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October 29, 2004
this song has no title
first, i want anyone coming here to go here.
Go to the link Julie posts for the Letter to America, under "some things". Whether you love or have doubted the sincerity or message of Eminem or rap in general, this is a powerful piece of work. Kudos to Julie for passing on its strength.
Then, send Julie some love, because she deserves it, and wonderful though she is, she needs it as much as many of us.
Now. What I have to say tonight, or, i suppose, this morning. Again, not funny, not what many of you come here to read. Looking at the 3 pages scrawled in the notebook, it's ugly. But it's what I've promised to do here, uncensored. It's me, in a corner, alone, with a notebook, and my sixth or seventh pint, open...
fado's. writing central. inspiration born of alcohol, disillusionment, hope, observation, recognition, denial. heather and her dad have left, after i have pissed at least heather off, with my off-kilter political ideas, my doubts and equivocations. as if i need to be alienating any of my best friends at this point in my life.
the place is packed tonight. the regulars, the guys with the irish, british, scottish accents have all left, perhaps knowing that the evening Thursday night tide would wash precisely all these other people in. some are fairly normal, dressed for a good time, dressed in hope, dressed in fear. but the vast majority, are people i frankly can't really stomach.
bullshit boys, wearing fashion without style, talking shit, talking power without purpose or intellect or care, just the exhibition of status. girls playing along.
do i sound bitter? yes. sour grapes? to an extent, yes. but i also call myself hypocrite. i am prey to the same weaknesses that give rise to what i despise. i want to see and fall in love. i want to see beauty and be able to touch it. i'm as superficial as anyone. i learned early, learned what people think beauty and desirability and coolness are. at the same time, in some ways, i survived the process of indoctrination, so i reside somewhere in between, a place without solutions or answers, and often, a place without love.
i did fall prey enough times, wanting to join the elite, wanting things to come so easily, wanting to be so unquestionaingly loved, wanting beauty to be so attainable, wanting to be worth something to everyone, wanting to be worth everything, wanting to be beautiful, too, wanting choices in my life.
it was not to be. i was not born pretty, or rich, or any of the things that would have given me everything i once thought i wanted, sometimes think, that i want.
i worked. to be better, to fit in more easily, to be in shape, to be desirable. to have a body worth coveting, to be a person worth loving, worth comparison.
i acheived some of it. i have a powerful, proportionate body - broad shoulders, strong legs and arms, a relatively flat stomach. i don't have the sharply chiseled facial features i was taught to want, but i catch myself in reflections sometime, and i see the intensity, the fire in my own eyes, burning back at me.
i know the passion and love i am capable of. i am one hell of a kisser. i know my mind, and the beauty and visions it holds. i know the strength that is in me.
but it is not all enough, and i am so often not true enough. i am still slave to what i have been taught to want, to expect, of beauty. yet, what do these beautiful want of me? they have lived aware of their own beauty, felt secure in its armour. they have been unquestioningly loved, or what they believe to be love, and do not know to want more, to want my love. the things they desire, or believe they desire, have often come easily - they do not see or appreciate the challenge i present.
they have known what they believe is their own worth, and cannot see what i have to add. they have had their choices: why choose me?
i am not worthy to complain. i am prey to the same flaws and weaknesses that defeat me. i speak of beauty and worth, but limit it just as those that do not see me limit their own sense of beauty and worth. and ultimately, between our mutual flaws, that is why i am here, alone.
Posted by Rob at 01:33 AM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2004
rob, out of context
OK. So my friend (and boss) Fread and I went over to Fado's after work for just a couple of (OK, a couple of couple of)lager and limes. The local 24-hour Time-Warner news station was at the bar, where they've launched two opposing burges: a Kerry burger, and a Bush burger.
I ended up getting interviewed, and it was quite educational, as the lamest, most noncommittal thing I said in the interview was the only thing that got broadcast...
http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=123132
Posted by Rob at 09:45 PM | Comments (2)
man on the run
My nipples hurt.
To explain how they got to this state, we have to examine the role of chance in the universe. Despite our desire to believe in free will, that we control our fate with the choices we make, it's clear to me that many events in our lives, even major ones, take place entirely by accident. Some would argue that it's a matter of fate, but I firmly belive that there is a strong element of random chance that shapes the course of human events. I don't see this as an aetheistic view, because I think randomness is a perfectly good device for a busy god.
A series of chance mishaps causes two people to meet that are perfect for each other. People find themselves pregnant. Fleming discovers penicillin. Fate? Destiny? Maybe. But I am confident in saying that as of about 5:45 last night, I accidentally began training for a half marathon.
About a week ago, my friend Diane invited me to come join her running group for a run, followed by beer. She had joined up with a group at her office that was training to run the Susan Komen Race for the Cure, and they were meeting at the Run-Tex Store for Psycho Running People on Riverside Drive. When I wavered on accepting the invite, Diane... well, she pouted a bit. So, knowing that Diane was a complete beginner at running and still had her doubts about it, I figured the gig would be easy enough for me, and would be followed by beer.
Yesterday afternoon, it rained, and I rejoiced. Then it stopped, and a massive rainbow appeared over the city, bringing with it a great sense of dread and sorrow. Nonetheless, I left work a bit early, changed clothes, and hustled down to the Run-Tex Store for Psycho Running People on Lake Austin Boulevard.
There was already a fair-sized collection of people there when I arrived. Some obvious beginners, and a lot of the gaunt, tanned and taut types stretching and chatting in the parking lot. I bounced up and down, untied and retied my shoes several times, and fake-stretched to try to look inconspicuous as I scanned the crowd for Diane, who was not there.
Eventually, a woman with carrying a clipboard that clearly denoted some sort of official status called for everyone's attention. She asked for all those training for the half marathon or marathon to come forward, and then started saying things about beginner, intermedate, and advanced runners.
It seemed clear to me that there were four groups of people here. Beginner, intermediate, and advanced runners. Then there was the fourth group, the freakish running addicts who were training to run either 13 or 26 miles.
History tells us that the marathon got its name when a well-conditioned and apparently overenthusiastic Greek runner named Phidippides ran 24 miles to Athens to tell the Greek king that the vastly outnumbered Greek army had defeated the invading Persian Army at the village of Marathon. Then he died. Why he wasn't given a horse to travel 24 miles is unclear. Why someone found it necessary to add two miles to the modern day marathon is also shrouded in mystery. What is further unclear is why centuries later, runners are so eager to fully reenact the event that killed its first participant.
Furthermore, a "half-marathon" of thirteen miles did not sound half-better to me. It sounded suspiciously like "half-dead", or "half-stupid," which as we all know, is still dead and stupid.
So, I thought, surely these delusional types were being separated out from the rest of the runners to discuss with them what a bad idea running 13 or 26 miles is, or to make them feel silly, or at least to prevent them from recruiting any more of the weak-minded for their little CoolMax-clad death sprint.
The beginners were given directions, and people began jogging down the hill towards the running trail. Still no Diane. I fell in with them, and began plotting. We would run right by my car. If I could get to the back, I could then dive behind my car and get away. But I couldn't get to the back, trapped by dozens of chatty runners. So, I reverted to my original logic of, "how bad could it be?"
We ran about a mile and a half to Zilker Park, where the now clearly evil woman with the clipboard ordered us through a series of calisthenic exercises. Then interval training. My shirt, which failed to have any of the evaporative properties of today's high-tech athletic gear, grew heavy with sweat, and was seriously beginning to chafe my nipples. Ugly, but true. Though my new socks were extremely high-tech, I immediately exceeded their absorbent capacity, and I could feel water puddling in my cool Nike Shox running shoes, which I had never intended to subject to such abuse as "running."
I was even more amazed and impressed at Diane than before, because, even being in fair shape, I was clearly going to die in the park. After several minutes of asking frantic-sounding questions, I discovered that this, in fact, was the training group for the half-marathon. My anger at Diane increased, then the street names "Riverside Drive" and "Lake Austin Boulevard" made brief and accusatory appearances in my mind. Applying all the skills that my English degree certifies me to have, I determined that these street names were not the same.
There are three Run-Tex Stores for Psycho Running People, and I had clearly gone to the wrong one. Diane was somewhere already done and drinking beer. Here, everyone was sweaty and insane and not going for beer afterwards, and I, unwittingly, was among them. Like Caesar crossing the Rubicon, the die had been cast. Mistakes had been made, and now I would have to pay the price.
After the calisthenics and about a mile and a half of interval training, we were allowed water, from a cooler on the back of a car. I was concerned about the logistics of our return trip. There were dozens of runners, and only one vehicle that I could see, a Pontiac Sunbird. Was a bus coming? Would it be air-conditioned? Or would Evil Woman With Clipboard reduce us to savages, fighting for three to four precious spots in the Pontiac?
It quickly became obvious that we were expected to get back to our cars under our own power. I fell in behind some of the kind people I had met in the course of this ugly, ugly accident. I had found their camaraderie, gallows-humor and enthusiastic support of each other infectious. One of them who had patiently listened to me explain how this was all a big mistake asked if I was going to stick with it, if I was going to train for and try to run the half-marathon in February.
The nipples were getting pretty painful, and I tried to hold my shirt away from them. My hamstring was developing a twinge, and my cool shoes would almost certainly never look the same again. But I grudgingly had to admit to myself that I was sort of pleased with myself, that I enjoyed pushing myself physically, and that I even sort of had fun in some sick way. It took me a while to answer through my labored breathing, to be loud enough to be heard over the soggy sound of my shoes, but I told her, "Yeah. Why the hell not."
Posted by Rob at 10:36 AM | Comments (2)
October 25, 2004
pudding at last!
Yeah, so here ya go. After all the wrestling with technology, the site is up in a rudimentary form, and I managed to import all the old blog entries into this exciting brave new blog world. I'll have to bring the photos back in later...
I think it's also less onerous/scary/annoying/time-consuming to post responses now, so you can get the more instant gratification of telling me I'm an idiot without having to wait on the next time you see me. So, like, do that.
So, with all that behind me, I'm not so keen to work on a new post at the moment, but there's always tonight...
Posted by Rob at 03:16 PM | Comments (2)
October 24, 2004
scream
2:34AM, Sunday, October 24, 2004
there is no way to scream. there is no way to scream in words. writers most effectively convey the emotions behind a scream with description of the sound of the scream, but there is no way to adequately convey a scream using a combination of 26 letters, even with the addition of punctuation. it has to be heard, it has to be felt in rough distortion against your eardrums, resonating in your chest, raising goosebumps on your skin.
for the last week, maybe two, i have wanted to scream. wanted to scream into some vast abyss like the main characters do in garden state, wanted to let it all out and feel the air and sound and this burning and horrible disruption i feel inside rip at my vocal chords, make my throat raw with passion, with everything that i've felt and am feeling and want to feel.
i couldn't do it. not in words, not in reality. i drank, i wrote, i fought the things i felt. the drinking pushed it back, gave me lapses of freedom to write and not be a slave to the things i felt. but it only pushed it down.
wednesday, i came down with the hives. welts exploded all over my body like the bites of a multitude of mosquitos. they would itch and disappear, only to reappear elsewhere. i went to the doctor on thursday, but i already knew what was happening - my body was rebelling against the imbalance it was being thrown into by my mind, my heart, my life, the drinking.
thursday, i held off from filling the prescription for the antihistamine the doctor prescribed, because for a while, the symptons lessened a bit. i did not drink on thursday, despite the eerie pull i felt to do so. by night, by the time i went to bed to prepare for the next day, they returned, as aggressively as ever. that night i could not fall asleep. my mind was overwhelmed with visions filled with an anger born of emptiness and bitterness. once sleep finally came, it was saturated with nightmares and more anger and sadness. i woke up yelling several times. in dreams, i remember wanting to drink to make it all stop. by the morning i was a wreck, pockmarked with the red, irritating bites of guilt and anger and hurt.
friday morning, i filled the prescription, took the pill, and within a couple of hours, the hives subsided. i did not drink on friday. against my own desires at the time, against the feeling of uselessness, and meaninglessness, i went to play basketball at UT for several hours after work. the sweat poured out of me, and i felt washed clean a bit.
today, saturday, i struggled. i ignored the calculation of meaning and significance. i did what needed to be done, no matter how my mind argued that those things were pointless. i ran errands, went to the gym, and went running around town lake. i felt no meaning, no feeling of impending success, but relied on the logical possibility that maybe these things would lead to something positive, would lead me back to hope. i even changed my mind about going to the humane society casino night benefit tonight with morgan and amanda.
our tickets to the benefit bought chips to gamble with, a raffle ticket, and two drinks each. still feeling the momentum of cleansing my mind and body, i ordered a water. but a water took a ticket just like a beer did, and i used it as an excuse to order one, just one beer.
the first taste set something off. i immediately wanted more, wanted that feeling that had sustained me so well, so erringly but unwaveringly well for the past month. but this time, it didn't liberate and lift me. instead, it brought reality crashing back down on me. or, at least, the reality of this moment in my life, divorced from the optimism of any hoped-for future.
we took a break and went to get food from the vietnamese restaurant next door. i had a tsing tao with my soup. then we went to the liquor store to buy beer to take back to the event. i had three harps, gave three away. i already felt ashamed for drinking, and for not wanting to stop.
after the event ended, morgan and amanda sensibly went home. i went downtown to meet jennifer and her friend carrie. harp, harp, harp, harp.
2:36PM, Sunday, October 24, 2004
ok, it's sunday afternoon now. i woke up a few hours ago and found that i'd gotten to the couch somehow. i feel as rough and uninspired as yesterday morning, but unlike last night, i can press, push on, ignore doubt, ignore the seeming certainty of living more of the same. the draft of this post was still sitting on my computer, waiting for an ending, for a resolution. i don't have one at the moment, except, again, to press on. i thought of deleting this post, but somehow censoring myself further just doesn't seem right.
Posted by Rob at 04:34 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2004
my website has a first name, it's...
Well, let's not reveal that just yet. But soon... yes, soon... there shall be a great noise in the west, and the heavens shall be filled with great wroth, and my new website shall be belched forth with great fury and nice pictures and stuff.
With the naming ordeal finally behind me, I've registered the domain name, and can begin building the site up in earnest. Many thanks to Daryl for her usual inestimable wisdom. For her, I will waive the $39.95 per month subscription fee for access to the new website. For the first month.
I'm not going to release the name just yet, but here are the Top Ten Rejected Names:
10. chickenonastick.com
9. marmotslayer.com
8. touchmyinnerchild.com
7. dickcheneyslesbiandaughter.com
6. freemetallicadownloads.com
5. dumberthanyou.com
4. robandtommylee.com
3. livingwithherpes.com
2. misterbritneyspears.com
1. passionoftheearl.com
In other news, I think I have hives. Hives. Freakin' hives. Either that or some sort of insidious, flesh-annoying virus, possibly of extraterrestrial origin, transmitted to me as part of an elaborate plot by the shadow government. Or something. Sorry, been laying on the couch, scratching and watching several X-Files episodes.
If anyone's interested in coming over to rub ointment on me and scratch the places I can't reach, please send me a picture, a letter detailing your enthusiasm for the job, and three references.
Posted by Rob at 03:21 AM | Comments (1)
October 19, 2004
hope abides, charlie brown
see the world
So, I took a few days off from writing, quite unintentionally. The weekend capped a week of bringing me back down to earth from the high I’ve been on for the last few weeks. Some things fell away this weekend, and I know that’s a good thing, because the hopes I placed in them were false. Sunday night, I sat down at the computer, but for the first time in weeks, I was too mired in disappointment and disillusionment, and nothing happened.
Yesterday, I tried again at work, and all I got was a sober, dry recounting of my past three days, as if you cared. The key word, perhaps, is sober. After work, I had a few hours before my 8:00 basketball game, so I hopped over to the pub, notebook and camera in hand.
You learn fear. You learn to walk your step. You sacrifice your innocence for experience. You think that that is what will make you a better writer, but you’re wrong. Clarity is what makes you a better writer, clear thinking. You have all that, in your first face – Bono.A while back, I printed that quote out on a label and stuck it on the inside of a shiny new notebook that I bought in my renewed quest to regain my own clarity. Lately, that quest has found success, enabled a bit, no doubt, by the oft-mentioned and oft'ner-consumed beer. Beer has become the training wheels for my writing - when I drink a bit, I recover the certainty and clarity of my youth, as well as the ability to let the words flow, unhindered by thoughts of where they might end up or what they might sound like.
After the long silence that began in law school, writing has become a compulsion lately, which makes me both overjoyed and overanxious. I feel like I could do nothing but write all day long. I've been totally electrified in the times when I realize that someone's actually been checking in and reading this stuff and feeling something from it.
With that, naturally, comes the fear, that if I don't write for a day or two, that I'll lose my momentum, that this reawakening of my self-awareness, and of my abilities, will flutter and fade. There's the fear that if it doesn't stay fresh and interesting and entertaining, that it will be pointless, that people won't connect with it. The fear is so much like the fear an addict feels, of losing the comfort/security/high that the substance of their addiction gives them, that it’s become inextricably intertwined with the way I feel about drinking lately. That fear runs even deeper, though - it's a fear of losing hope.
I keep coming back to that word, hope. When I was younger, hope was less important, because potential and faith were enough. As a child, as a teenager, as a twenty-something, the potential in myself and the world around me still had time to become real. Those potential energies hadn’t yet failed (and I had not failed them) enough times in my life for me to discern the patterns and probabilities that are involved in hopes and dreams being realized. Faith had yet to be diminished by experience.
Love was still out there, inevitable, just a matter of time and fate, a destiny I was sure was mine. I had faith that I would find some miraculous way to overcome my fears and insecurities, and my foolish pursuit of dreams that were not mine, to become the person I believed I was born to be, doing the things I truly believed I was born to do.
I’m not old, I’m not over. But I am now aware of those patterns, the probabilities, the myriad and numerous factors and forces that must align and converge to make certain things occur. I’m aware of the consequences of my own mistakes, and more damning, of my own laxity in determination and discipline to this point in my life. I’m aware of the contradictions in my life that still must be sorted out.
So, hope becomes increasingly important. Everyone puts either their faith or their hope in something, something that makes or they believe will make him or her feel connected to this life, like they are some valuable working part of the universe. But so many of those things fail. I believe in love, but I know that relationships come and go, and that there is no guarantee of finding real, true, lasting love in one's life. The permanence and connection of friendships are things that are proven and appreciated over time, and I have plenty of friendships that are long since proven. Much of my sense of meaning and self-worth comes from the fact that I have the friends that I do – I know no better measure of approval then that. But even the best friend can't always be there, and I know that there needs to be something generated in myself that lends meaning, something unique that I can contribute to the mix.
Right now, writing is the most reliable hope I have in my life for meaning and purpose and happiness, and lately, it's a source of hope in which I feel I have the greatest control. I know that soon, I'll have to take the training wheels off and let beer return to a more occasional role. I need to accept that there will be short time spans where nothing happens, and just have faith that things will turn around again. And for anyone reading this, or who's anjoyed checking this site out from time to time, I ask for your faith, too - there'll be more stuff, and it won't always be the icky gloomy stuff, either...
Writing this reminded me of something I wrote over a decade ago. My friend Robert had a short film project for a class, and he wanted to revisit the Peanuts gang as adults, at Charlie Brown's wedding to the little red-haired girl. Snoopy, since I know you'll wonder, had been shot down over Iraq in the Gulf War and was MIA. Heading down the aisle, Charlie has a panic attack and bolts for the exit...
Charlie Brown sighed. The clouds moved across the sky. He heard the soft crunch of footsteps on the grass, coming his way. The hem of a blue dress drifted into view above him, followed by the dour face of Lucy. She paused just long enough to make him feel self-conscious before she spoke the inevitable words.
"That was stupid, Charlie Brown."
"Do you remember, Lucy? Do you remember when there weren't so many different colors? I mean, when the color blue wasn't so darn complicated?"
"Yup. It's finally happened. I can see the marbles rolling out of that big fat head right now. Good grief, is this going to be one of those scenes from 'thirtysomething'? You shouldn't really even have those until you're fortysomething, you know."
Charlie Brown didn't blink. She stared down into those beady eyes. Then, with a sigh, she sat down.
"All right, Charlie Brown. The Doctor Is In." Charlie looked over at her and blinked. Then he turned towards the sky again.
"It's been happening a lot lately. I'm going along, and all of a sudden I have a flashback. The grass is green, and it's all the same shade of green. The sky is blue, and it's all blue. And Snoopy is alive, and he's not just a beagle, he's one of us, one of the gang. But this sky has at least six different shades of blue in it, and this grass is at least three different shades of green and seven different shades of brown. It's not the same world Lucy, but I can't remember when it changed. And when I was in there, walking down the aisle, I was trying to remember the grass, and the sky, and Snoopy, and I couldn't! I just couldn't."
Lucy stared blankly into the grass for a moment. It did seem sort of patchy. She closed her eyes and slowly laid back, feeling the grass crush beneath her, feeling the sun's warmth spilling and soaking across the front of her dress. She opened her eyes and there was the sky above her, in all its Technicolor splendor.
"The world never changed, Charlie Brown. We got smarter. Instead of seeing the world, we started seeing all the things in it. We tried to get more out of the world, but that meant we started seeing all the flaws, too. Life for kids is just something to do, something to experience. Now it's like it's something we're up against. I have those flashbacks, too."
Charlie looked over at her. "Really?"
"Yeah. It's kind of scary. It's like I'm walking away from home, and every time I look back, my house gets harder and harder to see." She paused, and Charlie could hear her swallow, like she was pushing something back down. Then she sat up.
"I thought I would do this as a favor to you on your wedding day, but I guess it would be a favor to me, too."
Lucy unzipped the small duffel bag she had carried out with her, and reached inside. Charlie Brown sat up, too, and watched as she pulled out a weathered old leather football. He looked up at her, and a comfortably familiar discomforting grin grew across her face.
"For old time's sake?" she said slyly.
The fear and uncertainty that had filled him for so long was slowly pushed aside and then trampled by a determination he hadn't felt in years. He stood up, and paced off a distance, then turned to face her as a matador faces the waiting bull. Lucy tossed her hair back behind her neck as she carefully positioned the football in the grass. Then, a thought crossed her mind, and she raised the football to him in a toast.
"To simpler times and primary colors, Charlie Brown!"
He nodded to her, allowing only that slight lapse in concentration. He scuffed his tuxedo shoes into the grass, tensed his body, and sprang forward, arms driving, legs pumping, his face afire with primal determination, the drives of fight or flight aroused once more, the wide-eyed glower of the dark hunter, spear raised, charging the snarling prey....
"AUGHHHHHHHH!"
His body prescribed a glorious arc through the air, and he felt like a dancer being lifted with perfect form and smoothness, the air rushing in his ears as he reached the apex of the leap, his feet rising above him, the ground moving up to meet his back with a resounding thud. The air rushed out of his lungs, his back grew slightly numb, colors danced before his eyes like a thousand lava lamps on acid.
Charlie Brown sighed again, but this time he smiled.
Posted by Rob at 07:11 PM | Comments (1)
October 14, 2004
new eyes
i am here
I am loving the new camera. It fits in perfectly with the changes I've been feeling in myself the past few weeks. Now, more than ever, I'm taking time go for walks, to just look at things, to see things for what they are.
The other day, my friend and coworker Heather and I took a walk on our lunchbreak, journeying a fair distance, noticing things along the way. She was very patient with my stopping every ten feet to examine or photograph seemingly mundane things. Why did we never do this before with our lunchbreaks?
Work on the website is sort of at a halt, largely due to indecision (flip-flopping, if you will) on a name. I recently became excited about the name "Soularoid Pictures." At first, I worried it would sound too much like "hemorrhoid," but I think the more obvious rhyme with "Polaroid" and the addition of "Pictures" helps it avoid that. It immediately sparked thematic ideas for the look of the site, but I have a little hesitation about it, and a few commenters just don't like it. I fear it's a bit pretentious, and Vicky thinks it sounds like I'm trying too hard.
So, there is no name and no site. I'm still soliciting suggestions, if anyone has better ideas...
the wood always wins
i'm glad someone's doing something
something to crow about
Posted by Rob at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)
spelling be
after my late afternoon pub adventure at Fado's today, complete with the final beer that I swear I didn't order, I decided once again that it was time to take a serious break from drinking.
the buzz from lunch carried me well through the remaining two hours of work. i worked hard, set myself about the hard work of sobriety and being an attorney.
at 5:30, registration began for the adult spelling bee, co-sponsored by the Austin Public Library, the Austin Chronicle, and, um... Fado's. to benefit public libraries. i mean, come on. that's important, right?
ok, aside from that, here's the deal: when i was a kid, i was even more of a geek than i am today. my skills were heightened, supposedly above average, yet balanced between the creative and the analytical. i read voraciously, studied science, but listened to music intently, wrote without restraint or doubt. and in the meantime, i absolutely sucked at anything remotely athletic that other kids my age cared about. all i had was my middle name.
growing up in the schoolyard in the 70's in texas, there were the inevitable debates during recess - who would be roger staubach? who would be tony dorsett? often, the choices were made by virtue of merit and ability. yet, by way of a strange sort of logic or affirmative action, it turned out that because my middle name was "earl," no one would challenge my right to be earl campbell, the simple but charismatic, record-breaking, and wholly inspiring star running back for the university of texas at the time.
but that was my only claim to fame in the world of competition. i was slow, a bit dim in the realm of athletic intelligence and instinct, and entirely inexperienced. i was probably even a bit of a coward, because i would not learn until years later that my body had the ability to take a tremendous amount of impact and punishment without any serious repercussions that a good health insurance plan wouldn't cover. but at the time, i knew only the feeling of being a loser among my peers.
but i could spell. i was good with multiplication, too, but some innate sense of the dramatic and heroic in me realized that math was not the way. spelling was. i'd be the hero, finally, standing bold and upright before the whole student body, the letters falling forth easily, with a confidence and elegance that would at once evoke comparisons to sean connery and superman (rest in peace, mr. reeve...). fifth grade girls would swoon under the powerful spell of my ability to spell "ephemeral."
guys would feel the first true inspiration of their young lives, moved to put aside the shame of their own dimwittedness, and they would stand and applaud as i coolly dispensed the spelling of "herbivorous." they would stand and cheer as if i were indeed the real earl campbell, humbly but determinately running, dodging, breaking tackles on my way to the end zone. "go, rob, go! spell like the wind!" they would cry.
ahhh. my second harp arrived, disrupting the recollection of fifth grade ambition/fantasy. sadly, i'm not in fifth grade anymore. i would have laid waste to my all who opposed me, those so many years ago. today, i'm a guy that catches errors in news wire stories, but who is staking his entire competitive chances on his ability to spell "pharyngeal." of, relating to, or located in, the pharynx. pharyngeal. granted, until just now, i believed it had something to do with fingers, but dammit, i could spell the damned thing.
so, i walked into the pub tonight, arriving immediately at the registration table, where the woman immediately decreed, "wow. you look just like dean cain." i smiled modestly and tried to blush, before using my heat vision to sear a hole quickly and cleanly through the glass donation jar in front of her, switching quickly to my x-ray vision to wittily and accurately inform her that the brazilian wax job was entirely worthwhile for her, and then circling the pub at super-speed, returning to a standstill with 37 empty pint glasses balanced on my hand, and my best flirtatious smile.
she and the bystanders applauded with approval like elementary school students for a mime, then she took my $3.00 entry fee. it's getting so much harder to impress women these days.
i sat at the same table i had eaten at a few hours earlier. it really sort of sucked being alone there, but before long, a crew of hip-looking twenty-somethings joined me: kristen with her cat-eye glasses; mike z., whose name and look made him a shoo-in as a beastie boy; the charismatic and alphabetically adept jennifer johnson; and britt, who sported a shirt that declared "i like high school boys," tucked on the right but not the left, in just the way that, when i attempt it, cries out, "i meant to do this. hey! look at me."
in retrospect, the spelling bee was a blur. i have no idea what happened. there was a piece of paper issued to all the participants, with 20 words. we were to circle the incorrectly spelled words, and the top 50 scores would make it to the second round.
aside from the eventual diminishment of my considerable skills by age and the relentless onslaught of legal thought, i was at a disadvantage, given the vast array of people that i had never seen in fado's before, who for all the world looked as if they only emerged once or twice a year for the spelling bee, who would not even come out for a good star trek convention. my waitress, melody, told me that she had asked one of these new patrons if she'd like anything, and had been told, "oh, goodness no, i can't drink before a spelling test!" many of these walking Cray supercomputers probably used words like "fantoccine" and "oeuvre" two to three times daily, in reference to their work as professors of medieval italian poetry, or their bowel movements.
i had no idea. about, really, anything. i was stuck, armed only with the word "pharyngeal," which went completely unused, and with the vague hope that "adult spelling bee" meant that the hardest word i might get was "phallus."
amazingly, i made the cut to the second round, accompanied at our table by jennifer johnson. but for all my apparent spelling ack... acumm... accumin... errr...
for all my apparent spelling ability, it turns out i'm not so good at reading instructions. the second round is not next wednesday, as i'd thought, but this thursday night. thursday night also happens to be the first game of the new season for my women's basketball team. as their coach, i'm not the lone captain kirk-like heroic spelling bee champion, but just a piece that has something to contribute to the whole. the girls on the team made me a part of what they do - we listen to each other, we struggle together, and last season i was rewarded with being part of an incredible, epic, and inspiring win against all odds for the championship.
fifth grade was a long time ago. i don't want the same things i wanted then - i'm not an astronaut. my luke skywalker action figure is buried in the dirt of what was once my yard, sealed into the past by the concrete foundation of a target greatland. my heart has gone more places since that time than i or my fifth-grade ambition ever could have imagined it would have. last night, there was no struggle or regret with the choice before me.
so, good luck, jennifer johnson. spell like the wind!
Posted by Rob at 03:03 AM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2004
the turning
ahh, the cycle. last week, there was all the certainty in the world, the feel of inertia and momentum, driving me on. i felt the world around me more fully - potential and possibility and hope were all there, tangible.
things change, at least in my mind. like the weather on these october days in texas, one never knows what nature will bring until you step out into it. oppresively hot in the morning can become shockingly cool and brisk by lunchtime. sometimes, it rains while the sun beams down through only a few straggling clouds. similarly, the cocktail of chemistry in my mind keeps changing, and it's hard to keep up. how much responds to the world around me and how much of it changes and molds and filters what I see of the world around me, i sometimes really just don't know.
sorry, folks. i'm just at a momentary impasse. the promise of so many things a week ago turned out to be nothing - just imagination and foolish, ill-founded hope. what does remain constant is my desire to write, and the support of many of you who check up on this site now and again, though if i continue putting up things like this, my audience will and should fall off considerably.
writing is difficult right now, for a variety of reasons. i remember going to hear a lecture by one of my favorite authors, douglas adams. he described his writing process, the initial vast chunk of which involved buying the latest in word processing software, then spending untold hours getting it and his computer to get along, learning its eccentricities, etc. that's certainly been part of the problem - i'm trying to build this website, which involves a learning curve for the web design software. but first, clearly, i had to cleanse my system of the horrible adware/spyware beast that resides deep in its psyche. that process not only prevented me from writing and making progress on the web development, but it also kept me from getting any good sleep.
then there's the continuing problem of work and its obtrusiveness into what i increasingly consider my real life. all i want to do is write, and make music and sing on the side. i'm angry at how this lawyer bullshit interrupts my life every day, distracts me from what is a far better aim to my life.
today, i went to lunch at my now-favorite local chain pub, fado's, but the experience wasn't right. it was lonely, and silly, and dark. i imbibed the lager and lime writing catalyst, but the end product is not what people want to read - it's this crap you're maybe not even still reading at the moment. it is me, in all my ugliness, the downside, the yard sale that is my mind.
but it'll all pass, as it always has. you've all been so wonderfully supportive of me and what i write. without that, who knows where i'd be. those few who have visited this blog to see what I have to say - thank you, and please don't give up on me for this momentary lull. bear with me.
in the meantime, here's another piece of recycling for the bin, just a random scrap. why? because it seems like an alright idea with several harps in my head:
elijah
The air conditioner clicked and came alive, having just shut off. It shut itself off again, the victim of an obsessive-compulsive thermostat. Moby played on the computer, all languid beats and low voice, and Elijah lay on the couch. The Lakers and Nuggets ran back and forth across the television, muted, glowing quietly in the darkness. A sip of sparkling water, and he could hear the fizz sparkling and bouncing off the inside of the can, the sound metallic and tinny and sharp.
11:16p.m. The daily point of decision, to acquiesce, resign another day as lost, or to struggle to stay awake, to not succumb to the numb, blind comfort of sleep.
The pills lay in the drawer, untouched. The shirts hung, crisp, arms folded across themselves, at ease waiting to be wrinkled, for no good reason, really. Their backs would crush against the car seat sitting in traffic, and again in the chair at the office. The elbows would crease and crinkle as his arms rested on the desk, at the keyboard, sending keystrokes by the hundreds, forming words and sentences that would find usefulness for a day or a week, then be filed away and forgotten.
The cell phone lay quiet, full of numbers, calls from his parents avoided, calls from his basketball teammates taken, outbound calls to Diana’s voicemail that would go unreturned.
12:23a.m. Elijah sighed. The morning would be like all the others, even worse if he got no sleep. He opened the list of digitally recorded shows, picked the home improvement show in high definition. He liked the perky host, she was familiar, like she was there, speaking to him. He liked the female carpenter, full of creativity and spunk, and liked the other carpenter, tan and capable and likeable. He made Elijah laugh.
The distraction worked some, but his identity remained, the elephant on his chest. He was just a guy in an apartment, his life running itself without his intervention, a life with no story to tell, no victories, no plot, no climax, no intrigue, no gods, no love interest, no deus ex machina, no…
One of the designers was clearly in over her head, trying to hang a bed from the ceiling by chains. The carpenter guy half-joked sarcastically with her as he struggled in the attic. Elijah felt himself drift away, not to return until minutes or hours later, and he would rewind the program, discovering he had really only missed a few seconds. Where did all that time go? To some other life, or maybe a parallel universe where he did useful things with it?
He was drifting again, but before he did, he felt the hole again, the aching hollow growing within him, the numbness of beer in his limbs and his head, and felt again the warm intrusion of tears before he finally, mercifully, fell asleep. It was 2:48a.m.
Posted by Rob at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2004
lunch good.
My good friend Nikki suggested that my new web site could be called harpharpharp.com, paying homage to both the fizzy truth serum/muse that I love so, and the ranting that I tend to do. It's still under consideration, and today, it's moved into being a major contender.
I'm up here at the glorious Texas Board of
So much of my writing and creativity and, hell, happiness has been beer-driven lately. Can I function without it? Depends on what you mean by "function." I can walk, talk, and tie my own shoes without it. But in terms of feeling better and writing... not so much.
Cut to almost two hours later. Decided to experiment. Took my exciting new camera and its instruction manual, both of which just arrived via UPS to the office today, and went to Fado's for a nice sandwich and a pint. Or three. Took what might be some nice pix, though they're on film, not digital, so it'll be a few days. Or maybe tomorrow, if I drunkenly snap the rest of this roll of film up in my office, which I'm afraid to leave (even though I have to pee really badly) because, well, I'm a little more drunk than the average state empkoe emploue dammit (deep breath) employee should be. Felonious dentists beware! I'm on the clock, I've got a monster buzz, and nothing to lose!
Oops, just got an email - Friday is our big potluck. Though, sadly, no luck, and no pot. Just kidding. Sort of.
Look, here's today's deal: I was stuck in settlement conferences all day Friday. At least one promised to be extremely entertaining, though, ultimately, sad. It had adulterous lesbian affairs (not that there's anything wrong with that, but it still makes for a better story), drug diversion, violence, vandalism, and, possibly, the poor seating of a crown. It was the holy grail of entertaining cases. Problem is, I am not allowed to blog about that.
Saturday, I had a date, on the spur of the moment. And, it hurtled towards what seemed an inevitable conclusion, towards a "reconvening the procedure," as Julie might put it. But then, the train jumped the tracks, and suffice it to say: that ship has sailed. Let your imaginations run amuck as they may - you probably have no clue. Regardless, can't really talk about that either, here.
So, it's not as if I've nothing to write about. But as much as I've heralded this blog as the opportunity to let honesty reign without censorship... I can't write about any of the major events of the last few days. Dammit. But stick with me... more to come... more Harp, that glorious Canadian-made jet fuel for writing, is awaiting me in my fridge. For now, however, like one of those episodes made up entirely of clips from past seasons, I give you... a rerun:
envision success
So, homeless, jobless, near penniless, and less my most recent intense relationship, I have decided to turn my attentions to finding the girl of my dreams. Given the numbers, one should think this easy – there are just so many options. I know and my friends constantly reinforce that the keys are to be open-minded, and to just put yourself out there to be... had. As if I have not been had enough in relationships.
There is, for example, the girl working at the local coffee shop, perhaps a bit young for me, shy, coquettish smile, a bright vision through the haze of body odor poorly masked by patchouli that so many of the angst-ridden, coffee-swilling intelligentsia clientele there seem to emit. For the sake of conversation only, I will call her Celeste. Ahh, Celeste. Perhaps, tomorrow morning I’ll smile with my probably ten years of additional mature appeal as Celeste hands me my slice of rosemary apple pie and iced tea. I’ll quote Sartre or Camus, or someone else that I haven’t actually read but whose orts of wisdom are quickly and easily accessible on the Internet. She won’t be familiar with the arcane quote either, being only a freshman journalism major who hasn’t quite made it through Intro to Literature during her provisional summer school coursework.
Nevertheless, Celeste will recognize my superior age and wisdom, lower her head into a smile, and blush, and I’ll ask for her name. She’s undoubtedly as intelligent as she is cute, and I know she’s probably The One. We’ll skip together along the lake as the summer loses its burn slowly to fall, see both art-house movies and the latest Vin Diesel flick. We’ll be the cute couple everyone gravitates towards at the mix of happy hours with my balding friends, and at the keggers with her smelly young friends that we attend.
We will love and respect and be completely and utterly devoted to each other. A couple of months into our relationship, I will walk in on her and a Spanish exchange student named "Joaquin," who is actually a French exchange student named "Remy." She will cover her nakedness and look ashamedly away, as Remy/Joaquin/Euro Shit Boy tries to assure me in soothing tones that while I was like a father to her, he was like the brother that never touched her the way he did. He further validates this Oedipal bit of B.S. by reciting a line from that Spanish poet guy that had a movie made about him with the subtitles. He will get halfway through the second verse when I smite him utterly and completely across his beautiful cheekbones with the first thing I find handy, which is the tire iron from the trunk of my car, parked two blocks away.
There is always, of course, the girl in the Aveda shop at the mall. Last September, I was there because I thought the mall was a good place to hang out on the state’s annual tax-free weekend debacle. And it is, in fact, a great place to be at that time, for families wishing to save $16 on $200 worth of seemingly pre-mutilated Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts, and for pedophiles lacking fast and reliable Internet access.
Anyway, I walked by the store and saw her, in her black smock, a good four to five years older than that whore Celeste, her eyes locked on me, smiling in a way different and more meaningful than the usual sales representative smile. For one thing, I clearly, visibly, have no need for Aveda products or any other cosmetic assistance. My hair is long and shiny, with a natural wave, needing no anti-humectant gels or de-frizzing pomades, and generally requiring little more than my allowing it to have its own space and political beliefs. My skin is smooth and unflawed, except where there are acne, blemishes, scars, and dry patches.
Clearly, this girl was looking with interest, looking longingly, feeling the tinge of primal familiarity deep in her soul. The so-human longing that is within most of us to make that one true connection flared brightly within both of us, poles aligning, gravitation struggling to pull us into mutual orbit, into the dance of mutual attraction and union.
I hesitated, uncertain. I smiled at her, decided that was a substantial-enough first move, and went to look at the exciting new Air Jordans at Foot Locker, the ones with the red trim rather than the blue. As I tried them on with no intention of purchasing them, they made me think of her.
I went back a few weeks later with my friend, Daryl. Daryl, despite her name, is a girl. Daryl’s a close friend that constantly provides me with comfort and guidance, which includes useful nuggets of practical wisdom like, “Please do not give your child a sexually ambiguous name.” Taking a girl with me made my presence in the store plausible. The whole scenario was rendered further perfect by the fact that Daryl, also unemployed (though neither homeless nor hideously and desperately alone in life like myself), had recently decided to stop shaving her legs. I decided this threw enough ambiguity in the mix to keep my own availability a very real possibility.
We cased the joint with a couple of close passes, and then went in. My girl, she who touched my soul, and who my instincts tell me is named "Alyssa," was not there. In her place were two, not-as-helpful trolls who, though probably perfectly attractive, are as dim, lesser brown dwarf stars, drowned in the pure white light of the quasar that is Alyssa. While Daryl asked impressively realistic-sounding questions about various hair-care products, I glanced about the store, careful to neither glance furtively, nor to allow my eyes to form the narrow slits that would have revealed our true purpose.
In our debriefing, Daryl and I surmised that Alyssa may only work there on the weekends, seeking not the extra pay, but only the pleasure of bringing wrinkled, frizzy, and otherwise awkward-looking commoners some small measure of the beauty God has blessed her with. Each week, via an elaborate system of couriers and faxing, she exchanges this additional income for gift certificates to a popular Peruvian department store, which she then sends to an orphanage for girls in La Paz.
During the week, Alyssa’s time is spent in more selfish pursuits, as a leading researcher in the fight against SOID, Supine-Onset Indigestion Disorder, which did not kill her birth mother, but often caused her to have to wait an hour after eating before going to bed. Meanwhile, Alyssa’s long-distance correspondence with astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has resulted in some practical experiments that require her presence aboard the International Space Station for a few weeks a year, but I could live with that, because we would talk nightly, and the time delay in communication isn’t really as bad or awkward as some astronauts or Asimov and his nerdish cronies would have you believe.
Alyssa and I will do well - I just know it. In the first month, we’ll travel to Australia and Sierra Leone, go to concerts and basketball games, talk about the knowable and unknowable in the universe. We'll throw dinner parties in my new apartment or her loft in downtown Austin, and couples will walk away, sated from the fine wine and the cuisine Alyssa and I create, and they'll make a vow beneath the stars to have as healthy and loving a relationship as we clearly have. She’ll wake me up in the middle of the night to ask my opinion on her application of a Fibonacci sequence to one of the components of her almost-completed, self-proving Grand Unified Field Theory. I’ll laugh at the kind of mistakes she makes when she gets all drowsy, and at how cute and childlike she looks, and then she’ll laugh, and I’ll kiss her forehead, and we’ll make gentle but passionate love (did I mention her incredible stamina and flexibility?) for two hours and eighteen minutes, before we stop because I know she needs the sleep.
Unfortunately, two months into our relationship, and just a few lines shy of completing her Unified Field Theory equation, Alyssa injects herself with a complex protein-oxidase derivative. So noble in her refusal to acquiesce to the offers and demands and death threats of the pharmaceutico-military-FDA complex, and unwilling to test the formula on a defenseless animal (even though Rob Schneider was available), she gives her own life to science, for the cause of all the people that have problems digesting when they lay down right after they eat. It is clear to me that foul play was involved, as I find evidence of tampering in her lab. It falls to me to bring the powerful men who conspired to kill her to justice, but hey, I’m not so young, and I have to move on.
Dating is so hard, it just seems overwhelming sometimes. I suppose there’s the woman I always run into at the local HEB, but while I think I have fallen in love with her and she might be The One, I’m pretty sure she’s a lawyer and a complete shrew. Yeah, to hell with her.
Posted by Rob at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2004
i quit.
i've decided to stop being a lawyer.
i wish i could be like peter gibbons and, you know, just stop being a lawyer. yeah, i'm just not going to do it anymore. but that's not quite an option. but there are options out there, and i'm in search of them. granted, those options may require me to get some more education, maybe even to use capital letters. but right now, i don't care about capital letters.
in the last couple of weeks, something snapped. everything written here is both cause and effect - for two weeks now, i've written on pretty much a daily basis. in the death of my beloved 10-year old Olympus IS-2, i've rediscovered photography (when will that damned camera get here, anyway?). i've looked out the windows of my world at people who are doing things i admire, who maybe aren't living the complete dream, but are working and living in worlds that at least bear some relation to who they really are, to everything that is best about them.
I’m an attorney by certification and education, but not by heart. I have a strange memory for the epiphanic points in my life, the turns and impositions of inertia that got me here. I remember Furr’s Cafeteria in Northcross Mall, with my parents, in seventh grade. I don’t remember what I was eating, but I also don’t remember ever not getting the Salisbury steak with mushrooms, and probably fried okra and macaroni and cheese. I remember them telling me that if I was already playing football, that I couldn’t take choir as well, that yet another activity would interfere further with a disinterest in school that was becoming increasingly obvious. Lesson learned - music was not going to fly.
Cut to many years later, entering college. I remember hanging out with my stepdad one night, one of the rare nights that only he and I went out to eat. Fuddruckers. We talked about what I would major in at college, and my ready answer was journalism. Language had always been my strength, and in one year of high school journalism, I revealed an application for the one natural talent I truly had, with one statewide and one national award for my first article out of the box. This, of course, was before I “discovered” that I was also particularly talented in bed, a certainty that further experience and a certain Seinfeld episode would later erode. There is still substantial evidence, however, that I am a great kisser. But as usual, I digress.
At any rate, I remember my stepfather telling me that journalists just didn’t make much money. That's all - he didn't tell me, "no." But I was just that weak, and then and there, I decided not to pursue journalism. Not because I was convinced to steer clear of a low-paying occupation, but because of knee-jerk obeisance, because I placed fear and doubt before my own damned life.
Finally, I remember being in the gym at school, well into law school, staring blankly at myself in the mirror doing dumbbell curls. Near the top of the motion of a repetition with my right arm, it struck me – I had never really wanted to be a lawyer. I had never wanted it, dreamed of it, thought it might be a cool thing to do, even for a day. But there I was, in my second year of law school, skipping immigration law to work out and play basketball.
Yet, here I am. An attorney. In the past couple of weeks, I've felt more alive than I have in years, and this time, it's not just mania, not just another short-lived swing of the pendulum. At the same time, it's made it so much harder to focus at my job, to shut down my brain so that I can draft motions, and revise our rules, and prepare for tomorrow's settlement conferences.
Even now, I don’t know where all this is going. I think the idea is just to write something. Because even today, I feel that writing is all I have, that it is not just my only great gift, but that it’s my one calling, the one thing that will make it all worthwhile. For years, those unthinking years of undergrad, those years law school, the years drifting through life in despair afterwards, I lost my way, lost my love, lost my identity, and completely lost myself. But like I said, something in the universe or me has snapped under the weight of all that history and all that unlived life. My bravado is still somewhat imperfect, but it's enough now. I don't know where it'll all end up, but I'm not going down so easily this time. I quit. And I'm just getting started.
Posted by Rob at 12:21 AM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2004
maiz y crema
I'm hard at work on my new website, which, unfortunately, first requires that I relearn Dreamweaver. One thing the finished product will do in addition to housing my blog will be to serve as a repository for all the bits of scribbling that have come before. But this blog stuff at the moment is easy enough that I can throw some of those bits out there. So, here's one.
maiz y crema
“Do you wanna go in?”
I looked through the windows, saw the people lining the inner walls of the cathedral, supplementing hundreds more in the pews. I had no disrespect for the Virgen de Guadalupe, and I actually sort of believed the story of the young boy, of the roses, and of the image that burned into his cloak like some divine Polaroid. I believed it was there inside, perhaps the only bona fide miracle I’d ever be able to stand in line to see. But I was tired. Mexico City had worn me thin, and damn it, I was tired.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved the city. At home in Austin, Texas, I was jaded by the oldest buildings I had ever encountered, with their cornerstones dating back to an almost-prehistoric 1800 and something or the other, and their easily imaginable histories. Here in Mexico City, though, buildings of a scope and heritage completely foreign to me had reigned for centuries. Even more mind-boggling, beneath those ancient buildings, they had found pyramids, statues, remnants of even greater kingdoms long gone.
But it’s one big-ass city. We had walked through most of it, my girlfriend Margo and I, her sister and three other girlfriends. We had crisscrossed the city on the surprisingly clean and modern Metro system for the rest of the time, struggling to stake out enough room to breathe, our chest cavities compressed by throngs of surprisingly but unfailingly polite locals, our arms quivering with exertion as we held our bags over our heads to make more room. And just the day before, we had done epic battle with a gang of pickpockets that took advantage of dimwitted tourists with shallow pockets that stood on crowded subways with their hands up in the air on the verge of asphyxiation.
Here, faced with the prospect of viewing the evidence of the miracle that had changed the course of Catholicism in the Americas, I was underwhelmed. I declined, and everyone but Margo and I, including, interestingly, her Hindu friend Swarna, moved inside.
Margo and I waited out in the courtyard. The courtyard was filled with these… really impressive buildings that were old, and the night sky stretched out, muted by light pollution from a city that stretched across the earth forever, so you didn’t know which ended first, the sky or the city, and the stones all cool through the soles of our feet, blah blah blah.
I’m sorry. I suffer from a peculiar laziness now, that doesn’t serve a writer well at all. Once, the previous paragraph would have been in itself a miracle of prose, the image of the courtyard and the Mexico City night burned onto the page, and into the reader’s mind, just like the portrait of the Virgin Mary in that kid’s cloak. But these days, I erupt straight to what seems to be the point, the moments; the points and steps of the proof are more often lost to me, too tedious to drag myself through. I only want the answers, the counterbalance to the weight I feel, the ending to the unsatisfying story that is living me.
So anyway, we fell quiet, steeping in the moment, and I think we felt that maybe we were missing something, like we were emotionally stunted and unable to feel the meaning of where we stood. Still, maybe I sent a hope or a wish to the ancient buildings, to the boy’s cloak inside the cathedral. I knew better than to expect answers or a timely service call. God just refuses to work that way, and that’s OK, because at a minimum, being your own boss seems like a god’s prerogative.
Margo and I would alternately talk, then fall silent for a while, soaking in the afore-inadequately-described night and history that surrounded us. As we stood there alone, in one of those moments of silence, we heard a snuffling sound, and we turned towards the gate behind us, where a scraggly, limping little dog stepped through the gate. His tail wagged, and for a second, I recalled the zen koan that questioned whether the wind blew the flag, or the flag the wind. The mutt walked up and sat there before us, patiently and quietly, tail wagging happily but calmly, asking for nothing, in his friendly eyes, the warm cool depth of the night sky above, unmarred by the light.
We stood alone, the three of us, surrounded by hundreds of years of man’s monuments and institutionalization of the sacred, his attempts to reach God with stones and steeples. Inside, 30 yards away, insulated by the modern cathedral, hundreds, maybe thousands, waited to catch a glimpse of the image of the mother of God on a bit of cloth.
Margo and I looked at each other and laughed a little. We never talked about it, really, but at the time, we felt the same inexplicable, unexpected, unlikely flash of recognition. The city seemed to grow completely quiet, the thin and polluted air crisp and alive.
Where impatience held me from description earlier, now something else does, something bigger and undeniable, something I can still feel now, years later, but can come no closer to putting into words without trivializing it.
I still held the cup of crema and maiz, bought from a street vendor out of hungry desperation. I pulled the spoon out of the cup, tore the top half of it off, and set it in front of the dog.
And there, in a city of countless millions, amidst the devout and the hopeless, ourselves a bit of each, on worn stones that joined history to new religion, the wind blew gently, Margo held my hand, and God ate from a Styrofoam cup, my offering of crema y maiz gracefully and gratefully consumed. And we didn’t even have to stand in line.
Posted by Rob at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2004
it's hopeless... it's... karaoke... MADNESS
when i was four, i told my father, at the side and prompting of my soon-to-be stepfather, that i didn't want to spend the court-allotted time with him, and in fact, that i never wanted see him again. i may have been told some shit that was only partially true, i may have just said so because i was weak-minded, being, you know, four years old.
i told him this outside the handy-dan hardware store where my mother worked. i remember standing inside shortly thereafter, by the racks of small potted plants, watching the police outside restrain my father, who only wanted see his son, and who raged against words i hope he knew weren't mine. but it was the end, and with the exception of a call when i was 18, when i foolishly and unthinkingly rejected him, i did not see or hear from him again.
25 years later, i found my real father's address in myrtle beach (does anyone else know, or love so much, the line in the aimee mann song?), and i sent him a letter. soon thereafter, there was a voicemail waiting for me at my office. i played it for my beloved boss, robin, and she said, "well, that explains everything - you're half-korean, half-elvis."
i called him, talked to him for really the first time, and one of the first questions he asked was, "are you a musician?" my mother had been a successful singer in south korea, who only wanted to come to america to be a housewife. my father was and is a brilliant man with one of the greatest hearts and loves for music - the purity of music - that i have ever known. my father saw the love and the connection to music in me early on, and in the quarter decade afterwards, a large part of what he imagined and built up as his son was a musician.
the dream of my own identity was the same for me, but i failed that destiny. i lived in fear. i lived everyone's dreams for me but my own. i wanted to write music to save the world. instead, i became a lawyer. nothing could have been further from my heart, my soul, my love, my own destiny. but here i am, a lawyer.
but the love never died. i write, because it's the easiest to do. even to regain the feel and love and freedom of writing, though, i bought a korg triton Le keyboard earlier this year. playing music, improvising without boundary, cut me loose, opened the floodgates of emotion and creativity, and the writing followed.
given all of this, following all of this, tonight was another amazing night in the this transformational time i seem to be experiencing. some other floodgate has opened in my life, i think. yes, by the way, i am writing without capital letters, because i like the smooth, unbroken aesthetic, and because it is easier on my somewhat (entirely) drunken mind.
i came home tonight, carefully, safely. i'll take risks, but will not risk wiping out some family of five in a minivan. came home, checked my email, and there was a gift from the universe, maybe some perpetual karma, of a sort. there was no one to talk to this late, (2:41 AM, despite what goofy-assed blogger.com says), but when i got home, i found an email from a kind voice... a warm sound in my head right now (to steal from the zero 7 song playing). I picked up and hugged each of my cats - and, as i walked to the bathroom to pee, they checked each other out, sniffing, asking, "what the hell was all that about?"
where to start? the uninspiring beginning of course. tonight, dear friends brian and shannon, who, amazingly, were not home for the debate, invited me to a trivia contest at some place out near the north austin corporate apartment weirdness that is "Riata." it's where the dallas cowboys stay when they're in town, which is fine for professional athletes, but creepy for the average human.
as it turns out, no trivia night. and no beer, due to some weirdness with their lease. nice folks, though. so, we finished our meals and rolled to the canary hut (or "canary slut," as my y chromosome loves to contribute). it's a divey little strip-center bar that does the karaoke thing several nights a week.
i just wanted to drink - i had three beers before i reported to work late today, and for the three and a half hours i was there, i just wanted more. but i got to the bar, and with the coaxing of karaoke zealot and personal coach shannon, i put in a song - "wishing well," by terrence trent d'arby.
i shall be honest, for once, rather than self-effacing and self-deprecating. i kicked its ass. i heard comments all night. i sang the song unabashed, without restraint, with all the soul my mother and father gave me.
a girl, who had belted out a powerful rendition of laura brannigan's "gloria," asked me to duet with her. "endless love." turns out, i don't know that song so well. i hit it right at a few points, but much like edwards' superior skills and charisma carrying kerry, she had to carry me.
more beer, more harp. still buoyed my by earlier success, i succombed to shannon and brian's prodding to go dance with jolie, who was one of the better performers of the night. i did stuff i never thought i could do on the dance floor, in the freedom of beer and confidence, and had a great time.
i still, however, needed a chance to redeem myself. the bartender, sheena, was extremely sweet (and ready to cut me off). the karaoke gods granted one last song, and, though hoarse from shouting encouragement to my friends and other singers, i took the stage and dedicated the song, in my best elvis impersonation, to sheena. i sang "i'm just a girl," in best gwen stefani attitude, and was able to force a performance through a tired and and raspy voice.
yeah, i know - beer, karaoke, and ego. a volatile and delusional combination. but what a feeling: to let go, to let your voice come out, unafraid, what is you, actively seeking other ears. i'll take my joy where i find it: my time with my friends; basketball with my beloved teams; emails from people i've never met but already, strangely, respect and love; and in singing, finding my voice, if only for the time and space of a single song.
these things are all i really want. but i want and need to be able to carry the feeling with me through the job, through the dull and unsure and hopeless times. i want to feel the crowd respond to me on a regular basis, to know that i'm being heard, that somehow, i leave something behind, so that i mean something, so that i'm not alone, so this life means something.
forgive me. i'm still drunk. but, ugly or no, i am as you see or hear me now. and now, at 3:12 in the morning, i offer no apology. i just thank you for listening...
yeah, i'll go to bed on that... good night...
Posted by Rob at 03:28 AM | Comments (0)
October 05, 2004
2 c, with thanks
OK, first off, the much-asked for color change. Apparently, my blog was making people's heads hurt, and not in the ways I intended. I anticipate that soon, I'll get emails saying, "You know, never mind... I don't think the white text on the black background was really the problem. Please, just, you know, stop. Really."
But no one gets off that easy. In fact, it'll get worse - work on the website is progressing, though I'm having a horrible time coming up with a domain name. Observations of the Unsane sort of captures the essence of what I'm doing, but observationsoftheunsane.com is a little unwieldy. Earl.com is already taken, and there's no way in hell I'm paying someone for the middle name I spent so long denying. A couple of friends call me Robbizzle, but that'll be a dated reference in, oh, another several hours or so.
So if anyone has any ideas... shoot me an email at robmo91@hotmail.com
I'm spending a remarkable three hours at work today. I mean, I'm doing nothing remarkable with the three hours, but it's remarkable that I showed up at all. I was feeling a bit not-right this morning. My dual dueling cats were asleep on their respective sides of the protective wall I provide in the bed, and seemed OK with the idea of not getting up anytime this week, so I called in, and slept in.
I eventually had to get up to make my lunch date with Chandra. Chandra, to bring you up to speed, was my last Big Relationship. We broke things off a couple of years ago, and have maintained some contact, though she's since married. Today, we were swapping some stuff of each other's that we still had, and she was bringing me a copy of some web design software.
I sat at the bar and had a beer while I waited, with a Banana Republic bag full of her stuff on the stool next to me. She came walking in, radiant as ever, with an exactly identical Banana Republic bag. We both briefly pondered not saying a word, sitting next to each other at the bar, and then walking away with the other bag, but we had a lot of catching up to do.
It was cool seeing her and talking to her. Of all things she ever was to me, she was an uncompromising supporter of my writing, and she spent a lot of our time together today on praise and encouragement... which, of course, I mostly allowed.
I have nothing eloquent or substantial to say about it - it was simply very good to talk to her, about where we both are now. We both conceded some things about the past, and we both paid respect to the good things. It's good to be here, two people that meant so much to each other, now separate but OK, with no open wounds.
Posted by Rob at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2004
tower three to flight zero
Welcome from Tower Three, exactly an hour to midnight, Saturday night.
I'm here in my office, eight floor, Tower three of the the Hobby complex, at 4th and Guadalupe. No, one else, of course, is here. The hall lights apparently stay on perpetually. My office light is off, and here I am, alone, high above, but in the middle of all the action in the warehouse district.
If I close my door to shut out the hall lights, it's momentarily creepy, but the windows behind me become a wall of stars and light. The parking garage glows slightly amber from its low-wattage lighting like a giant candelaria, and from a distance, you forget how it stinks of exhaust fumes and urine and guano, and it just looks warm and beautiful. Cars move up and down mopac in the distance like light rippling on a stream. The water tower is lit just enough to be a moon, hanging low, waxing gibbous, exerting no tidal forces on anyone, a moon ignored.
More music from the Garden State soundtrack - and it says, everything looks perfect from far away...
Just went to the 7:00 showing of Mr. Sinus at the downtown Alamo Drafthouse. It was great, but regretably, I am not at liberty to share with you all the details of the evening. Suffice it to say that we saw... Mac and Me, as performed by three people I've never seen before. I saw it with three people I have seen before, Amanda, Morgan, and Lori.
My moratorium on further beer drinking expired at about 7:05, shortly after the movie began. Lori poured on the pressure, asking "Beer?" once, shortly, and simply. It was all it took. Many beers later, Morgan, Amanda, and Lori gone, and I'm back in all-too familiar territory. I was headed to Fado's for a lager and lime, then maybe Halcion for the sobering-up prior to the drive home. Thought I'd detour here to check email and tell you all about the view from my office.
Lori and I sat outside the theatre after the show, and talked a lot. She brought up a friend that was bipolar, and I discovered that no, I had not shared with her yet that I am, too. We talked about that struggle, between the science and the doubt. I take Advil for the post-game aches and bruises, glucosamine and chondroiton for the pain in my knees. But those drugs address something real, objective, and definable. The drugs I've been prescribed, have taken in the past, and am on a self-appointed hiatus from address something diagnosed solely from the admittedly remarkable and textbook symptoms I report. On top of that, they, unlike other medications, come with side effects, downsides I find it difficult to live with.
And then we talked about the big issue, the one that has always recurred for me - where is the line between personality and disorder? When I am in manic mode, I am at my best - everything my mind is capable of comes alive. I'm actually funny, and brilliant, and yeah, happy. Giving that up for the hollow promise of stability is not a cool and easy choice.
I'd like to interject at this point that another nugget on the Garden State soundtrack is "The Only Living Boy In New York," which may be my favorite Simon and Garfunkel song now...
Anyway, here I am. Where am I on the swing? Manic? Depressed? It feels like both, thanks to the beer. That's been the magic of the beer - it takes the anxiety and the panic and the freak-out away, leaves me more in touch with the core of what I'm feeling, and with the ability to let go and write, which, in turn makes me feel more alive, more useful, than I do the rest of the time.
Lori is a gift to me. It's been a process getting through my fears and doubts, but when we do, she understands so much of what I feel and say. I wouldn't, couldn't trade that for anything, especially now.
A thought that came out of our conversation: "You can no more force the universe to unfold as it should than you can force an acorn to grow into an oak."
Colin Hay, yes, the lead singer from Men At Work, is singing now... a good note to end on. I'm going to stop peppering his words with the sound of keystrokes, and I'm just going to turn around and look out at the world. If anyone's out there is actually getting this, these transmissions from the event horizon, leave me a comment... I feel like all I hear is the echo...
Posted by Rob at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)