the way you changed my life...

no, no, they can't take that away from me.

*

i hit a jazz phase in the mid '90s, the same time the swing thing came around.  thing is that i always like Gershwin, Rogers & Hart, etc.  i'm doing my best to keep this coherent.  the standards that Ella and Louis do are beyond anything you or i or anyone could ever do.  i was thinking about how to talk about this earlier today, and there really is no comparison.  i've got a decent appreciation for most music but there are few duos that are untouchable.  it amazes me that i haven't heard this album in nearly eight years but all it does it make me want to fall, fall back into that void that is love.

*

for no reason aside that i just wanted to see how my cancer-addled GM was doing, i texted him this morning.  aside from all the random gossip, i finally ended up texting Laura, and after one phone call (from her) and numerous texts i'm just a mess.

beyond mess.  today has reached number three status in bad days.  the worst was my grandfather's death.  the second was the bad breakup on my 30th.  today.

fuck today.

i have nothing to really complain about, aside from how i'm realizing now that i simply put off dealing with the end of Laura and myself this long.  nine months.  i've kept myself inebriated pretty much the entire time, and the few times i did sober up it was simply to see if i could still do it.  i succeeded.

i was still avoiding the underlying issue, though, and it reared its' ugly head today.  goddamn i'm a fucking mess.

fuck.  fuck fuck fuc k fuck fuck fuck fuck.

i used to think i would never feel like my heart was being ripped out of me again.  the hollowness.  the emptiness.  the cavity, the hole that is left, after all love and hope is gone.

*

nothing is without a reason, or a purpose, but goddamn i just want it gone.  i think i've done enough damage to myself and others for one lifetime, let alone another three or four.

*

fuck it's just as bad as it was when i was 19.  less than twenty years removed from the first of many bad breakups and i'm still just a shell of a person.  you'd think i could learn from past mistakes, how i act, react, just deal with the women i care about but...nah, why would i want to do that.

*

a few days later.  yeah, i saved this because i just didn't know...i keep on thinking, seeing, this twenty-five year old idiot in the mirror but the reality is that i'm a thirty-six year old idiot who may have been around the block a few times, been a few places, known a few people, had it and lost it a couple times, but has nothing to show for it.  phone, laptop, a few books, a couple pads of paper and some pens.

and a shit-ton of baggage.  and of course i'm trying to resolve half of it on one day.  'cause, ya know, why not?  nothing like overextending your abilities.

*

a thousand miles away...what i wouldn't give for only one night...

reach out

touch faith.

*

I have a chunk of pizza logged between the 7 and 8 key.  between all this I have a GM starting a new job today, a friend who I've never met facing life idiocy, it's 6:50 a.m., I'm only on page four, my aunt is facing the death of her husband, and I'm looking to move into her house.

That chunk is merely a crumb.  It happens.  but still a pain.  tilting keyboard in 5....

It's the little things.

*

so.

*

I have a minor plan.  The friend facing life idiocy, it's brain and neck cancer.

I feel stupid for doing nothing but looking for jobs the last few months.  At the same time, it has given me a minor goal, in that I need to do the Badlands one more time.  I've also become highly critical of all the stupidity on the web.  The backlash is coming, and while we may all may remain connected, I think that what we all brought upon ourself may just end up making us realize that the print word isn't such a bad thing.

*

I'm getting old.  I reach out to the family that hasn't always been there, while ignoring those that are close.  I used to know what I was doing.  Nothing better than facing your late 30's and still thinking you are a viable body in the workforce.  I've already come to the conclusion that I'm back on the line as an hourly worker.  Again.  It happens, but I've been out of the workforce for too long.  I have no idea what's going on.

*

I miss her.  I really miss her.  I know I've never been the right guy but Goddamn. i miss her.

i know i fucked up.  and it has nothing to do with work or her or anything but fuck all i want is just just come back up that metro and walk down to her door and just be with her.

i can grow...

...up to be a debaser.

*
DEBASER

*

It's 2012 and I'm still trying to figure out where I was in 1998.  The people I knew, online, they are gone.  Where did they go?  I was the one of the few who didn't pursue this life in the '90's.  I was the idiot who thought that maybe he had a life beyond the computer.  Idiocy runs amok.

Fifteen years later I see friends running IT corps, NYC, Chicago, Seattle, and I'm over a year unemployed.  Listening to old Police.

Strange how songs can take you back.  Secret Journey.

*

I used to listen to Ghost in the Machine repeatedly while playing Rogue.

*

You will see light in the darkness.  You will see joy in this sadness.  You will find this love you missed.

*

I missed a call from a guy selling a Jeep Cherokee on Sunday.  I'm pissed but also wondering where I would go.  I'm due for a visit down in GA but...

I'm sitting in a room, in Great Mills, Maryland.  I have nothing.  But maybe that's the key to getting it all back.

going through the motions

trying not to snore...

*

writing is hard.  developing plot, character, the ends to the means, the drive behind what motivates the people in this world that is created entirely on paper or online.  it's a lot harder than i thought it would be.  i thought it would be easy to connect the dots back in the mid '00's between several stories, but so much for that.  starting from scratch, seeing what happens.

i recall the story about Asimov, how the reason he started writing was because he read a story and thought that the ending sucked (my words there, obviously) and came up with Nightfall, a story that really defines what science fiction and good plotting is.  Bradbury died just a couple weeks ago, and while i still hope that maybe i'll meet Aldiss in person the chances are slim to nil.  but.  writing is harder than i thought.  i'm good at the short, numerous paragraph but then out kind of crap, but a few pages only goes so far.

i've been buying up random books that i've lost along the way, "years best" and such, but also the random stuff that i haven't ever had.  i'm wondering where my mind went these past ten years.

*

I don't read so much online these days.  As in, I don't follow the blogs, whatever, like I used to.  It's too self serving. Plus, I find it's very selective and too personalized.  I'm saddened that as the web has gotten more free, the ones who did the work have been shunted to the side.  I'm not going to bother with names and sites but just think about where you were going, online, 10-15 years ago, and see how many of those people and sites are still around.

I'm sure I had a point with all of this...

*

I watched the full series of SportsNight over the last weekend.  It gave me hope in how to develop ("develop" is spelled without an "e" at the end?) a series.  I'm working on the first chapter of a maybe book but honestly would be better as an HBO or ShowTime series.  Ten parts, first season. First two episodes give the intro, minor character development, give some background, but as it all develops.

I've got pages devoted to characters, the roles, where they go, what happens, the intersection is a bit tricky but I'm getting there.

The hardest part is figuring out the city.  I want to make it some nameless place but...

I'll figure it out.  What I do know for sure is that I need to get the hell out of SOMD.  It's sucking the life out of me.  Been here since October and...

Fuck.

totally wired and the game is up

i'm under the table...

*

the one thing i have rediscovered during my days of wandering is that Amazon is still great.  once again I have, on CD (i like the material form), a copy of Neil Finn's "One Nil."

I don't know why it took me so long to figure out that I can pretty much get anything I want now via internet.  Who knew that those pictures from the Hubble in 1994 would carry my love of the internet through the idiocy of the late '90s, the continued idiocy of the '00s, and finally into this decade where I have no idea, let alone what to think of what we are doing with this.

*

I recently spent only $107 on a printer/scanner/everything.  No shipping charges.  It is the coolest thing ever, prints in seconds, hell, my landlord likes mine so much (since he uses it) that he want to replace the two printers he already has.  It's even WiFi enabled.  The only thing it lacks is a battery backup.  Oddly, it was my landlord who mentioned this as being the next step.  To be honest, the unit is lightweight and has the space for a battery...my email....

*

I'm still trying to find my point here.  I've seen the success of my friends who did the right thing and went the IT route.  I've also seen the success of my friends in the food biz.  I'm not sure who came out ahead, cause both tend to have good taste in music.

*

I swore off the idiocy but here I am just playing back into it.  Five years ago, nearly this week I was hiking through the Badlands with a girl I thought I loved.  I even texted a friend in NYC about how I felt like the happiest person in the world, not because of drugs, alcohol, but because of place and being and how much I loved her.  I didn't even want her along but it was a matter of "why not?" which is a question I will never fall into again (fingers crossed).  I inevitably fell, and falling is hard.

I thought I learned my lesson but then I fell in with a girl in DC.  I know that all thoughts fall to the idiocy of me falling for a girl because of circumstance.  It was never that, and maybe that was my mistake. Not just taking total advantage of everything she offered.  I did for a bit, but...my better senses got well...the better of me?

I'm still searching for a point.  I started this four hours ago, inbetween I've watched a few episodes of NewsRadio, replayed a Neil Finn CD, a CD I burned a few weeks ago (that still isn't playing right, dammit), and i'm just tired.

*

Like I said earlier, I thought there was a point, but maybe there isn't one.  Maybe it's just the point of saying something, putting it out there, who knows, maybe it will be read, maybe it's gone to the mists of time.  Maybe it's just a matter of lowering yourself to the lowest common denominator and calling it a day.

*

Maybe it's listening to a good song.  Maybe it's just sitting back.  Perhaps it's letting my love burn hotter than a comets' tail.  Being away from home.  And realizing that being away from home is a way of life, and that home, while the demons always come, I find a way to fight them off.

It's driving me mad.