maybe (a name can’t be put to it)

coworkers have nightmares about proofing pages. one poor, sweet guy unable to fall asleep proofing pages that don’t exist. even the ones that do are thrown in the trash moments after, often before, their purpose is served. we care too much. we say we won’t let ourselves but we do (though me least of all. delinquent. slacker. burnout in the sociology textbooks i wrote a paper defending. and i am. so burnt out.) and our team at work. we sell our souls and scratch our arms and pull out hairs. greying faster than they should. we gain wrinkles. down drinks. smoke smokes instead of staving off cancer. we do all this to pay the bills. to support the habits that help us get through it all.

we all initially put our feet down on weekend work. but slowly they cave. not i, said the me. i will keep my weekend open for the possibility of a tall dreamy thing. that stresses me. that i am torn between being the likely strange-seeming, open, honest thing that is ‘me’ and the playing-it-cool-thing dating requires of me.

i have nightmares about shopping. before and after two coats in 30 minutes flat. the void that can never be filled. $200 a week. a visa that won’t quit. loans that won’t be paid. all because of man that hasn’t been found. that will protect us from old creeps next door. that we’re too polite to not tell our apartment number to. like an idiot. proof once again an education says nothing about one’s smarts. even those of us that pride ourselves on our street smarts. maybe all it’s been is a matter of luck nothing bad has happened to us stalker-wise.

and i digress further than what i thought was the last point of digression – 19. a decade ago. i end up somewhere more innocent, where i was when i was 14. the emo and pop punk that i thought i’d cringe at if revisted, instead i listen to it nightly. and feel bad for keeping the old lady neighbors up with it. lonely. all of us. the curse of being on a floor with all single ladies. i blame the floor. i always look for something to blame. it’s the only way i get by, in truth. it always has been. it was the bad friends. it was the illicit drugs. it was the legit drugs i took in lew of the drugs. i thought i was someone else, but when all that falls away, i’m still the same person today.

what the 14-yd old vice is i can’t even bear to blog about it, and i tried. but deleted it. even though no one would see it…

this should be embarrassing, but is nothing compared to that: wanting a guy like paul mullen in this photo. the same way i would have wanted him when i was 14. 19. 24. and i had versions of him along the way. but none of them stuck. the newest ones no different, though we pretend the stray gray hairs, the 3 instead of 2 at the start of the age, might make them. maybe none of them will stick. so smooth to slide across. hairless and boyish. flawed being constructed internally as perfect. maybe it is always superficial. though addictive. enthralling. (at times, worth it). there is no solution. we are attracted to what we are attracted to.  seek solace in the things that soothe us, even while stressing us.

arts degrees should be illegal. everyone i know left helpless in the ‘working world’. i hate companies, yet i want to work for one. a good one. a big one. just to be comfortable. just to have an easy job and pay my bills. and feel appreciated. in some small way. maybe the smallest of ways.

i can’t remember the last time i read a book because my relationship with writing has grown so fraught. antag.onistic. the writer i wanted to be. the writer i never had the heart to be. the writer that wasted many years and many moneys on trying to one day be the writer i’ll never be. everyone can write. it’s not even a skill. the prerequisite for the only even remotely well-paid ‘writer’ jobs require a business degree today attests to this fact. i could have been a secretary out of high school. with a house and a husband and no debt. making $70 000 a year.

and if i sound somewhat emo (and i most certainly do) maybe it’s that which i fill my ears with. prevent tears with. maybe it’s the time of the year. the time of the month. the situational state. the lack of food on my plate. the surplus of booze in my belly. the loneliness i do what i can to deal with and tell myself i don’t really feel. but my phone as my appendage speaks volumes. these rants that warrant a new section on the blog, speak excessive decibels. at least the title of this post would make an excellent title for a book. a collection of words. that is surely to never be. and oh there i go sounding like morrissey. or wilde.

maybe it’s definitely maybe. maybe that was a great album title and wasted on a band like oasis.maybe it’s all of that. maybe it’s none of that. maybe it doesn’t matter. and maybe, that’s not a maybe at all.

maybe. the word of the day (of the century, of the lifetime, for me – skipping ahead with possibilities, convincing myself of the worst possible ones) is. maybe.

Lust. Back pocket flowers. And lost innocence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxLFav1Z9EY

Who doesn’t love a lanky man with flowers hanging out of the back of his pants?

Though I’ve never thought of it before, I think the first song on The Smiths’ self-titled album is possibly one of my favourites (though with The Smiths, for me, I don’t know that it’s appropriate to even try to deem a list of ‘favourites’. I am afterall, so defined in so many of their songs). The very beginnings of both ’emo’ and ‘indie’ as we know it today. At least the music I like that falls into these categories can be seen as having originated with the band, whether it knows it or not. There is something so resonant about the subject matter of stolen innocence, and the way it ages one. The desire for lust and the way it braises one. The longing. Desparation. Disappointment. Romance. All conveyed in the simplest of ways only young Morrissey seemed capable of, really.  How Miss. Convolution respects minimalism!

For several of the most emotionally unstable years of my life, I fell asleep listening to a cassette of this album every night. Nothing quite like the serene, sad moan of sensuous Morrissey to ease one into sleep.

The lyrics, as with most Smiths songs are particularly notable, and I’ve quoted them in more than one letter to some undeserving douche or another (particularly the ‘I dreamt about you last night. And I fell out of bed twice. You can pin and mount me. Like a butterfly’ line). Tonight I’m singing along in my Morrissey voice that people get such a kick out of.

But my intentions are far from humorous. On a night I meant to go to bed early. On a night I just brushed my teeth. On a night I will have one more smoke. After a somewhat well-balanced weekend of goodish deeds and being spoiled. But mostly of the latter. “Well-balanced” being a relative, and somewhat foreign term for me….

It’s time the tale were told
Of how you took a child
And you made him old

It’s time the tale were told
Of how you took a child
And you made him old
You made him old

Reel around the fountain
Slap me on the patio
I’ll take it now

Oh …Fifteen minutes with you
Well, I wouldn’t say no
Oh, people said that you were virtually dead
And they were so wrong

Fifteen minutes with you
Oh, well, I wouldn’t say no
Oh, people said that you were easily led
And they were half-right
Oh, they … oh, they were half-right, oh

It’s time the tale were told
Of how you took a child
And you made him old
It’s time that the tale were told
Of how you took a child
And you made him old
You made him old

Oh, reel around the fountain
Slap me on the patio
I’ll take it now
Ah … oh …Fifteen minutes with you
Oh, I wouldn’t say no
Oh, people see no worth in you
Oh, but I do.
Fifteen minutes with you
Oh, I wouldn’t say no
Oh, people see no worth in you
I do.
Oh, I … oh, I do
Oh …

I dreamt about you last night
And I fell out of bed twice
You can pin and mount me like a butterfly
But “take me to the haven of your bed”
Was something that you never said
Two lumps, please
You’re the bee’s knees
But so am IOh, meet me at the fountain
Shove me on the patio
I’ll take it slowly
Oh …Fifteen minutes with you
Oh, I wouldn’t say no
Oh, people see no worth in you
Oh, but I do.
Fifteen minutes with you
Oh, no, I wouldn’t say no
Oh, people see no worth in you
I do.
Oh, I … I do

My favourite picture of the Moz

Oh. But the ultimate. One of my two definitively Smiths songs. And more relevant than ever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8b3UkqTQNI&feature=fvwrel

I decree today that life
Is simply taking and not giving
England is mine – it owes me a living
But ask me why, and I’ll spit in your eye
Oh, ask me why, and I’ll spit in your eye
But we cannot cling to the old dreams anymore
No, we cannot cling to those dreams

Does the body rule the mind
Or does the mind rule the body ?
I don´t know….Under the iron bridge we kissed
And although I ended up with sore lips
It just wasn’t like the old days anymore
No, it wasn’t like those days
Am I still ill ?
Oh …
Am I still ill ?

Oh …Does the body rule the mind
Or does the mind rule the body ?
I don´t know…Ask me why, and I’ll die
Oh, ask me why, and I’ll die
And if you must, go to work – tomorrow
Well, if I were you I wouldn’t bother
For there are brighter sides to life
And I should know, because I’ve seen them
But not very often …

Under the iron bridge we kissed
And although I ended up with sore lips
It just wasn’t like the old days anymore
No, it wasn’t like those days
Am I still ill ?
Oh …
Oh, am I still ill ?
Oh …

As I recently said to a friend, why can’t there be a young Morrissey out there for me? And herein lies the proof. That special people really are special. You can’t hope to stumble upon a young Morrissey. Seek him out. And even if you did magically manage to find one, he would be likely to be a yet to be aware homosexual who would eventually break your heart anyway. But, it is still nice to dream (well, though I don’t agree entirely, at least that’s what the saying says…)

“when the days they seem to fall through you, just let them go”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrbxWOMpwfs

There are some bands I am terribly embarrassed to admit I liked when I was younger. Blur, however, are not one of them. One of my first obsessively favourite bands, I still maintain all but their last album are far more solid than anything that’s been released since. Moddern Life Is Rubbish still tops my list and goes down as one of my favourite albums of all time, but Parklife (often seen as the quintessential britpop album) and The Great Escape are nothing to sneeze at. The self-titled release is good too – though not ‘pure’ Blur (but if one is to have an influence, what better than Stephen Malkmus of Pavement really? Even if he was banging your boyish wife and ultimately fucked up your marriage…)

 

While I used to drool over Damon Albarn all Clockwork-oranged in the video above for “The Universal.” Now I drool over his musical genius when he was in Blur. Uniqueness! Theatrics! Oh my.

Gorillaz are so overrated.

the gut (another lazy rant)

sometimes the gut tells you to buy smokes. you’re too cold and lazy to check your pack. but the gut was right. you will have to leave early and brave the stress of the commuters trampling you. subway delays. you hold your breath. you clench your fists. your still somewhat new nails scratching your sweaty palms.

sometimes the gut tells you that the hot guy you did it with is no longer interested after you said something stupid. when your empty stomach was full of booze.

sometimes the gut is empty of everything but booze.
what do the organs think? what does the brain think? while intoxicated? later on?

oh consequences, consequences.

someone said ‘the voice in your stomach is jesus’. and maybe it was true. but you still didn’t know when to listen to him and when not to.
maybe you were more religious than you gave yourself credit for. maybe not since you wouldn’t give it a second cursory thought.

maybe you didn’t give yourself credit ever. you spent so much credit. interest for years on the line of credit. ‘if credit’s what matters, i’ll take credit’ screamed those hot snakes. snakes really couldn’t get any hotter. though they were some ugly motherfuckers.

that empty stomach booze gut became who you really were. that’s who you were underneath it all. underneath it all. you were acid reflux. you were self destruction. you were 19 still, 10 years later.
and later and later you stayed up. less and less sleep and food you ran on.
you ran off. your mouth.
always managing to mess things up. like the shag on tall, thin, dreamy-thing heads. you’d somehow managed to catch briefly. trick, maybe?

where was the gut then? dissuaded persuaded by booze.
to mess things up. til they were so down down down. 19-stylez.

unable to save. unable to decide. unable to hunker down. unable to create. unable to elate.
but magically, like the gut. you manage to deflate.

and oh all the times you were told not to rhyme.
it never fazed you.  and your lazy ways.  moving sideways continually like the crustacean you are. snapping stupid claws at anyone sweet enough to trust you. come close. let you lick them for a select few evenings.

the emo haunting you “all good things. have endings’

and looking back this isn’t all that different than the kinds of shit you spewed out back then. what’s changed really? the pressures, sure enough. but not much else. loopster would say it’s all ‘legit stress’ now. which it wasn’t then. but it’s the unchanged coping mechanisms that concern you most. the laziness. let the words tumble and fall drunkenly forward. they aren’t worth the time or effort to shape into something special. something worthy of someone else’s time. the words and unnamed things that comprise you may not be either. how does anyone do it, really? when it’s so hard to coerce anything created into something celebrated.

what does jesus say to that? just a hurt gurgle. fuel for further libations. and this emo. this emo could very well do us in.