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.

-The Fast and The Failure

There are two types of fast when it comes to relationships: the slutty fast and the emotional fast. The slutty fast is, well, kind of not in need of a detailed-multi-layered-whipped-cream-topped-description. It pretty much means you single handily, or sometimes double handedly, make good use of mattress springs, are familiar with getting chocolate syrup off of yourself and keep baby oil makers in business. Most people know to avoid the slutty fast, but what people (and by people I mean me) don’t always have a grasp of is moving emotionally fast. At least when you act like a slut you can shower it off, but when you move emotionally fast you end up reeking of it for days. No amount of Acqua di Gio can mask the scent of an emotional streaker. And that’s what being emotional too quickly is like; taking everything off and running around bare, exposed. There is more then one kind of nudity in relationships: the kind where you expose your body and the kind where you expose your body of thought. When you’re dating it makes sense to show some skin and flex some muscle as quickly and as often as possible. But we aren’t supposed to show some sensitivity or flex some maturity until…until when? Just when exactly is it alright to let the other person know that you care not only about what their tongue can do, but what it is saying. Talking in relationships has such a negative connotation. The last time I used the phrase “actually, I think we should talk” while I was dating someone lead to an abrupt ending, which then lead to an abrupt six months of getting over said ending. What I learned from that was the importance of both sex and speaking; you shouldn’t have one without the other. And you shouldn’t do either one fast. But when body language becomes more reliable then the English language, the conversation and the relationship can become flaccid.

They say that men have a certain amount of words that they are able to use in one day. If they reach their limit before the day is up then they open a beer, sit on the couch and turn on the game. It doesn’t really matter what kind of game it is, just as long as it can be titled a game. And with several types of ESPN available, versions 1 and 2, classic, college, retro, metro, supersized and bedazzled, there is almost always a game to be had for quiet viewing pleasure. But in relationships you want to avoid quiet times, which mean you have to talk with more then just your torso. Real conversations need to be had so that the relationship has a chance of being real, otherwise you end up licking pudding off a semi stranger that you can’t remember the last name of. That previous sentence was totally just hypothetical.

So how do you talk about wanting to talk without making it sound like you’re having the talk, I have not figured it out yet. I’ve talked my way out of many a situation, but I still dread the idea of trying to dig myself out of that conversational hole. If you try to discuss the relationship too soon, it gets dirty. If you wait too long, by then the only conversations your having is dirty talk. But there does seem to be a linguistic catch-22 about it all. If you’re only fluent in body language, the relationship doesn’t last too long. If you’re familiar with the English language, you’re usually familiar with failed relationships. Talk too little, get a limp relationship. Talk too often, end up with a limp dick. Since when did showing someone you cared about them become such a turn off? Have we become such a concrete, independent, self sufficient society that we no longer consider compassion to be charming? I feel as if we should take a minute and talk about….oh wait.

-Guessing Who and Gaining Something New

Can you remember that game we use to play when we were younger? It was called “Guess Who” and the point was to figure out what card the other person had. So you would ask yes and no questions to try and eliminate the incorrect options. Does she have blonde hair? Does he have brown eyes? Is she wearing a hat? Does he have glasses? Eventually it would be narrowed down to just one, and you knew it was the one. You knew you had found the one and the game was over. Sadly dating and relationships are nothing like that, because even if you think you have found the one you can still end up losing.
I don’t like to equate dating or relationships to a game because then it sounds like there should be a winner or a loser. I make metaphors for dating all the time, but I don’t think there should ever be a sense of someone losing and someone winning. If it is a real relationship then both people involved are winning when things are good and losing when things are bad. The two of you go through the highs and the lows side by side. There might not be winning and losing but there is definitely gaining and missing. You gain knowledge about how to be a better person, how to be more responsible, how to manage time, how to grow up and grow with someone, how to communicate and how to trust. You miss things like the naivety of being a child, the relaxation of a simpler schedule, the part of you that never cared about Friday nights and sometimes you miss what is going on around you. The gaining and the missing, that is all apart of relationships; those things are built into what it means to have a lasting and meaningful romance. Those are accounted for, what isn’t expected is the surprises and the guessing. The Frisbee to the head, which is what you should really be looking out for. You can think that it is just another sunny day, but you have to remember that even sunny days have their problems and unexpected occurrences. Like Frisbees.
Before you can even get to the sunny days you have to start by finding someone. This involves a lot of guessing. Does he like me like me, or just like me? Is she really that bubbly or is she just nervous around me? Is he winking at me or is his contact dry? Are those really hers? You have to tread carefully here because one misstep and there is no recovery, sometimes you just have to move on. The thing that gets me though, is having to move on from a relationship when there was no misstep, when neither person did something wrong. How do we move on from that? When a relationship ends and there is no real reason, you are left with nothing but guessing. Guessing if a word meant more then it should have. Guessing if you should have smiled then and nodded there. Guessing if there was someone else or someone better? Guessing if you will ever get to see them again? If the last kiss was memorable? Not all of these questions are yes or no answers, but it doesn’t matter because you never get them answered. So there you are, playing “Guess Who” all by yourself trying to figure out why you are left alone when you are sure you had guessed the right one; so sure you had found the one.
There is no guessing when it comes to always being able to learn a lesson from a relationship, even if it had an unwarranted end. You are bound to walk away with some new knowledge. Whether you want to or not, you have undergone a learning experience. Is there any point in guessing if it could have gone on longer, or if you could have done something different? I guess I don’t know. But while I figure it all out I plan on playing some board games and asking some simpler questions. Anyone up for some Catchphrase?

-Who Are You Wearing?

That is the question that scary woman on the red carpet always asks. Then whatever famous person she is gripping onto gives a reply, explaining how it is some fabulous piece that they just knew they had to have the moment they saw it. Said famous person probably spent weeks and weeks figuring out what to decide on and which one to finally pick, then right when they gave up all hope they saw it and everything just clicked. They knew before they even tried it on. They knew before they saw it reflected in a mirror. They knew it was the perfect fit because their instincts told them. That is what you should wear. That is what you should put on to look your best and feel you’re sexiest. Sometimes we get chances like that, those of us of a lesser celebrity stature. We too sometimes get to find the perfect thing to put on. I could be talking about those perfect pair of 511 Levi skinny jeans, or that vintage Christian Dior trench that was made for you, or that oversized grandpa sweater that hangs on you just right; or I could be talking about that special someone. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves who are we wearing.
Looking for the right person is a lot like shopping; it can be time consuming, exhausting, take longer then you expected and cost you a whole lot. When you get involved with someone at the beginning it is a lot like trying something on for the first time. You go to that certain place where the lighting is better then it should be, the mirrors are placed with strategic intent and if it all looks bad you can slip out easily. If it does fit nicely and feel good then you have to weigh the situation. Should you just go ahead and buy it? Can you afford it right now? Will it last you more then one season? Should you save up or do some comparison shopping? The last thing you want to do is make an impulse purchase; last time I checked you can’t just return a boyfriend. So if you decided the credit is good and the price tag is fitting you go ahead and buy it. Now you have to combine it with the rest of your wardrobe, creating new outfits and making sure it goes with more then just one thing. When you decide to date someone you have to make sure they can be for more then one occasion, you have to try and combine them with the rest of your life; you have to wear them into your life. Suppose you are already wearing the jeans of your life, paired with the shoes of your past the t-shirt of your future and a sweater threaded by your friends; finding someone to match with all of that is a tricky thing. Even Stacey and Clinton would have some troubles.
The point is we are wearing more then we realize. All of our past relationships, both good and bad, are still clothing us. When we wake up in the morning and stand in front of our closets we don’t realize everything we are putting on, we are dressed up in all of our past lovers. It could be a figurative button down gifted by an old girlfriend. It could be a metaphoric itchy turtleneck left by a bad boyfriend. It could be a shirt that is too tight now and reminds you of how trapped you felt. Or maybe it is that perfect little piece you leave hanging in the back corner, which you take out only sometimes because it still smells like the love that got away. We are wearing more then we think we are which is why we should really think about it before we try to get naked with someone. You can’t really be intimate with another person unless you trust them to take off all the clothes you put on and all the clothes that other people put on.
So next time you check yourself in the mirror before you leave the house, make sure you know who you are wearing; and what it means to really take it all off.

- How to Write Love
The other day someone asked me “how are you?”, and instead of saying the perfunctory response of “fine” or “great” I couldn’t bring myself to say anything at all. I was caught off guard; it was such an unexpected question. I guess it really isn’t that uncommon to be asked that several times a day, but this time there was sincerity and soul behind the query. Having misplaced my ability to bull shit this past summer and with no real desire to ever try to find it again, I wasn’t able to lie or muster up a smile. So I politely side stepped the question and shifted the conversation to a topic that was easier to navigate, something I knew would be simple to steer through; naturally we ended up talking about the importance of making sure your jeans fit you properly. So as I sat there, debating low rise versus skinny, I began to wonder why I wasn’t able to give a concrete answer to the commonly posed question. The obvious answer was, and is, that I was not fine or great. All things considered I am doing alright as a human. I just seem to be caught up in a stage of my life I have no idea how to handle. The real answer I would have liked to have given would have been “old” or “grown” or “scared as hell”, but I just couldn’t bring myself to admit it out loud. So instead I immersed myself in something I knew about, something I was familiar with, something I knew how to do; it seems to be human nature to be drawn towards things that are familiar and comfortable. That is why the fear of the unknown or the fear of trying something new is so common and so very powerful. I think it is not the actual attempt or event that scares us, but the results; we have no control over the results.
One of the smartest women I have ever encountered, who also happens to be one of my best friends, recently said that “if you want big love, you should be prepared for big loss”. As unsettling as that is to hear, it is nothing but the truth. Falling in love is not scary at all; it usually tends to be the opposite. The excitement and the passion, the new sense of purpose, the desire to be your best and of course the kisses. The kisses are key to falling in love. When all you can think about is the touch of their lips on yours, the brush of their chin on yours; you begin to know you are a member of the “Big L Club”. Suddenly song lyrics mean so much more to you, and you understand books better and you actually begin to appreciate the future. Often, while in the midst of our love induced euphoria, we do not realize we are suddenly on a blank page. Even when you do realize it, you pay no attention to it because you’re in love and it is strong enough to stop bullets. So you go about the rest of your life, the scripted parts; go to class here, fold clothes there, vacuum carpet then, wash this. I like the scripted parts, they are not always pleasing or the most fun, but at least I know what I am doing.
So I find myself in a place in my life where I have no idea what I am doing. I don’t know how to do this; I have no idea how to build a script around love, how to write it myself. Which is ironic considering I’m a writer. This type of writing is different though, it takes two authors working together, writing simultaneously. You need both pens, both creative ideas, two sets of styles; the both of you have to be writing in the same book. Sometimes one gets ahead of the other; one of you might skip a page or jump a line or maybe even spell something wrong, and that’s ok. The other one will either catch up or catch the mistake, the important thing is to keep writing. You have to keep writing, both of you have to keep writing in the book to figure out how it is going to progress. If you give up in the middle of it then you have no idea how the ending will be, and even if it sucks and doesn’t make the New York Times Bestseller list, at least you can say you wrote the damn book. You have to keep writing to get to the end, you just have to. If we have to write our own love, we should be prepared for bad reviews. The tricky thing is, there is never a good way of dealing with a bad review.