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August 25, 2005
hmph
well, crap, y'all.
i've actually done a substantial amount of writing tonight. two or three things started.
but, um... nothing finished.
please come back...
i mean... if... is anyone still out there?
holla. validate me.
Posted by Rob at 11:26 PM | Comments (4)
August 24, 2005
the beautiful ones
\kkk (lee pushed those buttons and said, "look, you're a racist." this bears no relation to this post.)
so, i just went to see "the 40 year-old virgin" with my friend laurel. laurel plays on the women's basketball team i coach, and on our coed team. and laurel, you see, is also my secret love. well, one of my secret loves.
well, secret to everyone except the large number of people i've told about her.
not even she knows this. she speaks glowingly of my writing, but we'll see if she still visits the blog. i'm not afraid of her seeing it. i think she understands, and i think she'll get the weird sort of joke, and i think, i hope, that she'll laugh.
i've described to several people one of the hottest, most inspiring things i've ever seen a woman do - and i am surrounded by impressive, inspiring women. it was in a basketball game. laurel had already been incredible, like a woman possessed, rebounding in heavy traffic, flying in from nowhere to grab missed shots.
there was this one, just slightly errant shot, and the ball rebounded flat off the back of the rim, straight back but high, out towards the free throw line. from nowhere, she appeared, all six feet (plus?) of her, streaking in, leaping, moving so quickly that the she overshot the ball slightly. she reached up, her fully-extended body arced back impossibly, gracefully and powerfully, and she caught the ball a good two feet behind her head.
the teenage boys at the scorer's table rocked back in their chair and hollered in respect. she looked like a beautiful, snarling kevin garnett rushing through the air towards the basket, the ball captured and wielded like a weapon, and for a split second, anyone watching believed she was going to throw the ball down with two hands.
it was a supreme moment of passion. confidence. drive. ability. focus.
i was visibly shaken.
yeah, she's hot. yes, she plays ball. yes, we'd have beautiful, basketball-playing children. more importantly, she's got a great heart, she's funny, and she's sharp, focused.
but no, it ain't happening. the overlap between our worlds is a great place to be, but we do exist in different spaces.
those distances, those impossibilities in life and love have always frustrated me, made me sad. but lately, real-world dating has been even worse.
do you really think,
that love is gonna save the world?
well i don't think so.
well do you really think,
that love is gonna save your soul?
well i sure hope so,
oh yes, i really, really hope so...
i don't think so...
- the cardigans, "do you believe?"
so, the movie was funnier than i expected. as big a fan of the daily show as i am, i was always a bit lukewarm on steve carell. hell, i'm still not clear on how to spell his name.
but it was freakin' funny. offbeat, but not so over-the-top that it was just an exercise in absurdity. more "nuance" than you might expect, or than dick cheney might like.
but in all the wackiness, there was still something about love, and it was not lost in trying to push the comedic envelope with either characters or situations. a lot of people seem to be so pretentious that they scoff at these kind of stories, because if they speak to us on some simple, fundamental level rather than on some lofty, attenuated intellectual level, well, then it must... suck.
except they'd use bigger words.
to speak to them, i'd argue that the film portrayed a relatively new, yet systematically recurring archetype in the human experience - that of a simpler love that is driven by imagination, happenstance, a sort of harmonic convergence, outweighing the old paradigms of crass biology, or dogmatic, traditionalist loyalism.
more simply, the movie had a heart. i always feel that i'm plagiarising somebody when i say that funny is easy, comedy is hard. comics like carrill are under a lot of pressure not to go all john hughes and temper their wit with sensitivity. but the movie overcame that hardcore comedic taboo - it was not ashamed to be a little sappy, to give us a glimpse of what so many of us really want - a love that is a fairytale. love at first sight, the vision enduring. love that immediately turns our head and heart, love for which we're willing to overcome some part of ourselves to make happen.
that's not what i've found lately. my friends ask if i'm excited about a date, or how a date went, and there's a pause. the response is so often lukewarm. "ok," "nice" just aren't adjectives used in love stories.
don't make me waste my time,
don't make me lose my mind...
paint a perfect picture
bring to life,
a vision in one's mind,
the beautiful ones
always smash the picture,
always,
every time.
- prince, "the beautiful ones"
i want the fairytale. i do. i always have. it is sappy, it's "pretty woman," it's julia roberts with frizzy hair, and richard gere before he thought he was the single focal point for the world's positive energy. and hamsters or gerbils or whatever. it's winona rider before she tried to steal shit, and johnny depp with goth makeup and latex and scissored hands, slicing madly through the ice to make sculpture of his love, sending whirlwinds of snow to the town below.
watching the movie tonight, i remembered what it was to want that, to want the fairytale. for so long, though, i've gone about it backwards - i've painted perfect pictures, visions in my mind, and tried to bring them to life with people that were really just available, or worse, that possessed something i mistook for beauty. those pictures, mostly false visions to begin with, do invariably end up smashed.
more and more, though, it's still about the beautiful ones, though now, i am no longer so easily swayed by face and skin and eyes and legs. my head turns, i see, i watch, but the beautiful ones today for me possess something more, imagined or real, and it seemingly strikes me the moment the reflected light strikes my eye.
laurel, for example, possesses those things. and tonight, it was comforting to sit beside her, close and a little far, in the comfort and stability of my own understanding and acceptance of what is and is not.
now i sit at the coffeehouse. it's pretty much cleared out now, but she - julie - is here again, just over there, her back to me again, big headphones, working away at midnight designing websites, the little virtual touchstones for other people at other coffeeshops. she smiles and says hi when she sees me. she's one of the beautiful ones, but maybe for reasons only imagined, though i think they're reasons sensed, divined, picked from the air between us. and, she still won't turn.
and in california now, it's time for the evening news, not so late as here. the kids are in bed, or should be. maybe she, one of the ones i actually knew and was so sure about, reads; maybe she washes dishes, maybe she watches t.v., maybe she makes love. so far away, so many miles and years and lives away.
these are people i know or think, or imagine are special enough to help create something, not just fill in a blank. and now, today, tonight, i don't have to have them, be with them, have their love anymore - they just have to be there. we can be friends, or we can be lovers, or we can never speak. it doesn't matter. now, in my life, the wanting, the quality of that, finally, matters more than the absence of it hurts.
i'm drunk again, but i'm not sad tonight. i just am. i look at julie across the coffeehouse floor, her headphones on, her back to me, and that's ok. laurel has a life i don't know and am not a part of, and that's ok. mary's so far away from me, in so many ways. and of course, there's palomita's heart, so close to me now, an extraordinary thing i could only hope and pray to find again.
there's all of them, there's so much, there's a universe of stars that i will never travel to, and there's so many things i might never see or touch, and so many people that i will never know as well as i might wish, but the fact that i want to, that i appreciate that it doesn't come so easily, that i know what is and what will never be, and what is possible - that's what matters, that's what means something in this little life of mine.
i'm not chasing ghosts anymore, not chasing ideas. i just know the dream, because i've dreamt it so many times, lived it a few, and believe it could happen again. and that, finally, i hope, is enough.
baby baby baby, listen to me
i may not know where i'm goin' baby,
well, i said, i may not know what i need,
but one thing, one thing's for certain, baby -
i know what i want, yeah,
and if it please you baby, please you baby,
i beg you down on my knees,
i want you...
yeah, i want you...
Posted by Rob at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2005
rob's pubic reading
so, what is this site about, if not whining, preaching, and a mix of blatant and subversive, subliminal self-promotion? well, here's some of the blatant variety.
next tuesday, i get to ride the last bit of my 15 seconds of fame from my one published ouevre. i'll be part of an evening at the zachary scott theatre doing my best david sedaris impression as i read my autobiodegradable essay about growing up in austin. it's a mediocre piece, at best, but it does contain one of the worst, most awkward metaphors in written history, involving a condor, some lottery tickets, and schlitz.
it's free, but i don't anticipate there being beer, so i really don't recommend that anyone show up unless they're trying to get on my good side. of course, i'm broke as my jokes, so there's not much point in that, either...
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/news/mbc_nr20050816.htm
Posted by Rob at 04:03 PM | Comments (1)
August 19, 2005
worst terrorist attack ever
i just saw the report about the al-qaida attack on two u.s. warships in jordan. three missiles were fired. all missed.
now, i'm happy they missed. i wish they hadn't cost the one life that they did. nonetheless, i have to shake my head and say this might indeed be the lousiest terrorist attack ever.
one missile hit a jordanian warehouse, leaving an eight-foot hole in the roof and, all joking aside, killed a jordanian soldier. jordan will clearly not be amused.
another "landed" near a jordanian hospital.
the third hit a taxi driven by 40 year-old cabbie Meir Farhan, who escaped with minor injuries. actually, even that overstates things a bit. farhan described the missile attack: "I didn't realize what it was, (but) when I went out of the car I saw a hole in the ground on the asphalt."
maybe i'm jaded by too many bruckheimer/michael bay/governor schwarzenegger films, but i'm pretty sure missiles should blow shit up, or else yougot ripped off and should get your money back. these guys not only failed to hit two pretty large targets with three shots, but one of their missiles "landed," one knocked a hole in a roof, and the other startled the driver of the taxi it hit.
news reports show pictures of people gawking at a "crater" left by the taxi-denting missile. yeah. not so much a "crater." i've left bigger divots when i briefly tried golf.
the al-qaida, for some reason, actually took credit for this. me, i would've just pretended it never happened, and seriously demoted the four guys that jacked things up.
but al-qaida, i guess already having blown the money, and apparently having planned this whole gig for months, decided to try to spin the attack, declaring, "A group of our holy warriors ... targeted a gathering of American military ships docking in Aqaba port and also in Eilat port with three Katyusha rockets and the warriors returned safe to their headquarters."
wow. basically, "so, four of our guys fired three missiles at two big-assed ships. they, uhh... well, they missed them. completely. but on the upside, the guys got home safe, even in rush hour traffic."
i also have to wonder how they decided who got to fire the missiles, and who got stuck as either the spotter or the guy watching the door. if it's me, i'm wanting to shoot the missiles. i mean, i know it's a very serious, a jihad and all that, but come on, firing a missile has got to be a kick, right?
maybe there's a seniority system, where you have to rack up some experience with, you know, blowing up a certain number of children with car bombs before you can step up to the fun missile-shootin'.
more than likely, the fourth guy's input for the entire event was probably, "doh!... ahh... ahh... no. crap. damn, you guys suck. my grandmother could shoot better with her burkah on. i mean, seriously."
Posted by Rob at 03:02 PM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2005
minimalist asian-translation-mocking entry of the day
i'm eating noodles. they came with chopsticks. the chopstick package reads:
Welcome to Chinese restaurant. Please try your nice Chinese Food with Chopslicks the traditional and typicai of Chinese glorious history. and cufture.
Posted by Rob at 03:27 PM | Comments (2)
August 16, 2005
truer than true
there are few things as powerful as war to expose how much humanity an individual or an entire society is willing to give up to survive, or just to win. sadly it's not the only thing that demonstrates that.
one of the things bugging me the most is our seemingly increasing willingness as a society to compromise or completely abandon truth, rationalizing it as necessary in whatever struggle we're engaged in.
while there are certainly plenty of examples of this to single out, the morass du jour is focused on crawford, texas, at cindy sheehan's vigil outside bush's ranch.
sadly, i lack the omniscience and clairovyance of the pundits and mass media outlets. i don't know for sure whether ms. sheehan, who arrived in crawford on a bus with a sign saying "the impeachment tour," is just a political pawn or a skillful manipulator. i certainly do not question the depth and genuineness of her grief, and her anger, and no one should. i don't know whether the distortions and half-truths begin with her, or if they're created down the line. i suspect it's the latter.
the story has raised the usual firestorm of information, misinformation, and disinformation that we've all come to largely ignore. i'm sure there's a lot of accurate accounts out there, but i don't think my own experience with the story is unusual.
on august 10, i got an email moveon.org sent to its membership titled "Mom vs. Bush: Sign onto our ad." it briefly gave the background of the death of ms. sheehan's son in iraq, and about her vigil.
what it fails to mention, like many of the early stories i saw about this, is that the president already met with ms. sheehan. she was a member of one of many bereaved families bush has met with.
this certainly doesn't invalidate her protest of the war. but it weakens the credibility of a situation that is being cast as president refuses to meet with mother of fallen soldier.
one thing i've always loved about moveon.org is that it always offers citations to support its assertions. maybe i should have been paying more attention all along.
this particular email only contained a link to make a contribution, a link to a petition stating "I support Cindy Sheehan's vigil for a meeting with President Bush so he can tell her why her son died in Iraq," a link to a very moving video testimonial by ms. sheehan, and a link to an article - no, wait, i'm sorry, an editorial - in the new york times. in the name of credibility and fairness, i grudgingly paid my $3.95 to view the editorial, and sure enough, it was straight-up about the fact that she and the president had already met:
Ms. Sheehan's 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in Baghdad. She says she and her family met privately with Mr. Bush two months later, and she is sharply critical of how the president acted. He did not know her son's name, she says, acted as if the meeting was a party and called her ''Mom'' throughout, which she considered disrespectful.
wow. so she already met with bush. ok. that throws a wrench into things. but wait, that reveals not only that she met with him, but that apparently, he was an uncaring ass about it. clearly stated, irrefutable proof that he doesn't care! aha! now we're getting somewhere! again.
except we're not.
good friend heather, who truly fights a valiant struggle to seek the truth despite her adamant beliefs, sent me a link to a report by mediamatters.org, what seems to be a credible and responsible watchdog group that has the self-admitted mission of debunking conservative spin.
the report looks at allegations made by the drudge report that ms. sheehan changed her account of her meeting with bush. those allegations have been passed around the conservative bloggers, which, of course, was good enough for fox news to report as actual "hard news."
according to drudge, ms. sheehan first told the vacaville reporter positive things last year about her meeting with the president, but later changed her story when in a cnn interview this year. mediamatters.org attempts to show there was no such turnaround. here's the progression of their argument:
1. they accurately report drudge's accurate quoting of what is presumed to be the reporter's accurate quoting of ms. sheehan, when she said "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis... I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith."
2. however, they also accurately report drudge's accurate quoting of what is presumed to be the reporter's accurate quoting of ms. sheehan, when she said "That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together."
3. they claim that drudge failed to quote her misgivings about the war. tru dat.
4. they also claim that he took her second, about the president's gift to them, out of context, saying,
She was actually referring to the trip to Seattle, as Reporter staff writer Tom Hall noted in an August 9 article responding to Drudge: "Sheehan also said the trip to Seattle helped connect her family to others that had lost a son or daughter in Iraq. Sheehan said sharing their story with those families was rewarding, as was the time she got to spend with her own family. 'That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together,' she said in the story. Drudge included that quote in his Monday morning report, but didn't explain that it referred to sharing time with her family, not the president."
despite so many layers of quotes that i no longer know what to do with quotation marks, they never contradict her first quote that said positive things about the president. the debunking of the debunking is... debunked.
what began with the president and cindy sheehan has given birth to a web of lies, distortions, and evasive truthtelling. drudge, mediamatters.org, fox, the new york times, moveon.org - the voices that conservatives and liberals each look to, are, well, full of it.
somewhere in there, cindy sheehan, her son, and her family, and even the president, are lost. most importantly, the truth is lost, replaced by fuel that we all are soaking in to continue a fire that is capable, is already, destroying everything that matters about this country and humanity itself.
incidentally, i feel cheated by the new york times. i paid $3.95 for half-truths and apparently, lies. hell, i can watch fox news for free if i want that. can i sue under the deceptive trade practices act and get $11.85 back in treble damages?
we hate what bill clinton has called one of the greatest spin machines ever, but like one team that's consistently beaten by a clearly superior team, we enviously admire the skill. the danger is in aspiring to be so good at a wicked game, seeking to match and exceed what we despise - trying to fight fire with fire, it's too easy to fight lies with more lies.
it is all making truth increasingly pliable. fact are made almost completely flexible, even before they can be analyzed by their recipient.
even ideologies born out of a desire for truth, equity, and compassion, take on a momentum and life of their own that the armies, the rhetoric, and movements spawned
and we all buy it out of arrogance and cowardice. we come by our beliefs in so many ways - through tradition, upbringing, study, thought, experience, faith and belief, conviction, desperation, altruism, self-interest.
regardless of how we come to our beliefs, we want ownership of our position as if it were territory, and we defend it vehemently against trespass of any kind. we pick a side, and soon, we're hating the visiting team, booing any call, right or wrong, that the referees might make against our side.
our fears of losing, of change, of being wrong, of giving up any ground in our ideological battles, too easily become more powerful than our commitment to fairness, truth and compassion.
we demonize people, because then it's easier to hate them and justify our own behavior. there is a right and wrong, and there are certainly extremists on either side of an issue who are just wrong, but it's easier to lump an entire side all together. liberals, conservatives, black, white, pro-life, pro-choice.
talking about this issue has already irked a lot of my friends, because clearly, if i question our methods, then i'm not down with the cause. kinda like the conservatives saying that if you question the war or the president, then you don't care about our troops or our country. oh, wait, the difference is those guys are wrong, right?
i'm not trying to preach some sort of moral relativism, here. i feel the same way about moral relativism that frank booth felt about heineken. there is a right and wrong. if you know me, then you what i believe to be the truth about this war and this administration. but that isn't what matters here. this is about fighting the right way. this is about truth and integrity in the way we act, report the news, debate, make change, and yes, fight when we have to fight.
this war will end. these political parties will someday cease to be. some questions will continue to be argued. power will change hands countless times here and abroad. i'm less interested in what country or party comes out on top than i am in whether our best values will survive those changes.
i don't just want to be on the side that wins or defeats evil, if it does so with tactics that are no better. i don't want to defeat hatred and tolerance with hatred and intolerance. such victories would be meaningless and shortlived, and the victors would hold no moral superiority. they would not deserve to be recognized as vanguards of truth or justice or humanity, but merely as another in a chain of sad failures, where we each and collectively chose weakness, arrogance, and cowardice over truth, fairness, compassion, and over humanity itself.
the august 10 moveon.org email -
Dear MoveOn member,
On April 4th last year, 24-year-old Army Specialist Casey Sheehan died in Iraq. This week, while President Bush vacations in Texas, Casey's mother, Cindy Sheehan, sits vigil outside the president's ranch. Cindy says that she won't leave until President Bush meets with her to discuss the war—even if it means spending all of August there.
Cindy Sheehan was not an anti-war activist, but the loss of her son and the mounting evidence of deception by the Bush administration pushed her to speak out. While Cindy camps roadside in Texas, dozens of other military moms are flying to Texas to join her. Her story is starting to grab national attention, but Cindy needs our support. We're asking moms (and dads, siblings, spouses and kids) from all across America to help send a message by signing our letter of support to Cindy. Will you sign?
http://political.moveon.org/meetwithcindy/?id=5886-3559603-BakDmlFEVXRxJPlIWJj6cg&t=3
To add to the pressure on President Bush, we'll publish the number of signers and the best comments in a full two-page spread in the newspaper nearest to Crawford. We want to be able to print that at least 200,000 people signed the letter to Cindy before the Friday print deadline.
Cindy simply wants to meet with the president to ask him to tell the truth about why her son died—and to stop using Casey's and other soldiers' deaths to justify continuing the war. But Cindy's reflections on the war are also a reminder to all of us about the importance of getting involved:
I shamefully and regretfully admit that before Casey was killed in Iraq I didn't publicly speak out against the war. I didn't shout out and say, "Stop. Stop this insane rush to an invasion that has no basis in reality. Don't invade a country based on cherry-picked intelligence and despicable scare tactics. You don't use our country's precious lifeblood unless its absolutely necessary to defend America." If I had broken the bonds of my slavery to silence sooner, would Casey still be alive? I don't know.
Cindy's story is starting to grab national and international attention, creating a public relations problem for the White House. If we can help Cindy capture the focus of the country for even a couple of days we will sear into the memory of the public the image of the grieving mother—a morally pure reminder of the ultimate reason to end the war: the lost sons and daughters of moms everywhere.
Cindy has appeared on ABC, CNN, and FOX, and yesterday the lead editorial in The New York Times entitled "One Mother in Crawford" noted that "many Americans are with her, at least figuratively, at that dusty roadside in Crawford, expecting better answers." With the White House press corps camped just a short distance away at Bush's ranch, our newspaper ad will help prod them to pay attention to her.
The more of us who sign on, the more impact we'll have. Please sign on now at:
http://political.moveon.org/meetwithcindy/?id=5886-3559603-BakDmlFEVXRxJPlIWJj6cg&t=4
In her grief and bravery, Cindy has become a symbol for millions of Americans who demand better answers about the Iraq war. Though right-wing pundits have attacked her personally, her honesty is unimpeachable. Now more and more mothers (and fathers, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, sons and daughters) are standing up with Cindy. Please join us, and together, we'll make sure that President Bush can't escape the reality of this war—even in Crawford, Texas.
Thanks for all you do.
–Tom, MoveOn moms Carrie, Marika, and Joan, and the entire MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Wednesday, August 10th, 2005
P.S. Help defray the cost of the print ads in Waco by making a contribution.
https://political.moveon.org/donate/meetwithcindy.html?id=5886-3559603-BakDmlFEVXRxJPlIWJj6cg&t=5
"One Mother in Crawford" Editorial, The New York Times, August 9, 2005.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/opinion/09tue1.html
Video Testimonial by Cindy Sheehan from our friends at TrueMajority.
http://www.truemajority.org/GoldStar_web.mov
P.P.S. After you add your name to the letter to Cindy the next most important thing you can do is to tell Cindy's story to other people. Please let your friends, family and colleagues know about one mother's brave stand in Texas by forwarding this e-mail.
Posted by Rob at 01:10 PM | Comments (6)
August 14, 2005
gaps
i'm not so clear about what's been going on the past few weeks, with me, i mean. i've been busy, sure. but there's been some sort of deadness, in which time is lost, and i barely have a recollection of what's happened. i've been happy, i've been not happy. but it's not so much marked by that as just a sort of dullness, as evidenced by the lack of writing.
i've had more moments of the manic brilliance i think i once enjoyed, and i'm always wanting to capture it and get it all down, but it tends to happen talking to people, when i can't stop and chronicle it. when i get back to the computer, i have nothing - a vague memory of having lots to say, but no recollection of the specifics.
i'm trying to work harder at my job, even though i care less than i ever have, and feel increasingly marginalized. i'm still trying to mow through the outside work, and i think the end is in sight.
i've had a hard time caring about running or working out, though i did get out to play ball this week, and today i got back on the bike for the first time in forever, not to get to work, but just to ride.
this is a pointless entry. i'm going to stop now. i'm going to sit here in the dark with the music and try to write something worthwhile.
you'll be able to tell, obviously, how that goes.
Posted by Rob at 09:25 PM | Comments (0)
August 09, 2005
hold it...
i hate stinky cheeses. at central market and whole foods, i occasionally find that i've lost focus and wandered into the stinky cheese area, which smells like the feet of a thousand madmen who days ago stepped in some vomit, which has since dried and become encrusted with bits of dead pigeons that have baked on hot sidewalks. usually, though, i think ahead, and plan carefully to cut a wide path around the cheese area, or i pretend i'm a hero swimming under the flaming oil-slick surface in one of them there picture shows, and see how long i can hold my breath, slicing boldly through the cheese section like a hot knife through, well, cheese.
i do that in elevators, too, mostly out of a distrust of what people have been doing in there before i got on. most of the time, i do it alone or as soon as someone exits the elevator, pretending that the small cabin has been infused with some noxious substance, like sarin nerve gas, anthrax, or britney spears' line of perfume.
sometimes, though, i try to hold my breath secretly when there are people on the elevator, which adds the pressure of trying to look calm and natural. if they say something or ask me a question, my options are to just smile and nod, or answer while trying to hold my breath in, which makes me sound like donald duck after a bong hit. sometimes, i write my response on a small blackboard, like lloyd bridges used to do in seaquest.
when i get to my floor and the doors open, air finally bursts from my lungs, and i emerge, red-faced, ready to single-handedly take out enemy defenses, armed only with my building pass and car keys. i don't know what i'll do if i ever work in a taller building.
Posted by Rob at 09:26 AM | Comments (1)
August 08, 2005
yo
ok, i know this space has been sparse lately. it's temporary - i'm trying to get some stuff caught up and outta my life. changes are afoot. ok, the efforts to bring about changes are afoot. or afeet. effete? i don't know.
stand by.
Posted by Rob at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2005
morning
hmm.
hmph.
there's a glare this morning coming off of everything, and there's some sort of whirring noise in my head. my stomach is not quite right, and i feel a setback from my efforts to diet and exercise.
looking back at last night, and at what i wrote, i have mixed feelings.
last night, the first couple of beers eased me more comfortably into the world around me. the third, and the actor playing me took a break, and it was just me.
the fourth, and i played pool as if trying to tightrope along a border, swaying into the sort of relaxed but focused confidence in which i make shots, misstepping over into the realm where i can't seem to make desire, intent, and action connect.
another beer, i think just one, sipped slowly, finally, at the bar, writing. even as it happened, i saw soberly what i'm increasingly recognizing as the almost inevitable slide into despair that seems to be accompanying alcohol lately.
things become clear. my mind actually comes alive, and i usually remember more detail from when i'm drinking than i can when i'm sober. and i think, and weigh, and assess, and i see the trends in my life, and i don't like what i see.
even sober, in the slightly painful flourescent lights in my office, i believe that the alcohol does bring a sort of clarity to things. but, it's clarity without perspective, without hope or the will to change what i see.
and those are limits i can't afford to have right now.
Posted by Rob at 09:13 AM | Comments (1)
August 02, 2005
great expectations, wrong.
it's all progressed.
it's like i'm rising, drawing back ever farther from my own life, seeing it in better perspective, seeing the patterns more clearly now, like seeing the patchwork of fields more clearly from the window of your jetliner.
all my life, i believed in the promise of greatness, in my own destiny. astronaut, writer, singer, pro cyclist. poor vision, lack of initiative, lack of courage, lack of support and self-generated motivation, respectively.
failure.
and now, at 36, so much is still possible, but so much is not. the promise of greatness is mostly gone. the belief i held for so much of my life, in myself, in what place i would hold in the world, is gone. i'm a lawyer, unhappy, alone, with debt and the dread of tomorrow.
and that's all.
this is it.
it's now for me to accept mediocrity, to embrace failure, a quiet life and death.
how short a thing life is. how easily wasted. it amazes me how we undervalue it, whether we're sending others off to die, or sending ourselves in the future to live for nothing and die for less.
sit. drink. write. send. wait. wait. wait. end.
Posted by Rob at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
i'm back (maybe)...
...and i'm screaming and shouting.
for over a week, i was "good," not drinking a drop. i sat at the bar at halcyon, waiting for what i thought i wanted, the beer, the liquor lined up before me, not drinking any of it.
and i didn't write. i didn't feel. i didn't feel anything, good or bad, and so, i didn't write. i waited, and it didn't come, the things i wanted, she didn't show. i learned, as if with an insect brain, pared down to just stimulus and response, i learned, i habituated, finally, to the cause and effect of it all.
sunday night, i drank, i crashed to earth, and i was not, as i had once hoped, able to "reach out to touch the cool, comforting familiarity of the earth before it crushed the life out of him."
out of me.
all night long, i would look at the bottles of lone star, and i would see the same vision, attractive in some way, of smashing them against my face, happy with whichever might shatter and do the cutting, happy with whichever might do the bleeding.
i've been doing things wrong for so long. once again, i went back to that day in sixth grade, in mr. wink's english class (mr. wink, who, with his one glass eye, unwittingly taught us irony). once again, it was paul, kanton, and blake, asking why i used such big words.
i stopped that day, dumbed it all down, all about acceptance, all about being the follower, though even for all that, i was never one of them until they grew to appreciate who i really was, beneath all the effort.
and lately, again, playing obesiance,stifling, stomping myself out for the sake of acceptance. the other night, the point guard on the women's team laid it out, in response to my question, that yeah, i was too soft, that i didn't lead so much as i asked and deferred.
i coached them to a one and seven season. one game, won by their effort and discipline, did not win me the respect i always seek.
i've lost my way, again. how many times, now? now, i've made the world what i made of mary - i try so hard for its love that i lose myself, and there is nothing left of me to love, or even like.
so much of it is a function of time and experience - this failure, this pain, is wht i've learned, despite my lifelong best efforts to be better, to be worthwhile.
where am i... the beer is not a bad thing. it is only if being unhappy is the ill that afflicts me. but insofar as being unhappy is the result of seeing the truth, then maybe the alcohol is the lens through which i actually see things clearer, truer, with no excuses, no hope without the support of belief and faith.
i don't know where i am. i've dug myself out of the hole i was in. i'm okay, i'm building, digging up towards the surface. but if i stop to look around me, it's not so good, so i avoid that.
the fear is wondering if i'm tunneling through time, rushing blindly onward like a lemming, for no good reason, no reward, no victory, moral or otherwise.
there's more, a lot more. i'm gonna split it up. maybe this is the death throes of this blog thing, maybe it's a new beginning, the nova that sheds the gasses and material that will one day coalesce and spin and accrete into a new solar system, a new chance at the nearly impossible progression of events and variables that will give rise to life, life that will not destroy itself.
Posted by Rob at 09:09 PM | Comments (0)