ca. 1992
Sang in the car, nearly caused a crash to us.
ca. 1993
Fell in the pool. Water gloved my lungs and for minutes I thought I might end now. I remember some hand, not sure whose.
ca. 1994
Choked on a glove. Choked on ice from a glove.
ca. 1994
Woke up from a booth dream. In the dream I had faded: I woke up face down and smothered. I had nearly fallen asleep in that dream. I remember thinking "that was close".
ca. 1995
Fell from a tree.
ca. June–August 1995
Imagined a soldier, shot a real gun to made music. Nearly struck by birds.
ca. December 1995
Bit in the eye by the dog. Dad bit the dog back, sort of.
ca. January 1996
Got shocked by the wall trying to plug in the television, watch the fuzzy colours in there. Instead they were in me; I saw them for a second, the ceiling hours later.
ca. April 1996
Noticed we had an attic: what a serious door.
ca. November 1996
Dove under Dad's car, got scolded.
ca. spring 1997
Caught my first glimpse of a naked woman.
ca. summer 1997
Caught my first glimpse of a naked woman that wasn't Mom.
ca. fall 1998–spring 1999
Learned a lot about octopi.
ca. April 1999
Flew low with weird wings; woke up.
ca. August 2000
Broke the back door. Dad broke a mirror at me later.
ca. September 2000
Tried hard to keep beat with adults. Cried a lot, at first.
(incomplete)
December 30, 2009
um, circles and squares
another dream about the vanishing back of you; i have been thinking about words, i have been thinking about how we are a good fit
December 26, 2009
old notebooks pt. 2: hood rat
my mind bends and splashes like water would. it's empty, like water seems when viewed at from up above but in all actuality it's fraught with action, the water in a pond or a river that is.
my mind is like that, i'd like to think. though to be fair, i am arrogant, a lion, a creature who lives in a region mostly devoid of it, or i am thinking of something else.
i go constructing little links via electric synapse or microtubule. there's water, it seems, in all sorts of places in your body: cut it up and see for yourself. all six-segmented me with a shiny spinal core, i am a fragmented apple.
close your eyes and see red in the sunlight. i learned colours doing the kindergarten clock dash across my mother's floor, leaning back in my precarious chair, leaving half-circle moons in the hardwood. the stairs up to the attic were very narrow i remember, only room for half of one of my four year old feet. there wasn't much to see up there; our family isn't much for memory.
we had marmalade summers and kept up cozy winters. i remember building snowmans alone on the goodbye street, the one where dad would leave forever for work until night--snowmen all sad and grey from the grime on the pavement. the snowman was more gravel than snow, man.
with giddy orbits i would venture into the forest and drink with cupped palms from fetid pools of still water. with giddy orbits all the weird creatures would trace sick circles in my stomach and i would throw up in the middle of tick-tock park.
they made voices at night and one mean evening they toppled down to get me.
those plaid cobblestones were ingrained in my memory as the place where i did things with a lifelong significance unbefitting to such a small person. there were two; they were bad things.
those nights spoke monobone creatures like stick insects, they were all one bone, resting in the knots of trees they meld with the trees, bone on bark and i'm sure they feel real smug in their safety. underneath the tree barrow they hide teeth bared and eyes aglow with a thirsty light, like they want to drink up the moon and never stop drinking until the moon is all gone, the marrow out of it, and the tree is bone too: the bugs were bone, the road is bone and i am bone, everything is bone, everything might as well be one bone.
my mind is like that, i'd like to think. though to be fair, i am arrogant, a lion, a creature who lives in a region mostly devoid of it, or i am thinking of something else.
i go constructing little links via electric synapse or microtubule. there's water, it seems, in all sorts of places in your body: cut it up and see for yourself. all six-segmented me with a shiny spinal core, i am a fragmented apple.
close your eyes and see red in the sunlight. i learned colours doing the kindergarten clock dash across my mother's floor, leaning back in my precarious chair, leaving half-circle moons in the hardwood. the stairs up to the attic were very narrow i remember, only room for half of one of my four year old feet. there wasn't much to see up there; our family isn't much for memory.
we had marmalade summers and kept up cozy winters. i remember building snowmans alone on the goodbye street, the one where dad would leave forever for work until night--snowmen all sad and grey from the grime on the pavement. the snowman was more gravel than snow, man.
with giddy orbits i would venture into the forest and drink with cupped palms from fetid pools of still water. with giddy orbits all the weird creatures would trace sick circles in my stomach and i would throw up in the middle of tick-tock park.
they made voices at night and one mean evening they toppled down to get me.
those plaid cobblestones were ingrained in my memory as the place where i did things with a lifelong significance unbefitting to such a small person. there were two; they were bad things.
those nights spoke monobone creatures like stick insects, they were all one bone, resting in the knots of trees they meld with the trees, bone on bark and i'm sure they feel real smug in their safety. underneath the tree barrow they hide teeth bared and eyes aglow with a thirsty light, like they want to drink up the moon and never stop drinking until the moon is all gone, the marrow out of it, and the tree is bone too: the bugs were bone, the road is bone and i am bone, everything is bone, everything might as well be one bone.
December 12, 2009
have you seen the girl?
repeat after this: i am an island because.
i did not speak for hours because an island is silent and does not speak.
i did not stop and think about it because an island does not stop and think about it, it is mainly busy with being an island.
instead i searched for the prettiest face, because an island is ultimately concerned with boasting having the prettiest face.
i am an island, at once violent and alliterative. i will move or i will sink.
i am a planet.
i swell and groan because i am like a planet uniquely gravitied. i am probably the sum of all my distance and the distance of that which is close or moves close to me.
i am a far planet and therefore the glub and or swirl of my planet is harsh.
i am a planet because like a planet i will become heated, i will become glass and as glass i will shatter.
i did not speak for hours because an island is silent and does not speak.
i did not stop and think about it because an island does not stop and think about it, it is mainly busy with being an island.
instead i searched for the prettiest face, because an island is ultimately concerned with boasting having the prettiest face.
i am an island, at once violent and alliterative. i will move or i will sink.
i am a planet.
i swell and groan because i am like a planet uniquely gravitied. i am probably the sum of all my distance and the distance of that which is close or moves close to me.
i am a far planet and therefore the glub and or swirl of my planet is harsh.
i am a planet because like a planet i will become heated, i will become glass and as glass i will shatter.
December 8, 2009
December 1, 2009
call to dive
nowadays my world seems so small i feel i could fit it onto a piece of paper (or twenty).
November 29, 2009
old notebooks pt. 1
posting the contents of old notebooks just to have them; notebooks get lost easy. no one really reads this anyway
cardboard, bound with brass; indiscriminate stain on cover outlined in pen
circa spring '09, probably
most of this is prompted
---
1.
a featherfall into semi-consciousness
like, ambling/limping into hypnogogia
suddenly, slowly, yr thoughts just
fuckin' turn to images while you
lie there restless, beastly dead.
realize that when yr sight goes
cobalt that you are undergoing this
metempsychosis of yrself in which
everything you subconsciously grapple
w/ is suddenly eraserhead 2, or
some thing equally as tempestuous.
2.
KILL HIM INTO A BETTER GUY
I AM NOT RUNNING
"HEY! COME DOWN FROM THERE!"
..I AM NOT RUNNING
....I AM NOT RUNNING
......I AM NOT RUNNING
BY SUCH
3.
slant, soon heavy w/ conversation
we watch as the dull grey wing of some bird
obliquely slices thru a span insistent upon its blue
deft; accusatory.....the
coffee is grey too.....we know that
he masturbated that morning
4.
CLOSE CIRCUIT CAMERAS
brick walls, a square of clear blue
sky, two laughing gulls, marbled pink
bouncy ball, brown/grey carpet w/
cigarette burns, candleholder/ashtray
full of tar/rainwater, used condom in
the trashcan, stolen black beanie w/
hole at the top, a cockatiel, sun-
glasses, boxing glove, digital
camera, a human-sized indent in the
bushes, garden hose, black cloak,
half a face face split in half one
speaking one's mouth moving, ironic
sneer, purple shirt, yellow shirt,
same shirt from last night, same
pants every day, acid stomach, twitching
eye/chest/legs, sleeping pills, half
a day gone before you even realize
it, thought i was dying, knew i
was dying, throat tight, sleep
forever, may pretty horses come to
you before you wake
5.
TIME
6.
They dreamt wan of horses, truncating,
their legs were ornamented. they
came on decanted shells. Evangeline
sewed her dog an asshole (entirely
abnormal). its head begged the tail
"do not leave me alone
with this thing unless no
alternatives exist
cardboard, bound with brass; indiscriminate stain on cover outlined in pen
circa spring '09, probably
most of this is prompted
---
1.
a featherfall into semi-consciousness
like, ambling/limping into hypnogogia
suddenly, slowly, yr thoughts just
fuckin' turn to images while you
lie there restless, beastly dead.
realize that when yr sight goes
cobalt that you are undergoing this
metempsychosis of yrself in which
everything you subconsciously grapple
w/ is suddenly eraserhead 2, or
some thing equally as tempestuous.
2.
KILL HIM INTO A BETTER GUY
I AM NOT RUNNING
"HEY! COME DOWN FROM THERE!"
..I AM NOT RUNNING
....I AM NOT RUNNING
......I AM NOT RUNNING
BY SUCH
3.
slant, soon heavy w/ conversation
we watch as the dull grey wing of some bird
obliquely slices thru a span insistent upon its blue
deft; accusatory.....the
coffee is grey too.....we know that
he masturbated that morning
4.
CLOSE CIRCUIT CAMERAS
brick walls, a square of clear blue
sky, two laughing gulls, marbled pink
bouncy ball, brown/grey carpet w/
cigarette burns, candleholder/ashtray
full of tar/rainwater, used condom in
the trashcan, stolen black beanie w/
hole at the top, a cockatiel, sun-
glasses, boxing glove, digital
camera, a human-sized indent in the
bushes, garden hose, black cloak,
half a face face split in half one
speaking one's mouth moving, ironic
sneer, purple shirt, yellow shirt,
same shirt from last night, same
pants every day, acid stomach, twitching
eye/chest/legs, sleeping pills, half
a day gone before you even realize
it, thought i was dying, knew i
was dying, throat tight, sleep
forever, may pretty horses come to
you before you wake
5.
TIME
6.
They dreamt wan of horses, truncating,
their legs were ornamented. they
came on decanted shells. Evangeline
sewed her dog an asshole (entirely
abnormal). its head begged the tail
"do not leave me alone
with this thing unless no
alternatives exist
October 20, 2009
October 14, 2009
note to self circa summer oh six
1) don't nurse it
2) be slow
3) don't curse it
4) be soft
expect to be stretched
2) be slow
3) don't curse it
4) be soft
expect to be stretched
October 13, 2009
September 29, 2009
reasons on how to live pt. 2
the fear at the heart of the thing is:
a) the crawl will swallow me before i've had a chance at my everything, everyone or no
b) that the everyone, after having quickly put out my eyes and mind, will have done it better
a) the crawl will swallow me before i've had a chance at my everything, everyone or no
b) that the everyone, after having quickly put out my eyes and mind, will have done it better
reasons on how to live
look at what you do, everyone has done that, everyone has done what you do, everything you have done has been done, everyone knows what you have done, how you have done it, everyone, everyone, how do you do, everyone is one, you are everyone
September 10, 2009
the forest from when you were a kid
they pushed from underneath . . they climbed on top like treehouses
they said . . find a hammer and a nail
they said stick her there where it's always half-sleep
she drove a car out to die looking for the deep place
her eyes were dogs for it
she thought . . gotta get get get me back
she laughed like wood on wood
she ate to feel the break in her
they said . . find a hammer and a nail
they said stick her there where it's always half-sleep
she drove a car out to die looking for the deep place
her eyes were dogs for it
she thought . . gotta get get get me back
she laughed like wood on wood
she ate to feel the break in her
September 8, 2009
follow the dot
planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press
planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press
planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press
planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press
planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press
planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press
planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press
planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press
planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press
planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press
planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press planet dad press
September 2, 2009
ok city
i am tired of being me i am tired of being this lonely, unhappy adult i am tired of feeling stressed out i am tired of that feeling, the feeling of missing 'something' i am tired of missing out i am tired of feeling heartsick i am tired of my throat and my mouth and my eyes and my eyes are tired
i am tired of only writing about it in this blog
i want to scream it out but my chest is tight and my words come out small, if at all
i am tired and i never want to sleep, always want to sleep
i am tired of only writing about it in this blog
i want to scream it out but my chest is tight and my words come out small, if at all
i am tired and i never want to sleep, always want to sleep
August 31, 2009
shakey eyes
I take my fingers and run them down the shape of you, trace cigarette smoke on you, let it seep in you and make your eyes shake from it. This happens only in my mind and I open my own eyes and they focus too slowly; my gaze dips to my groin and I am gripping myself in my palm.
"What are you doing in there."
"Nothing. I'm reading."
I finish myself off and then send a text message back to my mom saying "everything is ok. busy."
She passes me as I walk out of the bathroom. "Were you masturbating."
"No." I lick my fingers as if this was proof that I didn't. She raises her eyebrow at me, just one eyebrow; I watch her do this and I see her eyes and they don't shake under the weight of her beautiful, heavy eyelids. As she shuts the door to the bathroom behind her I see traces of cigarette smoke trailing across and over her arm.
I look in her room while she is in the bathroom, I look at her bed and there is a man in her bed. The room smells ugly, the air in it tastes like my hand did and I know this is because they fucked.
"What are you doing in there."
"Nothing. I'm reading."
I finish myself off and then send a text message back to my mom saying "everything is ok. busy."
She passes me as I walk out of the bathroom. "Were you masturbating."
"No." I lick my fingers as if this was proof that I didn't. She raises her eyebrow at me, just one eyebrow; I watch her do this and I see her eyes and they don't shake under the weight of her beautiful, heavy eyelids. As she shuts the door to the bathroom behind her I see traces of cigarette smoke trailing across and over her arm.
I look in her room while she is in the bathroom, I look at her bed and there is a man in her bed. The room smells ugly, the air in it tastes like my hand did and I know this is because they fucked.
August 23, 2009
August 12, 2009
"better than the ants crawling all over my laptop"
he loved the autumn. he loved the irony of visitors coming to the mountain and the way they reveled in the colours of slow death, the smell of decay on the wind. nature's death is a masterwork, he liked to say or think. a bird swooped below him. he looked down from the cliff at the people looking at trees and they looked remarkably like ants gathering around a too-large carcass.
seeing the tops of birds seemed indecent, for whatever reason.
seeing the tops of birds seemed indecent, for whatever reason.
July 18, 2009
a good story
a good story
by brandon valade
today i woke up smoked a cigarette played guitar went to the bookstore almost went for a walk swallowed my own phlegm and decided that i was jaded with writing about myself.
by brandon valade
today i woke up smoked a cigarette played guitar went to the bookstore almost went for a walk swallowed my own phlegm and decided that i was jaded with writing about myself.
July 16, 2009
the ruins of how
“I am going to die.”
“You are not going to die.”
“I am going to die and there’s nothing you or I or anyone else can do about it.”
“You’re being childish.”
I tell her I am going to die as am I laying on my back, limbs sprawled out on the floor of the kitchennette area of my apartment, as if I am going to make a snow angel there. Regina lights a cigarette and steps over me to get to the fridge.
“Could you not smoke in here? Smoking gives you cancer, I hear.”
“Hear from who? And what? You smoke all the time.”
“I probably have cancer. I am probably dying of cancer right now.”
“You’re not. I promise.”
“You don’t know.”
Regina takes another long drag of her cigarette and sighs smoke into the air.
“You’re not going to die,” she says finally.
“Everyone dies.”
“Okay then. You will die.”
She is right.
---
that is bad dialogue that i wrote, perhaps as a part to be of "The Ruins of How", which is the tentative title of the story that i have developing in my head and which i described to alec as "postmodernist fantasy centering around alienation, psychological detachment, and the feeling of the familiar becoming disturbingly unfamiliar", after which i winced, because of how pretentious it sounded even to me. i was scribbling out diagrams of important characters and concepts on the back of an apartment advert that i received from a man on the street outside the subway station, funnily enough while i was lost and looking for alec's apartment.
i stopped at an applebee's while i was lost and sat in a booth across from a man with a lazy eye and tourette's style anti-bush sentiments on his breath, things like "fuck... bush... and if you don't you're a fucking idiot... bush." i made the mistake of making eye contact with one of his eyes.
---
"those glasses perscription?" he asks me.
yes, i tell him, and look back out the window in an attempt to avoid any further conversation.
"they look like mine. they got stolen from my backpack."
he is wearing glasses. these glasses are mine, i tell him. i sincerely hope that this man doesn't think i stole his glasses.
i pay for my drink and hurry out. the man stands up and walks in front of me. he blocks my way.
"whadja get."
just the drink. he finds this funny, and as he yells for a waitress i duck under his arm and nearly run out of the restaurant. i walk fast the way i think the apartment is. i don't really care at this point.
(after i wrote this post i realized that i switched tenses, which made me feel embarrassed)
---
by now i've lost the paper that i wrote the diagrams on but they are probably obsolete by now, as i finetune the crux of my story. there was going to be a man named jean gerard blank, who describes the everyone theory to How, a theory that i "made up" after being exhausted in the city for too long. there was the faceless woman, met in a subway station, wiped clean and robotic after feeling too much (like the time i whited out). in my mind, these characters are pretty out there, or would be on the page, and i don't know if that's the direction i want to go in at this point. there is also Regina, How's tentative girlfriend, who maybe will play a part in his psychological fugue through the vehicle of some sort of traumatic event. it all sounds very trite as i write it, though.
my eyes don't want to focus on the screen. it looks too white for some reason.
i have a sore throat, a doctor's appointment tomorrow. i don't mind feeling sick at this point, especially because it is a familiar-feeling sickness (sore throat). i hope the doctor is able to tell me something encouraging.
i am nearly twenty. i felt as if someone is pushing me along, but as i am becoming more comfortable and happy with exactly myself (the events, or one could say the non-events of this summer have come together in such a grand way as to lead me to that) i am becoming more accustomed to that fact, that i am perfectly qualified to have lived twenty years, and that in fact i have done much in those twenty years and that every day i am able to do more. it is a great boost to my whatever. i'm sure many people have already arrived at that but for me, it is very new and just a little bit exciting.
“You are not going to die.”
“I am going to die and there’s nothing you or I or anyone else can do about it.”
“You’re being childish.”
I tell her I am going to die as am I laying on my back, limbs sprawled out on the floor of the kitchennette area of my apartment, as if I am going to make a snow angel there. Regina lights a cigarette and steps over me to get to the fridge.
“Could you not smoke in here? Smoking gives you cancer, I hear.”
“Hear from who? And what? You smoke all the time.”
“I probably have cancer. I am probably dying of cancer right now.”
“You’re not. I promise.”
“You don’t know.”
Regina takes another long drag of her cigarette and sighs smoke into the air.
“You’re not going to die,” she says finally.
“Everyone dies.”
“Okay then. You will die.”
She is right.
---
that is bad dialogue that i wrote, perhaps as a part to be of "The Ruins of How", which is the tentative title of the story that i have developing in my head and which i described to alec as "postmodernist fantasy centering around alienation, psychological detachment, and the feeling of the familiar becoming disturbingly unfamiliar", after which i winced, because of how pretentious it sounded even to me. i was scribbling out diagrams of important characters and concepts on the back of an apartment advert that i received from a man on the street outside the subway station, funnily enough while i was lost and looking for alec's apartment.
i stopped at an applebee's while i was lost and sat in a booth across from a man with a lazy eye and tourette's style anti-bush sentiments on his breath, things like "fuck... bush... and if you don't you're a fucking idiot... bush." i made the mistake of making eye contact with one of his eyes.
---
"those glasses perscription?" he asks me.
yes, i tell him, and look back out the window in an attempt to avoid any further conversation.
"they look like mine. they got stolen from my backpack."
he is wearing glasses. these glasses are mine, i tell him. i sincerely hope that this man doesn't think i stole his glasses.
i pay for my drink and hurry out. the man stands up and walks in front of me. he blocks my way.
"whadja get."
just the drink. he finds this funny, and as he yells for a waitress i duck under his arm and nearly run out of the restaurant. i walk fast the way i think the apartment is. i don't really care at this point.
(after i wrote this post i realized that i switched tenses, which made me feel embarrassed)
---
by now i've lost the paper that i wrote the diagrams on but they are probably obsolete by now, as i finetune the crux of my story. there was going to be a man named jean gerard blank, who describes the everyone theory to How, a theory that i "made up" after being exhausted in the city for too long. there was the faceless woman, met in a subway station, wiped clean and robotic after feeling too much (like the time i whited out). in my mind, these characters are pretty out there, or would be on the page, and i don't know if that's the direction i want to go in at this point. there is also Regina, How's tentative girlfriend, who maybe will play a part in his psychological fugue through the vehicle of some sort of traumatic event. it all sounds very trite as i write it, though.
my eyes don't want to focus on the screen. it looks too white for some reason.
i have a sore throat, a doctor's appointment tomorrow. i don't mind feeling sick at this point, especially because it is a familiar-feeling sickness (sore throat). i hope the doctor is able to tell me something encouraging.
i am nearly twenty. i felt as if someone is pushing me along, but as i am becoming more comfortable and happy with exactly myself (the events, or one could say the non-events of this summer have come together in such a grand way as to lead me to that) i am becoming more accustomed to that fact, that i am perfectly qualified to have lived twenty years, and that in fact i have done much in those twenty years and that every day i am able to do more. it is a great boost to my whatever. i'm sure many people have already arrived at that but for me, it is very new and just a little bit exciting.
July 15, 2009
i feel the ridges of myself and fear of them
i teared up when dumbledore died.
i teared up during the "where the wild things are" trailer too.
i feel silly but at the same time it is reassuring that i am able to feel that sort of emotion, though who am i kidding.
i remember the time that i bawled in front of the computer for an hour because my friend ben told me his grandiose plan for making the human race love each other, fully.
i nearly whited out the night of the midnight debates. listened to scott talk about how he was falling apart, how alienated he felt from not only everyone around him but his own self as well; overwhelming joy listening to anathallo's "italo" on repeat; despair thanks to cameron; something else thanks to a girl, then it happened.
i suppose most times i try to guard myself from it. other times i am oppressed, almost to the point where i cannot move or breathe.
i am probably just being melodramatic.
in other news i punched a lion in the face at a bar then fucked his girlfriend without a rubber.
i teared up during the "where the wild things are" trailer too.
i feel silly but at the same time it is reassuring that i am able to feel that sort of emotion, though who am i kidding.
i remember the time that i bawled in front of the computer for an hour because my friend ben told me his grandiose plan for making the human race love each other, fully.
i nearly whited out the night of the midnight debates. listened to scott talk about how he was falling apart, how alienated he felt from not only everyone around him but his own self as well; overwhelming joy listening to anathallo's "italo" on repeat; despair thanks to cameron; something else thanks to a girl, then it happened.
i suppose most times i try to guard myself from it. other times i am oppressed, almost to the point where i cannot move or breathe.
i am probably just being melodramatic.
in other news i punched a lion in the face at a bar then fucked his girlfriend without a rubber.
July 14, 2009
meeting people is easy
i will think of something clever to title this after i write it.
today i arrived back home in sunny jacksonville. after a while of the city, i decided i preferred a quiet life, one that i was completely in charge of. now that i'm back, though, i do miss it.
i watched a documentary of the band called justice. theirs is probably a tiring life. in a bus all day; by night, loud music, flashing lights, screaming crowds. they are dicks, apparently.
this is turning out to be an incredibly unexciting journal entry.
something that both comforts me and scares me is that, apparently, my dad is as morbid as i am. i am learning new things about my dad every time i talk to him earnestly, and every time i learn a new thing about him it is usually something that applies to me. that is, we are very similar to one another. it's something i am thankful for. at times it is hard to talk to my dad because of our specific father/son dynamic but usually talking to him sheds some light on how i am feeling and why, though it doesn't necessarily make me feel any better. it seems like my dad and i though are going through the same sort of creative neurosis/malaise coupled with a fear of death–which is probably caused by an unfulfilled desire to create something lasting, be it music or writing or other. it's also pretty reassuring that alec is going through something similar to what i am, or at least i think he is, i don't know if i know him that well or not but it seems like he is hungry to prove himself as a writer and is impatient to do so already. i believe he can, just as i believe i can become a great musician and that my dad will become a great writer (i've read some of his early work, especially a piece called "Queen of the Hills" which is phenomenal, and apparently has brought several of its readers to tears at a certain revealing part of the story, though that may also be due to the readers).
yes, it has always been an ambition of mine to live off of my music, or at least, to be able to devote the bulk of my time and energy to creating music. i don't care what i do as far as a job goes as long as i'm able to do that (in other words, i want to be part of the new rich). it is, hopefully, an anchoring ambition, something that i see is starting to take root, my own musical voice or what have you, at least as far as guitar goes, which is an incredibly perfect instrument for me in its technicality and physicality and versitality, i really love my sleek black charlene. and i see myself getting better as i play, not only in my playing but in my musical ability, that is, my ability to make music, my own music, beautiful music (i think) from scratch, from nothing but my emotion, and my increasing ability to get the sounds that i want to appear (again, from nothing) is just amazing and exciting and i love the progress that i am making, even though i want it to be faster. as kateland said, though, "you're so young! you have all the time in the world!"
and she's right. at 19, nearly 20, i see young musicians already "out there" and it rips me to shreds sometimes. i think, i should be there. i'm 20, nearly an adult, i am an adult, i have played music since i was 11, or maybe 12, what do i have to show for it? shouldn't i have something to show for it by now? i am trying to train myself to be more patient. while in new york, i devoured murakami's "wind-up bird chronicles" and "norweigian wood", i mean really read them and got lost in them. murakami describes the mundane and everyday activities of his male protagonists in those two books in such loving detail that i begin to long to share them with him, to enjoy them as well. to sit in the garden and just think, or to sit on a bench all day solely for the purpose of watching human faces pass by, or to spend the day with nothing to do but laundry and ironing and lying down on the roof. in some ways i hated the tempo of new york (vivacissimo! vivacissemamente!), though it was a refreshing change from my routine and generally quiet life, i grew to miss it.
now, like toru from norweigian wood, i am listening to miles davis's "kind of blue". it is very good.
today i arrived back home in sunny jacksonville. after a while of the city, i decided i preferred a quiet life, one that i was completely in charge of. now that i'm back, though, i do miss it.
i watched a documentary of the band called justice. theirs is probably a tiring life. in a bus all day; by night, loud music, flashing lights, screaming crowds. they are dicks, apparently.
this is turning out to be an incredibly unexciting journal entry.
something that both comforts me and scares me is that, apparently, my dad is as morbid as i am. i am learning new things about my dad every time i talk to him earnestly, and every time i learn a new thing about him it is usually something that applies to me. that is, we are very similar to one another. it's something i am thankful for. at times it is hard to talk to my dad because of our specific father/son dynamic but usually talking to him sheds some light on how i am feeling and why, though it doesn't necessarily make me feel any better. it seems like my dad and i though are going through the same sort of creative neurosis/malaise coupled with a fear of death–which is probably caused by an unfulfilled desire to create something lasting, be it music or writing or other. it's also pretty reassuring that alec is going through something similar to what i am, or at least i think he is, i don't know if i know him that well or not but it seems like he is hungry to prove himself as a writer and is impatient to do so already. i believe he can, just as i believe i can become a great musician and that my dad will become a great writer (i've read some of his early work, especially a piece called "Queen of the Hills" which is phenomenal, and apparently has brought several of its readers to tears at a certain revealing part of the story, though that may also be due to the readers).
yes, it has always been an ambition of mine to live off of my music, or at least, to be able to devote the bulk of my time and energy to creating music. i don't care what i do as far as a job goes as long as i'm able to do that (in other words, i want to be part of the new rich). it is, hopefully, an anchoring ambition, something that i see is starting to take root, my own musical voice or what have you, at least as far as guitar goes, which is an incredibly perfect instrument for me in its technicality and physicality and versitality, i really love my sleek black charlene. and i see myself getting better as i play, not only in my playing but in my musical ability, that is, my ability to make music, my own music, beautiful music (i think) from scratch, from nothing but my emotion, and my increasing ability to get the sounds that i want to appear (again, from nothing) is just amazing and exciting and i love the progress that i am making, even though i want it to be faster. as kateland said, though, "you're so young! you have all the time in the world!"
and she's right. at 19, nearly 20, i see young musicians already "out there" and it rips me to shreds sometimes. i think, i should be there. i'm 20, nearly an adult, i am an adult, i have played music since i was 11, or maybe 12, what do i have to show for it? shouldn't i have something to show for it by now? i am trying to train myself to be more patient. while in new york, i devoured murakami's "wind-up bird chronicles" and "norweigian wood", i mean really read them and got lost in them. murakami describes the mundane and everyday activities of his male protagonists in those two books in such loving detail that i begin to long to share them with him, to enjoy them as well. to sit in the garden and just think, or to sit on a bench all day solely for the purpose of watching human faces pass by, or to spend the day with nothing to do but laundry and ironing and lying down on the roof. in some ways i hated the tempo of new york (vivacissimo! vivacissemamente!), though it was a refreshing change from my routine and generally quiet life, i grew to miss it.
now, like toru from norweigian wood, i am listening to miles davis's "kind of blue". it is very good.
July 13, 2009
how come i feel like i am dying
i feel as if my throat is ripping itself apart, killing itself. i feel like it is disintegrating. i ask people sometimes about it. they say, "you just being paranoid. paranoid brandon. ha ha ha." or "you are a healthy young man, you are not dying."
the truth is, everyone is dying. dying is not something that exists on a plane opposite of life. in fact, death lies on the same plane as life, starting at birth and running inversely to life as time goes on. i read that in a book once.
i don't want to be so acutely aware of my progressive death, though. it, quite simply, puts a very large damper on everything i do. i am trying to come to grips with it, but the hard thing about feeling like one is living in nothing more than a countdown to death (that is, life 0 percent death 100 percent on the life/death plane) (people sometimes die on airplanes, isn't that a funny coincidence) (ha ha ha) is feeling like i have to prove myself while i am slowly losing that time.
if i don't think of it, does it go away? well, no of course. though i try to forget that my throat feels bad every day from the time i wake up...
never mind. this feels stupid. i need a drink of water.
the truth is, everyone is dying. dying is not something that exists on a plane opposite of life. in fact, death lies on the same plane as life, starting at birth and running inversely to life as time goes on. i read that in a book once.
i don't want to be so acutely aware of my progressive death, though. it, quite simply, puts a very large damper on everything i do. i am trying to come to grips with it, but the hard thing about feeling like one is living in nothing more than a countdown to death (that is, life 0 percent death 100 percent on the life/death plane) (people sometimes die on airplanes, isn't that a funny coincidence) (ha ha ha) is feeling like i have to prove myself while i am slowly losing that time.
if i don't think of it, does it go away? well, no of course. though i try to forget that my throat feels bad every day from the time i wake up...
never mind. this feels stupid. i need a drink of water.
July 11, 2009
my name is brandon pt. 1
today i spent the day listening to a large number of people being happy in just the next room, feeling slightly exhausted and bitter but ultimately too tired to care.
the city wears me out. it is overwhelming, overstimulating, terrifying. it is scary to be walking down a street you know and recognize and then the next step, the next second, you are lost. this sort of thing makes me run my tongue against my teeth.
i feel around my mouth for anything that feels different. there are spots in my teeth that feel sharp, like wolves teeth. there are places in my mouth that pinch out and become sore sometimes. my jaw hurts in two specific places, presumably as a result of doing this. my ear pops when i chew. the skin of my gums near my bottom and top two front teeth is raw. i am tired of feeling as if my mouth is foreign to me. it doesn't make any sense.
because of my paranoia, i notice things about myself that i never have before. i don't think dying in and of itself is a scary thing. i just want it to be on my terms.
i am sorry that i lied and said i got lost. i just didn't want to go.
writing this feels stupid. why does this feel so stupid?
right now it is raining. in the city. i wish i was less tired. i would like to be lost in the rain. but then again, i hate the feeling of feeling lost. i would only like to be a little lost, and i don't have any control over that.
here is something pretentious: walking around with alec on thursday, quietly, feeling like a third wheel (something that has happened a lot so far on this trip, though not necessarily a third wheel, just take the number of people in a place and call them wheels, add one unnecessary one, that is me) i decided to make the everyone theory, the theory that one's experience/consciousness/whatever other buzzword/et cetera cannot be limited to merely one's self, but is simultaneously spread out amongst and concentrated by the people that are experiencing the same things near and around you. it is kind of stupid. it doesn't even really make sense to me, yet, and i'm not sure if i'll ever really try to think it through to the end, it probably doesn't have a definitive end in any case and is probably just a stupid crackpot theory that is stereotypically, rightly so, assigned to tourette's havers and homeless people that have the time to devote to paranoid, irrational thought. in any case i will probably try to use it in my real book, provisionally titled The Ruins of How despite the fact that i haven't written a sentence of it yet.
also, i invented the olber's paradox or whatever.
all the lights are off. why are all the lights off?
here is something good: i am thinking more. thinking about lots of things, remembering things, imagining things that happened. i missed that. i find that i'm more steady when i do that, especially when i get to sleep. i've been dreaming too. good news.
tomorrow i will go into the city and buy many books, maybe a record. maybe i will go see mission to burma with alec. i am excited. hopefully i can sleep after sleeping all day and having coffee. i ate a cup full of vegetables. my stomach hurts all the time here. my ipod is charging.
today was a blank day.
the city wears me out. it is overwhelming, overstimulating, terrifying. it is scary to be walking down a street you know and recognize and then the next step, the next second, you are lost. this sort of thing makes me run my tongue against my teeth.
i feel around my mouth for anything that feels different. there are spots in my teeth that feel sharp, like wolves teeth. there are places in my mouth that pinch out and become sore sometimes. my jaw hurts in two specific places, presumably as a result of doing this. my ear pops when i chew. the skin of my gums near my bottom and top two front teeth is raw. i am tired of feeling as if my mouth is foreign to me. it doesn't make any sense.
because of my paranoia, i notice things about myself that i never have before. i don't think dying in and of itself is a scary thing. i just want it to be on my terms.
i am sorry that i lied and said i got lost. i just didn't want to go.
writing this feels stupid. why does this feel so stupid?
right now it is raining. in the city. i wish i was less tired. i would like to be lost in the rain. but then again, i hate the feeling of feeling lost. i would only like to be a little lost, and i don't have any control over that.
here is something pretentious: walking around with alec on thursday, quietly, feeling like a third wheel (something that has happened a lot so far on this trip, though not necessarily a third wheel, just take the number of people in a place and call them wheels, add one unnecessary one, that is me) i decided to make the everyone theory, the theory that one's experience/consciousness/whatever other buzzword/et cetera cannot be limited to merely one's self, but is simultaneously spread out amongst and concentrated by the people that are experiencing the same things near and around you. it is kind of stupid. it doesn't even really make sense to me, yet, and i'm not sure if i'll ever really try to think it through to the end, it probably doesn't have a definitive end in any case and is probably just a stupid crackpot theory that is stereotypically, rightly so, assigned to tourette's havers and homeless people that have the time to devote to paranoid, irrational thought. in any case i will probably try to use it in my real book, provisionally titled The Ruins of How despite the fact that i haven't written a sentence of it yet.
also, i invented the olber's paradox or whatever.
all the lights are off. why are all the lights off?
here is something good: i am thinking more. thinking about lots of things, remembering things, imagining things that happened. i missed that. i find that i'm more steady when i do that, especially when i get to sleep. i've been dreaming too. good news.
tomorrow i will go into the city and buy many books, maybe a record. maybe i will go see mission to burma with alec. i am excited. hopefully i can sleep after sleeping all day and having coffee. i ate a cup full of vegetables. my stomach hurts all the time here. my ipod is charging.
today was a blank day.
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