This one just has to come out...

All I do is think. From the time I wake until the last thought when I drift into sleep. We all do this. We never stop. We veer our focus. Distract ourselves. Drink coffee and look at passersby. Somehow, when we feel lonely, our world truly becomes our own. It's like a movie passing before our eyes. Somehow, we aren't really involved. Our relationships seem shallow and our conversations diluted. A stagnation that infiltrates every aspect of our lives. It overwhelms us and lays footing in hallowed ground. Our mortality faces us and our short time here becomes a reality for just these times. It's one of those nights when I could write for 12 hours. I won't expose you to that. At least not in this setting. I'll put that to paper. That one is coming back soon. And this is my training. Relearning my grammar and thought processes. Bringing back an education, which has been on hiatus for quite some time now. Wait, what the fuck! I was thinking about why I was heading on my current path. I realized that this is nothing new. Somehow, I've solidified this thought tonight. The downward spiral. And understanding of others through the perseverance of dire straits. A focus on how deep you can get. The Hunter S. Thompson approach. The only ones who know are the ones who have come to the line and crossed it. The problem is...they don't come back. That's the price. How many cliches do you want? Ignorance is bliss. I feel like I always write varying degrees of the same subjects and I definitely do so. It all goes back to wanting to be a child again. To disregard all this bullshit and just be happy for a little while because existence is just very sad and lonely. Most of the time. The human condition. I know that someday this will change for me. At least I hope I will be given that chance again. I am such a realist that I won't accept anything but what I see in my mind. Not the fairy tale dream but the reality of what I want. I am not looking for the perfect girl. The perfect job. The perfect anything. I am looking for what is perfect to me. That perfect thing is mostly work but all happiness. This is where I am. Seriously, I need to write more. I have 50 subjects in my mind all screaming to get out. I used to write an hour a day. Meditate for an hour a day. Where will I find those two hours these days? I'm finding the time now. This song, playing now, marked the end of one my relationships. And now I reflect. This is not the picture if you were thinking that. Just the motivation. This picture points out so many things about me you don't even know. That's why it's there right? This experience was like a solemn end filled with emotion to a passing of something that should not pass. Forever lasting and still ending. We both knew that. This is like all things. They all end. This one was at my discretion and my stupid actions to amplify pain as I have always done. My asshole part coming out because of all those things that I remember and store in my mind. My pain vindicated in some childish manner. That's enough for now.

Voice Recorder

I need a voice recorder. I had to write it. I could put three pages into what will now take me 20 minutes of scrambled fumbling. Rethinking my spelling and grammar. Mazzy Star helps loads in my ears. We go through these phases. These cycles of human interaction. So many of us are distracted for the entirety of our lives. There is no quiet time for self reflection. We have a constant stimulus of people that remains our distraction. We visit these rare periods when we are alone. Alone for the duration. That spawns our thought and ideas of who we truly are. That really makes us who we are. It's the experience that we live but it's the coming home that lets us reflect on what we've learned. Without the reflection, we are simply pushing on and autonomous. The experience is never really incorporated. With too much reflection, like what I'm living now, and to be truthful how I always live, you become secluded. You lose the ability to relate to others. The sound of others seems somehow foreign. It seems abrasive. Children laughing becomes an annoyance. You are picturing the elderly in your mind at this moment. These people, disconnected from family and bitter from life, give up and fade away. Like the dependent spouse, who dies because her companion fails to exist anymore. I hate my focus on myself. I hate reverting back to this every time. When all you do is think in this manner, you can't help but relate to how you can grow from what you are presented with. I relate to everyone and every fucking experience. Vicarious living and a daydream. We age. We understand more. How heavy the weight on our shoulders if we get to that old age. What the fuck was I talking about? Yeah, seclusion. These artists that both you and I revere. Their lives were fucking horrific. That's what spawns creation. Pain. Loneliness. Inability to relate and a necessary escape to something that makes sense. Dropping off the deep end is the only thing that ever gets you there. If you're in the middle of interest rates and blah blah blah....you're not pushing anything. The abyss is the only place for creativity. The loss of thought and a real step out of anything you know. That's the only time I've ever been at my best. A delirium that only arrives after a 24 hour period of sleep deprived panic. I've hear this described as a scapegoat and an easy target for a foolish focus of an inferior mind. Somehow, this process became a failure. You wake up and take another look and it's not good anymore. This is not the truth. A statement presented to us through storytellers and not artists. With all we know, we have to discard most of it. It's presented to us as fact and really is bullshit. Look at a history book and talk to a scholar. That's our whole fucking life! In our time, this always brings up Putin as an example. A president, a murderer, a gangster, a world figure. This is the whole of our history. Diluted by politics and tainted by those who chose what would survive. This is continuing. Now it's flooded but all the same a hundred years from now. We will value those who tell us the truth and it will be a few within a lifetime. Do you know anyone who you can trust to tell you the truth about what is happening? Michael Moore? Still slanted...way slanted. Does anyone but me think about how our history is really becoming lost at an exponential state? Newspapers and books are being cast aside as a dictionary is established by anyone who wants to write. Add to it. No problem. Subscriptions are required for any legal knowledge and court cases affecting our every day life. I search for fact and I am presented with a flood of useless information that I can't trust. So what do I do? I entertain myself out of frustration and am pacified by the result. Instead of writing something worthwhile, I look at stupid photos. I really would like to quote a blog (hate that fucking word) in MLA format. Should I cite the date or the image header with the "that's what she said" picture from "The Office" professor? This is progression? I am really worried about the next decade. I said the same about the last and look what has happened. Our history is being lost and no one seems to give a fuck. Everyone is scrambling and fighting and all truth is just going away. You can't trust our government. You can't trust reliable sources (at all now) who have existed for over a century. And yet I'm complaining. I guess I should try and do something about it. I guess I can take over Newscorp right.

AND THEN?

This is part 2 to the one below. Had to go buy a bottle of Sanvgiovese. And then...back to it. The neighbors are fucking failures. It's like a life gone wrong in LA. That should be a show. Divorcees and unhappy couples just basically waiting to die. The decrepit prostitute from long ago who walks her arthritic dogs down the avenue. The recently rewarded trophy wife with the new Lexus who is content because she is quite simply free and rich. And yet she lives here. I guess this is her idea of "modest living." I think you might be getting the picture of how disgusted I am by the basic idea of life here. I'm talking about this entire city by the way. Like an alien life form trying to fit into a mold that undefined. Twisting and turning without reason. Race and ideals without any real definition. No unifying morality or religion. And yet, it's so damn interesting even though I can't relate in my wildest dreams. It's like a Niche experiment in how life can sustain with just one common ideal...survival. Everyone hates each other but things still somehow push on. An inept and somewhat homicidal police force to keep the peace. Better in the (insert rich white word here) areas. And this feeds a focus but yet brings about no real change. It simply continues. It makes no progress. Segregation by choice. Mexico exists here. Korea exists here. Armenia exists here. More Armenians here than in Armenia. That is the truth. The book is beginning. It is solidifying in my mind. I am going to buy a Holga this week. Video would never do it justice but will play it's part. A project, the one I've been thinking about since I was a child, will come to fruition soon. Spending years, as I do, just trying to make sense of it all. It's the idea at the end of the road that I'm trying to realize. I catch a glimpse in the beginning and spend years putting into some form that can be understood. That is my process. This one is a big one. Maybe the most meaningful of my life. While the fire is still intact. While my disgust still has angst and has yet to turn to sadness and apathy. This, what I've been writing about here, will be one chapter. It will also be an underlying theme to the entirety of this work. Maybe the main theme. I can't believe it's taken me this long to understand that fact. I really could write all night right now and maybe I will but not here.

Dinner For One

I made dinner tonight for just myself. I went to the store and shopped with my ipod. I hate the shopping experience. Children and shopping carts. People trying to maneuver in an environment while preoccupied by all the pretty sights. Staring at signs and looking for soap in the bread aisle. Running into each other on purpose. Looking for some contact. It's so much easier to dodge and choose the aisle with no one. I bought all my ingredients. My hand held cart became rather heavy as I failed to anticipate that I needed oil and balsamic along with other necessary household items. My pocketbook did the same. I forgot that my taste is expensive. When I got home, I realized that I would be doing a night alone with pasta. A good sauce takes a long time and it's a rather lonely experience. A good bottle of wine did help. White wine...blasphemy. Damn you, Brian! Penne Arrabbita. Oil and balsamic brought be back to a better time though. For some reason, cooking reminds me of my worth. It reminds of my past experiences and how warm life can be. I remember friends and discussions and a time of normality with people who are more intelligent and civilized than anyone I spend time with at the present time. There is no way I convey everything about what I miss in this journal. How these people are amazing, normal, completely abnormal, geniuses, and just plain amazing. They fuel everything I need on with my quest for the abnormal and yet support me with everything within their power. They are completely fucked up and I can trust them and rely on them. I think everything I write is about people. How I am so far from where I want to be. I meet one person per year I can even fucking hang with. Fuck you sentence ending with a preposition! There's a bunch. I walk by my neighbors, and quite frankly, they should just shoot themselves. It should be illegal to raise children in an apartment complex. Is this fucking normal! And then, you decide to have two more? I guess this is why my neighbor works nights. I'm sure he sees his children at their best and the rest of time he just doesn't have to deal with it. As he's a heavy sleeper with the cousin pounding at the door at 3am because there is no reason to make an extra key. I pass the elderly apartments with the doors open because they just wish they had something to stimulate them besides the television. Like the regular at the supermarket up the street who everyone knows by name. As he walks the aisles and stops the shoppers to tell them jokes. "You must have been such a player", the checker says. His jovial way brings about a discomfort as one can't just walk away because he's just lonely, and who knows, maybe that could be me one day. And I wonder just how much time he spends there. Is this man in every market? What happened to bring him to this? Was this a stroke or heart attack that made him get out again? Without anything to focus on so he just chose a place with a regular cycle of people that would laugh and smile at him? Fuck, that's sad. This is going to turn into a novel. I'm going for more alcohol for sure. (Laughs).

Get it out

Watched "Control" today about the story of Joy Division. There's a part that always rings strong with me regarding what he wrote about performing. About giving all that he had an how it exhausted him. I relate to that point. It's funny and sad at the same time how I relate and compare myself to people like this. I've been very self reflective lately and trying to decide where I want to focus the current direction of my life. How I'm really sick of being exploited and used. I walk softly but I don't really have a big stick that I'm carrying. Yes, I realize the sexual connotation of that statement. I constantly have to remind myself of who I am and that I don't want to change in many ways. I'm struggling with so much right now. The feelings that I hold onto for far longer than I should. This hope that just doesn't go away. It remains when my brain has moved on. It's those times when you wish you could cut your heart out for a spell and just breathe. Stop thinking. I hate this part. We all do I think. When you watch a distance build until any closeness is gone. What a sad statement.

The Life of An Individual

Often times, I write in my thoughts. I seldom can explain sitting down what I write within myself. I realize this. I need to buy a voice recorder. Outside just now, I explained to myself what I'm feeling. What I'm going through. The cycle that is occurring for me in this place and time. 14 years is a long cycle. Drumming up the past. Solidifying what will come in the future. I know very well what I'm going through. These times are the only times when I am truly afraid. I keep everyone on the outside of the truth. They know some of what I am feeling but the deepest points are never reached. These are only for me. Somehow, I feel special. I feel like no one will understand. I don't even know how to begin an explanation. These pivotal points in my life are times when I can't and won't explain it. I take solace in books I've read and experiences of others who help me push through. The mundane bullshit is just the cover. The loves lost and the trivial malaise of gratuitous nonsense that simply gives a focal point to our madness. I'm really beginning to understand how I think. I'm also understanding how that process differs from others. Life is not an easy thing. Understanding why parents protect their children from the truth of life. To shelter them as long as possible. That time is the best of one's life. Any arguments on that point are mute. As an adult, one lives for those rare moments of happiness. The best of us do I guess. Those moments where the future is bright. When life is overshadowed by joy. You wish they would last forever and they never last long enough. And you become a little stronger. A little more bitter. And after you realize, you try with every ounce of yourself to push that bitterness away. This is a much more honest thing I'm' writing now. These times it's all I can muster. With tears for life. I really need to write. I'm not weak. My feeling is a conscious choice. I've lived the other side and it's much easier. The more honest I am, the more bullshit is cast aside. The conversations are much more meaningful. These are the things we should be discussing. This is the life we should be thinking about. Our goals and happiness given priority. Not settling for anything without weighing the options. And when it's enough, we leave it. We throw ourselves into the abyss for yet another time. And we will see where this one takes us.

late night

I was about to go to bed. Those times where you are very comfortable. I didn't want to turn on my computer. I wanted to drift into sleep. Happy. Warm. I looked at the footage I've shot over the years today with a friend. Christmas time it seems very fitting. And the thought I didn't want to let go. The thought about why I do what I do. I document life. What I do is save pieces of life. It is based in the medium of what I am interested in. Half asleep. Ending sentences in prepositions. Fuck! This is what I do. I shoot and save these things. I shoot and maybe only save on facial expression. 10 hours and 3 seconds seem important to me. I see a moment. It's different than a photo. It's not an interview. Nothing is being said. I look for a moment being lived. It's not sugar-coated. It's a real fucking moment. I can look back and see what it meant to me. They can look back and see what it meant to them if there is a human subject involved. I am keeping these things for me. I store them up and reflect. It is a moment of my life where I see something in someone. Or when I see something of beauty. This is the way I see my world. This is how I shape it. This is what choose after so much scrutiny to put into some form that will sustain. I can look back and see a short glimpse of someone's life that hold a great deal of meaning to me. I knew in that moment that I wanted to keep that memory. That is why I do what I do.