Hello, my name is Simon

so i did draw something. since Gina has been hanging out for the last few days, we've been discussing art and whatnot. i've been pulling all the art related books off my shelf and showing her different artist and their styles and she's been asking a bunch of questions. it's kind of nice talking about something other than work and money for a change... i feel like i'm getting my money's worth out of my degree (ok a little bit anyway).
so after that, she asks if i might be able to give her a hand designing something for a friend of hers. a cross between a lion and a sun for a tatoo... so here's what i came up with.

i have no idea if the girl is even going to like it, but it was a nice little thing to do for about an hour. see, i told you i was going to draw something. why would i make up a thing like that?

professing perfectionism

i haven’t felt like writing recently. well that’s not really true... i’ve WANTED to write, but i haven’t really been feeling it... not really a writers block, but more of a lack of motivation entirely. i would even sit down at the computer screen and find myself staring at the empty whiteness wondering what was interesting enough to write about. i was just talking to Gina about a similar thing today. about how i love to draw, and i will find myself doodling from time to time, but recently, when i break out my sketchbook to formulate some figment of my imagination, i find myself only wanting to fill the pages with things that i’ll be proud to show my kids one day... as if a book filled with doodles is just crap. i know that’s not the case, but i’m a f-cking perfectionist. nothing is ever quite perfect. i used to think it was cool, my perfectionistic tendencies, but now they seem to keep my from doing more things than not.

screw that... excuse me, i’m going to go draw

smooth move

i’m afraid i may have ruined the girl’s whole day.

she called me up so excited because she’s back in the city and she wanted to know what i thought of the idea of living there together sometime in the future. she loves to imagine and gets really excited about the ideas of things. i’m afraid that i was a wee bit tired and cranky, as i seemed fully unexcited about the idea of imagining something that would be 6-7 years down the road... minimum. i went off for more than a few minutes about how i feel trapped by my job and yet simultaneously fear limited in my alternatives because of my need to provide for her and whatever childrenpeople we might happen to progenerate. so then she said how she felt guilty for being a environmental pressure that limits my ability to flexibly pass through this world. then i said that was incorrect, and that she was needlessly guiltying herself, and that due to societal structure and our upbringing, guys learn to define themselves by their ability to provide for their tribe. i told her that regardless of whether i am single or married, i would always be considering the situation down the road. even if i was single right now, i would still be looking towards a career that would not only satisfy my own needs of personal fulfillment but that would also allow me to provide for myself and whatever family unit i might find myself responsible for in the future.

she just wanted to talk about living in the city, going to shows and museums, and letting me work on my art.

i am such a downer.

piece of quiet

There once was a time when I thought it would be nice to be deaf... or mute...

Oh to be a mute (I would think)... how lovely would that be? People wouldn’t ever expect me to say much. I’d never start any conversations that I would later regret. I’d be really good at keeping secrets. But then people would think that I was some sort of bottomless reservoir, into which they would feel free to empty themselves of all their little skeletons, worries, guilts, and fears. I don’t imagine that would be too much fun after a while. But at least I’d be able to hear music... i think that would be one of the many things that would be frustrating about not being able to hear.

There are times, however, when I wish I had an excuse to ignore people and go about in my little bubble of silence.

maybe if I just wore a sign around my neck that said... ‘pardon me, but I’m not talking today.’ or ‘simulated deafness: please write all questions down.’

I once wore a blindfold around for a week to see what it was like being blind. I think I kind of hoped I would develop superpower senses, but I just ended up running into a lot of things.

no superpowers here.

 

bum

i have no problem taking handouts. for this reason i am officially a bum. if a person insists on paying for dinner i will not put up a fight... because personally, i was probably hoping he or she would do that anyway. i mean, let’s not kid anyone people. i know what it feels like to buy someone a meal. it feels good. and it is a whole lot easier if the person just lets me pay for it and is appreciative... the whole, “no, I’ve got it” thing is really quite tiresome. whoever insists on paying for it first, wins the prize. the other person should just graciously concede. now granted, there is a little gamesmanship involved. there is a little get a little, give a little vibe that should be hanging around. I am just as likely as the next guy to throw down a little change for a buddy’s meal, but if my friend has his credit card out before the waiter/waitress even rolls around the corner with the check... that’s it... i lose. or win, however you look at it.

swirl

What the hell. Confusion is intoxicating in its various colors. I think today’s color will be blue. Blue for my eyes that close when I wonder what is going on. In my bedroom underneath a lopsided ceiling fan, I lay back on my bed, head on the pillow, and feet dangling off onto the floor. My elbow crooked over my forehead with my hand slackly open. These things are real. They are physical and I can describe them. I could build them with clay if I were so inclined.
I could even paint it blue, for the color of the day.
Because my confusion is blue.

finally

a pleasant vibration hummed through my skin, making all the hairs of my body dance on end. it was her voice again in my ear. tinny and distant through the speaker by my ear. it had been almost five weeks since i’d seen her last and it seemed like an eternity, the way a minute must feel to a scoop of ice cream on a hot summer sidewalk. i would wonder if there was any way i’d be able to reconstitute myself again. or if i would liquify underfoot and be spread about in a sticky stain. oh how i yearn for her still.

i wonder sometimes if things have a built-in order of complexity to them. an automatic ratio of smooth-goings to bumpy-times. this ratio cannot be meddled with nor altered. it is your recipe for disaster or glory, depending on how you look at it and put the pieces together. my orders of complexity seem to revolve around debt and unfinished business.

today i’m sitting in my hotel room two thousand miles from the woman i love so completely. from my window i watched fireworks explode in a spectacular ever-aweing display of color and light. the concussion of the explosions set off car alarms and rattled my lungs in my chest. i felt them in my stomach and my heart. in my mind’s eye i could see her on the opposite coast clapping her hands together and squealing with excitement. her grin practically devouring her face and her eyes squeezed into tight little slits with gleaming bits of wet green shining through. Oh how she loves a good fireworks show.

but then the fireworks were over and the only sound rattling my heart was her voice, making it quiver and skip a beat from time to time.

an approximate measure of soul

 

mute

I have lost the ability to talk on the phone. I used to be rather good at it, but recently it seems I’ve run out of things to say.

Or perhaps I feel my space is compacted and that I have lost the ability to ground myself into my surroundings... most likely this comes from the fact that I have to share a hotel room on this particular business trip. He’s a nice enough guy and we get along well enough. Normally, however, when I talk on the phone I talk fairly freely. I let out my own actual person... and that particular person is not one that I like to share with those persons that I work with. This person is no exception.

I was not always this guarded. In fact, it kind of pains me to refer to myself as guarded, when surrounded by people I trust and choose to be around.

It’s a strange thing, trust is.

It shapes the flow of our vent into the world. When there is lots of trust the valve is open and we flow into the world. When it is lacking, the valve spins down to crush off our excessive energy. We shut up and sit against the wall. We don’t smile as much and we don’t offer as much.

Sometimes it is even easier to open up more to a total stranger than a person we interact with everyday, because it is free and safe and at the end of the conversation there is a parting of the ways. How many people have you sat next to on the plane, only to hear every little detail of their life? Chances are, you know more about some aspects of them than some of their closest friends.

Otherwise we get compacted... constipated with our insides... and when the time comes to open our valve... nothing comes out.

perhaps a little getrunken

It occurred to me today... perhaps as recently at a few minutes ago... that it is possible that I get a tad too serious when I drink.

I spilled a gentleman’s beer a few minutes ago and he was rather upset... he called me a great number of names, some of which I started to take somewhat personally... before I thought better of it. Then I realized that I myself might have called someone a few names, had they spilled a tasty beverage of my own. Then I thought, why punish a person for losing track of a stray appendage for a moment or two? Why not praise and reward that person for having the sense to let go of the societal rules of acceptable behavior and express him or herself in whatever way feels natural and free in the present moment. Why do we lock ourselves down into our little spheres of autonomous space and prohibit ourselves from expanding that volume of space into the surrounding environment? So what if we sometimes collide with each other in a sporatic dance of chaotic vibrations?

You only live once. How well do you know the person next to you after all?

How well do you even know yourself... if you never get far enough away to get perspective?

 

Nonaudible expressions of discomfort

So this just happens: I am wearing flip flops (also known as thongs, sandals, or go-backs in different parts of the world) and as I am getting out of my car my left large toenail gets caught on some maldesigned part of the car door and kinda peels back a little bit (just past the quick). I feel it immediately, of course, but instead of saying “OW!” or “SON OF A...” or just “FUCK!”, I stand there and make a silent agonized scream face with my mouth all open and screamy like and my eyes all scrunched up in mid scream fashion as if I was giving some age old battle cry before running forth to slay my enemies.

I can’t imagine what it might have looked like to the casual observer, or anyone else for that matter who may have, at that precise moment looked up from their peaceful little world to behold such a countenance of twisted proportion.

Why, I ask, do I choose to express my intense yet transient agony in such a silent yet expressive form?

I do not know such things for sure.