i have written 365 entries on this blog over the years and as time passes those entries get further and further apart. i can't really tell you when it happened but at some point along the way i lost my ability to put words together to make poetic and interesting sentences. i lost my ability to take what goes on upstairs and deliver it efficiently onto a piece of cyber paper. i forgot how to make my fingers tell a story.
i forgot how to capitalize things and put commas where they are supposed to be. i forgot how to do all the things that i thought i would never lose when i was in high school.
and now i find myself only wanting to write when an event of large magnitude is happening. like a new president. or graduating college.
or 2009.
when it comes down to it i'm sad to see 2008 go. i'm not looking forward to seeing it off tonight because it has been good to me. i couldn't even begin to make a list of my favorite nights because it would be more than 10. and any list more than 10 is something that requires more than just a list.
and 2009 scares me more than any other year that i have ever been apart of. not just because the economy is the worst but because i'm part of the real world now and i'm not sure that i'm prepared. i'm not sure if i have the right tools, the right knowledge, the right frame of mind to join the real world and contribute something worthwhile.
i've had a headache for days trying to plan out my new years. not because i don't have options or friends to share a bottle of champagne with or dance parties that i'm required to be at but because i believe that new years eve should be as great or horrible as the year that preceded it. and in order for that to happen, i would have to wake up next to a topless kristen bell in some obscure los angeles neighborhood.
and i haven't heard from kristen in months.
so when the clock strikes midnight and cinderella is out of luck and the ball drops i hope i will be somewhere great with people i love drinking a liquor that i enjoy. and i hope when my lips touch a pretty girls and my glass clinks with another, i hope i won't be wishing to be anywhere else.
and 2009, if you're reading this, please be just as good as the one that came before you. because i need another year like this one.
i voted today. i hope you did the same. and more importantly i hope you felt just as great about yourself as i did when i passed those friendly volunteers on my way out. i haven't felt that way in a long time, you know. like i did something that i was supposed to be doing. like i did something that i could write home about and tell my mom every last detail and have her smile and say, you've done me proud.
something i could talk to God about over beers and have him tell me the same.
once again i don't care who you voted for because at this point it doesn't matter. change is coming whether you like it or not and you can't even get out of the way because its coming from all directions.
you can feel it.
and i'm wearing this i voted sticker on my sleeve like a woman's heart and of course i'm stoked about that. but what i'm just as stoked about is what i'm about to do: head to my favorite bar in this wonderful city, order a beer, and watch our country change before my eyes as it flows down my throat. to be surrounded by people i know and love as i watch history. as i watch the chapter write itself.
it is a wonderful night to be alive, america.i hope you take full advantage. because when you wake up tomorrow
things will be different.
i don't ever talk about politics because its not my strong point. it's not my forte. not my niche. there are people who do it much better than i do. and really, there's always somebody out there who is better than us at something but if you've got confidence then you are the man to beat.
if not, you gotta beat the man to be the man.
just like everybody else, i got involved this year. i did research. i got behind a candidate. i watched their interviews and i watched their opponents interviews and i stayed in to make sure i caught the debates. i tried to be a good american because it seems like this country doesn't have nearly enough of those these days. and while i obviously have my preference when i hit the booth tomorrow, when i really sit down and think about it, i'll be happy with any outcome tomorrow.
because you can say what you want about either of them but either on their worst day is better than we have now on his best.
i was walking through the thick richmond november air tonight thinking about everything that can and will go down tomorrow. how much is at stake. how decades from now my kids and my kids kids will be reading about tomorrow in their history book that is thicker than that girl down the block.
and when i took a second to stop and think, i could feel it. it was just another night in november and one step closer to thanksgiving but you could feel something different. you could feel the change. you could feel something big on the horizon.
or maybe that was just the wind gnawing at my less than stellar forearms.
happy election day, america. do your best.
sometimes i'm glad i'm not an internet celebrity anymore. sometimes its nice not to have to worry about answering to anybody or watching what i do or censoring what i say. sometimes its nice to just come home have a beer make some popcorn and breathe a sigh of relief knowing that i don't have to answer to the internet today.
for years in high school, i was locked in a cage and every reader that i used to have held the key. nobody wanted to let me out. nobody wanted to let me have a bathroom break. nobody wants me to have a second to myself or even breathe on my own until i had written they words they wanted to read, said what they wanted to hear, and given them the pat on the back that they just couldn't get anywhere else.
but they are days i miss the rock star status. the days i miss knowing that everybody in my network of friends was talking about whatever i had stayed up late writing the night before. knowing that while i was sitting in high school math or english or science every high school across the county was reading my website like it was cnn. you miss stuff like that sometimes.
you miss being a rockstar when you've finally gotten tired of being normal again. its the problem we have as people. we want things and when we finally get it, we want something else.
and today is one of those days that i'm sitting at another retired blogger's house watching him play xbox and reading the websites of those whose rockstar status has not faded much. living vicariously through people that i used to be on the same level with. people i used to associate with. people i used to be like.
and now i'm a month away from graduating college which is what i've wanted since i started coloring in the lines so many years ago and i'm sitting on this unfamiliar sofa wondering if this is the way it was supposed to be. if i made the right choices if i chose the right paths if i did the things i was supposed to. if this is where i'm supposed to be at this exact moment.
my friends are getting married, the ward just became a dad, and i'm sitting on a couch wondering if i've made the right choices in my life.
wondering if i should still be a rockstar, or if normal was the right way to go all along. and worst of all,
i'm wondering why wondering what if is the worst thing their is.
I can't believe it has been 7 years.
If we are being honest with one another, which of course we are, I really can't believe that it happened to begin with. I cannot believe that evil prevailed so heavily in our society that it resulted in thousands of deaths and years of open wounds that have not been closed yet. And they probably won't ever be sewn up completely.
There is not enough love in this world to ever completely close up the wounds opened on that September morning. We can play every love song ever written back to back to back on the radio and write as many inspirational pieces as we can before our fingers fall off and the images will live on.
We will never forget where we were. I know where I was and you do too. I remember that entire day as a whole. I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning or what time I went to sleep last night but the entire day from the point I got up until I almost fell asleep live on in my head as a movie that will never stop playing.
And while I didn't know anybody personally injured or murdered I still feel like I was in New York City on that day. Maybe I feel this way because this day has affected me as a person more than any other day that I have lived. This is a day that I witnessed hatred and evil in its purest form. This is the day that I lost a heavy chunk of my faith in God. And this is the day that I saw this country come together in unity like it never had before.
And I'm listening to McCain and Obama on television talk about 9/11 and should have been done and what shouldn't have been done. As if they were there. As if they were president. As if they were in one of those towers contemplating which window they wanted to leap out of to save their own life.
And I listen to them talk about the unity that we had after September 11th and the year or two that followed and then quickly jump to the fact that we have lost that sense of unity and we desperately need it to return.
But seven years later, people are still talking about it.
People are still remembering it.
People are still hurt by it like no other event in the history of this country.
And while the bumper stickers may have faded away, the images burn clear. The immediate sense of unity as a country might have died off, but our pride stands strong. We still may not understand, but we have learned to cope the best way we know how.
We have attempted to move on.
But we will never forget.
We will never forget not only where we were when it happened, but how we felt days weeks months and years thereafter. We will never forget what it did to us as people and as a country.
When the second plane hit, my mom turned to me and told me that I would never forget that moment and that it would live in infamy.
And even though I didn't believe her then.
I sure as hell believe her now.
I don't receive a lot of written feedback on this website. I never have.
It's not a new concept, nor is it one that discourages me. You do what you do and if its good enough or bad enough somebody will say something about it. But for the most part, people just want to read your shit and lurk in the shadows. Where it's safe. They can see you but you can't see them. They might love what you're doing but they'd never tell you because either they're too lazy or they figure you hear it so much, it wouldn't matter anyway.
Let's get one thing straight.
Feedback is a good thing. I don't care if you'd rather make a pencil dissapear than read my shit, but have the balls to say so. Have enough balls to open that little comment box and say hey man, your shit sucks. It used to be good, back when you were funny and writing about jews and muslims and black people. But now that you write about being old and missing high school, that shit flat out isn't good anymore.
And I'll say you're probably right and ask if I can buy you a beer.
I read every comment whether its good or bad. Sometimes I read them too much and stop writing for 8 months because an anonymous poster cut my ego down one comment at a time. I found out several months later that the culprit was a longtime friend just having some fun. But the stuff he was saying wasn't fun at all.
You can't let your readers shape you and you can't let your audience get the best of you. Otherwise you might as well wave your white flag because you will never get out of this game alive.
Dude left a comment on the last entry. He entitled himself an old reader. Not sure how long he's been reading or who he is or where he came from. But the fact that I've been idle for months, sometimes years at a time and people are still clicking this URL blows my mind in ways I will never be able to tell you.
Dude told me to suck it up be a man and hold my head high. Then he asked if I had heard that advice before, which is funny because the best advice is the one you hear over and over again. Treat others like you want to be treated. Always return the favor. Blondes have more fun.
Don't let them get the best of you.
Was having a few beers at the bar last night with a longtime friend from high school. The kid that Spanish classroom sex was written about all those years ago. Somehow, the website came up and he said man I showed my friend the site the other day and it wasn't the same. It's not that I hate the new content I just can't stand the way you're writing these days.
And I said well something dies when you get older and when I figure out what it is you'll be the first to know.
And he said you've told me that a thousand times.
And I said I know.
And he said.
Bottoms up, old friend.
I woke up this morning shallow and alone.
I rolled over hoping to find a cute girl missing her top. No dice. Checked the floor in hopes of finding Saturday night's finest clothing article strewn around my room. No such luck. I even got out to bed just to check the kitchen, assuming I would find the girl who was missing from my bed making me breakfast wearing nothing but an old tshirt that doesn't look half as good on me.
Again. I came up empty.
I have this disease that only lets me write about the past. I have a mental block that will only let me remember and recount the times in my life where i felt invinsible; the ones that I would give anything to relive. The nights in college. The days in high school. The days when I was actually cool, crisp, and on top of my game. The ones I can't get back; no matter how many times I fall asleep trying.
I do not want to write about the present or the future, I only want to write about and relive the days I have already spent; the things I have already felt; the familiar rather than the unknown. I would rather hunch over and take the easy way out than stand on my tippie-toes and try to reach for the fucking stars. They say that once one door closes, another one opens. What they meant to say was once you stop living in the days you will never get back, your present and future might start being as good as your past.
It's a terrible disease to have. Similar to cancer of the mind.
it's why I don't write every day. I feel like all I am doing is saying things I've said a thousand times before using much better words. You can only say so much about waht it used to be like.
It's why when I do write, it's not as interesting, as unique, or as funny as it was in 2004.
It's why I live alone.
It's why I am always trying to recreate nights that were never mine to begin with.
It's why my fridge is empty and my cabinet is bare.
It's why my parents think I'm an alcoholic.
It's why I have everything everybody else wants but nothing I desire. You think you have it all, you think you've got it made, you think you're moving on up but all it takes is one wrong step and you're sliding down faster than you were climbing up.
It's why I've woken up slightly hungover and rolled over several times, hoping to find that topless girl that I know isn't there, no matter how hard I pinch myself.
Maybe she went outside to get the mail.
That doesn't come on Sundays.