No Gain

Soon I'm off. Off to hobble across the desert with all the fervor and madness of an inured geriatric. It cannot come soon enough. Hopefully I don't return a paraplegic.

I currently await my chariot, which is set to arrive momentarily, and we will pick up my mattress, load up our belongings and head to no mans land, where the man is.

He's gonna burn.

There are friends there that I cannot wait to see, friends that only appear once a year. It's something about the climate there, something about that alkaline dust which covers everything like snow and makes friendship blossom in a way that it doesn't anywhere else. It's something that must be seen to be believed. I'll suffer the car ride just to feel it.

Isn't it strange how, often, we must suffer, or go to great lengths and expend much energy just to feel pleasure?

No pain, no gain.

Brain Arthritis

Truman Capote's writing is fucking delightful. It's like listening to the sound of Morgan Freeman's voice while lying in bed eating warm cherry pie. I would know; I dated Morgan Freeman, he was a fabulous baker. Capote's narrative style has the easy dreamlike quality of a flashback. In a few sentences he can completely convey the layout of a room, its mahogany chairs and cold green walls, the antique lampshade purchased by the protagonist's grandfather at a widow's auction in 1910. With very little he can paint the most nuanced subtleties of human convention. There's a mastery to the way he writes, how he can saturate a sentence in so much sentiment the page feels wet.

As I've gotten older I've realized its harder for me to do two things at the same time. To write and listen to music is an experiment in failure, always, though I haven't yet accepted this as truth. I become so easily distracted that what I'm writing floats away from me like the thin heat of sleep. It's funny, when I was younger I was able to use the music as a catalyst, an energy source with which to infuse my writing, to focus my concentration. That's not true any longer. Now I feel like I'm sitting on a swing swaying back and forth between two discrete realities. Strange how that happens. Fatigue I guess, the hardening of the brain, time.

The old brain ain't what it used to be.

Wakin' to the Shakin'

Earthquake this morning, 6.1, just before 3:30; nature's alarm clock. It's an organic analogue to mainlining a double-shot of espresso; pure, uncut, liquified Colombian sympathetic. I instinctively jolted upright in my bed, ignoring my injury and aggravating my spine, confused rumblings and disoriented tremors functioning as narcotics as I leapt out of bed and dashed toward the doorframe. I realized I was naked and felt embarrassed and vulnerable; the one night I slept without any underwear! As my cock jiggled and jostled, gravity playing a dice game with my gonads, I wondered if I might have to flee my apartment. Would I have time to grab a pair of boxers? What would people say if they saw my hairy peeper? I was sure it would be shriveled and short from the fear and fog, retracted and shrunken like Rick Moranis' dick in Honey I Shrunk the Kids. And then, as fast as it came, it was gone. Relief. Then, thoughts of an imminent tsunami; maybe the epicenter was somewhere off shore and a colossal tidal wave was on its way to obliterate the city. I checked my phone: nope, I was safe. The quake had hit north of San Francisco, in Napa, and all was well; save for a few shaken slumbers and hurried heartbeats.

I texted my family, told them not to fear, and went back to sleep. This didn't stop them from calling me repeatedly and waking me up a few hours later, though. Maybe they thought I was joking, that my safety was a lie. I spent the early part of the day reading; an essay by Julio Cortázar on the short story; this year's winner of the Hugo Award for best short story; a website bringing awareness to the plight of having a big dick; how the ALS challenge is effacing the memory of Lou Gehrig. I met my foster parents and some friends who were in town for Burning Man. We talked about how my attendance is in jeopardy and ventured some potential solutions. We ate Mexican food atop a roof in sick slow motion - our servers seemed capable of moving only at subhuman speeds, like slugs.

Let's consider an earthquake for a moment. What a mystifying and powerful phenomena it must have been before the emergence of science. An earthquake, when experienced, truly feels as though the earth has caught the ire of a vengeful god. The world trembles and shakes and there is a choking feeling, a harrowing, hair-raising whisper telling you there is no safe place. Huddled in the doorframe you feel that at any moment the ceiling might collapse and crush you like a bug, that the floor may crumble out from beneath you and swallow you whole. A reminder, that there are forces at work far more powerful than ourselves; forces that we cannot control. It's humbling, really, and it restores a sense of reverence to nature. It's a reminder that the earth too trembles, that it can succumb to palsied fits of shaking and great undulating destruction, with the same fragility, the same wineglass frailty of our worried minds.

Teaching us that sometimes, the only thing that can be done is to wait.

Absent Note

It is with tremendous, soul crushing sadness, and terrible heart-wrenching sorrow that I write you. I haven't felt this much doom and gloom since The Deep-Playa Portapottie Famine of 2013. I regret to inform you that I won't be attending this year's burn. I won't get to see all of your glittering gold faces on that dusty dried out lakebed - it's just not in the cards for me. A fractured spine doesn't make for a fun time. I'd considered coming and anchoring myself at the camp, eschewing bike riding and the delights of dance, limiting myself only to the occasional canned beer while respecting a strictly enforced 10pm curfew, but that's no way to burn. I wouldn't disgrace myself or any of you with such a display; it would be a blight on Hiburnia; a disco ball that doesn't shine.

But don't weep, don't cry for me Argentina, I will survive - I'll be there with you in spirit.

You may see me in a crowd late one night as you lose yourself in dance or, perhaps darting past on a stray photon ricocheted off the forehead of the man, or maybe you might feel me as a cool breeze against your shoulder during some somber second at the temple. You may wake up in the back of a sweaty Winnebago screaming my name, or hear the hop of my rabbit's feet on a thin tin roof in the gold of twilight.

Run rampant, flicker, burn pop and hiss, make mayhem and chase the magic.

Above all, make memories; they are all we ever have.

Doctor's Note

Ok, it's official: I'm going to Burning Man. I've got the doctor's stamp of approval, and some pills in case things go wrong. I've also got a mattress, which needs to be picked up in the morning before we leave. Part of me is still unsure if going is the right thing to do. I've taken every precaution; I'm not even bringing a bike; not even drugs. Despite these things though, I'm still apprehensive. Perhaps this is the lesson to be learned from a broken spine.

Fittingly named too, L1. Lesson 1 - be cautious. It is the very thing I go to Burning Man to avoid, caution.

I'm also concerned about how I'll feel, emotionally. Have you ever gone out to a bar with friends and not drank? It becomes tiresome, real fast. There comes that point when people begin slurring and speaking nonsense at your face way too fast (and loud), with all the self-absorbed narcissistic charm of a truculent child. You soon realize your consciousnesses are incompatible and a strong desire to depart wells up inside of you. Well, imagine that bar is inescapable, and vast, and dusty, and you can't leave for seven days. Where would you take refuge? Where would you find repose?

These are my fears folks. I see them on the horizon and march toward them dutifully. Indeed they shall be vanquished, but what a bloody battle it will be.

Important Note

I'm writing from my newly purchased air mattress. I'm taking her for a spin tonight to see if I wake up in agony tomorrow. It's imperative that I have proper sleeping support or I may cause irreparable harm to my still healing spine. So far the bed is holding up well and I think I'll be okay, so long as it doesn't leak in the night. You know, inflatable mattresses are just air bladders. They'd benefit from a few kegels every now and again, to keep their sphincters tight. Problem is, they always drink so much air before going to bed that they can't hold it all night. What they should do, to kill two birds with one bone, is place the plug in the center of the sleeping area and paint it up like the mouth of a blow up doll. That way, when you're sleeping you can keep your dick jammed in the hole so it stays plugged up; you get a little sucky sucky, a soft cock and a hard bed. It's a match made in heaven.

I don't know why but I'm exhausted today. I think I stressed my immune system when I had a beer with that burger at lunchtime. It was a great burger; Umami Burger. Or might it have been the back waxing? Who knows. The peak of my fatigue hit me on the bus, where I sat smushed in between an obese, loud talking black woman on her cell phone and a short hispanic man with the physique and je ne sais quoi of a luchadora. My neck went slack as my eyes closed and my head rolled back. My mouth was agape and I could taste the woman's watermelon chewing gum as I dozed off. I had the dope fiend lean, the smack slouch. Why does it feel so good to fall asleep on public transit? For some reason it feels better than sleeping in my own bed. It's as though I'm breaking a rule, participating in a perversion; a sleep exhibitionist. With my unconscious head sliding onto the unsuspecting shoulder of the person sitting next to me, I transcend the unpleasantness of the bus and become it; one with the nuisance, someone's obstacle to exit or challenge to comfort.

It is the most satisfying slumber known to man.

Wild Whorses

Today marks the start of my vacation. I have two and a half glorious weeks off, to do with what I please. I need to tie up the last of the loose ends for Burning Man; back waxings ball trimmings and the like. It will be a shame if I cannot go. I'll have decided by tomorrow evening, so stay tuned for an update.

Last night I tried, briefly, to sleep on a pair of dog beds in preparation for the playa. I stacked two of them on top of one another in an attempt to double the comfort, but within minutes I realized that not even a dog dosed with ketamine could sniff out sleep on the damned thing. After lying on it for fifteen minutes I got up and got into my bed, where I looked online at the absurd world of luxury air mattresses. I hadn't realized there existed air mattresses surpassing $2000. Yay capitalism! I'll need to find a cheaper alternative today, at a sporting goods store or Target. Yay capitalism.

I talked with The Profuser last night. He told me that he'd secured a cornucopia of contraband, the most saturnalia of paraphernalia; pills, fungus and lysergide. He is hellbent on losing his mind, and he will, when the diamond-accented angel in the sky flaps her wings and causes the desert dusts to storm. I will be there with him though, to keep him safe, or at least try. It's going to be a dry burn for me, friends - like two fourteen-year-olds hopped up on hormones trying to figure out how their bodies work, without the sense to take their clothes off first. Fact or friction?

Looks like I can't get Burning Man off my mind. I tried.

Wild whorses couldn't drag me away.

Counting Shleep

My eyelids are too heavy. My mind is in thrall to its spirit animal - the slug.

I'm counting sheep.

Bleat.

...

Bleat.

Reflections

I just wrote some shit and it fucking blew donkey dick, so I deleted it.

It was fiction, with a loose basis in reality, but I couldn't convey what I wanted to without sounding sappy and overdone - a problem I have when writing, and perhaps in speech, too. We forgive certain sentimentalities in speech because it occurs in real time, but in writing, where there is ample time to reflect, reconsider and rephrase, we aren't afforded the same courtesies. So instead of a fiction, you get this memoir-esque bullshit. Sorry. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I mostly want to stop writing this blog and delete everything I've written because of its insignificance, its poor quality, its inability to evoke anything meaningful. It has ceased to be fun for me. It is an exercise in habit only; a nervous tick that I haven't been able to shake. At first I took refuge in it, it stoked the fires of creativity and helped me get outside myself. Now, though, it has become a means to dwell, to recapitulate and repeat myself into a vacuum audience. It is a source of infinite frustration, a way to compound any and every self criticism.

Life is too short to spend this way. Let's make an escape, shall we?

He was terribly unhappy, alone, dispassionate, brooding and dissatisfied. Nope, not an escape.

Let's try again:

The sun had set and darkness fell in navy blue all around them, quickly turning to black. Inky night, with its loveless eyes and heavy mascara, would be upon them soon. They embraced outside her parents house, beside their parked car, on the roundabout encircling a fountain bordered by her father's garden. He pulled her against him, indulging himself in the warmth and softness of her body as though it were a kindness meant only for him. Time slowed down and they swayed to the rhythm of each other's hearts, drinking in the moment, lost in the dizzying euphoria of love and abandon. A soft and far away music played, one they couldn't hear though they danced to its cadence. He had her wrapped in his arms completely, pulling her inward, feeling her heart as it touched his. It forced his eyes closed as a blissful smile bent the corners of his lips. The serene sound of running water moved around them and lent a fluidity to their movement that was soft and pure. The smell of her hair, the touch of her arms clasped against his back, the weight of her head upon his shoulder, the feeling of her hips pressed into his, all of it, lulled him into a floating opioid dream. Eternities passed as they waltzed through time in slow motion and, when he opened his eyes, he saw all around them flashing green fireflies pulsing with loving percussion. They hovered in the air, on the ground, in the trees, around the fountain. His lungs expanded and he sighed contentedly as he surrendered to the unreality of the moment. He couldn't see it, but at his chest, she opened her eyes too. Oh wow, do you see them? They're all around us. I've never seen so many before. Where did they come from? This doesn't feel real. This isn't real. Is it real? It's magic.

It was.

Kurt Russell

Well, I'm off to another wild Saturday morning! I was browsing the internet and saw a webpage I'd bookmarked called Last Words. Curious, I clicked it and began reading through an alphabetized list of famous last words. I know, I know, first Chopin and now this. If you were curious though, Chopin on his deathbed was quoted as saying, "play Mozart in memory of me - and I will hear you." Now, Mozart on the other hand, has one of the most beautiful farewells of the entire bunch: The taste of death is upon my lips...I feel something, that is not of this earth.

It's interesting, poring over the last uttered phrases of those departed. It is the closest we can get to experiencing death, albeit vicariously. If words are an attempt at expressing ideas, feelings, or sentiments, then by listening to these last words we steal glances of a final fettle. That's not to say that they are always clear and honest reflections, often it seems quite the contrary. Some are denials, contrivances, feigned phrases and attempts at wit which reveal more than the actual sentence does. There is something important to be learned from this list of collective celebrity - death, like everything else, has manifold interpretations. We often think of death with a cold hard finality, as something objective that we all must face. It's easy to forget that we'll all face it subjectively, on our own terms. Death then, seems like a final reflection, a moment to consider your life and decide if it was what you wanted it to be. If it wasn't, well, in that moment death might feel like a hell weighing down on you, crushing your spine with resentment and regret, anger, helplessness and loss. But instead, if you lived in accord with what your heart whispered, if you chased what it was you dreamed, if you sucked the flavor from life's cigarette with the fervor of a dirty transient, then death might feel like the ending to a great movie, prompting a tearful standing ovation from your soul. There's a quote from Borges I've been trying to find for the last twenty minutes without success. He sums up nicely what I'm trying to say here but, for now you'll have to settle for my shortcomings.

If there is one thing any of us should truly want, it should be that on our deathbeds we might look back on our lives and feel contented.

--------------------
Last Words:

"Beautiful" - Timothy Leary

"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset" - Crowfoot

"Kurt Russell" - Walt Disney

Vagabonds

Have you ever seen the way old homeless men smoke? They caress the cigarette, loving it, consuming it, kissing it right down to the butt. They suck the happiness out of it until there is absolutely nothing left - swallowing its last breath.

Walking with their heads down, looking for lost change, they will pick up discarded cigarettes from the floor and smoke them. They scavenge the sidewalk like shriveled human shrimp.

I mean, what's the difference in currency between a nickel and a mostly used up cigarette anyway?

I think what bothers people about homelessness is the reminder that we are all one disaster away from being right there with them. It's why we avert our eyes when we see a bum asking for change. It is a mirror we cannot bear to look into. To meet his eye is to acknowledge his loss, to feel his pain and realize the difference between us is a frightfully small one. Sure, homeless people drink and do drugs and acquire or have preexisting mental illness, but I'd bet most of those habits were inherited in response to having their world crumble out from under them. I think I'd drink and do drugs too.

Oh wait, I already do!

But really, there's something about homelessness that scares us. I took a course in college that talked about monstrosity and what it means to be monstrous. What I took away from it was that for things to be monstrous they must resemble ourselves; ghosts, ghouls, beasts, zombies. We have to see the humanity in the thing to lend it credence. It must be equal parts us and equal parts other. Take The Exorcist for example. It scares us because we're susceptible to the evils of demonic possession; to our own passions and furies, jealousies and resentments. Why do slasher films frighten us? Because we might fall victim to a random act of violence ourselves, or, perhaps, become the perpetrator. We rubberneck at grizzly highway accidents because we understand it could have been us; horribly maimed, deformed, crippled or disfigured forever.

When we confront poverty we are confronting an aspect of ourselves. We confront our vulnerabilities and fears; of dependency, weakness, loneliness. They are unclean and unloved, doomed and afraid.

And so are we.

Taking Back My Laundry

I dropped off some Burning Man gear to be dry-cleaned today. This is the last chance for me to tend to such matters because, if I go, I'll be leaving midweek. My spine, calcium fortified and well rested, is stronger than it was two weeks ago, which is good news. Still though, whenever I try to answer the question of my attendance at Burning Man, trepidation spills down my spine as though it were a swirly-slide.

So, when I dropped off my big bag of clothes at the cleaner down the block, the short Asian woman who at first showered me with effusive smiles and warm salutations, suddenly looked at me with deep distrust as I removed countless dust-covered bandanas, animal onesies, torn up pants, sweat-stained sheets and other oddities from my bag. I felt like a magician, pulling feral animals out of a sack, earning her reproach and sawing her sensibilities in half. For Burningman?! Umm, yea, I said nervously, scratching some sand from my head. Wait right here, she yelled as she pushed aside some hanging garments and marched toward the back. The clothes, in their saran-wrap sheaths, swayed like curtains as I stood there waiting for her return. I felt like I was about to meet the great and powerful Oz - or, Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, to those who are informed.

I heard a low, faint ruffling, and what I think was cursing in her native tongue. Then, silence. Minutes passed and still nothing. Hello, I called out, anyone there? Then, with the sound of short, stomping feet, and a high-pitched plastic swish, she reappeared, pulled forward like a dog on a leash by an enormous leather-bound book. She dropped it down with a loud thud and almost fell forward over the counter. The air stank of must. Burningman must sign here, she screamed, pounding on the book. Its cover looked old, like it had been bound at least two decades ago. The leather was worn and weathered like a baseball mitt taken from a time capsule. Its surface was elaborately embossed, depicting a strange scene congaing cherubs with long dicks playing badminton, or tennis. She opened the book and began leafing through the pages angrily while muttering something to herself that I couldn't understand. I was able to catch glimpses of the pages as she turned them; most of the signatures seemed to be in green ink and they all looked kind of the same. How strange, I thought, until she arrived on the half-blank page that was our destination.

What is your name, she asked. I looked down at her hand holding the pen against the empty page and my eyes drifted across the eerie sameness of all the signatures above it. Shuttlecock, it said, on every line. Your name, she demanded again. Give a fake name, a voice inside my head whispered. Uh, I, um, Ambroise Diggs, I said as I watched her write down the word Shuttlecock. OK, eleven pieces; you come back Monday. Okay, thanks, I said turning around, anxious to get out of her small storefront. When I turned to leave, one of her saran-wrap body bags came down over my head, either as an attempt to capture or suffocate me. Though I screamed a little, I easily ripped through the thin plastic and turned around to confront my assailant. It was the little Asian woman. You must use protection, she screamed, as she tried to pull another full body condom over me. I kicked her in the ovaries and gave her a Stone Cold Stunner and then a Tombstone Piledriver for good measure. Her head bounced off the floor and she farted in my face on the way down. I stuffed my clothes back in the bag and said, I'll take my business elsewhere, good day!

Later, I chatted with Q briefly, after he'd eaten his meal and mine. He wanted to take me out but I kind of stood him up, last night too; so he ate for the both of us. Either that or he was trying to tell me he's pregnant, who knows. It's just that he expects me to put out if he pays, even though he knows I'm not gay. He'll start sending me pictures of penises, or of men playing ping pong in short shorts, or Marlon Brando and James Dean just before their lips are about to touch. He's sick, Q.

I told him that I wanted to take my camera to Burning Man this year, since I won't be able to participate as I normally would. Bringing the camera will keep me honest, less willing to take risks; more interested in capturing than being captured. He took issue with this, berating me, urging me not to go at all if I am to bring the camera. He fails to understand that to participate as I normally would may put me in a position to cause irreparable harm to my spine. A dose of ecstasy will do wonders for mitigating back pain, while you're on it. Who knows what silly moves I might make, what perilous pelvic thrusts. I'll give a whole new meaning to the term break dancing! No, I think it would benefit me more this year to participate less, or participate in a very different capacity. This doesn't preclude me from being present, or from forming new memories with friends.

He argues that giving is better than taking, and that photographing the burn is to take of the experience more than it is to give - which is somewhat antithetical to the entire point of the thing. And I agree with him, to an extent. But just being there, sharing a difficult moment with a friend at the temple, being a guide to another who has never been, being a sober sentinel there to keep a watchful eye, pouring a drink and getting caught up with friends I haven't seen since last year, meeting new ones, sharing a sunrise, attending a wedding, sharing another burn - these things are all forms of giving.

What he willfully ignores is that for something to be given, there must be someone to take. To steal, one must always take, but taking is not always stealing; one cannot steal that which is willingly given.

B===D

Penis.

II

The car churned and lurched violently. The brake pads burned then turned to smoke as the car struggled to a halt. The deer bounced off the hood and tore open from the force of impact, spraying gore and entrails all across the windshield. I had swerved to avoid hitting the animal, futilely as it were, and we collided with a car in the adjacent lane. I was knocked unconscious at some point during the second impact, amidst the car's spiraling, and awoke upside down in a ditch beside the highway. The car was smoking and the air was filled with the eerie quiet of sudden catastrophe. Omber, asleep to my right, brandished a bloody gash across his dented brow which looked relatively benign. I loosed myself and scrambled out of the car frantically, hoping to seize the moment and evade the child for good. Once I freed myself however, I realized that it might be best to capitalize off of the situation - to murder the boy and make it look like he'd died in the crash. With whiplash hands I could snap his little neck and no one would ever know.

Mercy, what was I thinking? Could a man so easily be driven to murder? Sure, I'd been kidnapped, sure I'd been handcuffed and held hostage and abused but, murder? I stood outside the car trembling, deliberating, wondering whether I should revenge or run while devils and angels played musical chairs on my shoulders.

Sirens squealed in the distance like screeching bats, tracking me by sonar. If I were to act, it had to be now. As I pried open the door it let out a whimpering metal howl and I knelt down to look at the boy. Still asleep. Hesitantly, I sent my arms toward his head, paused, retreated, and pushed them forward again. When my hands reached the boy's temples I stopped and took a deep breath. His head was clammy and cold, his hair was wet. Tears stung my eyes as I committed myself to taking his life, but then, as if summoned from a deep dark ocean, his blue eyes opened wide and rolled toward me like marbles. I'm sorry, I said, you've left me with no choice. But we were partners, said Omber, looking at me as though genuinely betrayed. Partners, I said, shocked, since when? Had the boy experienced a head trauma severe enough to render this delusion? Yes, he said, the bank heist, our last job; we'll never have to work again. He must have mistaken me for someone else, a former crook or colleague. We've gone over it, he continued, we've mapped it out and we can pull it off. Don't do this.

Hey, a voice called out, you alright down there? Looking up toward the highway I saw a wiry looking man rushing down toward our car. Quick, Omber said, unhook me. I'm sorry, I can't, Omber. And before the boy could say another word, with a fierce twist, I broke his neck. The human head becomes oddly musical when the thing is done; its corporeal acoustics amplify the crunching sound of bone as though it were a hollowed instrument. The sound, unique and final, like the smashing of an electric guitar, can only be made once.

Oh, but what a sound!

With that one quick motion I was free of the little demon and all his evils. Hey mister, I came as fast as I could. I saw the accident, saw you roll over into the ditch. Don't worry, everyone is ok up there, but how about...and then he stopped talking. I'm not sure if it was the look of elation I surely wore, or whether it was the child's blood on my hands, or the horrid angle at which Omber's head hung in the passenger chair, but the man knew something terrible had just transpired. Kneeling there, halfway in the car, I noticed the gun was within my reach, on the ceiling behind Omber's seat. Hey m-m-mister, I d-do-don't know what's going on here but I can mind my business, honest. Well, I said, honestly, if we're being honest, I just killed the boy. You've had the unfortunate luck of a good samaritan turned witness, and now I'll have to kill you, too.

I grabbed the gun and pointed it at the man. He put his hands up in defense and staggered back a few paces before tripping over a stone. You don't have to do this, man, I won't tell no one, I swear! That's a chance I can't take right now, I told him. You see, I've been granted a golden opportunity here. If I kill you, the police will think that you're me - the elusive cold-blooded cop-killer - and I'm you - the hero motorist. Get up. Get in the car. C-c-come on mister, I h-h-have a wife, and a family. I swear I won't say nothing! Seeing as he was in shock and in need of some convincing, I had to whip him across the face with the butt of the pistol to explain that I was quite serious; that these weren't suggestions, they were commands. He stood up and walked toward the driver's side door before breaking into another fit of hysterical entreaties. The c-c-car is upside down, h-how do you expect me to get in? He was right, of course, this was a problem. A handstand just wouldn't do. First thing's first, I said, empty your pockets. Please, I'm begging you, don't k-k-kill me mister. Again, I had to introduce his chin to the hard bottom of the gun for him to obey me. I mused about the lucrative career I might have as a dog trainer if I were to free myself of this trouble before the police arrived. Now, said I, remove your clothes; we are to switch. W-w-what? His stutter was beginning to grate on me. Now, I yelled, as I cocked the pistol and pointed it at his skull, we are running out of time. I wondered what musical sound the head might produce if destroyed this way; the bursting of a snare drum perhaps.

He removed his shirt and shoes and pants and stood before me in women's underwear, a bra, and stockings. I was flummoxed. The red fishnet panties were ghastly against his pale skin and his legs wore an unkempt 5 o'clock shadow from thigh to ankle. His body had all the grotesque cartoon horror of a Ren and Stimpy close up. He stood awkwardly, somewhat cross-legged, vulnerable, proud yet demure. Curly hairs corkscrewed out from his chest and climbed over the leopard-print bra like ivy. You know what, let's not switch after all, I said, I'll keep your clothes. Get into the car. Sobbing, the woe-man dropped down to his hands and knees and tried to enter the overturned vehicle. A testicle peeked out from his lacy underwear as he crawled into the car. It jiggled pathetically as he wept and I had to look away in disgust. How strange some people are! And a little higher, creeping out from the opposite side, was that the string of an inserted tampon?

I can't, he screamed from inside, he's looking at me. I can't, I w-w-won't die inside a car beside a dead k-k-kid! I walked around to the passenger side and reached into the car, slammed his face against the ceiling and then fired the gun into the back of his head. I then placed the pistol into Omber's cold dead hands and turned toward the highway. I climbed out of the ditch and made my way to the transvestite's car, the one I was to escape in. How fortuitous that he came along, I thought. I couldn't have planned it better myself. The papers are going to eat this up. I could see the headlines: murderous cop-killing transvestite pedophile and kidnapped child found dead after tragic car wreck. Poor bastard. Hopefully the gunshot wound will make identifying the body a bit more difficult. As I drove off I reflected on the things I'd just done; murder; murder again; carjacking; vehicular deerslaughter. Poor deer.

That night, after narrowly escaping the scene on the highway, I drove for as long as I could and then checked into a roadside motel, one Omber would've been proud of. I laid in bed unable to sleep, looking through the late Bobbi Fortay's wallet and thinking how everything happened so quickly. Then it hit me - the details of the murders didn't add up. Cold panic choked me and my thrashing heart forced me upright. I wasn't safe. They'd be looking for me once they uncovered my error. It doesn't seem plausible that Omber could've shot Bobbi while driving, given they crashed because of the deer. And Omber couldn't have shot him after they crashed, because that would suggest he survived the accident and then had his neck broken. And then there was the gunshot, which I'm sure was heard by every bystander on either side of the highway. Damn it! This was a terrible cauldron of carelessness that I was cooking in. New news headlines ran through my head like a scrolling marquee: Cop-killer still at large, two more dead as manhunt continues.

The night I spent in that dirty motel room was the most harrowing, tormented, sleepless night I ever had the displeasure of knowing; worse even than the first night of my abduction with Omber. Frenzied fits of delirium shook me and I believed myself to be withdrawing from kindness and conscience, bleeding out whatever benevolence remained in my sinner's blood, transformed like a howling hemophiliac into a monster beneath the full moon. As that night lingered on, dawdling, then deciding to dwindle, I began to see the light. It spilled through those filthy windows, catching pieces of floating dust, briefly causing them to glitter and turn gold before illuminating all the nastiness of the room. How, I wondered, could such a sparsely furnished room induce such a claustrophobic uncleanliness? The walls were painted white but had turned a sort of brownish grey and were peeling in the corners where they met the ceiling; the garishly colored comforter hung too far over the bed, always touching the floor which, itself wore numerous dark and light stains as though it were the fur of a dead Dalmatian. It was clear to me then, in that room, that things couldn't ever be the same.

Then, there was a knock on the door.

I wasn't expecting anyone so I did not get up, did not make a sound. I felt that if I didn't move I might seem invisible and whoever it was would go away. From the crack at the bottom of the door I saw the shadows of two feet. I held my breath and didn't blink as I summoned my spirit animal: a taxidermied chameleon. The two feet became a long, solid shadow, which became three fleshy fingers reaching under the door. In response, I reached for my gun.

...

Deep Thoughts

I leave you with my deepest thoughts tonight, little juicy excerpts plucked from the vines of my mind. These are real and raw, written down onto a digital notepad and forgotten - until now.

Without further ado:

• Green shartjuice instead of green chartreuse.
• My penis' name is Richard.
• When people ask where you are from, how come no one says their daddy's balls?
• Why are queefs always so funny?
• Some people wear shark-tooth necklaces. I want a bum-tooth necklace.
• Bitch looked like Boo-Berry.
• Underprepared and over-perspired. 

+ -

What if humans aren't meant to be happy? What if our cosmic currency is worry and frustration? It's what generates the most energy to fuel the dark matter. Happiness seems too ephemeral a thing to place so much emphasis on; like orgasms. We spend inordinate amounts of time and energy chasing it, as if it is owed to us, only to feel dissatisfied and wanting more.

Or what if the idea of happiness merely serves as a means of control? How fucking Foucauldian! Happiness' pursuit keeps us distracted, frustrated and angry, feeling always like something is missing. Then, capitalists come to capitalize off of this sentiment and sell us things we don't really need so that  we might try to build our contentment upon Noguchi coffee tables, Eames chairs and Aston Martins. When we're preoccupied with how shitty we feel we turn toward the tried and true cure of consumption, thereby incurring more work to pay off our debts, which in turn, leaves us with less time, which makes us unhappy and forces us back into the comforting arms of consumption. Rinse, repeat.

So what we find is that most of our lives are spent wanting and working, worrying, chasing our tails as we wrinkle, grow old and then die. Maybe it is in our nature to fret. Maybe we're little electron rich cells in vast universe-sized battery, feeling brief outbursts of happiness as we discharge, before hardship and tragedy recharge us.

Or what if we worry so that we don't take things for granted, so that we ascribe the proper appreciation to every thing we do? The bad-news media sells us fear so that we can be grateful we aren't in abject poverty, dying alone and in pieces in some remote war-torn country in the third world.

The more light-hearted among us possess a different kind of richness, a happy bliss unclaimed by tragedy or fear. But perhaps they take their contentment for granted, for they do not know true atrocity and therefore have nothing against which to compare their happiness. It is said that to appreciate the sweet you need to know the sour.

Then we must worry. Worry about the world you've made for your children so that you can hold your later years nearer. So you can try and reclaim some of that time you lost in the frivolity of your youth by maintaining a heightened state of fear and foreboding now. Maybe that's why time moves so much faster as we get older; because we're living more fully, worrying about every potential catastrophe, each petty word, every inconsequential triviality, so that we might feel something before we die.

To get our money's worth.

pr0nstarz

I figured out what it is.

After much thinking I realized it is a confrontation between dream and reality, to meet a pornstar. When you fantasize about her, the fact that she is yours is tantamount to the fantasy. It is so obvious it almost goes without saying; she is yours to use and be used by. In reality though, one realizes that she is unattainable, a wish, a desire, a dream. To penetrate her, then, isn't the end goal. Neither is cumming on her tits. The goal is to achieve permission; to have her submit to you; to accept you and want you and love you. We must then confront the illusion we conjure when masturbating; the enormously vain self-deceit that makes us think: she wants me.

But, what is this if not fantasy?

A pornstar must thrive on the idea of being wholly and completely desired. They are, each of them, little Helens of Troy. It has to be what keeps them going - the pleasant sensation of being pleasing, of being yearned for. It's funny, through fantasy, we give them the very thing we seek: to feel wanted, needed.

For me to see her tonight would be to see the real her, to shatter the figment I've made and stare into the eyes of a reminder; reminding me of what she isn't. It is to wake up in the dark and realize your arms are not wrapped around the girl of your dreams, but instead, around a lifeless, old, yellowed pillow.

Mental Health

Tonight I'd considered - and perhaps I'm still considering - visiting a strip club to see my favorite pornstar. I realize there is something inexplicably strange about this. Something rapey, something voyeuristic, something predatory. Of course, to me, none of these things come to mind, but to an outside observer my motives seem less than pure. Is there something inherently wrong with wanting to see an admired performer? I don't question it when seeing a traveling musician, so why then is it different to see a traveling pornstar? Well, the obvious answer is sex; a pornstar, a performer of sexual acts, if admired, becomes an object of sexual desire. To go see said performer is to drool, to have a dollop of precum dribble out from my dastardly dickhead as I grunt and groan and watch her dance in my lap. But still, why is this strange? Sex and arousal are two of the most innately human experiences. We seek arousal in performance; in drama, music, cinema, art. Why is objectifying a woman, a willingly objectifiable participant, wrong?

Perhaps my concern is being let down. What if she's a bitch? What if she's strange? What if I can't jerk it to her anymore? They say you should never meet your heroes. Does this apply to pornstars too?

I feel like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. I wonder, are these thoughts unhealthy?

"You're only as healthy as you feel."

Instead, we are to die

I've been thinking a lot about death lately. Not in the macabre, unhealthy kind of way - more of a pondering. It is a question we all have to face or flee, eventually. I shared some of my musings with C last week and then Q last night, given he's not one to retreat from any philosophical inquiry, but we didn't really come up with anything useful to defend against the question. It is a question of great importance, one that shapes how you see the world and where you see yourself in it. We walked in circles in search of an assurance but only found ourselves confounded and confined; mortal coils.

Our lifespans, even if they were doubled, would not satisfy our souls. Even if we were to live for millennia we would find ourselves wanting more. One lifetime, like one drink, is never enough. But were we immortal, life would be hellish and infinite and we would go mad and lonely. Things would seem somehow even more meaningless than they do now. We would be powerless against our invulnerability, unable to even suicide, forced to endure an endless eternity. Perhaps I'm just looking at immortality through my mortal eyes. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to try and approach the limitless from such a limited vantage point. It is unanswerable.

If we're all to die - and we are - and everything that is, eventually isn't, how can anything have any meaning? It is easy, in the face of annihilation, to align with Nihilism, but there is no opium for the Nihilist. When everything is meaningless there isn't one thing that's better than another. Nothing is meaningless or meaningful, only thinking makes it so. We ascribe meaning to things; to love and life and courtesy; to passion and pleasure; growth; creativity, innovation, even meaning. Why? Were I to do nothing, the result would be the same: death and obscurity. Why struggle trying to achieve mediocrity? Even the thick cement memories of our most historied heroes, the ones decorated on dusty pages and erected as stone statues, will one day be reduced to rubble. So what does it matter? There is no true monument.

There must be a thing that is objectively more fruitful to pursue than others, though. Empathy, compassion? Giving? Maybe. Maybe there is no answer. Maybe everything is just an ocean of illusory subjectivity, veiling that one inescapable grim imperative: perish.

Grizzly Bear

I spent the evening chatting with Q about love and death, happiness and uncertainty; how to find meaning in an absurd world.

We didn't arrive at any conclusions - because there aren't any.

He's laying in front of me now, the white light of his computer screen adding a depraved glow to his grizzled cheeks. I wish he'd stand up and pull up his pants.

Hominis Incendium

August.

Seventeen days until I am to leave the default world and venture into a dream city made up of swirling dust storms and long sleepless nights, explosions, the ghostly glow of variegated electromagnetic radiation, wonder, friendship. That is, of course, if my spine allows. The whole trip has been thrown into question because of this injury. I will need to have a mattress to sleep on, the transport of which will be cumbersome, its placement into a tent, dubious. I am told where there is a will there is a way, so I will hold onto my hopes. It seems possible to attend and dance with restraint and caution, but in honesty, the whole notion seems slightly less appealing in this light. I attend to taste of abandon, intemperance, of saturnalia. I am aging though, so perhaps this will be valuable practice, a chance to experience life through older eyes - to glimpse the future.

There's nothing like a spinal fracture to make you feel old and deca(y)dent.