relating to a psychopath

Ever known someone in your life you thought was so stupid, so short sighted, so unbalanced, so emotionally needy and yet devious and conniving and a petty thief, so insecure about themselves, and yet you couldn't just slam the door in that person's face because, well, they were like family or you loved them or maybe they were your responsibility? Ever tried to change them, to make them a better person, but found that everything you tried was an exercise in futility coz they kept slipping right back? Ever wanted to countless times just wash your hands and say to hell, but couldn't coz it's the kind of problem that just doesn't go away? What do you do? Im in that situation. It's not easy being the one someone wants to be like. It's even harder if your life seems like it's one of those charmed ones and theirs is... er... not. Sometimes I just wanna pick up and leave and move to Australia or somewhere so I won't have to hear things like these, maybe even turn back time and be born a different person, and then I sit and and think why should I be the one that moves? Im not the one with the problem. Why can't it be these other people? And so in my big-headedness I decide the world is big enough for both of us and I stay and eventually the stresses just keep piling up till Im not supposed to be able to ignore them any more. Trouble is, Im the kind of guy who can ignore them. Yes they'll bother me for two minutes, but it's not that hard for me to shelve these kinds of problems. I compartmentalize a lot, I've discovered, so unless it's a physical ill you can almost never tell when Im going through stuff. Except of course if you're the cause... :) And try as I might, I can't help but think about tomorrow when there won't be places for me to escalate these issues, when the buck will stop with me, and I won't have a place to turn to or escape.

Im trying to see life through the eyes of an emo kid who has long hair covering his eyes and is extremely slender and puts on those jeans that are torn at the knees and dons dark eye shadow and listens to angry goth rock and cuts his wrists when he's agitated coz the world doesn't seem to stop when he's in trouble and Im just not seeing it. Leukemia, diabetes, lupus, HIV even, those are diseases. What the hell is this im hearing people call ADD?? Transference?? Temporary insanity? Who came up with concepts like that, and gave theses damaged kids some excuse to hide their stupidity behind?? You know Steve Harvey once said him he doesn't see shrinks and sh*t like that. Him when he gets mental problems and psychological ones he keeps them bottled up inside till they manifest themselves as physical symptoms, then he goes and sees a real doctor. Couldn't have said it better myself. How are human psyches so different? Aren't we made from the same base material? Granted all our behaviours should not totally be the same coz our minds are individual, but I think i draw the line at imaginary friends!! What the hell are those???

Anyway, maybe Im just a pragmatist, and there are actually other people out there who can understand what psychological problems are. Me I just see them as a string of psychobabble created by those med-school dropouts who were too scared to see blood but still wanted the title "Doctor". I guess I just don't see emotional neediness as so much a problem than a self-imposed condition. If it's in the mind then the cure needs to come from the mind. There's no such thing as I can't handle it in my books. Or I-don't-know-what-my-problem-is-so-im-gonna-seek-help. wtf!!! Unless you're talking about a mind reader, I really don't see how someone else is gonna help you resolve issues that are in your mind! Maybe psychopath is too strong a word, but what! that was the closest song I know to what I wanted to say (it's Macy Gray). Plus apparently the further a topic is from actual content the more artistic it's considered to be so move over Langstone Hughes - here comes me(!) :) Now I have a new-found respect for parents, coz I swear if I had a kid who turned out to be like that...

{{{Whew! I just had my first rant on the blog. Feels oddly satisfying! Note-to-self: Should do this more often.}}}

END

party like a rockstar

I have found out something about myself today - I need to become a rockstar. I KNOW! Weird, especially for someone like me - coz that will involve so many things, like get voice surgery (does that exist?), but wait - Steven Tyler did pretty well for himself with that frog-like voice... so scratch voice surgery. I need to become a few shades lighter, learn how to dance(!!!), acquire stage presence (where do they sell that, anyone?), and most of all, LEARN GUITAR! For the longest time I've been telling myself Im gonna learn how to play the guitar. And I've never followed through. Guess that's my white unicorn. That and the Beamer, of course :) See I was at a rock concert earlier today. My very first one - live music at least. BOY! did those guys bring it! It was like, just when you think it can't get louder they drop a hit you know and then the guitarist gets on top of the amp and starts playing a riff like you haven't heard before, and then the lead singer jumps and the drummer comes down on them bad boys HARD! Then the bassist pauses for ever so long and it's all silent except for the keyboard, and then just when you heart rate's coming back to normal it all begins again. WOW! That, my friends, is power. The music was literally flowing through my veins, coz I think at some point I just totally got immersed in all of it and it's like I wasn't just listening through the ears any more. Granted, I have two left feet so I can't really do that whole jump up and prance about and shake my head thing, but I felt the music. I felt it like I don't think I ever have before. And funny story - Im not even a fan of Jars of Clay (that's who was playing). I just generally like rock and it sounded like it was going to happen. But now Im definitely a fan! Im diggin up all their old albums as soon as I get time!

That's a paradigm shift, if you ever heard of one. I love audit as much as you can love something that takes over your whole life and turns it into a mass of aching bones and ringing phones and alarms that never end, but I suspect that career is a tad less interesting than being a rockstar. I mean come on, planes, tour buses, screaming fans, groupies, free drinks, groupies, fast cars and hot houses, groupies... what's not to like? Anyway, I also dislike the loneliness, and I hear as a rockstar Im gonna be willing to even pay just to have some time on my own. And I can throw tantrums whenever the record label starts giving me grief about the I donno deadlines, and I can tell them where they can stick then go bang myself in the changing room and everyone will just leave me alone, then they'll come apologize later for working me up and talk to me kindly about the aforementioned deadline and ask me what time would be convenient for me. I mean, of course I signed a contract, but no one would dare remind me about that one at a time like that, coz I'd be the face of their outfit, and I'd let them know they need me more than I need them. I'd be drama queen number one - complete with the mascara and lip gloss.

And is it just me or are rockstars always throwing or attending parties! I don't like parties much myself, but I guess I could be convinced. What's the alternative - financial statements? Nah, I could definitely be convinced. It's like they get paid to be awesome, and to lead this awesome life us people just dream about. (all that and the stupid people go and OD on drugs, trynna achieve escape from that whole glamorous life of fortune and fame that's so hard to bear! wtf??) Well I want it all. I wanna be able to walk into a showroom and have the manager clamouring to let me drive one of his cars, as long as I let him tell people I drive it. "You won't even have to pay for it, just take a picture with me." I want to wake up on a Monday morning and load up the Xbox and play Halo 3. I want body guards to beat up all those a***s I'm constantly running into. I want fame. I want a label credit card with no limit. I want to be able to wear shades inside a building at night and still make people go "Hey, that's cool. Why haven't I ever tried that before?" And then when I've done all that I wanna launch my own line of cologne. Pour Homme, of course. Maybe star in a movie or two. And have a biography written about me. Definitely have a biography. Then retire to a cool no-frills life (well, in this country, at least) in politics, not using up any of the money I'll have amassed over the years, so the rest of my family never has to work again. I want all these things, and then some.

But, well tomorrow's Monday again. Im gonna be woken up by those incessant alarms, and Im gonna dress in those (pretty cool, actually) drab suits and go to my never-ending job, and Im still going to be grateful for it all. And the pipe dreams, well

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Ask me in about ten years.

END

unopened letter to the world

What is it exactly that you mean to me? When I think about you, what do I see? I have a weird personality - an inherent disconnect from the rest of the world that borders on indifference. There's very few things I can't just up and walk away from and not bat an eyelid. I've built a sort of wall around myself through which nothing goes. I'm an expert at play it safe, and keep it cool, I've become much too good at being untouchable. How I got this way can't really say I know, but that's how I am. I take no prisoners. While connections last they rule, and when they end, they really end. It's like they were never there. I'm protected that way, I guess, from all the pain and disappointment. But then I'm also precluded from all the joy and elation. Just as I can never really hurt, I can never really yearn, pine away, languish; I can also never fully enjoy. I can never fully immerse myself in something, feel nothing other than the here and the now, make the moment last forever. My gift, is also my burden. So it only makes sense that you ask yourself, that you ask me, what do you mean to me?

I've had a taste of what it's like to be in love. To think about someone other than myself. To put myself life in someone else's hands, and have her put hers in mine (albeit a bit different than the army does it, hehe). To open myself up to the possibility of getting hurt, and thus create in my heart a window for the chance of being truly and completely happy. To look at her and see forever. To see myself through her eyes and see like a halo around my head, to see her through my own eyes and see perfection. When all the chips are down, it's a beautiful feeling. It's like I'm floating. Time stops, and sound stops, and movement stops, and nothing else in the world exists but the two of us. I totally feel Lifehouse: "...And how can I stand here, and not be moved by you? Tell me, how can it get better than this..."

Maybe I don't tell you this quite as often as I should, but you're always on my mind. You're the one I want to see when I wake up, and the hand I want to hold when I go to sleep. The little things you do, like blink a hundred miles a second, or talk to both me and the good people of the Republic of China at the same time, or pout and tilt your head and start nodding at everything I ask, or punch me when you should be thanking me, or say "Goodness!!", or go from sulking to ecstatic and back in 5 seconds flat; the ones no one else does, those are the ones that constantly take my breath away. The way we think about the same things at the same time, the way you say no when I say something you don't want to do, that we actually disagree on things sometimes, the way you sit and look spaced out for the longest time, and then go and say something that makes me speechless, the kinds of dreams you have even; these are a few of my favorite things.

Yes. I do have an inherent disconnect from the rest of the world that borders on indifference. And I do act like I'm made of stone. And I do take no prisoners. But there's also a different side to me, apparently. Turns out it's not that hard to draw blood out of a stone - all you have to do is get it to fall in love. You're not the air I breathe, but in many ways you are the reason I breathe. When I think about my life before you, it's like I wasn't even living. You've shown me what it's like to want nothing more, to be well and truly gratified. I've seen the other half of the yellow sun, and now I know that the best things in life aren't things. I wanna hold your hand and never let go. Marcel Proust said to be grateful to those who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners that make our souls blossom. You make me happy. You make my the future a place I want to go. You make tomorrow worth looking forward to. I grew up a cynic, but now I believe in a thing called love. There are two tragedies in life: one is to lose your heart's desire, and the other is to gain it. If that be true, then call me a masochist and give me tragedy any day, because what I feel right now, is for lack of better words pure magic.

END