I Don't Wanna Be Friends

I wish I didn't have the kind of past that made me the kind of boy that understands Bad Romance at maximum capacity. From the first time I heard it, until right now, it's been playing in my head. It was playing in my head before I first heard it, I just didn't have the words or know what it was. To me, it's more then a song, it's everything I never got to say. And everything I still don't. I can't decide if my not saying everything is keeping me from being institutionalized or recognized. Gaga said it, she said everything, and no one looks her over. But at the same time, there are those who would probably lock her up. So, self imposed prison or state enforced prison? We'll see where life's romance takes me.

{ I was going to post the lyrics, but you should just listen to it instead.}

A Differnt Kind of Italian Revolution

So my iTunes has decided to no longer work on my piece of shit lap top. An error message appears whenever I try to open it up. I have loaded the most recent version three times. Backed up all my music files, wiped it from my hard drive, reloaded the brand new version and still get the same error message. Luckily my iPod can still charge, because a life with out music is barely worth getting out of bed for. I've been very loyal to some YouTube music channels so I have back ground music while I cook. Have you heard the song "Alejandro" from Lady Gaga yet? Friggin beautiful. And I've also been falling in love with the classics from Rosemary Clooney. Who wouldn't want to come to her house? The strange Madonna version from "Swept Away" is entertaining, sort of. The man is gorgeous. I digress. The point is that without iTunes I've sort of had a metaphorical revelation. If you don't have a beat to step to, you walk wrong. When I first came up to this city, I did my best to be well behaved, play nice with everyone, be demure and Midwestern, stay quiet and basically act as "white" as possible. This past weekend everything just changed, I might be surrounded by pleasant Dutch people but I am far from them. So now, I am walking a little closer to my boot-shaped-country roots. Everyone around is slowly adjusting, but they'll get over it. Besides, they got free pizza and cooking out of it, how upset could they be? I am diving into Italian heritage once again with full force. It's just so natural, I talk different now because I don't think my sentence in my head before saying it. I did that for like fourteen years, it's exhausting. I speak freely, when I want to and with out reservations. I sit a little differently, actually taking up space in the room. I made a habit out of being invisible for so long, I'm done with that. I carry myself a little different too, but it's just due to the confidence. And the home made pasta dishes. And the work outs. And the reading. Life has a whole new rhythm: joyfulness, freedom, attitude, passion, heart and Mambo Italiano beats. And of course, Italian Charm. So really nothing has changed, everything just became different...but I think it's all for the best. I'm back to being your Italian boy.

Too Many Flashing Lights

The Packers won. Kanye proved once again how much of an idiot he really is. Pink joined the circus. And Lady Gaga proved that her lyrics really do flow through her veins. I say that all the time: these words are my blood. Usually in reference to whatever novel I'm working on, or some play I'm part way through writing or recently I've gotten into song writing. Yes, some things about me are very stereotypical. Like me writing and wanting to be an author and/or playwright. I draw inspiration from everything around me. But a lot of it comes from what has happened and what has been done to me. Sometimes I'll turn something that I lived through into a play and then the play itself becomes some kind of closure for me. Words alone haven't been cutting it lately so that's why I've gotten into writing songs. The process of writing is very helpful, but imagining how I would perform them is what really helps the heart. Most of the time I see myself in some kind of Velma Kelly kind of situation. Not only singing, but emotionally releasing the words onto the audience. I don't just sing a song, I usually end up acting it out. It doesn't always sound good, but you can hear the panic, desperation, hurt and frustration in my voice. I think that is what makes it a good performance. The kind of day that I went through in the last twenty four hours leaves me so broken, hollow, drained, empty and furious I'm so overly inspired I don't know what to do. I want to sit and write a new play, but I can't stay seated long enough. I want to work on a few chapters for the novels I have been writing, but I wouldn't be able to seperate the character from myself. I want to go running, but I have no iPod and I would totally play chicken with cars given the mood I'm in. I want to have wild crazy sex, but even though there's a cloud of stupor around me I can still see that would be a bad idea. I want to talk to someone, but all my friends are on other continents or busy. The closest thing I did to talking was try to get a hold of one of my housemates girlfriends. Now I want to smoke a cigarette and listen to the Lady Gaga Paparazzi performance over and over again until I fall asleep. I have been listening to it since I got back from classes. I'm sure someone in the house is annoyed, but no one has said anything yet. I am completely obsessed with right now because her passion and hurt mirror what I am feeling on the inside. Even the bullet to the stomach emulates what I am feeling. I do feel like I was shot in the stomach. I feel like the life and energy is flowing out of me with each beat of my heart. And, honestly, I don't even feel the need to find a suture. This kind of wound has been done to me repeatedly over the past several years. You might think I'm being dramatic and simply distraught over some guy. But this is not just mere boy problems. I guess the problem is due to the fact that I like boys. This has caused such great shifts and chasms amongst my immediate family that I can not even begin to describe them on here. Hence, the me writing a book thing. What I can say about what happened today, is that I am now no longer just at the core of problems in my immediate family, but the destruction that is my "choice" has now effected my extended family. Pinning brother versus sister, and pulling even more on the unraveling family blanket that I was once protected under. All I can do is shake my head and try not to scream out loud and violently dance myself into an exhaustion. I've matured enough to no longer want to punch walls and break windshields, most of the time. Nowadays I just want to scream a song, dance myself into a sweaty exhaustion and then sleep the world away. Which, again, is why I am dangerously in love with last nights Gaga performance. The whole thing kind of mimics how my day went. It starts out looking glamorous, albeit slightly unique, and then just turns into an aggressive, fast paced, bloody ending. Complete with tears and bellows. Even the lyrics have new meaning today. I keep chasing after my parents to love me for exactly what I am. But we both keep wrecking one another and now it's even more complicated because there are even more people on stage. It seems like every conversation and sentence turns into a some big explosion, a flash of light that blinds me, stuns me, annoys me and makes me want to retreat to a dark corner. With so many flashing lights going on recently, and for the past few years, I am too lit up to even make my mind up. It's hard, pretty much impossible, when you constantly have flashbombs going off inside your brain and behind your eyelids to function at normal speed. I just need some peace and quiet in a darkroom, maybe then I could try to develop a few photos. But I don't want to be in the darkroom alone. I am criminally tired of being single, but simultaneously unsure if any guy out there could even handle the flashstorm that is my life. I mean, how many guys out there deal with their problems by sweating them out to dance music? Even if there is such a guy, he probably won't want to put the effort forth. Or he'll think I'm too young to be taken seriously. Or he'll just hit it and quit it. Yeh, you know who you are. So that leaves me to rely on me alone to wipe up my wounds, disinfect my bullet holes and sew up my own cuts. I am all for self dependency, but I am also a firm believer in companionship. And, the word all gays fear, relationships. I can keep shielding my own face from the flashing lights, but that leaves me little energy to be useful for anything else. My grades suffer, my personality darkens and my smile fades. And, I must confess, it all makes me Marlboro friendly. Don't give me that look; you try holding the epicenter of family destruction on your shoulders and see if you don't take to bad habits. I think I should get free tickets for not turning into a coke head. You think that my now I should be use to the bright lights, but they still sting my retinas and make my flinch. As much as I would like to succumb to the weight of the lights and just refuse to get up, I tell myself I have to hold out for the day when the lights are for my new family portrait.

-Simple, Stupid and Sam Sparro

There are many ways to feel stupid, even when you think you are four steps away from genius. A series of events can occur and suddenly you find yourself asking why the door you’re pulling on says push. Stupidity doesn’t always have to do with education and grades; sometimes it’s about the lack of education or the white lies we tell ourselves. Stupid is as stupid does, and sometimes stupid doesn’t think about the amount of calories in a vodka martini or the consequences of consecutive fast food runs or the payments on credit limits. Stupid can take on many forms; mental, verbal and physical. Like thinking you can pull of a mustache the same way Sam Sparro can, or imaging that fashion likes everyone equally. And I’m talking to you Lady Gaga, we can’t all be Carrie Bradshaw. Sometimes stupid is as simple as not knowing what to say, even when you have more then enough words floating around in your head. The real definition of stupid, the epitome of the sensation, is being caught in a moment where the wisdom in your brain can’t quite reach your mouth. Your cerebrum knows the precise wording to better state your knowledge of the situation, but all your tongue does is “bfffffffffff”.

I guess my face has always been a “trusting” one. Which has been both a good and a bad thing. It helps because people never suspect you of lying, you can get discounts at Panera for being cute, and you can smile your way to student discounts when you don’t have your ID with you. The downsides of having this kind of complexion are, never being taken seriously, always being expected to smile and having everybody want to confess to you and tell you their secrets. You would not believe the loads of dirty laundry I could do. The white picket fences in my head are spilling over with everybody’s deep, dark tellings. I don’t mind being able to have the opportunity to be confided in, but I feel dumber then a can of Mayonnaise, being held by George Bush, while he tries to name all the state capitals, when someone tells me something and I have no clue how to respond to it. It’s nice when people want to tell you what is happening with them, it does make you feel privileged and connected, but sometimes the confessional crown they lay on your head is a bit too heavy. There is no real way to get prepared for all the things that happen in life, and there is no real way to prepare yourself for when someone tells you life happened to them.

I suppose sometimes silence is golden, and all it really takes to be helpful is to listen and let a person vent, but a lot of the times there are things that should and need to be said. Unfortunately a lot of the times the words do not come out correctly or miss their intended target. And don’t even get my started on this textversation nonsense. You think it’s hard enough to make yourself understood in person, try doing it through letters on a phone screen. It’s ridiculous. They say that if silence can’t be golden, then you should keep it simple stupid. Which brings up the concept of what to do when you can’t rely on your words; do you give a kiss, offer a hug, or provide a shoulder to cry on? Even when you try to keep things as easy and uncomplicated as possible, they still seem to end up mixed and complicated in twenty one thousand ways. Even when all you want to say is something little. Like, I wannabe next you. Or, I can do it better. Or, I love you. Or, you have sesame chicken stuck in your teeth. No matter how badly you want to say something, and in an educated manner nonetheless, sometimes you just can’t make it happen. I do know this, sometimes all it takes is a little less effort; sometimes all you have to do is push instead of pull.