Nietzche on the Beach

"Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer's role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there."
J. G. Ballard

Recently, life was becoming metafictional again. It was bound to happen given the pile of read and reread novels steadily growing on my bedroom floor.

During the afternoons, I had taken to drinking steadily increasing amounts of coffee. I would be light-headed and slightly delirious by three o'clock in a state that I would imagine schizophrenics would suffer in the first day off of their medication. It was in this state that I would either reread novels that I had read ten years ago, or read new ones written by authors whose work I had read in twenty years ago in high school. This literary nostalgia was an attempt to break the ennui to which I had succumbed, which hampered any attempt at creativity recently.

I had begun reading one of the only novels by J. G. Ballard I found in Borders. The first time I had read his work was in high school. At that time, I had only read either cannons of literature assigned by an English teacher who blanched as my mention that "nunnery" in Hamlet was also a slang for whorehouse or straightforward genre fiction leaning toward space operas. I had not experienced life or literature enough to be able to explain why Ballard's works hit me so. Only later in life would I be able to explain the confluence of his simple, sharp language that served an unnerving view of modern society.

Two-thirds into the current novel, the protagonist had just been beaten by a group of men he recognized from the business park in which resided. "Entombed all day in their glass palaces, they relished the chance to break the heads of a few pimps and transvestites and impose the rule of the new corporate puritanism." Shortly thereafter, he witnessed the same men commit a violent breaking and entering in another neighborhood.

There is a fissure between the protagonist, who by no means is a saint, and the behavior he witnesses as he attempts to investigate the mass murder that had been committed by the previous resident of his home. A debauchery underneath the glittering modern houses of Cannes.

This is not to say that I have been ensconsed in any neighborhood intrigues, thrill assaults, or therapeutic sociopathy. Instead, I have begun to realize that there is a fissure between who I am and the daily wants of others. As I step back and examine my own motivations, I realized that much of tension in my own life springs from forcing myself to observe the debauchery of others, or perhaps more accurately, the underlying nihilism behind it. And yet, without these actions, life simply becomes the act empty act of killing second after second.

There There (Boney King of Nowhere)

"[O]xytocin is closely related to endorphins -- opiate-like brain chemicals -- and the agitation typically felt by lovers when they are separated from ones they adore may in part be due to their desire to push up their oxytocin level. Countless psychological studies have shown that people in the throes of this hormonal storm are more than usually divorced from reality[.] They are famously blind to the other's faults and often wildly over-optomistic about the future of the relationship. Looked at coldly, romantic love is a chemically induced form of madness[.]" Rita Carter, Mapping the Mind (76).

"Just 'cuz you feel it doesn't mean it's there." Radiohead, "There There (Boney King of Nowhere)

"It's all just fookin' chemicals." Begbie, Trainspotting

At the risk of sounding really L.A., I'll start out with a question my therapist has posed to me several times: What exactly is unrequited love?

Now, having been truly in love just once, I can replace "love" with "infatuation," "crush," "lust," or any other variant of affection/attraction, and it'll still be a valid question given that rejection sucks in any form. (And from my own perspective, it seems like a lot of people conflate those above concepts with love, but let's save that for another entry.)

At first, the question seems like a tautology--unrequited love is love that isn't requited. Duh. But if the question were so easily answered, there wouldn't be all those songs and books about lovelorn, and the amount of bloggers would probably drop by 80%. Why do humans sit there and pine away after folks who have, in no uncertain terms, say, "fuck off, I'm not interested"? Why do we inflict upon ourselves and others that wailing and gnashing, the self-pity, the crappy emo songs?

In any event, after being put in the spectator's seat for a while, and after getting some distance from the "Green-Eyed Debacle," I think I've come up with an answer. What is unrequited love? It's a neurosis.

One clinical definition of neurosis is the "poor ability to adapt to one's environment, an inability to change one's life patterns." Bit on the nose, isn't it? I mean, all that effort that goes into chasing and crying and sleepness nights even after you've been told "it ain't gonna happen" sure sounds like an inability to adapt to one's environment.

After being in the spectator's seat, and my dad's clumsy attempts to set me up on blind dates, I've come to see that unless there is some reciprocity, that search for attachment is like stapling your thumb, painful and rather pointless.

I know, this might be a long-winded way of saying, "There's more fish in the sea." But obviously, those cliches aren't that effective--you have to be rational for those cliches to work, and as oxytocin makes you anything but rational, cliches aren't of much use.

But when you realize that unrequited love comes down to a chemical imbalance, and when you're not the person currently experiencing it, you can put things in perspective. Well, at least I can, for now.

Call it passion, intense, or being just plain bugfuck, but I used to wear my emotions like a badge of honor. "Look at me, I'm a deep guy with deep emotions and something to say! Oh if they could only know the depth of my feelings, if only the universe were governed by the laws of desire!" Which is all fine and good if you're trying to write a drama, but kinda sucks in terms of living one.

Even when I knew the potential neurophsyiological underpinnings, I used to excuse it by the facile analogy to an alcoholic surgeon--he knows through his medical training that the alcohol has its effects by being able to cross the blood brain barrier, knows the damage it does to his liver, his mind, and yet it still doesn't stop him from shaking as he holds the scalpel or wanting another drink. It's a compulsion. And so, I knew all about the flood of oxytocin, the decrease in serotonin when it all went sour, and still I told myself if had meaning just to get me to the next bad choice.

But that analogy, other than being forced, is still flawed--that surgeon could get help and fucking stay away from the alcohol. And as for myself, I've come to realize that unrequited emotions have gotten me fuck all. With that realization, I cut those emotions--that skip in the heartbeat, that warm feeling from small things--as simply irrelevant if they aren't returned. That urge when looking in her eyes to lean in and believe that everything will be all right shall be severed and discarded unless she leans in too. It's all fookin' chemicals.

This isn't meant to be a bummer of a realization. Seriously, it's a step forward.

Anyway, if we're gonna run with at alcoholic surgeon analogy, I gotta go into detox, get my wits about me, and cleanse the system. This isn't a white flag, just a break. No looking unless looked at. No chasing unless chased. Ain't looking for anything more than friendship for now.

"There's always a siren
Singing you to shipwreck
(Don't reach out, don't reach out
Don't reach out, don't reach out)

Steer away from these rocks
We'd be a walking disaster
(Don't reach out, don't reach out
Don't reach out, don't reach out)"
--Radiohead, "There There (Boney King of Nowhere)"

On Writing

Many writers, such as Stephen King, advise that you should have a set time for writing--writing should be treated no differently than office work, with a time to punch in and a quota of pages for the day. And though there is certainly wisdom in that for many writers, for the creation of something from nothing takes a tremendous amount of discipline which often times can only be gained through a strict daily quota, the disadvantage for me at least is that the writing I do on such a schedule feels forced. It's the literary equivalent of pushing the square peg through the round hole.

So when I came across this piece by one of my favorite writers, M. John Harrison, a very naturalistic writer who is able to turn the details of the mundane and turn them into the surreal, the transcendent, or the disturbing, I felt relieved to see that one can be a successful writer while being guided by impulse rather than routine.

How I Write by M. John Harrison

Because I have no memory I’m forced to collect the things that interest me--landscapes, scenes out of other people’s lives, bits of overheard dialogue--in a notebook. I used to pride myself on using any notebook that came to hand, especially if it had a nice puppy or some flowers on the cover. But you end up like everyone else, using the Moleskines with the little squares despite the enduring shame.

Everything goes into the computer. It spends several years inside, like a character from Nova Swing, shifting location, attempting escape, undergoing recombination, transformation, cannibalism, verdigris, duplication, interrogation, prolapse. I rake through the files most days, looking for connections. Eventually even the gnarliest and most idiolectic bits and pieces give up what they know. Light, written in 2001, begins with a barely-modified note, including verbatim quotes, scribbled down in 1994 during an academic dinner in Leicester.

The notebook stage is the last time anything of mine sees paper until publication. I like to do lots of operations. Fountain pens and refurbished 1930 Underwood portables don’t cut it; digital management is the appropriate choice. Have you ever noticed how every male novelist you meet at a literary festival wears a linen jacket and is called Tim ? Tim prefers an antique Watermans, maybe his dad owned it. It keeps him pure and returns him to the sinewy prose of the giants who came before us all.

I don’t have any writing pattern. I hate being professional. I don’t write according to a schedule or an output plan; I don’t begin at the beginning and write to the end. Or rather: if I do any of those things I usually have to bin the results. Writing should be fun--absorbing, transporting, intense, whatever. It should ambush you. It should be up there with sex, drugs and irresponsible driving. It shouldn’t have anything to do with research or require a degree in finding out about lipstick colours in 1943. I can’t do it if I’m bored or depressed or feeling unconfident. Once it’s working, I can write anywhere--I’ve done stuff while hanging off an abseil rope on a sea cliff or a highrise building--but not under any conditions. If I’m sitting at my desk I hate to be cold, I hate anyone’s noise except my own. But I like working on a train.

I write to find out why I’m writing what I’m writing. I like to write from life, as in Climbers, but I like imaginative fiction too. Imagination is nonlinear, dynamical, not subject to reduction. I could never pitch an idea to Hollywood--if you can write it as a synoptic sentence why bother to write it as anything else ? Neither am I impressed by the myth of a prose transparent to some meaning which exists independent of it. However much of a record it pretends to be, what goes into my notebooks is already a fabrication. Good thing too.

Copyright Time Out 2006

4:35 AM

A feeling that something was fundamentally wrong with this life had kept me awake. I had attempted to fall asleep, but ended up just lying in bed with my eyes closed and that restlessness in my heart. And so, unlike many of the past nights, I turned on a lamp at 4:30 in the morning, took a long shower, and decided to go out.

I drove down to Westwood and went to the only place that was open this late or this early, a mediocre chain deli that, in the emptiness of the streets, was lit like home.

Walking the block from my car to the deli, I could see my breath. The sky was still a deep black and the streets were still awash in the orange glow of streetlights, and the world was silent just for a while. This would be a good photograph, I thought to myself, a solitary figure in leather jacket, jeans, hunched in the cold, hands in pockets framed by the night and streetlights.

A tired, young waitress showed me to my table and asked if I wanted coffee. I smiled at her, both of us recognizing how tired we were, and held the look for a while. I said yes in that smokey morning voice, and within seconds, got my coffee.

There were about seven other customers in the deli. The four sitting behind me were young men who looked like they had been out clubbing, but were earnestly discussing the change of film and technology. A couple of booths further back, a lone man in his late forties with a shag of a hairstyle and a sweatshirt too young for him sat with an unassuming grin. I realized that it was the actor who played Cameron in Ferris Bueller's day off.

The man sitting in the booth next to me was in his late fifties, with a lean, haggard face full of grey stubble, wearing cheap glasses. He had a notepad that I caught a glimpse of, full of strange, hand drawn diagrams. The other customer also gave off that feeling of quiet madness, grey hair in a moptop, dingy t-shirt over sweats.

I ordered a meal that was too filling, and took me time between bites and reading a magazine that was two weeks outdated. And so I took it all in, the earnestness, the madmen, the insomniacs.

And I thought about you, though I don't know who you are. I may not have met you yet, and there you are, slumbering by yourself, or with someone else, our paths not having crossed yet. Or maybe I have met you already, neither of us realizing the full significance of the things we have said and the looks that we've shared. I thought about waking up next to you, both of us unable to sleep, our hearts restless not because there was fundamentally wrong with this life but because everything was right with it. And so we would go down to mediocre chain deli that, in the emptiness of the streets, was lit like home. We would walk down the early morning street, arm in arm, hunched over, leaning on each other, looking like the companion piece to "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" album cover. We would sit across from each other, smile, talk in our smokey morning voices.

By the time I finished my meal, the facade of the stores across the street had turned from the orange of streetlamps to the faded blue-white of the morning. I walked out, and saw my breath. This would be a good photograph, I thought to myself, the back of a solitary figure in leather jacket, jeans, hunched in the cold, hands in pockets framed by the grey morning light.

And I drove home, and now the day has fully broken. My heart is still restless, but I am calm for now. And I will sleep for a little bit, and wonder when our paths will cross.

"Driving so slow
Streets are empty as we go
Back over the canal
We've all had a long day and we're going home

We all got big tears in our sides
And the city salt doesn't help
But it sure cleans them out

In little coffee shops
And litte sidewalk cops
We're the only ones awake
We're the only ones that can't stop

Driving,so slow
Streets are empty as we go " -- Gemma Hayes, "4:35 AM"

Arc D'X

Let's call this an homage to Steve Erickson without reading too much more into this, shall we?

"If Etcher inherited both his father's brooding fatalism and kindness of heart, he resisted the lessons of life that teach one to be harder. In some ways Etcher taught himself to be softer. And in defiance of life's lessons that teach one to dim the light in oneself and fight the dark, Etcher intended to do neither. He hated the resignation that life insisted on." Steve Erickson, Arc D'X

And Jack says, what has kept me away from her is not a sense of awkwardness, but a sense of violation.

I will admit that I saw significance in the smallest of things, the direction of seagulls riding the thermals, or the confluence of a breeze and song playing distantly from a radio. I have sought significance in the smallest of things to fight against a rising nihilism. The intensity of my sight and of my gaze and of my heart, if given direction toward that nihilism, that void, would consume me. And so I set that intensity upon finding meaning where perhaps there is no meaning at all.

I have kept this silent from my friends, the import of Audrey's gaze on a random night. There is as much significance in her look as the breeze and the song, they would say, which is to say none at all. And knowing what they know of me, they would be secure in their certainty that they were right.

Had I only my own observations to rely upon, untrustworthy as they are, I would agree. But there was a precedent, another witness at another time, as binding to the heart as it was to reality.

Three years ago, during an unusually hot May Sunday, the heat arriving so quickly it struck Los Angeles into a stupor, there was a woman named Rose. Her eyes were as a warm brown as Audrey's were sea green. We had known each other for a year, became close friends. And after an afternoon at the Grove, we had retreated to my flat and its weak air conditioner.

We had lain facing each other, letting conversation slip away until there was just the hum of the refrigerator and the air conditioner, just looking at each other. As time passed and nothing more was said, the import of our mutual gaze became heavy and tangible. There was no significance to be had, no meaning to be found in any words that we had said previously. The only significance were her eyes and my eyes as reflections of everything unspoken. The night would end with tangled sheets and legs.

There would be later betrayals that would throw us apart and that would render whatever meaning we had created into nothing. Time would pass, and I would keep that nihilism at bay with the distractions of relationships that would have no meaning so that I would not spend my energy looking for one.

And then I met Audrey. She was nothing like Rose. Her eyes were sea green as Rose's were a warm brown. She was younger but at the same time was more mature. A friendship grew. I have no explanation as to why I had begun to seek meaning again, and yet I was. I had stumbled in the beginning, and it had begun to feel as if I were trying to prop a door open for the next three months.

On a cool winter's night, during a gathering of friends, I had decided to find out whether I should enter through the door or slam it shut. I had quietly broken her away from the the group, and awkwardly and sincerely expressed what I had been feeling. And had her words carried the only meaning, it would have ended there.

But yet, there is significance in silence and in the gaze, as precedent proves. After Audrey said that there was someone else in her heart, though she was disappointed that he did not show up, we stood facing each other, letting conversation slip away until there was just the din of the convesations of others, just looking at each other. As time passed and nothing more was said, the import of our mutual gaze became heavy and tangible. I had a shock of realization that Audrey's gaze was the same one as Rose's.

The night did not end in a tangle of sheets and legs. Instead, the next night, I received a message from Audrey requesting me to respect the relationship she had with someone who had made the minor betrayal of being absent last night, of attributing the night to inebriation. She had ended the message with what was meant to be a reassurance, that there was no awkwardness on her side.

I had responded by assuring her that I would respect her relationship, but through no fault of her own, I would feel awkward. To feel how I did, to know that gaze, it was impossible for me not to, although this latter remain unwritten. This was a farewell.

Afterwards, I realized that awkward was an inapt term. The mutuality of that gaze, the reflection of each other's desire, was heavy and tangible. It was not the breeze and the song. And for something so laden with import to be tossed aside, or even worse, to be truly temporary, as transient as a breeze, felt like a betrayal. The betrayal was not Audrey's, but of reality. It felt like a violation.

And now that intensity, that mutually recognized desire, exists solely in me, and ignored in Audrey, given direction toward that nihilism.

Want

"Happiness is a dark thing to pursue . . . and the pursuit itself is a dark thing as well." Arc D'X, Steve Erickson

"I want to reach my hand into the dark and feel what reaches back." "Want," Recoil

An observer looking in at 9:30 p.m. on a certain weekday night at the random Los Angeles bar would have seen a man and a woman, slightly apart from a gathering, at their own table, gazing intently at each other. The lighting is a dim yellow that will make any memories of this scene sepia-toned and amber-like.

The man and the woman have been staring at each other, not saying a word, for longer than should be comfortable for casual acquintances. As nothing is said and more time passes, there is a palpable feeling that something is changing. It's akin to that sudden drop in pressure, the wind rising just before a storm. By all accounts, the observer would have every right to believe that something is happening, a shift in the relationship between the two.

There should be an import to this scene. There should be a significance.

There should, but there isn't.

We shift perspective. The man knows this gaze. He knows this gaze because he has seen this gaze before, and it comes as a shock. He has seen this gaze because, a long time ago, a woman he loved gave him this gaze at the beginning of the relationship. That old love has gone. The same gaze is here with this woman. He had nearly given up on this woman.

If the world did not move on, perhaps there would be some significance. But the world does move on. Context and sobriety fill in the day. The next day, the woman will tell the man he is mistaken. There is no import.

There are the usual platitudes that the man will tell himself. These platitudes will not stop the insomnia. They will not stop the sense of disappointment so palpable it leaves him physically stunned.

The night will come, and then the false dawn. It will be a long passage.

Running Up That Hill

"It doesn't hurt me.
Do you want to feel how it feels?
Do you want to know, know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
You, it's you and me. " -- Kate Bush, "Running Up That Hill"

Jack returned home around three in the morning, his shirt damp and smelling of cigarettes, whiskey and stale cologne. He switched on a a single lamp on the first floor, leaving only a small area of yellowed light barely illuminating his coffee table and half his sofa. The rest of his loft was still encased in shadows and moonlight.

He untucked his shirt, unbuttoned the cuffs, but otherwise left his clothing on except for his shoes which he had kicked off when he walked through the door. He went to his kitchen and opened the window, letting the cool Santa Ana winds rip by and chill his skin through his shirt. Then, as he did every night, he opened his fridge and pulled out a blue water bottle. He went to the kitchen counter, twisted the cap of a small plastic bottle, and shook a chalky, hexagonal pill onto his hand.

About a month ago, Jack had switched to taking the SSRI at night. The sudden extra serotonin available to his mind had left him detached and tired during the day, so he realized that he could use the SSRI as a sleep supplement as well as a equalizer if he took it in the evening instead.

Jack placed the pill on his tongue, and then took long, deep pulls from the cold water bottle. He placed the bottle back in the fridge and stood in front of the window, letting the moonlight pour over him.

Each of these actions were slow and deliberate. Jack had taken to imagining everything from a third person perspective, every move a scene in a mental film, a photograph. His actions would exhibit a slow, unassuming manner. If a neighbor across the street had looked at Jack's loft, he was see a silhouette, hands in pocket, framed by bone white moonlight and a dim paper yellow backlight.

This narrative was an exercise in detachment, a complement to the pills and the therapy and the alcohol and the cigarettes. For the past month, he felt anything but detached. Even with the SSRI, he had failed to sleep more than three hours a night. His mind had turned into a mobius strip of circular thoughts of disappointments and frustration. His heart was a pronouncement of broken sighs.

Jack had gone out tonight in an attempt to distract himself. This was the Boys are Back in Town Scenario, walking with his friends in a confident swagger. Buy the Betties drinks, chat them up, play the role of Lothario in a leather jacket and hope those slender legs are wrapped around the waist by the end of the night.

And for a while, Jack had played that role admirably, nodding his head to the giggles of the student/bartender/actress of a brunette that sat across from him. But inevitably, there were lulls--pauses while waiting to buy drinks, or the minute to take a piss, or the inevitable awkward silences--that allowed reflection to break through.

As reflection broke through, so did Jack's inherent intensity. It was not enough to randomly fuck some woman he'd be relieved at not hearing from ever again. There was something in his totality, a compulsion, an obsession, that propelled him to find deeper meaning in everything. There was something in him that conflated deeper meaning with emotion, so that all of Jack's actions were governed by a need for passion.

He would imagine, during these times of reflection, that the rules of perception fundamentally shifted, suddenly allowing everyone to see emotions. In that instant of change, Jack would flare into a brilliant red aura that would suffuse the bar.

But reality was not so accomodating. That swell he felt in his chest, that thunder in his heart that he had begun to feel with only a certain someone, could not change the brush offs, the unreturned calls. That the cascade of emotions were not fundamental rules underlying reality, that longing that felt so certain was not a fourth law of thermodynamics, was beginning to lead Jack to a nihilism of which he did not want to enter.

And so, like every instance he had gone out the past three months, Jack would detach himself. He would be cordial for the rest of the night. He would drive himself home along the empty Los Angeles streets, lit only by the orange streetlights and the blue of his car's dashboard.

He would walk slowly, deliberately into his loft and take his pills.

But tonight, the Santa Ana winds had blown away the smog, leaving the night sky clear so that the stars shown. And Jack, standing at his kitchen window, illuminated by moonlight, looked up at Orion, and let himself hope for a world in which longing was just as tangible a force as thermals beneath a bird's wings.

"C'mon, baby, c'mon darling,
Let me steal this moment from you now.
C'mon, angel, c'mon, c'mon, darling,
Let's exchange the experience, oh...

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
With no problems."

How Can You Be Sure

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death." -- Pearl Buck

During a recent drunken outing, a comrade of mine proclaimed to me, "You know, she's not who you think she is. Just give it up. You're no good for her and she's no good for you." I ignored this the best that I could since the only perspectives that matter in this situation are mine and hers. And as for who I thought she was, I thought she was kind, quirky, inquisitive and certainly not the stereotypical Angeleno fluffchick whose brushoff I couldn't give two shits about. I thought she was a friend.

At the risk of sounding fatalistic, it appears that my comrade was right. Although I viewed her as a friend, apparently I'm no different to her than some random who asked for her number at a club instead of someone whose gotten to know her for the past few months.

Yeah, I do know that brushoffs are an inherent, intrinsic part of social life. I might as well be railing against getting wet in the rain. And yeah, I do hear that rational voice in my head sounding so mother-like saying, "Gosh, if she treats you like that, why would you want her to be your friend."

Rationality is all well and good, but unfortunately, it doesn't stop the insomnia, the disappointment, that bit of heartache. Knowing that the pharmacology of these reactions can be put down to an sudden, short term decrease in serotonin that no amount of paxil can remedy doesn't get rid of this feeling of sadness.

The thing is, if she were just some random chick I met at a club or on-line, it wouldn't affect me like this. In fact, more often than not, I would've been relieved at the brush off, which in this case was a begged off get together followed by an unreturned call.

But instead, for some reason, I started building up expectations with this one. I know I stumbled with the friendship early on, but I thought it was a friendship. Now though, I know where I stand with her, which is to say I don't stand anywhere with her.

It's a blow, to realize that you really don't mean anything to someone who you liked. It brings you down, it makes you feel worthless, less of a person than you are. A Certain Someone before her had already made me feel worthless for two years. It's not something I want to repeat.

I realize that most people are able to brush off the brushoffs easily, shed off their disappointments like wet clothing. But for me, well, I can't help feeling the accumulation of disappointments. It's a sad Pavlovian response by now--every time I felt that flicker of potential, I get crushed. And this, this just reinforces it.

"When I'm like this how can you be smiling
saying
how can you be sure?
(I don't want you anymore)
How can you be sure?
(I don't want you anymore)
How can you be sure?
(I don't want you anymore)
How can you be sure?" -- Radiohead

Tipping Point

"Feel no shame for who you are." Jeff Buckley, "New Year's Prayer

"Love and death are very similar, because they're the times in your life when you most want to believe in magic, when you yearn for some symbolic act or retrospective edit which can change the world you find yourself in." Hap from "One of Us" by Michael Marshall Smith.

"I have given up trying to recognize you in the surging wave of the next moment." Rainer Maria Rilke

Within the space of an hour, I had gone from having a rather good night, believing that things were back on track to yet another sleepness night, losing all faith in certain matters. There's a part of me that would like to leave everything that I have, move to some dusty nameless town in the Central Valley and cut myself off from everybody that I've ever known.

I know for most of my life, my friends thought "Shit, how is he gonna fuck this up?" with regards to a certain aspect of my life. I also know that I never disabused them of this notion. So they go about, trying to give me well-intentioned advice about what to do and what not to do, providing me with their insight. And in my more insecure days, I actively sought this.

But life is an iterative process, and who they thought I was ten years ago is not really who I am now. I've been through one intense relationship that nearly left me a burnt out shell, that nearly pushed me over the edge. The relationship taught me to be cautious, to hold back on my emotions, keep them in check because I'd rather not go through that again. I've gone out enough to know that I'm not the quiet, awkward guy that I was in college and law school, but instead that I can be charming and cute if I wanted to be.

Now, of course I still make mistakes. I've made some very recently. But they weren't in the same vein as mistakes ten years ago, and more importantly, they were my mistakes and mine alone to deal with.

Not enough positive things can be said for friendship and good intentions, but whether those intentions are beneficial can only be measured in the effects they have.

My friends have seen me at my worst, and being friends, they don't want to see me back there again. I understand. But unfortunately, I feel like they define me, base predictions of my actions, by my worst. As I said before, I have given them much reason to do so before. Yet this doesn't really help me. By defining me by my worst, they are setting me up to fail.

Imagine you're at the office. You've turned in some prior mediocre work, so the whole office is staring over your shoulder, telling you how to write, which correspondence to send to which executive, correcting your punctuation and grammar. They all mean well. They want you to stay employed. Are you going to do a good job because they're rooting for you, or are you going to fuck up under the strain.

There's an additional dimension, common sense that I wish I realized before, which is, after a certain point, my friends just have to let me run with the ball. If I trip up and fumble on my own, my bad, but don't trip me up in trying to push me forward.

Maybe I am deluding myself, maybe the situation really isn't right, but let me find out on my own. At the end of the day, in these certain matters, the only relevant perceptions are mine and the other person's--not the perceptions of my friends, her friends, third parties, etc.

The cliche is "be yourself," but how can you be yourself when you get third hand information that you fucked up. Try being effortlessly charming when in the back of your head, you have "you fucked up," or "it's not the right situation" spinning in your mind. You can't? It's a sure fire way to fuck up if you're friends turned out to be wrong, isn't it?

Unfortunately, at this moment, this entry is too little too late. Because of all this, I am now back to being the person I was ten years ago. This entry is the result of that self-fulfilling prophecy of me being that guy who over-reacts and flies off the handle. How can I not fuck up, not be intense now?

I can't say that I hope for anything different, because I have lost hope, at least for now. I feel heartsick and angry. That tipping point is coming. Maybe I'll welcome it with open arms.

Da Da Da

I know I've always been lucky with gigs appearing just when I need some dosh. They haven't always been the best gigs--First BigLaw and Phuqued Firm can attest to that. But when the reserves run low, somehow, gigs manage to fall into my lap. And not the document review drone gigs, where you sit in a cubicle with six other attorneys for twelve hours a day, the norm of the contract attorney biz. No, instead, I've always gotten gigs that required substantive work--research, motion writing, depositions, court appearances.

So there's a part of me that's not too worried that OceanGig isn't hiring, or what I though was a fallback gig won't be (which actually is good because that office has turned into a morass of low morale and high screaming--I've already been through 5 years of that type of shit).

On the other hand, I have to say I will be bummed if I have to work at the stereotypical document review gig. And shit like this about contract attorneys doesn't help my self-esteem either. That part of me that's been so indoctrinated by the "choose life, choose a job, choose a career" aspect of society is taking a hit to the ego. To paraphrase Trainspotting once again, contract attorneys are apparently "the lowest of the fucking low, the scum of the earth, the most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat into" the legal profession (well, aside from unlawful detainer and collection attorneys).

So yeah, I'm not totally Johnny Sunshine right now, though I haven't really ever been. But I have gone into a Stuart Smalley type spin. Many contract attorneys go into contract work because they have nowhere else to go--they graduate in the middle of the pack from middle tier law schools, and can't get even a SmallLaw job. I'm not denigrating them. Sheesh, but for the grace of God I could've easily been one of them. On the other hand, I started at BigLaw, then jumped to a bigger and better Biglaw and voluntarily took myself out of the running. Working 2600 hours for the rest of my life just wasn't attractive to me. And even if some schmo reviewing my resume tars me with the same brush as other contract attorneys, that difference in legal experience is a significant difference to my ego even if I'm the only person who knows it.

I realized that the aspects that I liked about the law--research, crafting arguements from facts, persuasion--are all creative aspects. The only non-sexual thing that makes me feel whole are the artistic aspects of life--a scene in a movie where the cinematography and acting is just right, the confluence of melody and lyrics of a song, language. So what use is pride in being a BigLaw Partner working fourteen hours a day, worried about the bi-annual draw, making your life beholden to clients who would throw you to the wolves for one simple slip-up, when you're fucking miserable?

Of course, with the realization that it is the impulse to create (or at least the appreciate of others creative impulses)that really drives me, that I will never be happy unless I pursue creative activity, the real problem I have is how to nurture and harnass that impulse. I've been doing research on literary journals in my attempt to publish the short story I've written, and I'm a better writer than nine out of the ten writers a lot of these journals publish. So, quality isn't a worry. Instead, I know my problem is having something to write about.

I guess in the meantime, when I do go back to shoring up the reserves, I gotta remember, "you are not your job."

I Am Jack's Dysfunctional Pineal Gland

"With insomnia, nothing's real. Everything is far away. Everything is a copy, of a copy, of a copy." Narrator, Fight Club

Despite the fact that I'm more at peace with myself now, I'm also entering the fifth straight night of insomnia. I'm too tired to focus, but too wired to relax. I managed perhaps four hours of sleep today, maybe six hours the night before.

I'm not at the point of hallucinating just yet, but I have come up with millions of permutations of every conceivable worst case scenario for a certain missed opportunity. I've though about the economics of interstellar warfare (for a short story that I've been fiddling around with--long story short, doesn't make any economic sense at all). I've wondered about my short term and long term future. I've surfed the web. I've annoyed the crap outta my cat. I've resisted the urge to call friends at 3am in the morning. I'm beginning to look back at those nights filled with dreams about college and missing finals because I haven't studied--in fact, I didn't even know which classes I had been taking because I'd blown them off--with fondness.

Sigh. Maybe I should go to the 7-11 and do some self-medicating--Tylenol PM with a JD chaser.

Half Acre

I know music is such an individual and personal taste. I'm sure that there are people out there who get teary-eyed at the latest Carrie Underwood song, and think that My Chemical Romance is the height of lyricism. So it's difficult to write about those rare three minutes when the confluence of emotions and music are so right that a song stops you in your tracks without sounding awkward.

For the past week, I haven't been sleeping well. I had realized that I had gotten over one relationship only after I realized that I foreclosed certain other possibilities. The prospect of returning to the law leaves me physically ill, but at the same time, I know I need to shore up my reserves once more. And at 1:40 a.m. on a Saturday morning, I received a call from a Certain Someone, with whom I had that relationship I was getting over.

This was one of those nadirs in life, which left me confused and not a little heartsick, paralyzed by the mistakes of the past, those mistakes reaching out to make me stumble along in the present.

Funny how focusing on something random can lead you away.

There's a rather mawkish commercial for Liberty Mutual, an insurance company--it's very "Pay It Forward" where one person witnesses an act of kindness who then in turn does something kind. The commercial is as subtle as a hammer, but it's the music in the background that sticks in your head.

The song is "Half Acre" by Hem. I have a video of a live performance below. Both the vocals and the instrument are beautiful, in a folksy Aaron Copland sort of way. It's only when I read the lyrics and heard the song in its entirety that I felt a burden lift. I know it's rather tacky to refer to another song to describe what I felt, but to paraphrase Hope Sandoval's "Feeling of Gaze," I felt a sin fading.

This isn't a hallelujah moment where I shout, "Blessed be, blessed be, I've been cured!" I still hope in those quiet times that maybe I'm too pessimistic about certain forclosed possibilities, and I still worry about the future. But I do feel a little more at peace with myself. Without much futher ado, here is a video of and the lyrics of "Half Acre" by Hem.



I am holding half an acre
Torn from the map of Michigan
And folded in this scrap of paper
Is the land I grew in

Think of every town you've lived in
Every room you lay your head
And what is it that you remember

Do you carry every sadness with you
Every hour your heart was broken
Every night the fear and darkness
Lay down with you

A man is walking on the highway
A woman stares out at the sea
And light is only now just breaking

So we carry every sadness with us
Every hour our hearts were broken
Every night the fear and darkness
Lay down with us

But I am holding half an acre
Torn from the map of Michigan
I am carrying this scrap of paper

That can crack the darkest sky wide open
Every burden taken from me
Every night my heart unfolding
My home

Sacrificial Bonfire

“Change must be earnt
Sacrificial bonfire must reign
Reign over good
Banish the bad
Oh,Reign over good
Banish the bad, oh, ohh.”
-“Sacrificial Bonfire,” XTC

Jack Lindon was the first one to arrive at the hill. The late afternoon had not turned to twilight just yet, as the setting sun still lit the horizon orange and gold. This, in turn, created a contrast with the sea which was dark, save for the white caps of waves and the small glittering yellow area directly beneath the sun.

He decided to light a cigarette, cupping his hands against the breeze that was flowing inland, bending the hilltop grasses and heather away from him. He then loosened his black tie, and fought the urge to scratch his neck itching from the heavily starched white collar. His black dress slack was looser than he liked, and let the wind flow around his legs. His black suit jacket did a serviceable job keeping him warm.

Beneath him, the village lights were beginning to turn on. Children and adults alike would be dressed up as fairies and dragons, cowboys and astronauts, winding their way through the streets for candies. By the end of the night, after the children were returned home, the villagers would congregate in the main square for the Hallow’s Eve Carnival, laughing and drinking, exchanging kisses between gaudy masks.

Well, the villagers except for Jack and a few, select others.

Jack walked to the kindling on the top of the hill, a large mass of dried wood, old newspaper and discarded toys. As the newest member of the Hill Gang, he had carried the kindling during the dead of night for the last three months. He was one of the few volunteers in the recent past, saving others from the Lottery for the next three years.

For most of his life, the rhythm of Jack’s fortune had followed a point and counterpoint. The rise of his schooling, and later in life, his career, would be inevitably matched by a nadir in his love life–promotions that would occur with a break up. Likewise, the flowering of each new romance would coincide with setbacks in the office or a disruption in his career. Had this rhythm continued, Jack would probably have not volunteered. Even now he was thinking about the flash of green eyes, the kind smile.

However, the last three months of Jack’s life had inexplicably changed. The fortunes in both his career and his love life suddenly met with obstacles simultaneously. He had realized that he had squandered his career by being complacent, and by resting on the graces of his friends instead of completing his own path. At the same time, he inelegantly stumbled in his tentative conversations with a woman who had just recently moved into the village so that promising meetings quickly turned to silence.

By the time Jack finished half a pack of cigarettes, the sun had set beneath the sea, leaving only a red corona surrounded by a deep blue.

“Those things will kill you.” Jack turned around and saw Dr. Kinderman, his physician, a short, stout man in his fifties with curling, salt and pepper hair. Dr. Kinderman was also dressed in a black suit and white shirt, though his was a little more expensive, and certainly more tailored.

Both Jack and Dr. Kinderman chuckled at the weak joke.

“How long have been here?” Dr. Kinderman asked. “You know, no one would have minded if you decided to get a couple of pints, do some flirting. We understand that you’re still young, you know.”

“That’s OK, Dr. Kinderman. I needed to get some air.”

“My my my, so serious. Well, as I said, youth is often wasted on the young. If you’re not going to be drinking with your friends, you might as well take a swig of this, so long as you hand me one of those cancer sticks.” Dr. Kinderman handed Jack a hip flask full of whiskey.

Eventually, more of the Hill Gang arrived. George Haversham, an affluent, thin man in his late-sixties, instructed Jack to start the bonfire. Jack, being the newest member and the youngest, felt awkward among the established members, who were talking amongst themselves about the latest capital gains tax issues, or the doings of their children and grandchildren. Dr. Kinderman had noticed Jack, standing quietly near the fire. “No need to mingle, Jack. You’ll come into your own after tonight,” he said kindly.

By midnight, the Hill Gang was waiting for two more members. The Carnivale in the village was dying down. Jack saw two figures walking up the hill. He knew that they were David Morrison, the second youngest member of the Hill Gang, a young partner at the international law firm of Hale Dickenson, and Alfred Kensington, the oldest member at seventy-two, the founder of the third largest supermarket chain.

“Looks like your initiation is going to be easy,” Dr. Kinderman said. “We don’t have a runner this year.”

Mr. Haversham called out as soon as David and Mr. Kensington were lighted by the bonfire. “I think now is about as good as time as any to start and finish. Dr. Kinderman, do you have the things of old?”

Jack helped Dr. Kinderman carry a trunk of discarded items collected from all the villagers. Jack’s own contributions were photos and letters from old girlfriends. Jack then tipped the trunk into the bonfire.

“Mr. Morrison, is the sacrificial goat ready?” Mr. Haversham asked.

David held Mr. Kensington by his shoulders. It was only then that Jack noticed the golden crown on Mr. Kensington’s head, and that his arms were held behind his back, no doubt bound. Mr. Kensington was swaying, his eyes barely open.

Mr. Haversham sighed. “There was a time when the sacrificial goat was not drugged, and knew its duty.”

“Times change,” Dr. Kinderman said with a shrug.

“Yes, well, indeed they do. Jack, please truss the sacrificial goat.”

Jack walked toward Mr. Kensington and led him toward the bonfire. He then took his belt and wrapped it around Mr. Kensington’s ankles.

“Let us sear the bonfire with the fat of the sacrificial goat,” Mr. Haversham intoned.

Jack looked back at Dr. Kinderman, who nodded his head. He then kicked Mr. Kensington, planting his right foot on Mr. Kensington’s ass and shoving hard.

The kick propelled Mr. Kensington into the fire. Mr. Kensington, like those outside the fire, remained silent. Except for the crackling of meat, it was no different visually than watching a pile of clothes burn.

As the flames began to hide the body, Mr. Haversham nodded to Mr. Morrison. Mr. Morrison produced a gold crown and placed it upon Jack’s head.

“The king is dead, long live the king,” Mr. Haversham said.

“The king is dead, long live the king,” everyone repeated.

“Constable, you’ll take care of the fire I presume,” Mr. Haversham said to a thin man in his forties. When the constable nodded, Mr. Haversham said, “Good, I’m parched. Let’s get a stiff drink for Mr. Lindon.”

Jack felt no change in his fortune, and instead, felt a little foolish with the crown on his head. However, all the members of the Hill Gang were patting him on the back, asking him to stop by their offices, come by their homes. It was too soon to worry about what would happen to him forty-two years from now. Jack walked down the hill, a little tired, and still thinking about the flash of green eyes and a kind smile.

Days Between Stations

“We are all of us living stories that on some deep level give us satisfaction. If we are unhappy with our stories, that is not enough to free us from them.” –Jane’s tutor, “Iron Dragon’s Daughter” by Michael Swanwick

During his freshman October at Duke, an autumn storm fell heavily upon Durham leaving the East Campus full of black ponds and puddles at night. Jack and his friends were rushing from the parking lot to Pegram. The walkway had disappeared underneath the reflections of the orange lamps on the water that had inundated the back lawns of the dorms. None of them had been wise enough to bring an umbrella in the quick trip to Franklin Street and back.

One of Jack’s friend was a North Carolina native, and warned them that they should watch their step. Copperheads were known to come out during the rain, easily rattled and somewhat poisonous. Jack was from the northeast, and the closest he ever got to a snake were small, three-inch long garter snakes, so he made short thrift of the warning as he ran. Then he heard his friend yell, “Stop!”

A few feet ahead of him, something long, thin and sinuous moved slightly above the water. It was perpendicular to him, and soon vanished into the darkness. Jack and his friends moved more carefully after that.

When Jack saw the snake, he felt two incongruent emotions at the same time, both of which had kept him still. He felt awe, amazed that such a creature could exist. He knew theoretically that copperheads did exist, but to see the actuality of such an animal but a few feet ahead stunned him. The other emotion he felt was terror. Had he kept running, he would have been bitten. Had the copperhead sense him, it could have changed course.

Since then, Jack had felt awe and terror on several occasions, though not simultaneously. He hadn’t thought about the copperhead until today.

Jack had been rereading Steve Erickson’s first novel, “Days Between Stations.” It was the type of novel that didn’t have a summary of plot on the back cover, but instead had glowing quotes from various authors, including Thomas Pynchon. Of course, the reason for this was that it was a novel that was so dense with atmosphere, relationship and entanglements that it would do it a disservice to summarize the novel as “a novel about love,” or “a novel of a quiet apocalypse.”

He began rereading “Days Between Stations” when the Santa Ana winds kicked up, making the October days unseasonably hot, while the nights were cold. The descriptions of Los Angeles slowly covered by sands, of Paris burning in bonfires during a frozen winter, or Venice losing its lagoons, all of which were described languidly and matter-of-factly without any explanation, seemed appropriate for the strange days near the close of October.

Jack had not read the novel in a while, and so had forgot the details of the novel even though he remember specific images. The impulse that drove him from scene to scene was not the relationship between Lauren, her unfaithful husband Jason and Michel, but rather the scenes of moonbridges in the backyards of Los Angeles homes, or the innate blue light of Wyndeaux. The connections between those impulses, though, were the descriptions of the emotional lives of the characters, the yearnings and losses.

When Jack reached page 226, he felt that same mixture of awe and terror as when he saw the copperhead.

Jack had first read “Days Between Stations” eleven years earlier. The scene when Lauren went to Venice after her husband, Jason, who had been carelessly unfaithful, knowing that Lauren would always forgive him, begged for once last chance obviously had not registered with Jack after his first couple of readings. Nor did the passages of Michel’s arrival, confident that Lauren would not forgive Jack, Michel's interminable wait for Lauren’s answer, Michel's incomprehension when Lauren chose Jason.

But nine years after first reading “Days between Station,” the first among many incidents occurred with Jack’s own Lauren, a woman named Lynn, on a certain terrible Friday afternoon. And two years after that afternoon, reading the novel again on the hot October day, Jack realized that pages 226 through 238 described with one hundred percent accuracy the actions and emotions of that certain terrible Friday afternoon.

There were superficial differences. Jack’s own interminable waiting took place in his flat in Westwood instead of a hotel room in Venice, Lynn’s discussion occurred in Century City instead of the Accademia Bridge. But otherwise, the passages described almost perfectly Jack’s slow disintegration, Lynn’s decision to stay with Jon, even Jon’s pleading bitter tone toward Lynn.

Jack’s own story and “Days Between Stations” would diverge significantly after that. However, the awe and the terror remained.

To see his own actions and emotions described in a book written twenty years ago, and first read eleven years ago, awed Jack. If he were more metaphysically inclined, he would say he was awed that a novel could foretell events in his own life so clearly. That life suddenly became a piece of metafiction excited and amazed him.

However, the terror came in more than one form. Jack was rational enough to understand that he’s not the first person to be on the losing end of a love triangle, and perhaps the fact that his life so coincided with a novel was that his life, his emotions were simply a cliche. The terror also came from the thought that, if there were some sort of connection between what he read and what happened to him, then he was more than likely doomed “to find himself so near a precipice, and yet to realize so dispassionately what was happening to him[.]”

There was someone new, though to say “new in his life” was somewhat of an overstatement and perhaps a jinx. Suffice it to say, there was a new character and whether she becomes a major character or briefly mentioned in a passage is still uncertain. However, the closeness of “Days Between Stations” unnerved him. He began thinking of what other novels from which his future might fashion.

He could attempt to tread more carefully with the new character, and hopefully fashion his life to one of the lighter stories. And yet, well, yet has still to be fashioned. In the meantime, Jack will simply have to hope that the new character, in whatever role she plays, will cause a different satisfaction at a deeper level, one to change his story.

Living with the Law

I just had a conversation with a friend and former colleague, we'll call her Special K (not because she's special in a short bus kinda way or special in the other kinda way, but just because it sounds friggin' cool). She and I started at my first BigLaw gig at the same time, and we got along because we both knew from the start that the legal gig should be viewed as a temporary phase to be endured until we saved up enough money to stop being miserable.

What's funny in our conversations is that we always turn to the same topic, even if we hadn't spoken for months, and that topic is this: At our age, aren't we supposed to have figured out what the fuck we want to do with the rest of our lives?

Special K now works only part time for BigLaw--in her calculus, which should be applauded, that additional income of billing 2400 didn't nearly compensate her for the time she would have lost watching her two kids grow up. But the funny aspect is that she's been saying that she'll leave the legal profession entirely for the last three years, and it was kind of a shock to find out she was still at BigLaw today.

Not that I'm fairing any better. There's a part of me almost gagging to get back into the law--mainly because I don't want to use all my reserves up. And unfortunately, the Santa Monica gig is still slow and has decided that's the way it likes it. So I'm stuck in the position of potentially working at Certain Someone's firm, which is apparently hiring though I haven't heard back. This is a shit position, no matter how you look at it. Either I get the gig and get paid a load a cashish while my emotional stability takes a hit, or I don't which means I have to settle for much lesser paying gigs or even worse, no gigs at all.

In any event, back to the what the fuck am I doing with my life issue. Although being a document review drone pays a helluva lot better than being a bag boy at Whole Foods or a book stocker at Borders, the law--with it's inherent adversarial nature, where mostly fucktards rise to the top--is an emotional and intellectual grind. It leaves many of us physically ill thinking about forty years of dealing with asshole opposing counsel, incompetent case management and, well, document review. So obviously, being a lawyer is not what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. I guess I should take comfort in that I am far from the only one out there who feels this way.

On the other hand, what is the alternative? I've begun to realize that, even though I can write damn well, it's the impetus to write damn well about something that is lacking most of the time. And even if I could churn out a short story a day, a novel a month, publishing is still a complete crap shoot. I know, I see the advice about writing everyday, the platitudes that you don't write for money but out of love. And I do love writing. But if it were that easy, then every earnest blogger out there, every plump New Jersey housewife who writes fanfiction for Days of Our Lives, every nebbishly Los Angeles Starbucks barista would be best-selling authors.

What keeps me going is that I don't want to end up twenty years from now and saying, "I gave up on my dreams when I was fifty," which my dad actually said. (If there's a narrative that I'm living, I'd rather it not be Willy Loman's.)

But in the meantime, it looks like I, as well as a multitude of discontent attorneys. will just have to go on doing the whole lives of quiet desperation thing. Shit. Thank God for XBOX 360s, Oban scotch and the furtive glances of green eyes I guess.