YOU'VE GOT NOWHERE TO GO

Whoa, whoa.


Step one. Here's what I didn't post last time.

A Team Fortress 2 Story:

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The double cross

Spy2 narrows his eyes and morality takes a backseat to personal gain, yet again. Spy1 charges bravely towards the enemy, mistaking Spy2 for a comrade. He waves him along, and together they infiltrate. The entire time Spy2 knows how this will end. A knife in the back.




We're both spies, you and me. Which means we're naturally dishonest. And I trust you so badly Spy1, because we are kindred spirits. Forgive me for seeing through your charming mask. We're both spies remember? I know what a mask looks like.


And you disgust me so badly because we're both fucking monsters, and I see the worst of me in you.


The worst kind of hypocrite: A spy with a bit of trust in one hand, and a butterfly knife in the other.

--


There we go.


step two: Everything always works out for the best with me.


when you hit rock bottom you've got nowhere to go but up...




A story about being strong.
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So strong- strong enough to grimace and roll eyes and have conviction.


Knowing what you want is an issue of committing. Not to an idea or a person, but committing yourself to this pinhole you've picked out and just pouring everything through it, regardless of how long it's taking or how frustrating it is.

They say to go with your gut, as if the first impression has some sort of natural accuracy. Animal instinct, even. I guess in that regard strength is being able to say, "My gut said 'this', so I will stick by it even if i feel different now." That's pretty hard to do sometimes.

My convictions are the same regardless of who I am talking to. The words might change but the message is the same. Further evidence of my indestructibility. I had an epiphany last night and I bought a vampire costume today.

Hell is being forced to be around someone you don't want to be around. Because conviction can be strong but if exposure is constant it's hard to maintain.

How long til the audience stops rooting for me?

---

(the audience will root for me forever.)

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A story about choices.
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As long as you have options you will be happy forever. You fight with one parent; confide in the other. Girl A is trouble, you move to Girl B. Job 1 sucks but there's always Job 2.

And what's amazing is the second option-- the second choice, is almost always immediately validated as superior. As if it were the correct choice the entire time. This is the opposite of going with your gut, but ignorance has always been bliss.


That one was fun.


But here's something new.


Rooting for Ron Paul is like cheering your favorite badguy on. He's a republican and I'm supposed to hate him but I'm happy that he's gaining recognition amongst republicans.
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She paints flowers and tries her best to cover up every empty space on the entire canvas. Cause why have any emptiness at all when you can have flowers?

But my angel, don't you realize? It's that empty space that defines you. Everyone does the same things now... nowadays. It's what you leave behind that makes you so special.



Its what you leave behind. It's what you don't do. It's what you get past.


Stop defining yourself by the flowers. Give the empty space a shot.

----

If I were my shame, where would I be?


Oh, found it.

You know you've found someonething beautiful when you break character for it. Someone or something that makes you wanna sabotage yourself just for a shot at something magical. I don't care how sappy that is.


"You're a good reason to quit."

He said.


"You're a good reason to stop."




"You're a good enough reason to change everything."
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Every dream I have, that could never be a real dream, is inevitably spoiled for me by logic. An old dead friend appeared to me in a dream and I was certain it wasn't real. And he assured me that it wasn't real, because he was dead and I knew he was dead. So what do we do now, old dead friend? Am I writing your lines? How does this even work?

Wake up, then, or just pretend you don't know it's a dream and play along to try and find something new.



Sometimes you have to pretend you don't know what reality is in order to better believe the dream. That's not redundant, either, because dreaming is like booting in Safe Mode. You have access to shit you wouldn't otherwise, without fear of retribution or reprecussion. You can test out a pickup line in a dream.


You can jump in front of a bullet in a dream and realize what it feels like to save a life.


Heavy? Sure. But try it. It's as heavy as fate. Any fate worth anything is heavy.









Chemically induced sobriety allows a lonely drunkard like me to post vividly at 4:00 am. I feel like a cyborg. I feel like an angel. I feel like a starfall. I feel.


Without religion, we are at best animals. That's not opinion, it's true. We're definitely animals. We're biological. We're organic. But there isn't an elephant alive that believes in God.


That argument is neither pro/anti religion... by the way. I don't do politics and i don't discuss religion what the hey.









goodnight.

this hyphenated lifestyle

-

and my daughters will drive volvos.

I get home at 2:22 in the morning, which is more coincidental than ominous. My room, as always, is illuminated. It looks like the laboratory of a mad scientist; the television bouncing blue and white lightning against the simple slat blinds in the window. It looks like I'm already home. It looks like I'm up to something.

I ate pizza tonight, driven by both hunger and a desire for sobriety. Why can't we not be sober? I finally realize that's a plea for drunkenness; society has taught me to ignore double negatives otherwise. Regardless I eat this pizza and it is delicious. Brian works at Amore pizza on Mission boulevard in PB, and he is from New York and we talk about pizza and music.

I say that it is interesting how a lot of people have a favorite album, but it is typically not by their favorite band. This begs the question, "why is your favorite band your favorite?" I won't answer that now, but think about it: what's your favorite album... and is it by your favorite band? Bet you it's not.

Welcome to the rotation, I say out loud, as I drunk dial someone I've not drunk dialed before. I bat zero, though, and I get the machine. The message. The answering machine. Whatever. The drunk dial is less a cry for help than it is an acknowledgment. We're like criminals who want to be caught. Best case scenario, she picks up and we are outed as drunk dialers.

As if to say, "congratulations. I am in a disoriented state of mind and you made the cut. Welcome to my tequila reality."

And every song on the radio matters, so badly, because the lyrics are crystal clear. So sad I'm gonna die; I hope it's going to happen later than I think.

We want so badly not to be strangers. That's why we start a conversation with the pizza guy or our old and dear friends. "What's new?" as if to say, "Make me familiar again... make us not strangers and make our lives overlap so we can..."


So we can matter to eachother.


Legitimately.


Sometimes I miss everything so badly that I dream about the way I used to live.

How does the overdramatic adjective go?

The love of my life.

Life was my love, before. I want to wake up and go up stairs and know that I'm around people who care about the nothing in my life. Cause that girl smiled at me and it makes me feel good, and this diet is working well and I think I'm gonna take up charcoal drawing.

Let me be significant because I'm around you all day.


This is where we fall apart. This is where my system fails. This is where my magical rollercoaster live-at-home-lifestyle falters. Parents always care, but it's duty over interest. It's necessity over friendship and it's given instead of earned. I was born into this team, not drafted.


We were all destroyed by ourselves and now where are we?


What happened to us?


You realize what you're doing when you have to explain it to an old friend. Your life exists undefined till you're forced to define it for someone.

"So what are you up to man? I mean, are you into girls and stuff?"
Of course I am. What do you think?
"No I mean, what's going on with you and girls?"
Oh. Yeah, well... the diet, school, working out... it's finally been about me.
"Yeah that's probably for the best."
(I don't feel the same way.)
Yeah... probably....



I'm hard as hell inside and out and I just wanna be vulnerable for five seconds to remind myself that it's the softness that matters.


big slick on the draw, ace king is a good hand, drop back limped raise stand up with a new plan.

Never grow old.

I'm not embarrassed anymore. I feel young and I'm happy. I'm made young by what I'm doing. I'm finding life in habit and habit in life. Honest.



Never leave a stone unturned. No "what if." I have to stare into space once in a while or else I might miss that shooting star.



Better to regret doing than not doing.


I wanna be so content that all I worry about is my life. To prolong that happiness. To stay alive long enough to enjoy it. I never think about mortality because I'm never satisfied.






As if I have nothing to lose until I do.



What matters is the chance. The potential. I wouldn't trade this lotto ticket for the world.

Madden on Favre

Madden: Most other quarterbacks, Al, when they get flushed out of the pocket like that and pinned in 15 yards deep in their own backfields without an open receiver...most other quarterbacks are going to give up on the play and throw the ball away. But that's not Brett Favre. That's not who Brett Favre is and Brett Favre has to be who Brett Favre is and that's what makes Brett Favre, Brett Favre, and I think his teammates and his coaches appreciate that. You can see right here he's got a chance to dump the ball off to his fullback but instead, he's going to scramble ten more yards into his backfield and then he's going to wheel and throw a bullet right to the free safety. Now if that had been one of his receivers instead of the free safety, that would have been a completed pass. It turned out to be six the other way but that's not what Brett Favre was thinking about. Brett Favre was thinking about completing that pass and that's what makes him so great.

Al Michaels: But that's Favre's second interception of the first quarter and the Packers are down 14 nothing. Is Favre hurting his team more than he's helping it?

Madden: If it wasn't for Brett Favre, Al, the Packers wouldn't be in this game at all.

Dr. Solis operates on scrotum; hillarity ensues!

Can't we go ONE day without talking about my balls?

It feels like pulling a bandaid off. The pain is sudden but it is over as soon as it begins. Just don't look down.

Don't look down.



Some backstory. Since I was born, I've had a mole on my balls. Nutsack. Whatever. Specifically, I had a very small non-cancerous single-colored circular mole on the backside of my right ball. Testicle.

So it's always been there, and I didn't think anything of it. For 22 years.

Cut to last Saturday. I'm in the shower, shaving my balls. I've gotten so adept at doing this that I'm usually not paying any attention at all. There is conditioner in my hair that is settling in. There might be a facemask or facewash or whatever I'm doing, but know that I'm not really focused on my balls. For once.

Then the bandaid gets torn off. I look down, to see what happened. No blood. No scrapes. Nothing.


Nothing.







NOT EVEN A MOLE.







I look at my razor and gasp. Stuck to the blades of my Mach III is the mole. The same mole that has been on my balls for 22 years. The 'beauty mark', so to speak, if you've ever had the fortune of having my balls in your face.

Not only have I sliced my mole off, I have done so in a way that has left ZERO blood. Not only that, but beneath this mole, apparently, was a perfect section of normal-colored skin. It was a little lighter in color at first, but it has since blended in with its surroundings perfectly. I am baffled.

It's like the mole was just a hat my ball was wearing. It basically fell off. I have no idea how this works.


I almost want to post pictures but I don't have any good "before" shots.








I hope this story made your day.