Thoughts about the wrong eyed Jesus

Upon us all a little melancholy must fall.

Unbidden memories have surfaced through the veil of dreams, turning my thoughts to the past.

I can't help but entertain these uninvited guests that have floated to the surface. Ruminating on the whys and hows that have brought me to my present place. I dismiss the what ifs, as that train of thought bears no fruit. But the urge to set the record straight and tie up loose ends grips me for the moment.

I can't help but wonder if the reason I've never reached my destination is due to the amount of time I spend reviewing and revisiting the journey to date. In the past I've hoped to work out my trajectory, to tease out where I might be headed. Now I know too many variables exist to make that determination.

"Still waters run deep
Deep in me.
I've got this crazy way
Crazy way of swimming in still waters."

Hear Ya Got Religion

Help us, help us, help us,
Please if we could see clearly what we would decide
If there was no desperation, would we be alive?
If there were no windows that we sit inside
If there were no ugly feelings, would we be alive?
Would we be alive?

Help us, help us, help us,
Please would you make me helpless
So that I could be looking for the sight of something that I cannot see
I'd be floating in the ocean, floating in the sea
Floating in a drifting wind,
I wish that I could be floating in a liquid, nice and thick and warm
Floating where there is no pleasure and there is no harm
Life could be so pleasant, if we all could be
Helpless, hopeless creatures just marching to the sea
Would we be alive?
Helpless, hopeless

On occasion I have one of those moments of clarity. A brief second or two where my consciousness cuts through the cluttered clatter of my mind.
A bright, shiny moment when everything makes sense.
I see my purpose, both formed and unformed.
I see the pattern in everything.

And then I blink. Filters back in place, perspective returns to normal.
All is as it is because it is as it should be. Even when it isn't.
Intelligent Design? I really don't see the point of arguing about it. It doesn't really matter.
If something exists, it stands to reason that it would naturally work to perpetuate itself. Regardless of whether or not there was some being behind it.
If there is some being behind it, all the better.
Again, I don't see why it would really matter.

Then again, I didn't realize that tofu was made of soy. So consider the source.

Circa 10/31/96

He sat alone in his apartment, waiting. This was nothing new. In fact, it was pretty much an established ritual. Not that he minded, though. No, it wasn’t waiting for friends to call that caused him annoyance. Often he was left hanging by one person or the other. Hours spent waiting for plans to take shape. It wasn’t this at all.
It was the fact that he spent this time so idly that ate at him. The period between getting home from work and actually heading out for the evening had the possibility of being constructive time. Time spent catching up on the perpetual maintenance of his apartment. Time spent paying bills, or pouring over the flood of magazines and newspapers that came in daily. Time spent organizing and throwing out. Instead, this down time was often spent in front of the TV, accomplishing nothing. He could perhaps rationalize this if he was absorbing something useful from the TV- even pure entertainment. But as of late he could not even remember what he had watched five minutes ago. Truth be told, it was time spent slacking- physically and mentally.
Projects left uncompleted. Phone calls put off. In his own low-rent psychoanalysis, he felt this was a result of childhood development (or lack there of). His parents, however eager to encourage his myriad hobbies and interests, never put any pressure on him to follow through and complete something. They never required him to become proficient in any endeavor. He saw the tenfold uncompleted model kits of his youth. All were projects begun with enthusiasm and intent. All were begun with diligence. However, when it came time for the tedious assembly of engine parts or the like, he lost his steam. All were left half finished. He saw these incomplete kits reflected in the semi-chaotic clutter of his apartment. He saw it in Mark’s music video he was creating-mired at the three quarters completed point.
As far as the apartment clutter, the problem seemed to be that as long as things remained at a level he considered manageable and livable, it was OK to leave it be. Occasionally, it would sink lower. He would spend several phrenetic hours "cleaning house" until again he reached the acceptable level of disorder.
As for the music video, that was more complicated. He truly desired to complete that, if not for himself then at least for Mark. What had been completed had been done in a burst of creative energy. He had stopped to rest and contemplate how to arrange the ending. During that hiatus he had lost his momentum. Now the stress of wanting to finish the project, coupled with the stress of other pressing matters, chocked his creativity. Those bursts of inspiration were coming less and less. It truly upset him.
Chris sighed and snubbed out his cigarette. He looked at the mashed filter thoughtfully. Smoking helped whittle away the time. It was a sure way to kill seven minutes and take the edge off of boredom. Also, it kept him from actually doing anything. To get up and clean would mean leaving an unattended smoking article. To read or pay bills would distract him from smoking, leaving the cigarette to burn into a cylinder of ash. At three dollars a pack, Chris did not feel quite so rich as to allow himself such shameless waste. So he let the habit remain what it was. A crutch.
Now he sighed more loudly and stood up. The cat, which had been sleeping against his leg, looked up quizzically. Petting Quentin on the head, Chris reflected on how his reflection also ate up a lot of time. He never made any serious effort to resolve anything. He would just sit and reflect on his life. He would acknowledge his problems and shortcomings to himself, and then let them be. No plan put into motion on actually addressing and redressing them. If knowledge was half the battle, then it was one more thing he spent his life in only going half way.
For someone who supposedly craved resolution in life, he had developed a rather pernicious habit of leaving loose ends.
The tolls of his inaction were beginning to show, however. It was this more than anything else that made him realize it was time to break this pattern. It was one thing to wade in mediocrity and lack of initiative* if it only hurt yourself. But others were affected, and that he felt, was unallowable.
He felt that the center of this mental holocaust was the quagmire of his adolescence. Those years were a juggernaut of turbid emotions he could not reconcile with. To avoid the confrontation with his own damaged soul that he felt was unavoidable, he intellectualized rather then emoted. To open that flood gate would be overwhelming. Perhaps though, he feared, it was time to do just that.
The Great Flood. Sacrifice. Rebirth.
It was without a doubt frightening. His own emotions were his personal Gethsemane. He would drink the cup of his psyche only with grave resignation and dread.
Chris S

I found that entry on my journal file. Were it not for KG and Nick, I'd probably be singing the same song these days.
Just for shits and giggles, I googled my blog name. Only two hits came up: the blog itself, and this. Interesting, someone is keeping track!

LP on the asphalt 6/13/97

On ramp roadkill vinyl
The music's over, done.
Gently resisting coagulation
in the Sabbath sun.
The sermon for the day,
in case you misconstrued
Jesus' message:
Is that God is waiting
on the other side.
You'll get there. But don't go
looking for intervention in the meantime.
Be joyful you are.
Tomorrow is Easter. Every year, I like to spend my weekend listening to Jesus Christ Superstar, enjoying the hell out of the story, loving Him and being eternally grateful that I'm no longer a Christian. Then I like to shave my head, do some cleaning, and force myself to take a brand new look at world around me. Freshen my perspective.
How sweet is this? Seems my beloved Pitch Black will return. In cahoots with Vader no less!
Happy Easter, yo.

Notebook circa late 1999

Multiples of seven. Strange numbers.
What I wouldn't do for a Cuban cigar and a steaming jacuzzi. Feeling that in tune. Running smooth. Instead of feeling all jalopy.
I'm a shambling man.
Multiples of eight. Strength in numbers.
I have grasped the calm at the center of the storm. I have found the well within me. I knew myself, before I believed I was lost.
Multiples of nine. Always coming up short.
These muscles that ache began to do so today. The injury occured while wedged between barrels, sawdust compacted around my legs, bending to release wrapped rocks. Handing them skyward to Chip.
Multiples of ten. Same thing all over again.
I'm where I was before, where I've always been and always will be. Within me.

Old notebooks on a Saturday

I had one of those moments this afternoon. Stopping to look around me. It was 3PM. Saturday, a light snow falling. My wife and my son napping. Me, sitting with the Diva's, smoking and chatting. Life, today, is perfect. I really can't ask for more.
Incomplete thoughts.
Incomplete deeds.
Indecipherable messages.
Everything is fully formed within it's unformed purpose.
Now, my company is gone. KG and son watching TV. I clean. Dishes, desktops. Moving old notebooks, stopping to remember days not as bright as these. Times when my mind was troubled.
What was lost is found. It never was gone, but here. Always. The now.
The time between the comission of a crime and it's discovery.
I stop for a smoke break before continuing on with my chores. I stop to flip through a few pages, re-immerse myself in my own history.
The moment after a natural gas explosion. The sound of the last few whitewashed boards striking the ground.
The light of an open sky through broken clouds as the cyclone passes on.
And I find, to my great relief, that no matter where I might be, here I am. Now matter what time it is, it is now.
And always will be.
Recovery. Taking stock of losses. Checking the hull for breeches. Assessing the damage.
Not yet resuming pace, just sucking wind.
That hazy second when the world still spins, even though the Sit & Spin has stopped.
Recovery.
Recovery.
My days of roadtrips are behind me. My days of drama and strife. My days of searching for me. I am here. It is right now. This is what I have.
And it's good.
Everything will be OK.

Musings circa 1996

The brightly hued thorns danced out from every conceivable corner of the room. The more he spun in sudden terror, the closer they came until they formed a shimmering rainbow laser crown of thorns. The tips were glowing red with heat, and his skin crackled and shrank moments before the needle sharp beams incised his brow. The worst perhaps were the ones which pierced the back of his occipital lobe. He felt strands of hair being pushed into the entry wounds, and watched as swirling mandelas surrounded by inky spots of blindness burst in his vision. He watched himself become invisible, and mercury thick blood ran like lava lamp innards down his furrowed cheek.
This was that sordid flip side of VR technology.
Doug sat heavily on his knees and held transparent hands up to his eyes. Eyes that could not stop seeing. He shook his head violently back and forth until vision blurred, turned inscrutable, and finally became mercifully...
White?
He was seated naked against a stone wall. Cracked and dusty dirt surrounded him in a desolate and alien landscape. A sun, so intense it was a fuzzy ball of sinoid headache, filled half the sky. The prickle of sun heat on his flesh began to manifest, and he felt himself literally roasting in the sun.
A sudden intense sensation about his genitals brought his swift attention. The organ had taken on a bloated, sluggish appearance in the afternoon heat. The thick hair surrounding it was moistly fragrant with coagualted sweat. In speedy time elapse his genitals exploded in a blossom of putrefaction. Inky blood pooled onto the dusty carpet of concrete between his legs, and burst into a wavering fence of blue flames. The hum of superheated air and expanding tympanic membrane filled the air, finally shattering under the barrage of his own phlegm throwing, larynx shattering scream.
Then the muffled thump of gloved hands against protective headgear. It was the basement, subterranean womb, awash in red glow. Strands of colored Christmas lights bordering the ceiling. The silently artistic undulations of the lava lamp.
Doug threw the tainted VR unit from his head.
"Fucking Disney."

My first date w/ KG (circa Jan 2000)

Tom Waits on the jukebox and a familiarity with Still Life With Woodpecker. Eight empty pints of stout and a couple of packs of cigarettes between us.
Truth be told, I entertained no designs in meeting this girl. I simply sought companionship. Even now, I'm guarded. Yet, yet...
She amazes me. So much in common, so much shared. Obsession with pop culture. A tendancy toward depression. Five hours of laughs, stories, shared moments.
Possibility tickles. Already I care for her. I don't want to hurt her or complicate her. What I do want, though, is more. She interests me.
I'm already falling for her.
So, we will see what develops.