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April 12, 2006
crash and burn
maybe - no, not maybe - there is there's something beautiful in the crash and burn. there's a sort of truth and release in the staccato clamor and shriek of metal being strained and rent, interrupting the smooth predictability of the beat and rhythm of life.
and there's the flames, blue to orange to the invisible burn of exotic fluids. light and heat, and flash and flicker, shifting shadows by the second, shifting perspective and glow.
we talked about it all, tonight, my friend amber and i. we had played pool as we often do. and as i often do, i played well, then lost. repeatedly. she's a slightly superior player, but not enough to explain the won-lost record. i can be up five balls, then lose on a bizarre eight-ball scratch. or, i scratch on a break. there was a certain unfailing, inescapable sense of inevitablility to it all that transcended mere ability or even psychology.
i'm a little on edge lately. i tried to hold on to it all - she had never seen that side of me. but she saw it a little. and i knew, again, that it's one of the reasons i don't deserve the relationship i crave. that ugly side of me, the angry side, the side that's done things i can't admit to, things i can't ever, ever live down.
we talked about it when i finally won a game, and stopped pumping quarters in to the pool table. amber wanted a cigarette. the upside of my obsession with winning tonight was that it delayed her smoking for much longer than normal.
i told her that i'm ashamed of that side of me. it breaks things, i hurt things, i hurt myself. the only saving grace is that i've never hurt a human being i've cared about. but the line is just short of that, i'm afraid.
at the same time, sometimes i actually wish people could see that side of me. people have always seen me as a pussy, a pushover, without confidence - weak. Weak. Weak. Weak.
when the other part takes over, it's a failure of control, another sort of weakness. i know that. but at the same time, the person i become is part of who i am. i'm a force. i'm strong. i will not stop. i do not fear.
but it's not enough, and not a good thing. it's most often triggered, ironically, by knowledge of my own weakness.
i've come so far, but i can't get past needing to prove what i'm worth. i won't get past it - thinking i've gotten there seems like a cop-out, a failure in itself. i was told for too long that i was less, that i was a failure. you learn to demand more of yourself than anyone else will, so that no one can hurt you more than you can hurt yourself.
so i play basketball. i give it my all, hate myself for failing, contain the frustration, fail to let it build to rage, i break my hand on a gym floor, in the corner where my teammates won't see. i break a windshield after a basketball game. rebreak my hand on a refrigerator after losing at foosball.
foosball.
i don't even know how it's spelled.
i fail to contain my self-hatred playing pool, trivial pursuit, anything where i might have a chance to shine, to prove myself worthy.
and yes, i live, and i fail at that, and i become frustrated and angry, and i break myself, over and over again.
we talked about what is attractive in people, and men, and we talked about who i am. and i know, and i can act, but it seems that if you have to ask the question of who you need to be, then you simply aren't that person. and that is a failure, and i hate myself for that, and i become frustrated and angry, and i break myself, over and over again.
and really, i just don't want to do it anymore. the oldest flaws, the latest missteps, are all just points on a curve, on the parabola of results derived of the equation that is me, the variables varied and infinite. but the infinity of results forming that singular shape are so clear, and finite, so well-defined.
and this, i know, in my heart, is god's universe - the mathematic and spiritual not in opposition, but each proving the other. it's been the basis of my own peculiar spiritual beliefs, and tonight, i see the implications, the consequences, the truth. i see the parabola of my life, the shape it will yield, and the lines it will approach but never touch. my free will creates variables, but they are bound by the equation that they're entered into. the curve is always the same, in shape, and form, in meaning.
the meaning of it all, in 8th grade algebra. right in front of me.
i'm tired. i just don't want to do it anymore. there's so many choices, and so many things that will arise from those choices, but the values are at once infinitely varied, and so constrained. i am this parabola, this curve.
it's not all about what's going on right now. it's not about money and career and love. it's not about this single point in space that i'm in. but it is just another point on the curve, and i see that. it's all the same. more and more, i see that i can't seem to be happy. i can't seem to maintain it. chemistry, psychology, reality, all of the above... it doesn't really matter, does it?
amber and i talked about pushing oneself, about trying one's hardest. amber believes that people rarely push themselves as hard as they think they are, that they comfort themselves and excuse themselves of their flaws by thinking they've done their best, when they really haven't.
i told her that was what was so important about what happened after the 20-mile race, when i got my little ambulance ride. it was proof, almost complete, that i pushed myself as far as my body could go, under the conditions that i placed it under.
the only greater line, the only complete line, is the absolute one, isn't it? the big red-line. when you go there, when you push yourself to code blue in a race, no one can question what you gave.
so we talked about this, and amber bought the running applicaiton, but didn't entirely buy the extension to the rest of life, but nonetheless, i wondered, and still do. some folks no doubt gave up too early. kurt cobain was the one to come to mind. maybe he was selfish. maybe he could have toughed it out a bit more.
but i wonder, too - are we being unfair? what if he ran the race all out? what if he didn't show up to the race with the best experience and training behind him, but he still ran the best he could with what he showed up with? what if he red-lined it, gave it all he had, and there was nothing left? what if he saw the truth of it all, saw his curve arcing through space and time, and knew that in the end, the last variables he entered into the equation in that seattle apartment just didn't matter?
i'm not there. this is not a note, not a message, not a warning sign. at least not now. but it is realization, and maybe the beginning of acceptance.
Posted by Rob at 02:24 AM | Comments (2)
April 07, 2006
email to banana and mel
mel - it's the night you asked about - it is late, i am drunk, and the feelings are at the surface.
today, i did the other things i had to do. i went to work and got my shit and my files and talked to the boss about everything that i left hanging. i sat the coffeeshop for hours looking for a job, and then i went home.
i didn't run today. i was just sorta spent, sorta burned out. i watched tv, then i just walked to my room and laid down, and i slept for hours, and had more bad dreams, and then i woke up and watched "elizabethtown." it was a weaker version of "garden state," which i love and will probably watch when i get home tonight. but "elizabethtown" still hit a chord. i want a love. i want the girl in the red hat, that seems to come just in time, that is life and everything that comes with that. i want mary, the fgm, or what she was.
came here, to the coffeeshop. and now, i'm drunk. but i feel more in touch. i think this is just who i am. this is just who i am, and maybe this is all that's really of value, and maybe that's a lot. maybe that's what i have to give as a writer. van gogh and his ear, einstein and his dream of a universe, hemingway and a nice dinner and a shotgun. it seems like a lot of conceit, a lot of ego, but consider that it's in lieu of so much else that you might have in your life, and it seems like an even bargain. maybe it's what i have to give. i think it is. i think you've never heard me sing. i don't think you'd believe it if you did. so there's this, just the words, no music, and no melody.
here i am. here i am.
Posted by Rob at 01:33 AM | Comments (0)
dude
guys should really stop high-fiving on a casual basis. the whole untucked long-sleeve fauz-dress shirt with jeans and flip flops should also come to an abrupt, violent, and bloody end.
the kids that roll their Tahoes and BMW's into the parking garage outside my apartment complex window, ludacris thumping, car doors slamming, screaming "WOOOO! HEY, MOTHER FUCKER! WOOOO!" need to be injured, slowly and completely. much blood needs to be shed.
let me say this. as a general rule, i do not like guys. i don't feel comfortable around them. some of it is about insecurity, the remnants of a childhood and adolescence marked by not fitting in. but the vast majority of it is just realizing that not only are people generally reprehensible and stupid, but guys are more so than the rest.
if you're reading this, chances are you're an exception. first of all, you can read, and choose to do so. so, there's that. and, of course, you're reading this because i haven't made a great effort to isolate myself from you. you're a friend (that includes fellow roguers i barely know), or a friend of a friend, and that's good enough for me.
sometimes i want the things that being that kind of a guy would bring me. there seems to be a real joie de vivre about it, but it seems empty and mindless and stupid. it's about getting fucked up and getting laid and getting stuff that will help you get laid. and all of that may be ok, but so much of it for some of these people seems to be at the cost of seeing or feeling or doing anything real that doesn't fill a resume, fulfill your community service requirement, or, as we've discussed, get you laid.
tonight, admittedly, i'm bringing this on myself, sitting here at the coffeeshop's bar. i sit at the end so i won't get surrounded, but they're still too damned close to me, because they're within about a hundred yards.
they're lucky i'm listening to bob dylan and aimee mann and tom petty. it's all keeping my bloody fantasies involving blunt objects and broken beer bottles in check.
they're getting the stuff, and they seem to be on their way to getting laid. i'm getting jsut as fucked up, and maybe i'm not quite happy, but i'm also not a prick. at least not out of carelessness.
and i'm ok with that.
Posted by Rob at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)
April 06, 2006
half of what i am is all that i am
one more night,
god, i've had to fight
to keep my line of sight
on what's real.
one more day,
i fear i've lost my way,
i don't know how to say what i feel.
someone better hurry,
i'm all alone.
and i keep breakin' down,
breakin' down,
you know.
no one ever told me,
to be on my own,
and i keep breakin' down,
breakin' down,
you know.
tom petty - one more night
i'm here trying to figure out where and what it is, where it lives. i'm here, sitting at the bar, the spot at the end. the bar is a slab of concrete, and it feels cool, and clean, the beveled edge just pleasantly rough under my wrists.
i'm here, drinking a beer, headphones on, trying to draw it out, trying to remember exactly what it is. the determined charge against the will of my own heart over the past few days weakened and failed today, and i slept, and i watched a movie that tried to speak against the hands pressed to my ears.
i'm here, with a pale ale, and dylan in my ears, and the bar and coffeehouse before me and the warehouse district's bustle beyond, and i still just can't put a name to what i feel.
at some point, a while back, i began to feel guilty was writing so much about the things i felt and thought. i feared the truth repetition seemed to reveal, despised what that said about me. i felt guilty about the truth, about letting my heart speak. so, i just stopped writing about what i felt, and where i was. and in the process, i sort of stopped thinking much about what i felt, and i stopped looking around me to see where i was. i stopped listening to the words in songs. i looked down to avoid the burning gaze of what i feel, and what i miss, and what i fear, and what i've done. i stopped knowing why i was crying.
i've done all that before, and i lost myself. it's something i can't afford to do now, when i am adrift in so many other ways.
i know some things. i still have a hard time holding on to happiness. i can't stop wanting to prove something to everyone, even though it never seems to be enough for me. i am still full of anger. i am still full of questions, and sometimes empty of hope. i still believe in a god, but i believe that this fight is mine. i know that the latest move in my life, quitting my job and stepping into nothingness, is last-ditch, and if it fails, then that may be the end.
and i still want her, even though it's not Her. the hole in me is still so much the place where love, one love, would be. i'm still the guy that wrote this, and this, and this.
so, i don't know where it will end, or what i'll write tomorrow, but this has to be the whole story, not just half of it. i am, as my friend sherri would say, the bipolar bear.
so there. and there.
oh, wait - there i am.
Posted by Rob at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2006
i know, i know...
it's always, "no, really, i'm about to star posting a whole bunch of really outstandingly amusing stuff. really. stand by."
well, look - i've had a bit on my mind here, what with being suddenly underemployed and all, and looking for a place to live, and figuring out where to put the five (count 'em, five) Austin Parks and Recreation Department Weeknight Low-League Basketball World Championship trophies that used to sit in my office. i have no shelf space here, and no room or money to build a decent trophy case.
but i digress. i've spent the first three days of freedom (weekends don't count) trying to get other random crap together. much has been accomplished. tomorrow morning, however, i will set up office in the coffeeshop and both write. so, once again, like, stand by. all two of you. give me until noon.
Posted by Rob at 11:37 PM | Comments (1)