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.

I've traded brick for straw.

No huff and puff will dismantle us.


Do you exist outside of the mirror? I do not. People call me out constantly for catching myself in a mirror, or sunglasses, or a wading pool or your deep dark beautiful eyes.

I look in the mirror to remind myself that I exist.


Even conversationally, I have no idea at all what I look like. I'm completely unaware of myself unless I can see evidence that I'm real.

Times like this I wonder if I'm not dreaming all of you-- but rather, am I part of someone else's dream?

I can't even see my own nose without closing one eye.

It's this lack of existence that makes interaction so damned meaningful. If I can't see myself, let me see myself in you. Our conversation is evidence that we both exist for real, cause I'm not clever enough to come up with your lines myself.

How powerful could you be if you paid attention to the image you gave off in every conversation? Is that dishonest? Or is it more efficient?

What if you postured yourself perfectly to convey an idea- so well positioned physically, that you basically didn't have to say anything at all?

What if you're already doing this subconsciously?
---

sometimes, the worst thing in the world is admitting someone is right. It is rare and dishonest to easily admit that you're wrong, if you're at all invested in the subject.

The reason this is so disarming is because whenever you make an important decision, you pass it through several logical filters in your head, that you've developed over the years to make the right decision. Abortions, gunshots, moving days and 'goodbye forevers' shouldn't ever be impulse decisions.

When you're dead wrong about 'goodbye forever' it's embarrassing as hell because your whole fucking brain was wrong. Every checkpoint was just leading you in the wrong direction. No one ever elects to do the wrong thing by choice, we all think we're doing what's best for us.

The hardest thing in the world is to admit that every single step you've taken has been dead-ass-wrong. You're covered in lava and you broke your mother's back. Watch your step next time.

Harder still is the opposite of goodbye forever. Whatever that is. Getting someone's character completely wrong makes you feel like a real idiot. To the point where you might just fake it to keep from having to change your outlook.
---

Push ups keep me focused. With the heat, I shower a few times a day. I don't get in the shower without first doing a ton of push ups. Around 500 a day or so. Some with the Perfect Push Up, some without. They make me feel better about what I'm eating, and the huge chiseled pectorals don't hurt either.
---

Everyone's got these threads coming off them, and they're all connected to me. I don't cut any threads. Everyone I've ever encountered, I remember. Someone I sat next to in Comm 103 four years ago is still more special to me than some stranger.

These threads are also why I spend so much time digging around the cache of my life. Whether I'm ignoring your call or checking in after eight years, I've always been looking backwards while falling forwards. Maybe that's why my future calendar only ever goes as far as two weeks from now.

---

I wonder how much of drinking is the alcohol clouding the senses, or the inherently accepted fact that you can get away with more while you're drinking? That is to say, the drunken outbursts we experience-- I bet they are more EMOTIONAL than PHYSIOLOGICAL. Feel me?

Cause when I'm physiologically drunk, I'm pretty gone. I definitely exist; it's everyone else whose existence becomes questionable. But when I'm buzzed (you too) that's the time where I'm just doing all the shit I know I can get away with because of this mask. Probably.
---

I've been looking for purpose and in the process have spent a lot of time on myself, which has been rewarding. The more content I am with me, the more disappointed I am in all of you. Not really. That's harsh. What I mean is,

the more time I spend on myself, the less I worry about existing to other people... so when I *am* focused on you and yours, I'm a little rusty. A bit salty. Me me me.
---








Please remember that your life isn't the Hills or any other location-based pseudoreality show on MTV. The camera might sympathize with you but your real life friends need more than that. Even if it would make good television, it's not. My life could be the greatest movie of all time. It's volatile, but you don't have to touch and go.

You've just gotta live it and let it write itself.

Jade is a gemstone too.

Can't always be diamonds.

What is this generation's "Going Off to War"? Because 'Going to War' certainly isn't it. Sixty five years ago if you were a bored young American man, there was an easy and noble option: Go to war. Suddenly you've got a job. People need you. You are REALLY IMPORTANT. You're doing something great. Something heroic. Someday they're gonna make a movie about you, kid, and everyone's gonna remember.

And it's not just the stuff you're doing that's great- it's the stuff you DON'T have to do.

Paperwork? Fuck you, I'm dodging bullets.
Traffic? Not on the ocean, pal. Not in this tank, buddy.
Girls? What do you think I'm fighting for. No I'm not ignoring you, I'm saving your life. Thank me later.

Oh man. There is no dating stress when you could die at any moment. Cause honey, I can't follow a format when there's a mortar right outside my door.

The greatest thing about going off to war is that you're only worried about your life. The same shit my dog worries about. The same stuff a three-toed sloth in a jungle somewhere is worried about. A live or die situation sounds surprisingly relaxing.

All you have to do is not die. You get a pass for just about everything else.

See back then, people excused our soldiers because everyone knew the war mattered. We had a legitimate supervillain in Hitler. We had a clear and traceable ambush to provoke us in Pearl Harbor. We got to play heroes and we actually knew who the bad guys were.

I don't talk religion or politics, so brief is sufficient: People don't believe in this war.

Because of that, "going off to war" today isn't a heroic option. You don't get to die for anything noble. It's hot and its boring and it's scary and when you get back, people aren't as much 'proud of you' as they are relieved you're alive.

So how do I go to war now?
---

We find this war in our hobbies. I want something I can tell them I'm doing so that they think I'm busy enough with something important that the fluff becomes negligible.

If I was dodging bullets 65 years ago they wouldn't care so much that I didn't always say the right thing at the right time. If I was fighting Hitler, I might be able to get away with 'chilling' on a Friday instead of going out.

There's this pressure to be so interesting, that all you can do is fake it or find some overwhelming purpose to compensate for it. Everyone knows that feverish protester who lives to raise awareness for some underrepresented endangered animal. Their whole fucking life dedicated to the Madagascar Scorpion and its rights.

This passion means its okay that they don't shower.
---

I like showers. I don't wanna stink. So I want to go to war. How do I go to war in 2007?

I have been so busy with this photography gig. It's work. It's literally work. Someone else would be making a ton of money for what I'm doing. It's WORK. It occupies my thoughts and my time and I'm busy. And this guitar has me busy. I'm just busy.

So busy that I can't go out on Tuesday, sorry, I'm shooting, and I can't hang on Friday, cause sorry, I'm practicing, and I'm exhausted on Sunday cause I was drinking (for work) on Saturday...

...

When do you get to ENJOY BEING INTERESTING!?

I'm so distracted with these interesting things that I never get to brag about it.

I'm online. I'm blogged, wired, websited, facebooked, myspaced, AIMed, business carded, partied and played and worked and busy and TIRED.
---

My roommate and I are watching Braveheart.
"Do you think he'd do well with girls these days?"
what do you mean?
"I mean I doubt he's got a sense of humor. He's so intense. Do you think a girl would wanna be around a guy like that these days?"
hmm I dunno.




---he doesn't have to be interesting or funny or charming or caring, because he's too busy worrying about his life and yours.

I just wanna relax. I'd love to fight for your life as long as it mattered. But this filler, this pressure, these hobbies... this distraction. It's boring.

I wanna go to school. I want my whole life to bank on whether or not the girl in my class sits next to me and smiles and stuff... la la la highschool.

I digress.




I've been spending so much time on myself, I guess I just forgot how much fun it is to spend time on other people.

scruffy's gonna die the way he lived.

When prepping a chicken breast for consumption, it is completely essential to remove the silverskin.

If I may immediately retract that statement, it is not essential- it is, rather, essential to me. Someone with less discriminating cooking practices (read; someone who is not insane) is generally comfortable unwrapping the breast and tossing it onto a grill.

I, however, need to remove any knotty bit of gristle, any lingering fat, and most importantly the tough, elastic connective tissue known as "silverskin."

Silverskin is a membrane composed mostly of elastin, and it generally resides on top of certain beef cuts. Frustratingly, it is embedded deep within the chicken breast, forcing me to make key incisions and then pull/fillet it out as best I can.

The reason I do this is because as elastin cooks, it shrinks. It becomes hard and tough- knotted. It is disgusting. Biting into a bit of it can legitimately ruin a meal for me. Hence the near-obsessive dedication to removing it.

How does this affect you? It probably doesn't. But if I'm ever cooking for you, don't be surprised if the chicken takes twice as long as it usually does. This is MY flaw, but please don't judge me harshly for it.

A similar comparison can be drawn from my hatred of onions. If I bite into one, my day is essentially ruined. I suspect there is a chemical reaction that occurs, but onions are near inedible. That is not to say I dislike eating them-- no. They border on INEDIBLE. Like how a big rock is inedible, or a fart is inedible. Sometimes I cannot bring my body to accept an onion.

So this frustrates people who cook for me, or go to restaurants with me, or farm onions with me. They don't understand, and say things like, "they're just onions. Why do you have to be so finicky? Can't you just pick them off?"

My reply is this: No, I can't just pick them off. I'm sorry that this inconveniences you. But while my friends are forced to "deal" with my toddler-ish eating habits, I beseech them to place themselves in my shoes. EVERY meal is like this for me. It sucks. If I could flip a switch to make me love, or even tolerate onions, I would absolutely do it. I didn't ask for this.

No matter how long you wait for me to prepare that chicken, or no matter how many times you have to secretly suspect the chefs of spitting in our food because I sent it back, keep this in mind: This is ONE meal for you. ALL of my meals are like this.

Here's where things get relevant. The next time you are going to bitch about something people cannot help, put yourself in their shoes. "God, Bill's voice is so annoying. I hate hearing him talk." Bill has to use that voice in every conversation he has.

And the fat guy is fat all day.
The smelly dude drives everyone away.


There are things your friends do that probably irritate the shit out of you, but you gotta get past that. At the end of the day, it's okay that people eat with their mouth open. It's okay that they take forever to shop for clothes, or they have to wash their hands way too much. It's okay that they're bad with directions or they're always a few minutes late. Think about how many other people they're putting off with that?

The best thing about being someone's friend is that with that title, you are accepting them despite their faults. You don't have to censor yourself around your friends.

That's pretty nice.