hours, so check it, if you are so lucky as to be privy to that address.

this is what they said to me....

2005-03-28T20:43:00.000-05:00

the new team blog for former starbucks employees will be up by the end of the week. it will be amazing.

D.C. trip cancelled. we had faux meat instead. i moleskine-blogged the night.

Lauren wanted us to play a game on the road, and she started telling me about it, and stopped. the only words she mentioned were 'Michael' and 'regret.' this is what i had to say. "so all i know so far is 'Michael' & 'regret.' that'll be interesting."

Rusty and I talked about the cleanliness of our house. he's found someone who will clean it for us. "She'll clean our house, unless you want to be the head of the Homeland Security Department someday." (RHC)

we talked about how Ming Dynasty looks like it had the same interior designer as the Overlook Hotel. this was my comment. "one of the first times i had sex, it was during The Shining. i think this explains a lot."

finally, a fortune cookie.

A perfect statue never comes from a bad mold.
Lucky Numbers 3, 6, 9, 33, 36, 38.

the night is young, i guess. what next?

after all, in the end, just pretend.

2005-03-28T18:23:00.000-05:00

apparently, i am going to D.C. tonight with rusty and lauren. i can't exactly tell you why, but apparently, we are going to have fun. that's what i keep telling myself. also, i think we were supposed to leave an hour ago.

the easter email project has been met with resistence. not really sure what to do with result one of three. not exactly what i expected. i thought this would be the easy one.

went to starbucks this morning, saw nadia and superhot ashley, then had a quick drink with j-nonymous, enjoyed some delicious two-day-old kung po, and scratched some notes into my moleskine.

the darkness just came on--love is only a feeling. such a good song.

obsession with one word in a RK song--typical michael behavior.

2005-03-28T14:42:00.000-05:00

they say with every broken heart, we should become more adventurous. SHOULD. we don't always, i guess.

in the coming days and weeks and months, i will tell you, through this blog, if i become more adventurous with this most recent broken heart.

and with that, a certain subject will never be mentioned here again.

love affair.

2005-03-27T22:55:00.000-05:00

there's something that i've been meaning to write about for a few days now, but the drama of late has kept me from doing it. i am in love...

with a word. inexplicable, isn't it? that's the word. somehow, this word keeps slipping into poems, and i don't know how or why, or what to do with it. also, i've been writing a great deal lately about asphalt. i think that i need to go on a road trip. yes, this is what i must do. it will not, however, be the bizarre green-ink map of shower rape scenes and rib joints that lolo and monster made--that trip will not happen.

i've been moleskine-ing my poems as of late. my new powerbook and its ridiculous speed does help me write a lot faster, but there are times when pen and paper is better than digital. also, i think that i am going to start being much more private with my serious writing; while i will keep this blog the way it is, a point by point account of whatever i feel like saying at any given moment, gosh, the poetry site will see fewer updates.

i found an old fortune in the pocket of my old moleskine, along with paint samples and a morphological analysis of a prayer.

A heavy burden is lifted with a phone message or letter.
Lucky Numbers 2, 8, 14, 23, 33, 43.

spent the afternoon in starbucks, with j, leslie (or should i say l/elle?) and kaitlin, then went to maartens for wings and a visit from my old friend, nine oh nine eff. orphan easter, of sorts?

i just found this fortune, deeper in the pocket.

A quiet evening with friends is the best tonic for a long day.
Lucky Numbers 4, 12, 24, 27, 30, 34.

these grass stains on my knees don't mean a thing.

2005-03-27T17:51:00.000-05:00

things i am grateful for, today.

1. wireless internet being seemingly everywhere.
2. phone calls from mom/dad and j.
3. sleeping in. (the real thing, not the Postal Service song)
4. easter lunch at maartens.
5. honesty.

multitude

2005-03-27T12:37:00.000-05:00

expect many posts today--starting a new tradition... easter blog entries.

i am crying right now because i wish i was home with my parents and my sister, and because i know that it will be another three months until i get to see them, and then only for one very busy weekend. i don't think i've ever been homesick since i moved here before; something that i will start considering is moving away from charlottesville. i don't know if i can get what i need here.

okay. shower, coffee, resurrection. be back soon.

fortune cookie, 3.26.2005

2005-03-26T23:25:00.000-05:00

j took me out to dinner tonight. this was my fortune.

some men dream of fortunes,
others dream of cookies.
Lucky Numbers 4, 15, 16, 24, 36, 45.

all i need to know

2005-03-26T23:09:00.000-05:00

there's internet in michael's bistro. i don't even know what this means. i'm here with j, visiting leslie, and slowly savoring a delightful dessert. this is the perfect way to end a long day.

i am tired! i am full of heart! tomorrow is easter, and i am going to write emails to people that i haven't written to in a very long time. i think that might be what easter is about--getting in touch with old friends, rebirth. it sounds nice.

i remember this poem that i wrote once, that was lost in the great hard drive crash of 2003. it was mostly crap, but there was this one line about green glass bottles broken in a parking lot being a source of rebirth. i don't think it was about recycling--i think it was about possibilities and yeung ling. the empty bottle of apple floris on the table, green glass wrapped in green foil, is a wonderful reminder of that summer, of danika, of late night talks with jacob and caleb and the rest. that summer changed me--it didn't last, but the idea of synchronicity has stuck with me. there is a reason for everything--it just isn't always clear. there is a reason for everything that happens, and with serenity and synchronicity, i'll find out, or i won't, but i trust that things work out.

green glass. rebirth, again, in a parking lot.

i never thought that i'd be using my laptop in a bar, writing in my blog. i am so happy with who i am--i don't mean to sound conceited, but i am better now than i've been in a long time, and every person i meet is starting to realize this.

untitled, for once.

2005-03-25T21:40:00.000-05:00

i don't know what to write tonight, but that has never stopped me before. i am finding trouble getting words onto the page, and getting words into me from the page. muses and musings are equally unobtainable, present but distant, somehow.

i'm starting to like my new job. i finally felt useful today, and felt like i am going to succeed eventually during my stay there, at least until the first of august when i start my adventures with j. i am looking forward to that day more and more with each passing second. i have lots of friends--i know this. i am so lucky to get to see lolo and rusty every day, to talk to stef and others on IM daily, to walk into starbucks and get to see smitty and auds and geoff, or to get that huge smile from scott. i love getting through the sequence of nokia keys that lead me to see a text from sarah, even if she doesn't sound happy with me. but anyway--j calls me every day. not a day goes by that i don't hear from him. he asks me how i am doing, what i am doing, who i've talked to and what i want to do. i love the attention and the concern, and i genuinely believe that he wants what is best for me. i can't believe that i am going to get to spend even more time with him this summer. it's good be have friends, and i am so grateful for the friends i have.

i'm sitting at the handicapped table at starbucks, typing typing typing, and talking to jen about camp and horror and kitsch, pink flamingos, etc. i am realizing that i need to read more, that i need to get out of this non-intellectual rut that i am in. less than two years ago, i graduated cum laude with honors, and now, i am lucky if i make it through the front page of the times before i fall asleep. my experiments in web design are fun, but that doesn't drive me the way that literature used to. i want to talk about Theory, with a capital T, of course, and tie Theory to the mundane events in my life. rusty and i are quite good at this, you know.

it's good friday. i fasted today, not so much out of belief in catholic traditions, but mostly because i wanted to do one of those things i used to do. i think my parents would be pleased. there was a reason for me to be born on earth, as majkin would tell me. oh, to be the breeze, and the tops of the trees.

i'd call and say hi if i thought you'd remember me.

2005-03-25T01:35:00.000-05:00

"some things are worth getting in trouble for" (oh, blake, what would i do without you?)

i wrote something tonight that i already regret. i am so confused as to what to do with other people in my life--i think that all of my instincts are wrong, and yet being the creature of habit and instinct that i am, i can't help but follow them. this is all i know to do.

you basically vanished from my life--admit it, you did. something changed, and it wasn't me. your eyes used to have a look hungry for life; hunting and photography are one and the same, sometimes. i am not saying that the gleam is gone from your eyes, just that you aren't looking at me anymore, and i can't tell. i am fucking writing to you in here, even though (through the mysteries and magics of IM idle times) i know that you read what i wrote to you, and didn't care enough even to say 'i'm tired, we need to talk about this soon, i don't hate you, i'm just busy, i still secretly want to fall in love with you, so please wait.' you could have said at least two of those six things, any two. i just don't get it. i just don't know what you want of me.

hypersensitive? check plus. helpless? no. irresponsible? that's an interesting one. i take full accountability and blame for everything, even things i didn't do wrong. those IMs tonight? they are me saying, High Fidelity-style, what did i do that was wrong? what are you finding with someone else you couldn't find with me? why am i doomed--at 23--to be alone?

orphan easter is not looking promising--i think i am the only person without people to see on easter. if i fucking end up sitting in starbucks all day, posting to my blog and waiting for people to get on IM, i am going to add easter to the list of holidays i hate.

so, in conclusion--i'm sorry. i don't hate you, i just miss the way you used to look at me.

the water was bitter cold.

2005-03-24T00:57:00.000-05:00

i've always loved rainy days--i don't know if this is normal. i know that there are poems that have been written about rain cleansing the cities, making new that which has been corrupted by the impurity of the human spirit, etc. that's not why i like it, though... i like the smell. every time it rains, it smells different. over the weekend, the rain smelled like spring for the first time all year--there was a floral touch to the air, and the cool rain kissed my warm hands as i held a cigarette out of the window of rusty's truck.

today's rain was colder, and harsh, and it beat down continuously against the windshield of my car as i hid there during my break from work, eating a bagel and passing through the day's text messages, attempts at epic conversations that i don't feel like having. the rainsound drowned out all noise, including the impressions of my own heart beating effortlessly in my chest.

"maybe all you need is to leave me alone... at least that's what you said."

wilco was playing over the speakers at bistro tonight, while i had a glass of wine with leslie and launa, while j was over in the corner on his phone. i am not jealous of the words and chords i couldn't have written, but grateful for the emotions other than my own that filled me while the piano and guitars hit chord after chord, not quite perfectly together.

j told me tonight that i am too nice, and that he loves this about me, but also considers it my greatest flaw. he knows how quickly i run to people who call my name, even when i know better. we talked in shakespeare quotes tonight... i never thought that i was one spoiled by the milk of human goodness, but i guess i have been. i believe the things people say to me, and still i am proud that i do, even when their actions and silences don't match up. i am thrilled to be the person that i am today, balancing romance/Romance and realism/Realism, sarcastic yet soft.

helen told me last week when i went to see her in the hospital that my love is easy and free. i know that i fall in love too quickly, and too often with the wrong people, and i don't regret this. falling out of love is one of those times when definitions are formed, when identities are enhanced. my heart is what it is not because of how i fall in love, but because of how i fall out of love, at high speeds, with the radio turned up and my fist pounding on the steering wheel and my fingers squeezing the smoke out of a lit camel light. these images do not occur to me when i am in love, but only in the first light after the eclipse of souls that block the light of reason from my eyes.

you create your own light--i wrote this on cheap target stationary months ago, and i think it's still true.. it's beautiful and warm, and it was wonderful to be in it for a moment, but it isn't steady, or dependable, or reckless, even.

also, i have decided that i need to get curtains for my front window before i bring another drunk girl with lying eyes home with me next new year's eve. already my mind wanders back to the practical. the rain woke me, while the rest of the city slept, and slept in, and slept together. the rain was my love today. curtains would have solved all of my problems.

oh so help me god i wasn't cheating on you.

2005-03-23T18:14:00.000-05:00

i think the thing that is really upsetting me is that i got the wrong impression. i used to think that i was a ‘professional observer of human interaction.’ i used to think that i could get to know someone just by sitting at a table with them, taking note of their handwriting, their choice of espresso beverages. this is not the case, i am learning.

the thing is, this has worked so many times before. when rusty and i first met, we decided to go out and get a beer and talk about the dilation of time and relativity in the relationships we were in. i should have known then that it was going to be a beautiful friendship--actually, i think i did. you see, i know good people when i find them; well, i used to.

what i want to know now is what happened this time. are my skills off? have my senses been dulled by lack of espresso and alcohol? or is it something else? i think that i have been tricked, that a very cunning actor has created the individual that they wanted me to believe they were, and it worked, it worked well, and it worked for months. my heartbeat lies to me. there is no truth, no overwhelming theme.

if i had a superpower, it would be to make people disappear.

***

these thoughts, however, could not ruin the weirdest dinner party that i have ever been a part of.

(yes, we sliced open the panda)

machine guns and the camera lens

2005-03-22T19:31:00.000-05:00

a quick addendum to my previous post, this time from the dining room.

DONE. okay? DONE. i have come to the conclusion that i cannot trust people any farther than i can throw them. that sounds like a nice idea, throwing people. i am going to have to start doing that.

let's fuck it up boys--make some noise.

someday somebody's going to ask you...

2005-03-22T18:08:00.000-05:00

a few business matters, first. i apologize--mostly to lauren--for not posting more frequently. i've been... busy? i don't know, no good excuse. in any event, though, i am back, and daily postings should commence now. also, welcome to a new reader--elevator action, huh? we'll play baseball in the spring... when it's cooler.

for the first time ever, i am posting in my blog from the kitchen at windswept fields. lauren and i are having a dinner party tonight, with the bucket, j, and the lovely leslie and launa expected later this evening. i don't know if you can really say that i am cooking--rather, i am doing what lauren says, picking out the music, taking pictures, and keeping track of time. it's fun.

lauren and i listened to the mix i made for march, that i didn't end up giving to anyone, because i question the validity of making mixtapes for someone that you don't see anymore. it's a damn good mix, though, and i enjoy the work that i put into it. perhaps the lovelist month-mix yet.

everything feels like it is ending at this house. rusty talks and thinks more about leaving then about staying. taylor and joe are already in portland for two weeks. lauren is making plans, both practical and nebulous. i just don't know what to think or feel.

easter is this sunday, and i want to cook for whatever 'orphans' i can find, people without families within driving distance. so far it is just me, but i have high hopes for a successful pseudo-holiday.

i have to get back to cooking. this is a picture of our other upstairs roommate, the panda. click for more.

shadow, echo, and revelation.

2005-03-19T01:02:00.000-05:00

in no order of importance.

so. i know that he and i were never really super close, but i maintain that we were good friends, and had a special bond of jager and making out with katherine. that disclaimer provided, i've been thinking about alex all day today. i saw someone in bodo's this morning that looked just like him. i still think it may have been him. at sarah's concert tonight, they sang one of the songs that was sung at his funeral. every time i hear that song, i get so mad, because alex and i should have been better friends--we should have been best friends. i regret not ever getting to be that close with him.

also, i think i have decided that i am not actually an alcoholic. i am not powerless, like AA says i am. i from time to time choose to be powerless. AA got me on a path to find God, and i am grateful for that, but i think that i need to find out why i am sometimes--often--unhappy, and why a drink or sobriety doesn't change that. i am meeting with my sponsor tomorrow, and i am going to explain all this, how i wish i could honestly say that i was an alcoholic, how i think it would be easier to fit that label than to admit that i have no idea what is wrong with me. i'm still not drinking, because i made a promise, and because i am stubborn, and because i want to find out who i am when i don't drink.

j is gone. he left town. i don't even know what to say about this yet. all year long, i've been thinking that meeting sarah and realizing the potential that i think she and i could someday have has been the highlight of my year. instead, i am starting to see that meeting j and finding the potential that i, michael, already have, is the best thing to happen to me this year, or maybe even this decade. not many people get my friendship with him, but it brings me comfort when i need it most. he calls me more than anyone else, and returns my calls, which is huge for me. not many people do that anymore. i hope you find what you're looking for, and i hope you can come back home soon.

today feels like the end of a chapter--the end of a formulaic chapter. i am going to wake up tomorrow and be uncertain as to what i am, and what is wrong with me, and where i am going. i think that i am equipped with the tools and support to handle this. i have so much love to share, and need to find a way to do it. i need to find a way to love my job, to love myself, to love other people, to love my life. i know i used to do all of those things--i just don't know if i do them now.

my name is michael. i have problems, none of which have titles. i smoke a lot of cigarettes, and now i make bagels. tonight i smoked a hookah with audrey, lauren, and rusty. i watched each of them be with that person that they love, and i was hit by how i had forgotten how calming and exhilarating it is to love. i am getting a dog. a close friend of mine has put himself outside my reach, but i know that he still cares about me. i can't sleep anymore, but i am tired all of the time. this is just a little bit of my story, right now. keep coming back for more.

universal heartbeat.

2005-03-17T23:52:00.000-05:00

first, happy birthday to my favorite 'Janonymous' friend. i don't know what i'd do without you, and i am continually impressed with how you know everything about everything before it happens. hope you had a fun day, and hope you're having a fun night, now.

i talked to chris tonight, my favorite leprechaun roommate. i've been meaning to talk to him for a while, and i am glad that we were finally able to catch up. i know he's only a year older than me, but i am always amazed at the strength and maturity he carries with him, and i look to him for strength. also, i love that he drives an old person town car.

arnold is back from iraq, judging by his new mobile IM status. i need to track him down. new year's prayers come true, with my boy coming home safely. i will hopefully get to see him for some mad-lyrical, empirical times next month.

i love it when things i write in here fall on ears that listen--simple text messages that make my day are much appreciated. it's the little things that mean so much more than the big things, i think.

also, having read my new favorite blog, dooce, i am inspired to continue writing in here, to keep myself sane and to hopefully entertain others.

today was a great day off... now, off to sleep, to get back up in 5 hours to do the bagel thing again.

why can't i?

2005-03-16T23:41:00.000-05:00

i just IMed sloane asking her if i was uncool for listening to and loving liz phair's self-titled, obviously selling-out to radio album. i am going to say no, but we'll wait for her judgment.

today. sigh. i couldn't sleep last night. i was so worried about helen, and what she wasn't telling me about her stroke, etc. i cried for a while, and stared blankly at the ceiling, and screamed out silently about how unfair this is. i thought i would be a zombie at work today, but i was a fast-moving hipster zombie, and i saw some old friends, and made some new ones, i think. i ate bagels during my breaks.

right after work, lolo and i went to the hospital to see momma hell. i have this thing about hospitals. i hate them. i remember going to see grandma in that hospital in pennsylvania, and how the whole building smelled so clean it was dirty. the woman in the room with helen was as gone as grandma was the last time i saw her, in that same-colored room. i remember the night that lauren and brian and i spent in the waiting room in fredericksburg, watching ER, of all shows, and not knowing what was going to happen to brett, or what had happened to brett. it was terrible, and too much, and i never was able to be as close to them again after that. but then i remember seeing grandfather, and hearing his strong voice even in his whispers.

anyway, i realized very soon after we got there that this wouldn't be the last time i saw helen, that she is going to be fine. after grandma's stroke, she didn't remember me, i don't think. helen knew me just as well as always, and made me blush, and told her sister and her daughter-in-law that i am 'easy and free,' whatever that means. i love helen so fully and so honestly and selfishly, and it makes me happy to do so, and i like to think that i have absorbed even one percent of her spirit into my life. i have a feather in my car that she gave me once--she told me i am a warrior. oh, helen, you are the warrior.

i had dinner with j and the twins, at maartens, for like 4 hours. it was hilarious. we complained about the new robots that work at starbucks, and talked about counting out marshmallows in cereal, and quarries, and i don't know what else--kidney stones, nights in jails, lousy waittresses. it was phenomenal. launa asked j if she could get a dog--and so, at every possible moment, i would ask j for a dog, a small chihuahua that could live in my shirt pocket. that would be so sweet.

also, j promised to get napoleon dynamite to come visit for my birthday party, and to make him dance.

and so, i am going to let the night expire, picking out notes on my recently-strung guitar, and let the couch hold me like a lazy lover, and remember how grateful i am for those people that have come into my life over these 23 years and change, and to be even more grateful for the impact that they will have in the future.

Heaven and Hell

2005-03-15T23:51:00.000-05:00

about to go to bed, but two things, first.

1. Momma Hell--I think she is my favorite person in the world, and I don't think anyone will ever love me more than she loves me, and worrying about her even for a second is terrible. I hope I get to see her tomorrow.

2. Heaven--Since I am mostly decaffeinated, and sleeping more regularly--like, most nights--i realize that what i want more than anything is to have someone to hold and to hold me while i sleep, to compensate for my crappy heater, to make sure i don't have nightmares, and to smile at me when the sunlight gently kisses our eyes through the venetian blinds.

i would write more, but i just have too much on my mind tonight. all of your hopes and prayers for helen, okay?

sound and body

2005-03-13T22:05:00.000-05:00

it first started at the end of december. the insistent beep of the text message arriving became the most exciting sound of my life, because i always knew who it was from, and never knew what it said. i would anxiously tap the keys and smile at the capitalized letters and overused ellipses. i think i finally know how this sound made my heart beat faster, and why it is so perfect.

the beep-beep of my cell phone, when text arrives, is the sound of a heartbeat, slightly frantic, definitely exhilarated, aroused; it is the technological equivalent of what my heart did, and does, with every text, with the secret hope that it's from her. even if she never texts me again, i am always going to expect that it's her making my heart race so.

//welcome home--i'm so selfishly glad you came back.//

BLINK. (don't think)

2005-03-12T02:45:00.000-05:00

Ultimately, we are going to end up here; it may take a while.

In the begining...

My first college English class was 205, Art of Literature, with Dr. Marie McAllister, a woman who loosely veiled her brilliance behind nervousness and the kind of fast-talking one learns in Nassau county. She would take these amazingly well planned pauses when she spoke, and her inflection would change slightly when she started to to speak again. She had carpal tunnel syndrome, and couldn't write long comments on our papers, so instead, she would give us audiotapes. One my first tape, she told me that she wanted me to be an English major--finally, validation!
A component of her class was going to be contemporary fiction and non-fiction, accomplished through a 13 week subscription to The New Yorker. I remember two pieces vividly--one was a piece of short fiction called "Stitches," which changed my very understanding of what 7 pages of Times New Roman could do. The other was something about the ethics of modifying genes in children and selectively aborting undesired fetuses, which forced me to start thinking about something that i may never find my own precise, defined answer to. Anyway, I was hooked. I still get The New Yorker, though now my source is less predictable than the mail, but way cuter.

Next...
I start writing, feverishly, at some undisclosed, unremembered time. I fill the notebook Katherine gave me with the ugly portrait of Shakespeare and the Joni Mitchell quote inside with fragments of poems. I fill notebook after notebook with fragments of thoughts. I never find a notebook that I love to write in, though. At some point, during the summer of Blue House, Majkin introduced me to my first Moleskine. It's the perfect notebook. I wish that I could have a job that paid me to write in moleskines all day, and to hide the produced writings. It amazes me how I am able to find tactile pleasure in writing on these pages with a certain pen--archival, of course.
Also of note, in addition to Majkin, who became my BFFFFFF this summer, possibly the most interesting person I've met--aside from me, that is--uses one too, and even bought me one, and fills it with the same lists that I do.

Background...
Probably the best English class I ever took was 3somethingsomething, Asian-American Women's Semi-Autobiographical Fiction, with Mara. Cynthia and Akash and Brian and I sat up front and dominated. I developed an infatuation with literary representations of menstruation. I said sexy things about women's bodies serving as texts. One day, I read a book that changed my life, and threw me onto the path of socially active-thought and vegetarianism (which i had to break recently due to health concerns) which I lived/live by--a book called My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki. I could talk about this book for days, but what I would prefer to do is to instruct you to read it first, then find me and we'll discuss. Perfect.
One of the artifacts that holds Ozeki's book together is Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, a collection of lists filled out in notebooks one thousand years ago in Japan. The first personal documentarian, I think, or I'd like to think, at least. Shonagon made lists of things like "Words That Look Commonplace but That Become Impressive When Written in Chinese Characters" or "Things that Make the Heart Race." This taught me how to write for myself, the private, non-blogged, not poetry that means the most to me, that i carry around in my moleskine.

sometime later...
I start this stupid blog-type thing. I read other blogs, mostly in search of inspiration and attractive design elements. I find a blog--several, actually--dedicated to moleskines. On one of these sites, I find reference to a familiar sounding name, an author who wrote a new book...

flashback...
When I worked at Starbucks, I would always take a copy of the Sunday Times from the recycling bin. I read the Book Review and the Magazine, and sometimes the Arts and Leisure section.

more recent flashback...
I remember reading an article in a NY that Sarah gave me about personality and intelligence tests.

other flashback...
Blink, Don't Think. That had to be the most interesting headline I'd ever come across in the Sunday Times. I clipped it out.

summation.
so, indirectly, the following people lead me to find this book, which i haven't even read yet: Majkin, Sarah, Mara, Ruth Ozeki, Sei Shonagon, my father, Dr. McA, and countless others.

Wednesday, as part of the Festival of the Book, Malcolm Gladwell will be discussing his new book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, as well as, perhaps, the countless articles he has written for The New Yorker.

this made sense to me.

you see, i stopped believing in coincidences when i started believing in everything else--every coincidence is actually a tiny destiny, i think/hope, and it makes much more sense that way.

symmetry

2005-03-11T18:01:00.000-05:00

this morning, i stepped into my car and drove somewhere i've never been before.

on the way, i saw llamas. earlier this week, i saw a fox. i don't know how to read these potents; what signs are these animals harbringers of? (as i write these lines, arnold signed onto IM--first time i've heard from him in over three weeks, telling me he's coming home. i love foxes and llamas!)

my phone rang with more than one job offer today, and i took the one that was best for me, right now. i am going to be making so much more money, and already, i feel appreciated at this place. also, fuck yeah for stef for getting a job offer. everything is coming up employment.

today feels interstitial--an in-between day. lauren and rusty are gone, j is still missing... nothing is happening here. i am going to enjoy the remaining afternoon sunlight on my porch with my moleskine and a cup of tea.

cynthia and grant are meeting in manhattan tomorrow. i could start talking about cycle-theory (this means nothing if you aren't me, cynthia, or grant), but instead, i just think that there is a time and place for everyone to find each other, even if it is just in the MoMA and for coffee. i look forward to meeting you again in the well-lighted room of a museum, too.

can you say...

2005-03-11T12:51:00.000-05:00

employed? fuck yeah.

fortunes

2005-03-11T01:13:00.000-05:00

a friend gave me a fortune cookie the other night. i cracked it open and ate half, so hungry that i forgot about the whole piece of paper inside thing. the fortune wasn't in the half-cookie in my hand. i think i ate my fortune.

though usually i understand these metaphors i create for myself--like the one about refrigerating peanut butter from last year--anyone remember that?--i have no idea what this means. i think that there is a possibility that it means that i get to create my own destiny this time; perhaps i already know what it is.

//my creativity is returning to me--i can feel it in nonsensical posts like this. my muse is stepping off the tarmac, onto the plane.//

Tongues and Eyes

2005-03-10T15:17:00.000-05:00

i am sitting, mid-afternoon, in an unfamiliar coffee shop, a drink slightly unknown, with faces and eyes and smells that are not quite the same, and it feels so good. i think that this could definitely work out, and I should be hearing from them monday. anywhere that has a manual portafilter bar and bagged coffee from Yemen could work out for me, and for you, too, i hope.

i wrote out a draft of my new poem about rusty, and how i don't think he wants to be here a second longer than he has to be. the only time he looks remotely happy anymore is when he is with lauren--there is nothing about me that makes him smile anymore, i don't think. we've lost the ability to talk at length about meaning and not-meaning. i don't know where it went. i am sure that it is probably my fault.

i can't get in touch with j. (i just got a call back for another interview at job prospect #1!!!) my muse is still abroad. i feel distant even from myself. hopefully, though, i'll be employed, soon. how much would i love to have two jobs fighting over me?!?! why am i betraying all rules of punctuation all of the sudden? why aren't you sitting here with me?

also, tonight, we say goodbye to a dear friend. my iBook, my first-born, has been sold to a nice young family, where hopefully, he will be loved and cherished, and they will repair permissions and not download too many free-ware apps, and they will constantly make sure that his battery is calibrated. it'll be okay. padriac, my new PowerBook, will have to keep me company and love me enough for now. also, i plan on loving myself with the $450 cash that i'll be walking away with tomorrow. cash is rock.

yeah they go wild

2005-03-09T22:23:00.000-05:00

my first day, post-ozeki, proved to be a good one. the job thing will soon work itself out, i feel. i had an amazing interview today, and i am just waiting for the social machinery to work itself out, the appropriate phone calls to be made, the references to be checked. my vacation time is probably coming to a close, unfortunately.

i started that new poem about rusty--i can't wait until i have more to add to it. it's about rusty AND linguistics, and the way that he speaks English differently now that he's been spending so much of his days speaking Spanish. eventually, it will also be about slides of Cuba.

J bought me lunch today, and we hung out in the tooth pain relief aisle of CVS. i sang a backstreet boys song to him, along with the musac, and then he left. i think that my singing pissed him off.

i spent the afternoon doing some more website-learning. rumor has it i am doing another site soon; i have an idea for it, i just need to learn how to actually do it. i think i am seventy percent of the way there.

last night, when mara found out that i still haven't had a drink, that i temporarily stopped smoking, and that i gave up coffee, she said this to me.

Michael, in the six years I've known you, I don't know if I have ever seen you not drink, smoke, and live on coffee. Oh my god. I hope you are getting laid constantly.

oh, mara, don't we all have that hope?

my year of tobacco

2005-03-08T23:21:00.000-05:00

i heard one of my favorite contemporary authors read from one of my favorite contemporary novels tonight. not knowing what to say, i am going to borrow some of her words, which seems appropriate.

As will be gathered
from these notes of mine,
I am the sort of person
who approves
of what others abhor
and detests
the things they like.

—Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book
circa 1000 AD

Clearly,
if Sei Shonagon had had access
to the Internet,
she would have had a weblog
instead of a Pillowbook.

—Ruth Ozeki, Weblog
circa 2000 AD

more to come later.

solo cross-country trip

2005-03-06T23:29:00.000-05:00

at church this morning, jim talked about how we act globally by acting locally; by touching the lives around us, we are creating others who will possibly follow as we have, or who will possibly find their own path to help others. this makes so much sense, and it is so simple, and i wish that we always had tangible proof of it, to see the future on a daily basis.

after that, i met with my sponsor. we talked about my age and my relative inexperience drinking. he thinks that i am at risk to go out and drink again, because my life didn't get as bad as it could have; on the other hand, he thinks that i have a chance at actually living a sober life because i am so young. mixed with the other things we talked about, i spent a good part of my day feeling sorry for myself, which is not something i really enjoy anymore. i wanted to drink, and i didn't, and i am glad i didn't. thanks, j, for knocking some sense into me.

tonight was windswept fields family dinner night. beth made all of this amazing food, and joe and taylor, rusty and lolo, and monster were all there. joe told stories about a pig that drank budweiser, and monster and lolo looked over the map of our proposed cross-country trip, including the elaborate plans to get me over my obsession with... hygeine? with friends like these, who needs friends?

rusty showed us slides of his trip to cuba. i think i have an idea for a poem about him, and i still want to flesh out my new poem i'm going to call 'tongue-bitten prayer'. for someone who only found faith recently, i have way too many poems about prayer. maybe i kind of knew that this is where i was headed.

anyway, at the end of the cuba slides, there was a picture from last august, of me, majkin, and carly in the kitchen at windswept fields. i took a picture of it, on the wall of the dining room, for permanance.

the real question--a kid from long island took the train into manhattan to ride his bike around all day?

2005-03-06T00:47:00.000-05:00

in a strange twist of geography and perception, everything feels slightly different today--the angles at which pieces of furniture in my house intersect, the colors of lightbulbs in my room. i think it's all in my head.

monster and i played pool with bucket and doogie at orbit today; monster and i won two games in a row. we were so proud of ourselves. we went to maartens to split cheese fries, and told rusty we could walk home. the weather changed, so we swallowed our pride and called him.

then, feeling the need to watch something cheesy, and not agreeing on anything else, we rented 'new york minute.' yes, we rented a mary-kate and ashley movie. previously, monster and i watched 'shall we dance?' together, so we are accustomed to watching stupid movies. we had some questions about the film--i mostly wanted to know which one was which after each costume change. she wanted to know how they kept running into the same seven people. there were not answers to these questions.

i had an interesting talk with my parents today. my mom yelled, and my dad said 'we love you.' kind of what i expected. i am wondering what kind of parent i'll be. at orbit, monster kept yelling at me for missing important shots--obviously, she'll be a terrible mother. i think i'll be too forgiving, too loving, and therefore, a terrible father. i don't know if i am ever even going to find out.

it's a quarter to one and no one is on IM. monster is at geoff's, rusty and lauren are in bed eating popsicles and watching a movie. the streets are empty, and i should be asleep, but i'm not, listening to bright eyes and re-reading rae's livejournal. i worry that i am not and have never been a poet, when her prose is more image-laden than anything i have ever written. i think that rae will be my poetry nemesis, and my goal from now on will be to write better than her.

also, hey. thanks for IMing me before--sorry i couldn't talk, but it's good to know you don't totally completely hate me. i'll find you later.

we don't live here anymore.

2005-03-04T23:59:00.000-05:00

lolo and i watched a charming movie about adultery. it's a good thing that i'll probably never fall in love again, because then no one can cheat on me. is it strange that this thought if comforting? perhaps.

it's hard to write tonight. the theme of this year has been to believe in things that i didn't before. i believe in God, 12 step programs, the optimism of love, blessings in disguise, that i can spend day after day not drinking. now, i think that possibly, i may believe that this latest incarnatioon of my life as a poet requires a muse. i don't know for sure, but my muse, if we are going to agree that she exists, and that i've found her, is in central america this week; the distance is too far to sustain the electrical current of her gaze that allows me to write pages upon pages of thoughts about her and me and us and the future and the past and memory and metaphor.

j talked me off of a ledge tonight. i'm kind of worried about my day to day life, but he's helping me try to see that it's all temporary. i don't know what i'd do without him.

my memories have been betraying me. i don't know how i can remember every instant of a ten minute car ride with my grandfather when i was seven, but i can't remember a day from last january. i hope you know how sorry i am. you're amazing, and i am so grateful that you continue to be a part of my life. i'm here whenever you want to talk to me again--take your time, i understand.

yeah. out of things to say, for once. i almost hope this isn't geographical, that my writing, even this mundane crap, isn't tied to her. then i realize how wonderful the potential is that it is tied to her, and how much more i will write when she comes home, and if it ever works out the way i hope it does.

things that i am grateful for, right now...

2005-03-03T14:48:00.000-05:00

1. my AA sponsor for being completely amazing and encouraging.
2. daniel for talking to me for over an hour about how to start a relationship that is waiting for me.
3. friends that are amazingly talented, who inspire me to write and to think and to love and to dress better.
4. J for having advice for every situation.
5. my first shot of espresso in 4 days. sweet baby jesus on a ten speed bike. that was beautiful.

when i used to teach poetry, i would make these insane rules that the kids had to follow in their poems, so that they could break them later.

2005-03-03T02:44:00.000-05:00

i think it's safe to say that my previous entry is without a doubt the best entry i've ever made into this journal-thing. it has the character of a mcsweeney's list and the awkward charm of little michael. i think i've finally found my voice--poems are writing themselves in my head. i'm now at (doing math in my head) 53 days of continuous sobriety, and my mind and liver have never felt better.

my meeting today was a good one--i think the topic was triggers, those things that make us drink. one of my triggers is financial--i like to drink when i don't have money, and i love to drink when i do. i am going to cut out as many of my expenses as possible over the next few months, and try to get back on track, where i should have been all along. a side-effect of being sober is that i am aging a year every day--it's time i started acting like it.

still, i am in a great mood today--i went to a meeting, i brought a beautiful girl flowers, i drove to richmond on a whim to hang out with j--who has been so incredibly sweet and helpful to me, and i would write about him all the time if i knew his real name or anything about him; logan bought me dinner and i told him about my adventures in flower-buying, we talked about arnold, and how we haven't heard from him in two weeks, we talked about finding places that we're supposed to be.

i was in the car for a little over two hours today, by myself. i had the music on kind of loud, and then i turned it down, and i just said thank you, for everything, for me being alive and driving and for my friends that are near me and my friends that are far away, for my family and their health, and for everything that has brought me to where i am right now. there will come a time when i can say that i am grateful for the things that have happened to me; i can't explain it. there's this one section in chapter five of the AA book that says that we realized that only one could help us; that one is God, may you find him now. i guess all it took for me to finally find God was 23 and a half years of denying that i am a drunk, that i am flawed, that i am in need of constant spiritual maintenence.

i've been taking this God as i understand Him thing pretty seriously. as i understand Him, God loves me even though i say fuck--a lot, even though i smoke continuously, even though i think that pre-marital sex is not only okay but absolutely essential, even though i sometimes secretly wish for bad things to happen to other people--but not really bad... flat tire, not spontaneous combustion, even though i fully support a woman's right to choose to terminate a pregnancy at any time, for any reason. the God that i am starting to understand would be fucking pissed at me if i forgot everything that got me here, i think. He and I can argue about some of this stuff later... there's a smoking section in heaven, right?

real and imagined conversations with florists.

2005-03-02T18:48:00.000-05:00

1. Me: Hi. I'm going on a first date tonight, and my friends say I shouldn't bring flowers, but I think this girl is amazing, and I don't want her to forget me. Maybe a flower--just one? Or is that too... something?
Florist: Orchid.

2. Me: Hi. Umm, I'm looking for something that says "happy valentine's day/i want you back but i don't want you to think that i'm losing sleep over this."
Florist: Tulips.

3. Me: Hi. Umm, yeah. I'm looking for something that says "when you come back from nicaragua, I want you to run straight into my arms and tell me that you thought of me the whole time, and that you heard a noise or something that reminded you of me once your plane landed there, and that maybe we should consider being together for all time." Does that make any sense?
Florist: No. Just get roses.
Me: Roses? No! I have rules! No roses, no carnations, nothing from a grocery store!
Florist: Michael, sweetie--these are rules for casual flower-buying. Majkin wasn't giving you rules for your entire future of buying flowers. How special is this girl?
Me: So special, florist. So special.
Florist: Well, maybe you should be more adventurous, and break those rules, and see what happens.
Me: Well, perhaps. In that case, I want the best roses you have. How much are they, by the way?

public notice.

2005-03-01T23:15:00.000-05:00

i want the whole world to know that i will be murdering audrey (in the face, no less) next time i see her, for the super-hot ashley/harris teeter episode of march ist. it shall be referred to as the super-hot teeter massacre.

don't try to stop me. this is too important.

tongue-bitten prayers

2005-03-01T21:23:00.000-05:00

for some reason, even with the snow on the ground and the cold air, i decided that today was going to be a nice day to take a walk. i had rusty drive me to my noon AA meeting, and then I walked back, negotiating snow dropping from trees and cars zipping through puddles. the meeting was all about making amends; i am/am not looking forward to that, but it will be helpful, when the time comes.

AA and Daniel have both told me that the next thing I need to do is to turn my life over to God. i don't really know what that means, so i asked stefanie. she told me what it means, and then assured me that I am still allowed to smoke cigarettes. thank you thank you thank you. this boy is allowed one vice, after all.

however, in other news, i think i may have replaced it. i got a sponsor today, and though i can't really talk about him, he's awesome, and he gave me a $4 bottle of artisan water from norway. this could easily become my new addiction. also, i feel very strongly that i am on the road to recovery.

stefanie and i also had the classic 'who is more sexually frustrated' argument. there was no clear winner; rather, both of us are losers, and stupidly waiting for something real.

i started a new poem in a meeting this morning--i hope to have a draft done soon.

i love unemployment vacation days!

right.

2005-02-28T10:52:00.000-05:00

so. starbucks can fuck themselves.

(my employment with the '11th best company to work for in america' was terminated today. i am going to spend one day being angry, and get a new, better job tomorrow.)

cochese told me once, or actually thirty or forty times, in the car to new york, and once at the bar on new years eve, that "these things happen, because these things must occur." stefanie helped me realize today that everything happens for a reason, even if we never understand it. i have decided that this will ultimately be a blessing.

are you there, God? it's me, michael. remember Job? i am forged steel compared to him. bring it.

i fight to win--FOR ME!

(anyone in the charlottesville area wishing to help can do one or more of the following:
1. bring me a pint of ben & jerry's--mint chocolate cookie, preferably.
2. come watch a movie with me.
3. "sing me something soft, sad and delicate, or loud and out of key; sing me anything.")

i swear to tell the whole truth.

2005-02-28T03:56:00.000-05:00

summary of day.

--slept in, because of odd combination of amazing dreams and terrible nightmares. i had the day off from work, my bed was warm, the light passing through the strips of plastic blinds was pleasing. this doesn't happen every day. (dreams--falling in love, breaking and entering, something having to do with the library of congress; nightmares--iraq, finding someone's body in the bathtub.)

--starbucks. was originally supposed to go meet kim, then lolo. instead, sit down with kim, lolo, gavin, AND nancy jane. saw sarah briefly, reminded of how casually beautiful i think she is. helped helen carry a six-foot sub. talked about how all of the new baristas are bitchy.

--design. spent a good chunk of time working on lauren's website--the first parts are done, for now. the new plan is to do a few more sites for friends, then to start a small free-lance webdesign business. i never ever thought that i would be replacing my time drinking with css and xhtml, but whatever. it happens.

--rusty. rusty and i used to have these long conversations about our conflicting understandings of the universe. now, we mostly just play computer games together. do i mind? not really. everything is the same, because everything is connected.

--starbucks. so, apparently, it is snowing. additionally, it is almost 4am. finally, i have to be at work at 545. i am already guessing that my purple car of death, destruction, and spite, minerva, will not be up for a snowy drive. so... in 45 minutes, i am going to walk the 1.3 miles to work, in the snow, uphill both ways, and if i find any birch trees on the way you can bet your life that i'll be swinging on them.

--ozeki. so excited that i will get to see three of my favorite women of all time in one night--ruth l. ozeki, author of some of my favorite novels about the evils of beef and genetically modified potatoes; allison, the girl that taught me that nice jeans are worth saving for; and mara, the professor that continues to be my advisor long after i have graduated. will anyone else be there?

--poetry. i've started a new poem about my orange armchair. it will end up being about someone else, probably a girl. also, i am going to completely rewrite my poem about linguistics, making it more about me and less about CK, mostly because i don't actually know her story.

WE HAD LIVED!

howitzer.

2005-02-27T23:44:00.000-05:00

so, i spent most of the evening working on lolo's website,lauren cousar -- murals, faux finishing, commissioned paintings. only one of the image galleries is up, but i am happy with the clean lines, the way that the images fall in line with each other, etc. there are things that i am going to go back and fix later, but for now, i feel an overwhelming sigh of accomplishment. i wasn't sure if i could do it, but i could, and i did. next time, i need to get paid for this.

"look at this picture--it looks like God is behind you." -- LMC

2005-02-26T23:14:00.000-05:00

I don't know where today went. I drank three cups of coffee, less than I usually drink, so I think that maybe time shifted around me, as though lack of caffeination caused the atoms of my body to vibrate at a slower speed, and so, the universe carried me differently today. that, and i didn't really do anything.

i shall now insert a comment that doesn't really fit in here, but it's important. i don't know what i would do without sloane. it's like she knows when i am absolutely loneliest, and finds me and talks to me. she's like the busiest person in the world, and i never ever feel like she doesn't have time for me. so, thanks, skip.

lauren and rusty and i are watching 'monsoon wedding;' lauren just asked us if we had ever read an issue of cosmo. umm, excuse me? like she even has to ask. we're going to get a copy so rusty can see it--i want him to take the quiz.

the most intense personal interaction i had all day was with mike, the bum that sits in front of the lucky seven. i help him out with change and cigarettes and hot chocolates, when i can. anyway, he shared with me his theories about women. i can't type some of those words here, but if you are interested, buy a pack of cigarettes, a forty, and go find mike.

i called allison, and we talked about ruth ozeki and diesel jeans. i randomly started crying while talking to her. i miss her.

i had the best dream ever today. it was a memory.

this list, possibly...

2005-02-26T18:27:00.000-05:00

is way representative of my life.

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Ten Things the Guy at Starbucks Is Thinking While Looking at the Brunette Barista Behind the Counter.

first with your hands

2005-02-26T10:17:00.000-05:00

i'm sitting at the window table at starbucks, and realizing that i hate the way that people drive. every time someone pulls into the 15 minute parking lane from the wrong side of the road, i just want to go out there and kick their car, as if to discipline them. i have to stop letting little things bother me.

last night, for the first time ever, i started to think that maybe being a student of discourse analysis left me at a disadvantage, in general, real-life skills. everyone naturally reads into what is said, but i spend so much time obsessing over what isn't said, putting herculean weights on the the pauses between sentences, the seconds between 'instant' messages, the spacing of time between text messages. this is no way to live. brynn used to live 90% in her own head--i am living 91% in the picas and pixels between the dots of ellipses.

i've spent the last few hours trying to teach myself how to do one simple thing for lauren's website, and i just can't get it to work. am i too old to learn how to do something new? in 14 months, statistically, my cells will start dying faster than new cells are made. i think that my nervous system, like the rest of me, is chronically early. ideally, i would make some word-play between chronologically and chronically, but it just isn't going to happen this morning.

jessie sat with me during a break, and we both talked about how we don't generally make eye contact, for fear that our eyes will start tearing. i think that this says a lot about the type of people we are--afraid of how others will think we feel--or don't--based on the way we look.

i am afraid that i am becoming emotionally dead. i can't look people in the eye anymore. this has happened before, in a diner in new jersey. i am trying to remember how i broke it last time. i think it involves reading anna karenina.

And I stood nervous next to you in the dark room, you dropped the paper in the water and it all begins to bloom.

2005-02-26T00:17:00.000-05:00

so. today was just another day, perhaps an interstitial day, one to separate interesting things from other interesting things. i spent most of the morning thinking about my perception of the universe, thanks to a movie, and then working on website stuff. avid readers should begin to look for a change on this site; as of tomorrow, there will be an auditory component to this site. basically, i set something up where i can make phone calls into my blog, and a link with an audio file shows up. i would have done this at work, but i forgot.

there were no full cycles in my day today--i went to work so late that really, i only caught the end of a shift, not a whole shift. i had an IM conversation that started, then stopped, without finishing--jilted at the IM altar, if you will. today just happened, and that was that.

this post sounds hopeless, but it's not. i just remain confused, skinny, and unloved. i am just waiting to sit down and have an amazing conversation with someone, something somehow life-changing. the begining of the year was full of life-changing moments--career-wise, sobriety-wise, possible-but-now-elusive-romance-wise. i just yearn for those days, i guess.

i wrote 'yearn.' this entry is over.

all strung out in song

2005-02-25T02:21:00.000-05:00

dear diary,

not much to report today. i worked, i slept, i went to the lucky seven. i don't think that i had anything resembling a meaningful exchange of dialogue with anyone today, aside from the usual what-does-it-all mean talks with rusty and lauren, and a quick/intense lecture/discussion with mara. i blame the snow.

the snow, you ask?

yes, the snow.

did you see the snow tonight? it was beautiful--slow-moving large flakes, like tiny clouds descending slowly. this is the type of snow that they have in Bedford Falls, in glass snow globes, and in memories. i watched the snow approach me, lit by the phosphorescence of a street light. this is the type of snow that you should kiss someone in.

anyway, the weekend approaches--coffee with mara saturday, i hope, coffee with dr. kim later saturday. i want to finish lauren's website (i fear that i am using too much pink), and then find some new way to occupy my time. i want to sit in a bookstore and teach myself more website stuff, to have all of the tools ready for the long-time back burner plan of web design, should my life in coffee not work out, and, because it is something to do that doesn't involve me going to a bar.

going to watch i (heart) huckabees and then bed--you should have been there in the snow, so i could have kissed you.

goodnight, bedford falls
michael

someone please call the surgeon

2005-02-24T02:31:00.000-05:00

quick post, then bed.

today started with insomnia and desert nightmares, and gradually evolved into an amazing day. it wasn't stereotypically good. as such, it was the best kind of good.

as terrible as work was tonight, it was also strangely fun. spending the last half hour with The Magnetic Fields up to eight was certainly one way to handle being behind schedule. gavin and audrey are two interesting kids, you know. also, i hope stacy is okay.

lolo is rapidly becoming my other-half. she woke me up today to help her do her taxes. we are going to be building her website together thursday evening. i mean, she's just everywhere, lately. she came to lunch with me and j today, and we talked about names, privacy, love, and power. any outdoor supply store or art supply shop should hire her immediately.

rae called me to find out why she isn't girlfriend material. after i got off the phone, gavin asked me what that was about. i said, very calmly, 'i believe there is a metaphor having to do with getting milk for free.' so, marcus, sweetie, if you're reading this, grow some fucking balls and demand that this boy get his act together (i.e. break up with his 'other' girlfriend).

i love coming home to windswept fields, because there is always something happening that is unusual, slightly. tonight, rusty and lolo were salsa dancing in the dining room. rusty saw taylor and joe jumping rope when he came home. there is no signifier in this house.

on a cigarette break tonight, a little old irish man told me that i should continue smoking as long as i want to, and asked me if i read Foucault, and told me that smoking is the last act of revolution we have left. he also said it is a great friend to thinking. i have named this little old irish man Padriac, like my little old irish powerbook.

so, i sent two texts tonight requesting that someone come visit me at work. both times, she did; it may have had nothing to do with the texts, or with me, but just the chance that she was there because she knows just how happy it makes me to be near her is thrilling.

finally, i am getting old, i think. in addition to the slight recession of my hairline, i had a strange epiphany today. i saw a beautiful woman holding a beautiful child, and i had a glimpse, a blink--nothing more, really, just a flash then gone, barely even visual, just an outline, a shadow of a second--of how i'd like my future to look and feel and taste and smell.

stop typing, michael. sweet dreams.

my neighbor's boyfriend's crying woke me up.

2005-02-23T03:55:00.000-05:00

i've started this entry and erased it four times now. it's 4am. i should be asleep. anyway, this was going to be the heart of my entry, anyway, so here it is.

REPUBLICAN?

sigh.

has michael, you know, the liberal-as-fuck, unofficial-minor-in-women's-studies, keeping-abortion-safe-legal-and-accessible, gratefully-tax-paying, my-child-will-not-go-to-a-house-with-a-gun-in-it, the-government-should-pay-for-all-of-our-doctors-and-give-condoms-out-in-nursery-schools, not-getting-married-until-same-sex-couples-can-legally-marry-in-every-state-of-the-union, the 'voting-republican-is-a-weapon-of-mass-destruction' believer, trying-to-unionize-baristas, yes, that michael... has michael fallen for a republican?

the part of this that scares me the most... i asked myself, earlier, "does this even matter?" let's get analytical.
1. we're not dating, and probably never will be, and the contents of this journal and others is the emotional vomit of an optimistically helpless romantic.
2. really, there is no difference between centrist republicans and democrats--they all have it wrong. (brewmerica, 2008!)
3. i reiterate point number one. there is no chance, as far as i can tell. i am obsessing over minutiae and marginalia.
4. my concept of romance is a (personal) weapon of mass destruction.

free mojtaba and arash

2005-02-22T02:49:00.000-05:00

shocking!!!

2005-02-22T01:30:00.000-05:00

the poem i planned on starting today didn't happen--you can't force these things. i need a topic, and i am open to suggestions.

i hope it is just because i am tired, but i really don't have anything interesting to talk about tonight, so i am just going to stop... soon.

my hands smell like gasoline. i like that, kind of... i think that is how a man's hands should smell--like gasoline--from time to time. ultimately, though, if a man's hands smell like gasoline, the friend's car that he was trying to get to start should start.

lauren tells me that simply because i continually refer to her and rusty as boyfriend and girlfriend, they now refer to each other in these terms. language is creation, i always say--in the begining was the Word, right? so, anyway, if i start referring to someone else as my girlfriend, might it be so? that's going on the backburner for now. the way back-burner.

i like having amazing revelations (note the lower-case R) on the second floor of starbucks. this is my revelation of tonight:

I never want to have closure with/from you. (i can be patient, but i can't be anything but honest when it comes to you.)

*N.B. i was listening to Ani Difranco today, while cleaning my room, and the lyrics in Dilate really got to me--
every song has a you
a you that the singer sings to
and you're it this time
baby, you're it this time.

i think i've been doing a lot of that, lately. sorry? i don't know. i am supposed to stop apologizing. sorry.

and finally... cross-posted from my secret journal...
desired trait in significant other: though i am a pro-feminist male, and would preferably like to spend my life with another feminist, she must understand, appreciate, and possibly even laugh at my insistence of asking her parents about the state of her dowry upon formally being introduced to them for the first time.

additionally...
happy birthday, brian. even though you are republican, you're still a decent big brother.

shoop?

2005-02-21T01:33:00.000-05:00

so, i spent the remainder of my day cleaning my room, and perhaps my mind. i reclaimed my desk--now featuring TWO laptops--and feel that this is a place where perhaps i will be able to write. I organized my bookshelf in the study and gave lolo some books to read; she left the house without taking them. i did three loads of laundry, and for the first time ever, in my entire life, i folded the clothes immediately after taking them out of the dryer. it wasn't so bad--i could make that a habit.
rusty and lauren and i had dinner together, after brynn nash-holed on me. rusty cooked oysters that lauren and i were afraid to eat. lauren told us stories of things that happened to her in the grocery store. i was generally cynical and charming, as usual. other funny things happened, but i don't remember them. we talked about whether or not you can meet people if you move to new york alone. my vote is yes.
when cleaning my room, i found BURIED TREASURE! i found the oddest birthday present i have ever recieved--a photograph given to me by my initial starbucks crush--of herself, mind you--that accompanied the nicotine inhalers i used the day i met majkin. i found a street address and a time of night written on starbucks thermal register tape, in blue bright stick, of when and where i was supposed to pick someone up for a date. i found the map of the united states lolo and monster made for our roadtrip, along with their plans to persuade me to not shower every day. thanks, guys--love you, too. i found russian nesting dolls and hand-bound haruki murakami volumes, about seven dollars in change, and four hundred dollars in camel cash. like ice cube, i have to say it was a good day.
i should be asleep! there are so many things i want to do tomorrow! i have more clothes to fold!

tomorrow, i start a new poem, and i don't even know yet what it will be about, just that i am going to write one.

please, fall for me.

2005-02-20T14:32:00.000-05:00

so. i didn't make it to church today; physically, that is. i went to my 10am meeting, the one with all of the young people, that's kind of cruisy. i saw that kid there, the one i was talking about on friday. he sat next to me, and afterwards, we sat in the parking lot and we smoked cigarettes, and he talked about his parents, and i talked about me. he says he still doesn't know if he's an alcoholic, but he thinks he is ready to not drink for a while. while i had been planning on going to church, i keep seeing that my plans are malleable, that my plans are not the same as the plan.

rusty's home--we are going to bond now.

mad lyrical

2005-02-20T05:08:00.000-05:00

so, i couldn't sleep all night. at first i was upset about this, but then, at 4:39am, Arnold signed into IM, and we talked for 22 minutes about freestyling, the bradley he drives on weekends, writing to find the Truth, and the nightly domestic disturbances in the apartment below mine.

sometimes, i think that it isn't fair that someone who knows me so well is living in the fucking desert; what i should really be thinking is that i am so glad that there is someone that knows me as well as Arnold. he can read between the lines of my emails, and under all the camo and thug exterior, he's just as much a romantic as me.

he's out there, on police duty in baghdad--that's right, Arnold is a fucking cop--and he's thinking about how he's heard that i met a girl, reminding me to go to church and to AA meetings, to write poetry... that's a beautiful thing.

i want to tell him that i pray for his happiness and safety every day, but i think he knows, and i think he's praying for me, too. i can't wait for him to come home, so we can sit in some small apartment and write poetry together.

screeching crash/crutch & cast

2005-02-20T04:24:00.000-05:00

this is a visual summary of my life, apparently, and also, a visual representation of what i've done since i wrote that last entry.

EDIT: apparently, life is pretty blurry. additionally, michael is pretty tired, so give me a fucking break. i love this idea, but i am not paying thirty dollars to anyone, ever. i have to start saving for important stuff, like a new pair of diesel jeans.

one day you'll realize you've memorized my phone number, and you'll call and find it's a disconnected line.

2005-02-20T01:53:00.000-05:00

i had something of a bad day at work, but i am not going to discuss that here at all. i am tired of my job, even though there are parts of it that i love. basically, there is something about coffee and making it that i love--the separation of espresso through water into the perfect americano, the way i can run my fingers through ground coffee and know if it is too coarse or fine, the reverberations that run through to your shoulder when you tap the portafilter into the knock box. these things are beautiful. things that are not beautiful include... management.

arnold sent me an email today, talking about wanting to move to NY with me to write music together, and then about being shot at. i want him to come home from iraq so badly--i am so upset that there is now something about him that makes him talk about being shot at by sniper fire in a nonchalant tone. i think that there is something dangerous about anyone who can speak about such grave matters like love and shooting in casual tones. obviously, he is being shot at a lot, and this is not what i want to hear.

sarah called me and left me a hilarious voicemail, apologizing for not coming to see me at work yesterday like she PROMISED. i have decided to forgive her--this once. i called her back, and she was sitting in traffic on 66, and we talked for a miinute or two, i guess, about phone calls from exes that should be exiled, ideally, and the ettiquette of leaving your phone number for someone. there are some numbers that i realize now i will never forget--i still know my first best friend's phone number by heart, and can dial it in .3 seconds. i remember nora's phone number, and how polite i would always be to her mother. i remember katherine's cell phone number, mostly because i gave her so much shit for having a cell phone (this was years ago, when this was not a necessity for basic living), and secondly because i didn't have a car, and i kind of depended on her for mobility. oh, and because i loved her. i know rusty and lauren's numbers, but mostly because they are so close to mine, that it would be hard not to remember. and strangely enough, i know sarah's number by heart, even though i only physically dialed those numbers once before my cell memorized it, and i don't even call her that often. i guess i do look at it every time i text her, which is a lot. that explains it. anyway, i had a point. i sent her a text that i think may be the best text message i have ever sent anyone in the history of my life as a text-ing person.

"i wish i was stuck in traffic with you."

being stuck in traffic with someone that you can talk to for hours is amazing. just recently, cochese and i got to know everything about each other on the new jersey turnpike--until i abandoned conversation for texting; he understood, though--it was a girl. i have vivid memories of being stuck in traffic on the way to savannah with allison, and being next to a man that we named moses, and i took pictures of his car, i think... i should look for them. this guy had every biblical bumper sticker ever on his car, and he was wearing a wife-beater. i am sure that there are more, swimming just below memory right now.

i have the house to myself tonight, so i think i am going to take advantage of it--i am going to put TV on the Radio in the stereo (can you believe this? my new favorite song is a cappella!) and slow dance with joey, until he gets tired, and then see where the night takes me after that. i'll wake up and go to church, and perhaps make myself a picnic lunch, if the weather is nice, and write something--ANYTHING, really, just as long as i am writing--and then have a communist movie date with akash and brynn, website building time with lolo, and just decompress!

i will be your accident if you will be my ambulance

2005-02-19T00:28:00.000-05:00

today was so long, it almost feels like four days. also, i have the Windswept Fields Flu.

staying up all night and writing on my new powerbook in starbucks this morning was so nice. it's like having a new, fresh notebook and a new pen, but still having all of your ideas intact. i think i made some decent progress on my linguistics poem--i am worried that it is turning into a vocabulary poem, of sorts, but i think i have a new direction for it to go in.

my meeting this morning was difficult--a lot of it was directed at this kid, who must have been like 17, and he didn't know if he was an alcoholic or not, and i just wanted to shake him and tell him to give it a chance. i don't know--i wish sometimes that i never drank, ever, and then i would be so different, but that probably isn't so true. this is not the night for playing what-if.

the middle of my day was strange--still processing, nothing to say about it yet. we'll see what develops, or doesn't.

work was abyssmal. scott called out and no one could cover. derick ended up helping, and i love him for it. i can't believe that i never gave him a chance before--we talked about napoleon dynamite and the wild turkeys in his yard. stacy came back to help close, and me and her and jennifer worked like a silent machine--we didn't say anything to each other. we were mechanized, and marvin gaye was playing. promises weren't kept, but i channelled disappointment into cleaning.

i did have a few interesting encounters at work, tonight, which make me ask some tough questions. i remember this one episode of sex and the city, where carrie was writing her article on her powerbook, and the question that started everything was simple--when will waiting for the one be done? anyway, my question is this: is there anyone worth waiting for? i mean, i am not accustomed to people flirting with me at work for anything more than a free drink, but tonight, it was like girls were interested in me and the things i said. it kind of calls the questions i have in my head into question. i am so fucking confused today, and coming down with the Windswept Fields Flu is not helping.

i've always believed that the way to find out who loves you is to see who takes care of you when you are sick. well, tonight, rusty and i are loving ourselves. and maybe that's okay. skinny, flu-ish, and unloved. why do adjectives always come in threes?

brief...

2005-02-18T02:18:00.000-05:00

1. i have a new powerbook! i am transferring files to it as we speak! it is the prettiest damn computer ever! thanks, J!
2. i love being reminded that there are people who meet the characteristics that i set forth in my moleskine lists of ideal significant others.
3. i will be writing more, once i am sure that i didn't erase my ipod.

CONTINUED! 5:18 AM.

4. okay, so, i have named my new PowerBook Padriac. I was saving this name for my first son, but, ehh, you know. it is so snappy, and snazzy, and fucking gorgeous.
5. i have to give credit to sloane for the highlight of my day--calling me at work, and providing me with the modern-day equivalent of 'guess-who-i-saw-in-study-hall.' i could see geoff and matt's eyes staring through me when i whispered into the phone "well, did she say anything about me?" seriously--who does this?
6. this entry is a placeholder, really, for the type of thing i normally write--so, if you're reading this, i'm sorry.

<3,
MPL

REVISION!

2005-02-17T02:58:00.000-05:00

whenever i finish a revision draft of a poem, i want to dance around my house with my arms up above my head, yelling 'REVISION!' then, i remember that a) i have sleeping roommates; b) that they have to be up in three hours; and c) they don't like Fiddler on the Roof as much as i do.

Metaphor: Fuses

you probably think this entry is about you

2005-02-17T01:00:00.000-05:00

and at some point, it probably will be.

i was name-dropped in sloane's journal today; she was referencing my fear that i am overrelying on cigarettes and coffee to fill the hole that alcohol left. here's what i have to say about that. of course, i love being referenced in her journal--she's like one of my favorite people ever, and she does things that are important, and i am generally crazy about her. two, about that hole. i don't know if the hole is the absense of alcohol, or really, that my decision to stop drinking has pointed a spotlight at the hole that was already there, that alcohol was patching together. i mean, yeah, i am smoking too many cigarettes, and even though i've cut my coffee intake from 10 shots a day to 3, i am definitely relying on it much more than i used to. so, regarding this hole... i don't know what it is, how it got there, or what's in it now. i do know that it is being fixed.

i slept strangely last night, woke up at 5, passed back out, and slept through my meeting. kind of upset about that, but i'll go tomorrow, and i'll go friday. i've been kind of complusion free, lately--after the temptations of last week, i feel a lot stronger, and i see that while i generally had fun when i drank, i am finding beauty and synchronicity and jouissance when i don't. i saw pork-chop at starbucks last night, and was relieved that he didn't say anything about the night that i broke in to the store after close to make out with someone in front of jane, and then i was really impressed with something he said; he had come to town a few weeks ago, and called audrey at the store to get my number so we could go out and get a few drinks, and audrey told him that i had stopped drinking. anyway, this huge burly guy--named pork-chop, mind you--told me that he was so proud of me, and that i was one of the strongest people he knew. i told him that he didn't know what he was talking about, and he looked me right in the eye and told me just how much he respected me. this is another person to put on my list of people that i am grateful beyond words to have met because of my job at starbucks.

a special friend arrived in the mail today. ladies and gentlemen, i would like to introduce you to my goat; this is joey, my amazing technicolor dream goat.

joey came all the way from jersey, where has has been living with his aunt jackie to stay with me for a while. i brought him to work with me this afternoon, to tell him about how goats in ethiopia discovered coffee. i am going to make him his own apron, i think. anyway, you'll be seeing me and joey walking the streets of charlottesville together, so please come introduce yourself. oh, and jackie? all my love--all of it. thanks for taking care of him for me.

(and this is the part that's about you, by the way)
so, at work we just got these new joni mitchell CDs. I LOVE JONI MITCHELL. i think that i can trace the exact joni mitchell lyrics that got me, all those years ago.

I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time.

so, yeah. every entry is about you, a little bit, because part of you is in each word i write, more often that not.

i will now devote the next three hours to laundry and poetry revisions.

and slowly growing old together.

2005-02-16T00:45:00.000-05:00

i had a day today that was defined by good ol' lauren, as i was with her for almost every second of it. she woke me up this morning, after i walked to the door asleep to let the plumber in, and we talked, again, about love and art and html. we met again in starbucks, and dominated the handicapped table for hours. i let her wear my Honorary Heeb t-shirt (sorry Rae--i know that being an honorary jew was a very special gift to me, but the girl needed a t-shirt). we drew sketches of things in my squared moleskine. we talked to kim about online dating.

we talked about how coincidences don't exist, but are instead tiny destinies. i like that idea--tiny destinies. i mean, it just so happens that every other time i am standing outside of starbucks, i see a certain someone drive by. that has to mean something--there was a reason for me to be standing out there, right? do i simply go through life without any overriding force guiding my haphazard interactions? no--i do not. coincidences don't exist. tiny destinies.

i had an americano, and made a list of memorable interactions that i have with florists, and the type of flowers i buy, resulting from those interractions. someday, when i have a column in a newspaper, i will write about this type of stuff.

i had an amazing night at windswept fields. the four of us (sans lauren and uncle pico) talked about language and synesthesia and quitting jobs. joe is intensely quotable, taylor is intensely resilient, and rusty is intensely obsessed with cooking kielbasa sausage. this is an amazing place to live.

my little sister flies to Italy tomorrow, to sing for the Pope. i called her tonight, told her about the outcome of my V-Day actions, and told her that i'd be thinking about her constantly. we talked about how mr nappi used to ask for the intercession to st. joseph of cupertino, who was a franciscan mystic, a man with faith so strong that he was capable of flight. i also warned her to watch out for gypsies, and to take as many pictures as possible.

i almost bounced two checks today, but was saved at the last minute by J. it's good to have friends around at your moment(s) of need. i finished a draft of a poem that sloane described as 'postmodern high school.' this obviously means that i have to go through drastic re-writes. next time i am at lowes, i need to ask someone there, wearing a vest, to teach me about electricity.

finally, i put a letter in the mailbox today--this isn't something i am lucky enough to do that often. i don't know why i didn't just email it, or drop it by her house. i guess i just wanted what i said to be stamped by an official hand, to be delivered; formal, i guess. it didn't even say anything that important; in fact, those with a keen eye can see a draft of it hidden on one of my other websites. ha. i should forget about this being a journal, and just have clues for all of the sleuths that read it.

desired trait in a significant other: must be an explorer of books, continents, hearts, and attics.

Someone please call Bill Kemp.

2005-02-16T00:24:00.000-05:00

i just knowingly used passive voice in a poem. i am mailing back my degree.

take it easy (love nothing)

2005-02-15T00:54:00.000-05:00

while sitting on the floor of the second story of starbucks this afternoon, while neither of us drank coffee and we looked over our artwork, lauren and i talked about love, and possible reasons why our love is not reciprocated, at least in terms that we could understand and take apart, put back together, and celebrate. i mean, here's the thing about me and lauren--we are the two best people in the entire world, in terms of who much love we are capable of, how full our hearts are with jouissance, and how much art we have create still. to all of those who should love lolo or myself, and especially to those that do love us but don't do anything about it, you are missing out. lauren is one of my closest friends--she kills anyone that doesn't love me.

i am realizing now that rusty is actually leaving in a few months. my neighbor, my constant, my roommate, my brother, my level ten sorcerer elf. i am torn, actually, between wanting to just go with him as his shadow, to watch the great things he'll do, and to lock him up and keep him here, because there are people here that need him. i need him. i don't want him to go. i don't want joe and taylor to leave, too. don't they know that i am just getting started here, that i am just starting to build my life? that i've decided that they are part of it, and that their attendance is mandatory? everything seems to be fading away, slowly.

on the floor of starbucks today, lauren grabbed my hand, and we realized that next year, it'll only be us, and we'll have to live together, because otherwise we'll be done for. i mean, that will actually be phenomenal, but it is scary, in that our makeshift family is continually leaving us.

i took a nap this evening, and had a dream that i was being hugged by everyone that has ever loved me, by everyone i have ever loved, all at once, and the warmth was almost too much, but still we hugged, and through our bright smiles and eyes we lit the entire world.

final thought, then sleep. rusty pointed out an interesting anagram to me tonight; also, lauren talked about how she loves my imperfections in the valentine's day card she gave me. other people would view these as separate events, but i think it is the same. i mean, my chicken pox scar is possibly my favorite part of my body, a rash that was so fun to scratch, and left me with so much more.

regarding valentine's day.

2005-02-14T15:30:00.000-05:00

so. it's valentine's day, and i feel loved.

some of you may know that i am a sucker for text messages, that for me, text goes straight to my heart. jackie sent me a text last night that said "I've been reading your journal. I am holding you so close to my heart right now." Now, I've gotten some good text messages in the past before--my favorite ever was previously about bubble baths--but i never thought that i'd find something that made me cry on the one square inch screen of my nokia. so, sweet potato, i hope you know that you're the best, even if you do live in new jersey.

smitty and i were talking last night about potentially going to a reading of erotic poetry tonight. she asked me if i was free. i told her that there was a 10% chance of someone falling in love with me, but otherwise, yes. this is her away message today:
"There's a 10% chance that someone will fall in love with you today. There's a 100% chance that others already do love you. Keep that in mind." I mean, if it weren't for the king of the hill buddy icon, that would be one of the kindest things ever directed at me.

this morning, while i was killing time at starbucks before doing tips, scott sang to me, telling me that i was his sunshine, and that i make him happy when skies are grey. oh, scott. you'll never know, dear...

finally, i just did something which was probably pointless, but made me happy. i brought sarah flowers, completely expecting her not to be there, so that i could passive-aggressively leave them with a roommmate. i mean, she's never home, what were the odds? so, anyway, she was there, and she killed one of the tulips instantly, and i don't think that the 10% chance of her falling in love with me occurred, and then there was a knock at the door--a florist delivery guy. he had flowers for her. he gave me the universal look of 'shit, man, is this your girl? who's sending her flowers? fuck, man, i'm just the delivery guy.' in response, i gave him the universal look of 'ha, fuck, man, not even close--the whole world, the earth itself, is in love with her; i was just too cheap to spring for delivery.' anyway, they were from her dad, so i don't feel like a total tool. also, i feel that i have successfully purchased flowers a few times in a row, now, proving that i am stronger than my allergies, that i have gotten over my issues with tangible signifiers of romance, and that i am in love, most likely, or will be soon--which is kind of nice.

ooh! one more thing. there was a package waiting at my door, containing a shirt that i am wearing right now. thanks to rae, i am an honorary heeb.

i've been waiting for this my entire life.

H.D. wrote in the flowering of the rod that she goes where she loves and is loved, in the snow. well, hilda, no matter what the weather is actually doing, i am in the snow.

happy v.d., everyone.

Think Globally, Act Globally.

2005-02-14T05:44:00.000-05:00

My roommate, Rusty, is one of those people who thinks about the world, and then thinks of ways to make it better. Here is some information on his latest project.

Lately, I am continually amazed at the ways in which my friends do things that are greater than themselves; I need to follow their examples more. I don't know how I am so lucky to have these people as my new extended family.

baby tonight, i've got a question for you

2005-02-14T04:22:00.000-05:00

i can't sleep, or i won't, or some combination of the two. i blame the many many shots of espresso i had today... seven? eight? i wasn't even working!

anyway, there are two things on my mind right now--well, two that are interesting enough to possibly write about.

firstly, Mamma H. ol' hell was suspended from work for a week for giving someone a free drink. i absolutely hate the management of my store. i mean, they could have said "that's not cool, pay for it yourself." i mean, they are always taking free drinks home to their spouses. i am so sick of this bullshit. so, here's my plan. UNIONIZING. that's right. i am going to pick a day next week, and get all of the baristas to call in sick. we're going to show them who actually runs that store. let's see how well they do when there are only three under-trained managers working by themselves all day.

secondly, i stayed up writing--and rewriting--a letter that i think i started in my head forty-three days ago. the whole time i was writing this--and yes, i did go through several drafts--i was listening to my favorite old 97's song, and wondering what the fuck i am doing. i mean, yes, i am making myself happy, or at least able to check off a box that means a great deal to me, and yes, i am hoping that these sentiments will at least be appreciated, if not returned, but fuck, man, what am i doing? do i really expect anything to change? am i only setting myself up for more disaster? i don't know if this is going to be my next bold move, or my next act of shooting myself in my own foot. still, i made a promise to myself--i'm ready.

i can't believe i forgot to mention this.

2005-02-14T01:27:00.000-05:00

while driving on 14th street today, my iPod proved that it is the smartest person i know, and that it has a sick sense of humor and impeccable taste in women.

the walls do not fall.

2005-02-13T22:15:00.000-05:00

in something of a surprise, i saw everyone's favorite siren, cynthia, today. she called me, told me she was in charlottesville, and that we'd be hanging out. she met me at starbucks, and of course, i was reading Trilogy when she saw me. we talked briefly about my obsession with optic imagery in the poem, and how the Mary that washes the feet of Christ with her tears is also Myrrha, who wept even after she become a tree, and how H.D. uses the myrrh, of that tree, to allow the final Mary figure to claim/embody the essence that allows for resurrection (of language). it is her hair, and not the alabastar jar, and Kaspar knows this. anyway, about optic imagery. cynthia remembered how i used to obsess with pointless theories about optics when we were in 416 together, and how i would take control of the class just to discuss things that seemed completely trivial to everyone else.

(also, we ate sushi.)

i guess i just always thought that there was something magical about light.

rusty and i have an ongoing discussion about the digital nature of the soul. (you must think that this is the most boring entry ever.) i resisted as long as i could, but i am starting to realize now that my life exists not on paper and flesh alone anymore, but increasingly in zeroes and ones. i wish this wasn't so, as convenient as it is, because i am desperate for something tactile and responsive.

my portrait was taken today, with real film, with a real camera, by a real person. oh, be still my heart. since this whole digital thing started--and i blame rusty--i have come to value the use of material things so much more, like they are treasures left behind from the past, and finite. i know that there is constantly film being made, but sometimes i'd like to think that there is only a small supply, and that it is rationed for images that are worth it, that matter. this isn't the case, but i'd prefer to think of it this way, so i am going to.

i went to see The Vagina Monologues tonight, and i realized something while i was there. a few months ago, i would not have gone somewhere like that, a public place, only to sit alone. it was refreshing to know that i am doing things that i think i am not comfortable with, and the show was amazing. i have not had so much fun yelling cunt in a crowd before--i don't think i've ever yelled cunt in a crowd before, actually.

i turned on my phone after the play, and waited the requisite thirty seconds for the magic text to appear. i had a secret hope of who it would be from, but i am pleasantly surprised that it was from someone better. you're close to my heart too, sweet potato.

one more thing...

2005-02-13T00:50:00.000-05:00

This article initially frustrated me beyond belief, before making me realize that i am lucky enough to be friends with one of the most hardcore and awesome people i've ever met. she uses a lot of big words, most of the time, but what she said at some point three-quarters of the page down is simple and beautiful and true. and... she's rapidly becoming a skilled barista, under my supervision.

"when i looked up into your eyes, it didn't hurt at all."

2005-02-13T00:03:00.000-05:00

be still my heart; this could be a brand new start--with you...

there are times when i think that the postal service sings just for me, and each new b-side is the soundtrack for each new chapter in my life. i could write about this forever, and provide an in depth textual analysis, cross-referenced with examples from my life, but that would be a) too much fun and b) the biggest waste of time ever.

i'm reading a book that gordon let me borrow, called Epic: The Story God is Telling, and the Role that is Yours to Play. i started on my lunch break tonight, and really didn't want to stop reading it. i mean, i could do without all of the pop-culture references, but once he started talking about Milton, i was totally jazzed. it is so interesting to look at things that i studied for 13 years, and now think of them as something that actually affects more than my GPA. anyway, it feels good to be a part of something. i've been doing a lot of thinking about Step Three today, and i need a little more time to think about it, but i think it is something that i am ready to do, something that i want to do, it's just that i really don't know how. i got a phone call from daniel, brittany's dad, this morning. this is what he said: "well, michael, i'm sitting outside, drinking an americano, and i am thinking about you, and wondering how you're doing." if that isn't the coolest way to call someone, i just don't know what is. i am just continually amazed by the people that i've met lately, both in AA and at clear river, and how there are so many people interested in hearing my story.

i have an anecdote to share from work the other night. a young woman came in who was allergic to both soy milk and dairy. she had her own pre-packaged rice milk, and asked if we would steam it for her. i explained that we probably shouldn't, but did. anyway, jen opens the milk, and pours it into a new pitcher, and there are flies floating in it. the exchange that follows is amazing.
Jen S. -- Ma'am, there are flies in your milk.
Random Customer -- Oh.
JS -- you want me to scoop them out?
RC -- yeah, okay.
JS -- You may want to check the rest of your supply for flies.
can you say favorite barista ever?

i am going to go to bed, after i read for a little, i think. i am really excited about tomorrow--not having to work, being able to go to church again, hearing some girls talk about their vaginas at 8. i love what my life has become. two months ago, the highlight would have just been two-dollar drafts. i have so much to live for right now.

things on the horizon--as someone who finds nothing better than checking things off of to-do lists, do i follow through with a monday-related item on my to-do list? what's the worst that could happen?

letters to the editor.

2005-02-12T15:12:00.000-05:00

so.
i've gotten a few reactions to my late-friday night post, be it in coments or IMs or phone calls. i am trying to respond, but i really don't know how to. in order to try to organize my thoughts, here is a numbered list.

1. thank you for reading; though i am doing this mostly as a way to keep track of my own life and my thoughts and my concerns, there is a performative part of this, a chance for me to say things indirectly that i wish i was brave enough to say out loud. right now, i am having both amazingly wonderful moments, and moments that are less than stellar, and several that are in between. anyway, since this amazingly tolstoy-esque family i have accumulated stretches all the way from baltimore to boston to baghdad, and a few places further away still, i am so blessed that i have all of you within arms reach, even if it is just on some stupid website.

2. my new way of looking at things is starting to stretch backward. that is to say, it isn't just from here on out that i am starting to see purpose in my daily interactions, to see that maybe there is a plan for me, and things that i am meant to do at different times. i am starting to see how i have been doing this all along, and how my friends have been dropped into my life at different times to help me. i think that my process of finding myself fits in pretty well with something that i heard a poet say once about writing, that we are looking for minnows in a pond, and they are hiding behind rocks. we pull up one rock at a time, and see them, and then they run behind another rock. so, thank you to everyone who has nudged or moved or thrown a rock for me.

3. there are so many things that i want to say that i am just not ready to say, yet. i'm on a twelve step path, and i don't even really know what step i am up to yet--i am working on number three, and i think i am almost there. anyway, there are many many things that i want to say, but i want to do this right, so, please bear with me until i get to step nine. i know that i have hurt so many people, and maybe they don't realize or care, but it is eating at me. i need to do this right, though. if this isn't enough for right now, i am sorry, but i can't really make amends for the things that i have done until i have gotten to know myself better.

4. keep coming back. sometimes i feel like my entire life is an AA meeting. my favorite part of a meeting is the end, right after we all stand, take each others' hands, and say the serenity prayer. after that, in unison, we rock our hands up and down and say 'keep coming back, it works if you work it.' so, keep coming back.

(i promise that this will be the last post that is so dorky for a while. i just wanted to get this out, and it seemed like a good way to do it.)

wide awake.

2005-02-12T08:36:00.000-05:00

last night, i went to bed earlier than i ever have on a friday night, and it was delightful. i just slept--there was no interruption, no waking up to answer the phone or move my car or anything. i had ten hours of undisturbed bliss. and then i magically woke up at 7, for reasons i still haven't discovered.
but it was okay, because stefanie was on IM, and we talked about a relatively new phenomena--she is proud of me, for being honest, and for trying to be good. sometimes, i am amazed that i have had friends who have stuck by me through all of what i've done, which is mostly just neglect, with occasional bouts of self-righteous bitching and criticism. she's going to be the hottest twenty three year old on the east coast any day now, and i will willingly relinquish my title to her.
on a whim, i asked her to go to NY with me tomorrow to see Christo's 'The Gates.' She has to work, but said she'd see if she could get out of it, for a one-day and back road trip. even if it doesn't end up working out, i am thrilled that i have friends that live the way that i do:
with every broken heart, we should become MORE ADVENTUROUS.

(going to clean my room, make some eggs, etc. will write more this afternoon.)

for the sake of momentum.

2005-02-11T02:26:00.000-05:00

nothing interesting happened during the first half of my day, so i won't be writing about it, other than to say that i had a nice, pleasant day at work with derick and philip.

so. i went to maartens tonight, because i was lonely, and i didn't want to go to sarah's party--not that i didn't want to see her, but that i didn't want to slip at her house. i felt all day like i was going to slip, and instead of going to a meeting, i went to a bar, in some stupid 'let me prove how strong i am' thing. i talked to rob for a while, and had a coke, and cochese came in, and everything was great, and then the smell got me. i had to leave.

i went to sarah's, with the stupid back-burner goal of trying to kiss her, again, this week, without indication that she wanted me to. when i was walking to her house, i was convinced that this is the reason i was going there. you see, cochese said something to me once: these things happen, because these things must occur. i sometimes feel like i am in the places i am in for a purpose. we are all here to do what we're all here to do. i mean, i got arrested a few years ago to teach me how not to live, and it took me years to learn it. this is another part of the bad with the good grateful alcoholic thing. i have proof of this in my life--i mean, i feel God's love in my life for the first time ever, and all it took (note the sarcasm) was a slow descent into alcohol and waking up wanting to kill myself. please forget i just typed that last clause, and never mention it again, but i had to write it, because it's the truth. i don't feel that way anymore, and i am never going to, because I NEVER WANT TO DRINK AGAIN.

it turns out i didn't go to sarah's to kiss her. i went there to meet some people that i've met before (including at the st. maartens xmas party--weird), to find someone who needed to a ride to the airport at 445am, and to unequivocally demand that i drive him. i was there to explain to someone who knows that alcohol has an unhealthy role in his life the gratitude i have for the program. i was there to drive home two kids who shouldn't be out walking in the middle of the night.

this doesn't change the fact that i wish i had kissed sarah tonight, in the kitchen , or on the stairs, even if people were watching. i am writing like i am pretending that she doesn't read this, but i have this devotion to brutal honesty in all aspects of my life right now. anyway, daniel and gordon, last week, talked to me about how now that i have loosened the grip that alcohol had on me, i should accept God's plan for me, and let Him take the wheel. it's not easy, i know, and sometimes, i still don't honestly think that it's the right idea, but tonight, God put me where i needed to be. i didn't relapse tonight. i had my hands in my pockets all night, one hand on my one-day chip, and another on my 30 day chip. i know that i get brave after i have a few beers, but i think that tonight i was braver for not having one.

just the other night, i told sarah about the last conversation i had with Grandfather, when he asked me how my nightlife was, and how i smiled, and how i still smile now, because i remember this about him, and not the smell of his hospital room, or the tiny shadow of his former voice. i am grieving for what my new friend daniel is going through, but i am so grateful that i am doing something to help him hopefully have a moment like that, something he can carry with him. not a day goes by that i don't think about Grandfather, and the time he took me to friendly's after i failed my road test, or the time that he had me come over and help him fix his automatic garage door opener, or the time that i rode home from church with him, and he told me that he doesn't pay attention to pedestrians, because they'll get out of his way. he loved, and was loved.. the channel that leads to these memories, though, is that last one, and i am never going to be afraid of hospital rooms again, because they are worth it.

in conclusion, i went to kroger, bought a bag of mini krullers, and i am going to watch a movie and kill time for a few hours, and then get in a car with someone i don't know, and take him to where he needs to be. perhaps--and i can't believe that i am using that word voluntarily, now--tonight would have been better if i had just kissed her, but there was something perfect about tonight, as it was.

my name is michael, and i am an ever-increasingly grateful alcoholic.

and now you can go

2005-02-10T03:42:00.000-05:00

I can't sleep.

I am reading a book, And Now You Can Go, by Vendela Vida. I've had this book for a long time, and I've only read it once. I let Allison borrow it for months and months and months. I never looked through it, though, after I got it back.

On page 161, the following text is bracketted off in gentle pencil lines:
The next person I love, I will love better. When I'm ready to love, when it's someone else, none of these people but someone else, I will love better. I will give everything back. They won't even know what hit them.

I am of the mindset that 1. believes that the things you find other people have written or underlined in books to be of great importance in understanding both the scribbler and yourself, and 2. wants to believe that there is some serendipitous, some synchronistic force that controls when we discover marked texts; really, though, it's just two marks in pencil, six short straight lines.

i work with the strangest people in the world.

2005-02-10T02:27:00.000-05:00

about to go to bed.

jen called me 30 minutes ago, because she woke up and was worried that i had planned on going to grad school, but forgot to apply. she was really worried about this, and was very intent on checking up on me.

geoff IMed me and invited me to create my own nation state on some website. his is the serene republic of das pooper. umm, right.

i need a new job.

when you're done texting your non-girlfriend, can i take a ten? -- gavin.

2005-02-10T01:14:00.000-05:00

i'm a little sleepy, so this may not be as elaborate as i'd like.

i now have 31 days of continuous sobriety. i was hugged by several people in recognition of this, and had a generally beautiful, depressant-free day.

derick and i had lunch together, and talked about law & order, and our dads. i think that things will be better at work from this point on.

working with audrey and gavin was fun. we are starting a magnetic fields coverband, ideally. we think that the indie kids will love us, and that we might start playing shows upstairs at starbucks in the middle of the night. gavin and i sang most of "i" tonight. it is true that no one wants you when you're a circus clown. i should know. i looked all over town.

in other news, slightly magnetic fields related, or, more precisely, to borrow their words, 'if there is such a thing as love, i've caught it.' i am at a point where the only thing to do is nothing, though. i am remembering something that brynn used to say to me a lot, where she thought at times that her entire life was in her own head, and possibly not real. i don't think that she is guilty of valerie levels of solipsism, but just a healthy questioning of reality. similarly, yeah, i don't know. perhaps most of this year is in my head, that i am seeing things the way i like to see them, rather than as they are.

i listened to so many amazing songs today. i was driving down rugby road, and actually screaming some rilo kiley, and people were looking at me, but i didn't care... it was just me and jenny, and there were other voices too, our arms outstretched...
and if you want me, you'd better speak up, 'cause i won't wait, so you'd better moooooove fast!

i want to write a story and end it with the words WE HAD LIVED!

a first for everything.

2005-02-09T01:02:00.000-05:00

so, tonight, for the first time ever, i think i can honestly that i acted without thinking. i let instincts guide me, and this is what they did.
1. drive to starbucks, order half-caff soy misto.
2. drive to sarah's. knock on door.
3. present coffee, kiss her.
4. begin talking very quickly.
now, dear reader, you'd think that this would be great, and yes, i will admit to feeling something of a euphoric high right now. however, there is something else, too.

this is the first time ever that i kissed someone who didn't kiss me back. ever. like, in 23 and three quarter years of kissing people.

so where does this leave me?
more confused then ever. i mean, i am one who is prone to mundane but grand romantic gestures, in a style that is deliberately very michael. i am accustomed to non-reciprocation, and even anger, but i am not accustomed to what seems to be ambivalence towards romance. i just want some indication, really, of what is wanted from me, even if the answer is no, nothing. i am going to wear these keys to nothing, and my fingertips too, if i don't stop doing this chronic constantly-re-edited journaling, trying to figure out what i mean.

sigh.

readership.

2005-02-08T16:23:00.000-05:00

let this serve as a warning, for lack of a better word, that i am going to take your advice, and do whatever it is i want to do. it probably involves kissing you next time i see you.

(and michael waits for the text messages to begin)

what we fall for when we're already down.

2005-02-08T08:20:00.000-05:00

It’s eight twenty in the morning, and I am awake, and I am awake because I haven’t slept yet. I stayed up all night writing emails and doing research, looking for single origin coffees that are organic, shade-grown, AND fairly traded. This was not an easy feat. The emails I wrote took the forms of numbered lists, because I have new clarity, and it is frightening and wonderful and intense.
Sarah and I crossed paths on Univ Ave, and I texted her, and she called me. We ran into each other in sbux, and she told me that my eyes looked more open than they normally do, and I told her that she is slightly cross-eyed. She took it well, I think. I told her my theory on imperfection, that imperfections become charming very quickly, and about how my teef are crooked, because part of my jawbone is made of plastic, or at least I think it is—there was a lot of anesthesia, I don’t really remember. Anyway, yeah. Still in love, pointlessly. I can’t even tell if there is any chance anymore, and more importantly, I don’t know if I care. Now I will ask the question that only hopeless, irresponsible, hypersensitive romantics ask—do we love someone for that person, or for ourselves? Terribly unanswerable question—is it wrong, is it selfish, even, for me to continue loving someone because of the benefits I receive from it? I don’t know how to even begin answering that question. I mean, she hasn’t even seen The Royal Tennenbaums.
So. Thirty days ago, someone told me something about being happy, joyous, and free. I am finally starting to see how it is that I am free to do the other two, free of depressants and obligations to self-destruction. Already, I like myself more than I used to, which is bizarre. I mean, who am I? Who am I?
Scott at sbux has become my new favorite barista. He showed up over an hour early for work, and has been sitting here, talking to me about books and Sex and the City and swimming. His voice has such calming tones. I want to speak with hushed, calming tones.
My next major project in life will be denim. Yes. I am going to buy myself a new pair of jeans for tax day, to celebrate myself, and my dedication to the starbucks diet of espresso and expired pastries. i deserve paper denim.

ghandi vs. baumer.

2005-02-08T01:49:00.000-05:00

this post is going to be random and all over the place.

the j tells me i will be getting my powerbook friday. i have decided that i will be ordering this custom built timbuk2 bag.

i think that the colors are pretty, and hopefully, audrey will make me a nice sock for it that matches perfectly. i am going to be the cutest powerbook user in town.

i played tennis with the bucket and the howitzer tonight. it was crazy fun. i hadn't played tennis in years, but i remembered my killer backhand, like, instantly. okay, so maybe i didn't actually hit any balls onto the right court, but who's counting, right? here is a picture of me as a ball-boy.

one of my new hobbies is to pretend that i am a freelance photojournalist covering a civil war while rusty and i play sports. here are some examples of my work tonight. if only you could hear the noises lauren makes when she plays, and then the giggles that erupt when you comment on them.

(i know they're blurry, and i don't care. i'm a poet, barista, and occasional athlete, not a fucking photographer.)

i am now officially at 30 days sobriety. wo0t? i get another poker chip at my next meeting, but i think i'll wait til my wednesday discussion group to get it. i love those people.

on hypothetical coffee shop news, i have a lot of stuff figured out. i think i have a name, if my business partner approves it. i found an amazing furniture manufacturer/distributor, and it is exactly what i was looking for. i drew a small sketch of what i'd like to have in my squared moleskine for lauren tonight. i want this so badly. also, i have a provisional menu! simplify simplify simplify. now, all i need is a couple hundred thousand, a staff, and more of these amazing blessings that have been bestowed upon me so far this year.

i had a long talk with katherine this afternoon, during which i realized that i learned so much of who i am, and, more importantly, who i want/wanted to be, when i was with her. i remember late night conversations in denny's about our future(s). i want nothing but the best for her, even if it does mean she has to go to duke. her parents must be so crushed.

okay. i am wired, for some reason. i am going to read some of the big book, and then read some psalms. i don't even know who i am anymore, but i am so happy right now, inexplicably happy.

sweet dreams, sleeping little michael. sweet dreams, bedford falls.

sleeping little michael

2005-02-08T01:46:00.000-05:00

My favorite drawing of me, ever, by Lauren Cousar.

lovers need lawyers.

2005-02-07T01:45:00.000-05:00

so audrey and i spent our night at work talking about naked portafilters and single-origin americano as drip replacement, about sleeves as stampcards, black t-shirts and diesel jeans and chap-style aprons, and convenience store gossip. it helped the time pass. time is fickle, lately--i feel almost like i have too much of it. i need a hobby. also, audrey is going to make me a giant powerbook sock, should this dream of a new powerbook materialize.

i've been going through alternating stages of 'fuck it, you're not worth the trouble' and 'i am so in love with you, and i don't care if you ever love me back, thank you for existing so i can feel this way.' i really don't like this dichotomy. perhaps it is a dialectic? i want to see what sort of hegelian synthesis will work it's way out of this. i am glad that i am at a point in my life when i can turn everything into theory. brynn is right--we are exceptionally well-trained at finding themes, to the point of being disappointed by predictible movies.

i had a margo-moment this morning, at church. everything was suddenly example after example of synchronicity. synchronicity. synchronicity. i am so amazed that i forgot about that. there are all of these arrows pointing me to think that i should be grateful for my troubles. i am starting to agree, perhaps.

i don't know why this post isn't going chronologically. i normally like to have some order to things. rusty and i played soccer today, and did it in the style of photojournalists covering a war. example follows.