100th post, and a few things i've noticed about this blog...

happy 100th post to me.

hello quiet readers. let us all celebrate the overwhelming cultural contribution of this website together, shall we?

yeah. you can thank me later.

just a few things i've noticed about Written Off, in general.

-- the greatest service i think this blog has provided has been to the anonymous commenters, who come here and post because they think its a good way right some wrong i've done them. i'd just like to say i admire your courage. it is an impressive display of testicular fortitude. you've really put things on the line here, made yourself vulnerable, opened up some issues for debate; i really respect and appreciate that. you dumb fucks. grow a fucking life, and quit trying to be anonymously antagonistic; you fail at both. if you want to dialogue, i'm all for it, even if you think i suck and i think you're a shithead. i'm not here to be the vessel for your catharsis. if you really want to tell me what you think of me, my e-mail address is SweeneyAstray(at)gmail.com. i check it every day. sometimes more than once.

-- most of you assholes who know me and leave anonymous comments are going to willfully misinterpret the sarcasm of the opening lines of this post as arrogance. you=stupid.

-- God, is there even anything else worth writing after that? after all the heaviness, its seems a little schizophrenic to point out that the old post i did in the spring about the Tori Amos cover of Famous Blue Raincoat has drawn the most responses from random web-surfers -- among whom the common consensus seems to be that Cohen is God, and no cover, however well done, can touch the original. ok, we're all entitled to our opinions; some of us are more entitled than others. on Written Off, i am the most entitled. Cohen is often grating to listen to. i'm sorry, its true. with the time signature his songs are set in, fruitflies could live entire lifespans between one beat and the next. and (heading this one off at the pass) maybe i have the attention span of a fruitfly, but even so Cohen's voice is like something you expect to hear out of the Lincoln head on Mt. Rushmore: that is, its like stone. and Tori's cover makes my heart hurt. if you can hear Tori's voice and not wince with pleasure, then you, Anonymous Sirs and Madams, have no heart. and you probably eat soylent green. and soylent green is people. its madeoutofPEpAHL. if all of those arguments fail, the cover will always be more interesting, in a lit theory kind of way. so there.

--anyone notice i haven't written about christmas yet? compared to last year, i am really off my game.

--also, it would be nice to know someone was out there...and not just laughing at my food poisoning (?) episode (FRED).

i have...

...so far to go to become a good writer

...so much to learn



...been comparing myself to other people too much






...not been writing

a poem from the vault

i think this might be my favorite thing i've ever written. which is saying a lot. i wrote it three years or so ago. usually the appreciation i have for my own writing would lose a contest with the shelf life of unrefridgerated milk.


this is a sestina,
unto the moon
--------------------------------


lady moon you are an apple in the vault of the sky
waiving white lily fingers as you pass me by
drawing shrouds of heaven about you as you go
slowly wheeling through the sky, your light like fallen snow
trust me when you ask me and i tell you of my love
there is madness in the roads i roam which most know little of

wake me not from my sleeping madness yet
though i pass the scent of apples by with much regret
i am trusted by the sun to pick a route between the stars
my fingers clenched around my sword and guiding chariot cars
my burning feet are wheels cutting through the nether-sky
my hand before my face shrouds the burning of my eyes

soothe my restless dreaming with your shroud as thin as light
sing and soothe my madness in the midst of desp'rate night
there are none that go before me but a golden fiery wheel
and none so well has led me but my apple through this field
your fingers spread through nighttime, your fingers through my hair
ever on must i trod and trust that you are there.

trust me though you know not why they call me the Half Red
the shroud of night will come and spark a fire in my head
my fingers itch to work upon their each appointed task
what madnesses I’ll meet, I neither know nor want to ask
but do not even offer me an apple 'pon my road
and risk the falling heavens ever if my wheels be slowed

on the rim of heaven, on the Wheel around the Tree
while i trust my Eastern course, and from the West if you can see
beneath the silver apple-light i'm sending kisses out to you
in the beaks of little birds who'll pierce the shroud and sing them through
their song is mad and keening for the veil that stands between us
their winged fingers harping winds for sleepers dreamless

my fingers are ablaze both with fire and with blood
my burning wheels are spinning in the darkness and the mud
my madness is a tunnel that I must lead and be led through
trust that though I may be late I’ll not break tryst with you
fate is wrapped up in a shroud and bound up in the night
and woven on a loom beneath the bloom of apple-light



your silver fingers trace through the stanzas of this ode, chasing tunes of apple trees across my chest, in woad
the tearful night is tearing and has torn in shrouds behind you; let the always wheeling, turning night and burning stars remind you
that my love is like an Axis, like the Tree, your trusted guide, a constant through the madness you can rest your head beside.

de________

i was doing so ok for awhile, you know? what happened...?







funny...
"despondent" has just as many letters as "depression"

...another song for emily

We’ve tried to wash it out with shots lined down the table
Tried to feed it prescriptions until it was dead
To chain smoke it out with Salem green labels
To exorcise it with holy water and daily bread
To medicate the household strife of Cain and Abel

We have been to the end of the rope and found it tied in a noose
In our house you can feel which rooms blood has been shed in
Some days I admit I wonder what’s the use?
And its all I can do not to stick my head in
Or look for something stupid to give me an excuse

(chorus-like part)
And I wonder if I can handle staying...
What does it say when we’ve turned
Chain smoking into praying?
And love is patient, love is kind
But remember the day you came home and
Ah, forget it, nothing, nevermind
Cuz, love, it don’t keep no record of wrongs
And I’m living to learn, learning to love
turning the hangovers into songs

You know I don’t mean to be mean
I don’t mean this to be a dirty laundry airing session
I just wanna have a place to come clean
I just wanna make a love-confession
Even if it requires me to make a scene

(chorus, again)
And I wonder if I can handle staying
What does it say when we’ve turned
Chain smoking into praying?
And love is patient, love is kind
But remember the day you came home and
Ah, forget it, nothing, nevermind
Cuz, love, it don’t keep no record of wrongs
And I’m living to learn, learning to love
turning the hangovers into songs

Sometimes the best parts are what don’t belong
My grandmother once told me that no one is pure
I am not going to live my life trying to prove her wrong
Cuz living with life gets damn close to a cure
and scratches on the vinyl lend their beauty to a song

And God knows we’ve got enough scratches showing
Even He thinks we’re a hell of a bunch
But I’ll be damned if we don’t have what it takes to keep going
Every day is a grind, all our faith rests on a hunch
And sometimes a belief is just as good as knowing...

"boom ba-ba boom ba-ba boom..."

God himself has struck me ill.

more to come on that later, after i rehab a little.

remember that scene in Stand By Me with Lardass at the blueberry pie eating contest? remember how many people there were, just heaving all over the place?

i think i out-puked them all today.

so, so tired.....

how not to be miserable

DO NOT leave home to break any patterns of self destructive behaviour. self-destruction is actually quite pleasurable, if you don't count the hangovers.

DO NOT NOT get into the new school in your new city, like you said you were going to.

DO NOT flake out on your previous two semesters so that new school in question does not think you are some kind of joke of a student.

DO NOT move to a new city and get a job at the Olive Garden. (don't move back to an old city and get a job at the Olive Garden, for that matter. actually, just forget the Olive Garden all together...)

DO NOT get what you think will turn out to be a better job at a really cool restaurant only to put up with incapable douchebags who have no idea what kind of gem has fallen into their undeserving laps. (the gem i am referring to is the Van Dyck...but if you thought i was talking about me, the judges will accept that answer as well. contestants, please remember; your answer must be in the form of a question. circle gets the square. would you like to buy a vowel...?)

DO NOT, under any circumstances, move too far away from your girls friday. or true loves, for that matter.

DO NOT tangle with married girls, unless you have a doctor's note that says you knew her from before...(unless?...or especially if?).

DO NOT live outside of a walking radius of the Pink...EVER. neverever. you will always need somewhere to pick up, somewhere to land, somewhere to dance, somewhere to puke...

DO NOT leave your hairstylist.

DO NOT leave your drinking buddies. or buddettes. they are your best friends. remember the long talks and drunken stumbles home? no...? ah, but you didn't wake up with missing teeth, missing money, or a sore ass. no, you woke up on their couches, lip-chapped, bleary eyed and dry. now that is love, friends.

DO NOT somehow manage to still be a terrible brother/cousin/nephew/son/grandson even when your family lives within five miles of you in any direction.

DO NOT stop writing.

DO NOT walk off your last job two weeks before christmas.

DO NOT think about moving back so soon.

DO NOT crumble under pressure.

DO NOT forget to buy gloves at Target the next time you're there.

DO NOT let anyone fuck you over, unless you are fucking yourself. try not to let you fuck yourself anyway, though.

DO NOT let this list go on for much longer.

the end.

small victory

i'm giving this to emily, if she wants it.
a song.


there is grace in making beauty out of danger
and you're a bad bet, but i've gotta take the wager
i am sitting in the window; i am dangling my feet
and thinking if i did it i could fly above the street

you’re a bet that I’d take a chance on
and the street is a place that we could dance on
even if I lose
if I scuff my wing-tip dancing shoes
it would still be a beautiful thing to glance on

if I fell for you only to crash and burn
i’d keep our ashes on the mantle in an urn
i’d build a private altar to our public scandal
and run my fingers through the votive candles

you are a glow that I want to stand in
a fire I want to stick my hand in
if it blisters
if the fire gives me up in whispers
it would still be a beautiful thing to land in

like it says in the bible, love conquers dying
and I’ll tell you it makes for beautiful flying
regardless of what dangers and how certain
(landin' the leap of faith don’t mean there’s no hurtin).

It’s a thing that I still have plenty o’ doubt of
(and I’m not someone you’d open a window and shout of)
but all doubts lingering
like new and shaky guitar fingering
there’s a danger we could make some beauty out of

love/hate

i look at other people's lives and i hate myself.

i hate that i knew people that i don't know anymore, that they float around with pieces of me in them that they've forgotten.

i know its my fault. i've been a terrible person. perhaps i deserve to be forgotten. perhaps the reason i can't get it together is because i've let all those people go with all of those pieces of me.

i'm such a fucker. i wish that the people i've pushed out of my life, the people i've burned, the people i've crushed......i don't know. i hope they forgive me and never forget me. i'll never forget you. if i've ever loved you, you have a piece of me in you and i have an aching fondess for you.

i am ashamed of myself.

if it helps at all, know that i'm a pretty lonely bastard these days.

"they say that taupe is soothing..."

minor overhauls going on here at written off...none of them writing related, of course.

perhaps the new, green punctuated earthtone look of this site will be inviting enough for me to return to regularly and with wit. unlikely, i know. i'm lacking in the wit department these days, but let's please not mention it; its a sore subject for me.

updates:
quitting the Olive Garden.
starting at local resturaunt/jazz club/brewery the Van Dyck.
this, i anticipate, will be a mixed blessing. i should really try to look at it as a blessing plain and simple, but i'm past the age of expecting only good things. this is an incredibly sad admission for me to make.

beginning to not merely enjoy but relish the new Sorkin fare; Studio 60 is really beginning to take off, and is a show that has the potential to last at least as long as the West Wing did (of which i only count the first four Sorkin-written seasons), and be just as good. i wasn't all that sure about the series after the first few episodes...it was almost too much an ensemble cast show. but Studio 60 is really digging in now, all its parts -- dialogue and story arc and character development -- equally well fashioned. i was worried that it wouldn't be able to live up to the West Wing's legacy, but i am only just realizing that i have that legacy to reference while i only have about five or six episodes of Studio 60 to compare it to, and that's not exactly fair of me. i don't mean to give the impression that i've been disappointed with the new show -- quite the contrary; indeed, every episode gets better than the last, and it started out with a pretty good bang.

haven't made or been taking any of the time i'm needing to write lately....full time at the Olive Garden is crushing my soul, and i'm feeling pretty well stampeded over, and not very much like myself. i am afraid that without luxurious and impractical amounts of free time i will dry up like a potsherd and my creativity will blow away like your Aunt Tilly's cremated remains over a choppy, unforgiving, 42 degree Lake Ontario, under mostly cloudy skies and a chilly northeasterly wind.

the point, though, is to try anyway, and maybe something at least interesting, if not good, will turn up. if the garbage and the gold even out, that is more than a good day. and i'm not even sure how to separate one from the other yet, so just getting anything is a victory for me.

so i've got to start trying again. i'd stopped there, for awhile. i've got to talk myself back into it. so here i am, talking myself back into it.

the vacation in oblivion is over.

maxim

say it truthfully. or say it beautifully. say it both ways if you can.

...by the oxford band, the Radiohead

gets me more every time i hear it.

there will always be something a little romantic about unashamed expressions of unrequited, self-disgracing love...

True Love Waits

i'll drown my beliefs
to have your babies
i'll dress like your niece
and wash your swollen feet

just

don't leave,
don't leave

i'm not living
i'm just killing time
your tiny hands
your crazy kitten smile

just

don't leave...
don't leave

and true love waits
in haunted attics
and true love lives
on lollipops and [chips]

just

don't leave....

don't leave....

don't leave,
don't leave...


what can i really say about this song? i really have only one insight: i read that the last lines of the last verse come from a news story Thom Yorke heard in England, about a nine year old kid who survived on lollipops and potato chips while his parents left him alone during their two week vacation.

its a pathetic story, a pathetic song...
does true love really resign itself to this, just to keep on loving?

in light of recent events...

...i've decided to post this link. i wrote this not quite a year ago. last october cared far better for buffalo's trees than it did this year....anyway, some of the final thoughts of this post came from something i had heard somewhere -- in a radio broadcast of a church sermon, i think -- and the i've carried the thought in my head ever since. even as far as the last post i made on this blog, specifically regarding autumn.

reading this post now almost feels like prophecy. it is a real account of that day, which is about as close to calling it "non-fiction" as i can come. i mean to say that the embellishments are literary, linguistic, rather than narrative.

read it and weep


--p

feeling emotional

i think maybe the reason i want to be a writer so badly is because of how i find my self so affected by what i read.

i've just scrolled through my inbox, and i'm on the verge of tears here. as much as e-mail, and the internet, language in general, and arrangements of electronic signals from my loved ones specifically do not exist in any tangible reality, and though i am sitting quietly here at panera's and everything seems to be what it is every other day, inside i am fallen on my face.

to tell the truth i haven't really deeply missed buffalo since i've left, for whatever reason. i'm not homesick, because where i am now is strangely homelike. i miss specific things like people, friends, family, lovers and loved ones. i miss the towers of the psych ward. i miss bidwell park. i miss the smell of the air.

i got an e-mail from my dad this weekend, which i just now happened to read. several of them, actually. in one of them he sent me this poem:

If You Think

If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don't,
If you like to win, but you think you can't,
It's almost a cinch you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you've lost,
For out in the world you find
Success begins with a fellow's will;
It's all in the state of mind.

Full many a race is lost,
Ere ever a step is run;
And many a coward fails,
Ere ever his work's begun.
Think big and your deeds will grow,
Think small and you'll fall behind,
Think that you can and you will;
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you're outclassed, you are,
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later, the man who wins,
Is the fellow who thinks he can.

i know: corny, right?
i don't like posting quotes often, or other people's writing. its nothing personal, its just this strange reservation i have. but this, i have to post.
i grew up with this poem; it was something my dad used to quote to me often, in snatches, and i think i remember most of it being in a frame on an office wall or a desk of his. i had forgotten it had ever existed until he sent it to me. maybe its my tendency to edit out bad poetry or bad writing from my memory for fear that it will infect my attempt at high art. i know, i'm a pompous jackass.

i hadn't realized how overwhelmed i've been feeling, Out Here, away from everything i ever new. i hadn't really realized how much self doubt had caught me by the throat lately; how i've been choking under its growing weight, until i read this. yes, its corny. what's cornier is that it almost made me cry.

there have been a lot of self given pep talks on this blog. often i've got to talk my way out of hopelessness. its the only thing that works, words are the only thing that work for me. medication? not really. therapy? only in as much as it includes the use of words. there is nothing worth more to me than a right word in the right place. there is nothing worth more than being able to frame the right thought with the appropriate words.

i've grown up with this poem -- it is so close to me, i'd overlooked it for years. its words are appropriate, and they are in the right place.

it occurs to me now that the determination i've manifested over the past year, the dedication i've been able to pull out of the quicksand of my lazy self has a lot to do with the sentiment of this poem. this isn't a poem about positive thinking. its poses a question: what is inside you? what is it that you know you can do? where can you take yourself? can you carry yourself to where you want to be?

my grip on the belief that i could has been shaken over the past couple of months; can i really write the way i want to? can i write what i want to? every day the world seems to be what it was the day before, and i'm not seeing any changes, i'm not making any changes. i'm not what i really want to be. every day the world seems to be what it was yesterday, the mundane, the daily, the routine rears its head too often into the plans i have for myself.

i know that i can do what i've set out to do. it may takes years. a life's work should consume at least that much. i know what i am, i know what i can do. it just takes the effort of the reach. it is up to me to meet my own capabilities. that may sound like a tautology, but somehow we lose sight of the simplest truths, because they're so simple, because they're right next to us.

if you think you dare not, you don't.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i'll miss fall in buffalo -- i have favourite trees there, favourite places to be when the leaves shed. there are more trees Out Here, but i don't know them as well, and i have no favourite paths to walk yet. there is this sort of exciting sadness about autumn to me. the back cover of summer has finally closed, and is ready to be shelved; no more smell of hot asphalt or lilacs. the year has matured, and perhaps you have too; now the air smells of cultivated wood burning in cultivated fireplaces in the respectable houses of responsible, childless, happy, turtlenecked adults.

i thought one day i might grow up and be one of them; but i'm grown up now, and i don't have anyone to share a fireplace with...and i don't own a turtleneck. i like who i am more or less, but i thought i'd grow up to be different.

i had talked about this, briefly, with Sarah. she'd seen Colleen recently, a friend of ours from Canisius days. one of the few people i knew who'd started out in school for engineering and actually ended up working in the field. Sarah said she was so put together, and i wasn't surprised. Colleen was always a class act.

Sarah said she felt like a girl in front her. Sarah is a girl, though, and thats part of her charm. its a lot of what breaks down the walls i had tried to build against her while we weren't speaking. she has the girlish energy of an ocean surf, the tickling sea-foam eating walls into sand dunes. i resisted as long as my heart felt i had any right to. but erosion always wins.

i let her back in, into my life, and she came back to buffalo, and it was like the old days except better. she still smells like summer.......
......and she is on her way out of my life again...

i got an e-mail from her this weekend: we seem forever backing into and out of each other's lives. we are seasonal. we are here for a too short summer, and spend drawn out schoolyears apart. this is just how it goes. she is like the ocean surf. ebb and flow. tidal. there are other forces of gravity that tend to her, and that she is required by laws of physics to obey. and i am just shifting sand....

this time, i tell myself, is different. i'm not mad. i'm not bitter, anymore. i understand. still, it feels the same. "back in the alcove, back in the attic," i told her..."packing peanuts and bubble wrap."

this is the time of year to put the seasonal items back into storage...wrap up the summer knicknacks, box up the shorts and t-shirts. time to pull out the heavy blankets, clean the flue; time to break out the turtlenecks....

its that time again. the year has matured, and maybe you have too. summer vacation is over; summer vacation is a myth, now. what was the schoolyear is now your workaday life, and it never ends. winter is on its way. summer itself fades out of thought and memory. out of reach.

she's got to take a step in another direction. i understand. and i'm not mad. even if its off a ledge, and away from me. its fall; its time for the leaves to let go of their trees, else they both break under the weight of winter...............
how can i be mad? she is autumn....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...well, why not?

just coming off a dayful of training at New Job, in New City, and undwinding with a little free internet at the only place in town where i know i can get it (that is, good ol' Panera, which i have been describing to everyone i know -- half of whom visit here and will have heard this already -- as the Starbucks of bread).

the sole reason i am making this post is because it gives me reason to sit at this table and ogle the women and young ladies walking in and out of this fine establishment. right now i am eye-flirting with a well dressed blonde in her late thirties/early forties who does not have a wedding ring. i warn you, readers, so that you aren't expecting any substance here.

so, what shall i talk about, as i try to let this woman know, via eye communication, that i am thinking about her naked?

perhaps the first day of training at Corporate Resturaunt Job? i knew it would start at some point, but i hadn't expected it so soon; they managed to fit a backstabbing lesson in just between a training video and a food tasting. ah, jolly good fun. not even a day on the job and already i've discovered someone i am going to refuse to speak to. yes, if there was any doubt, screwing people is par for the course even at this low level of employment at a corporate company.

this lady, for the record, is in rather good shape for her age....i think she is just as much sneaking a peek at me as i am at her...at least, that is what i'm hoping...we are both half-arcing a stare around the bulging tummy of a chubby girl who has no idea she is caught in our crossfire...

maybe i should talk about what New City is like? the truth is i don't really know, as i am living about 20 minutes outside of it, and have thus far only driven down New City's main drag once, and aimlessly at that. the longer my training at New Job takes me, the more i have to stretch my gas money, which means there will be no further drives through New City in the forseeable future. one day i will have a little money, a little time, and enough gas in my tank to find out, but it won't be soon.

...and with that, she is gone, out of my life. i fantasize that she walks back in and gives me her business card, or slaps a tattered Panera's napkin in front of me with her name and number scratched in womanish handwriting upon it...somehow the latter seems sexier, and a little more frightening. yes in my fantasy she is dangerous, and that's just what she does...

i could talk about what it is like living with my grandparents, but what you are imagining at the moment is pretty much what it is like. early to bed, early to rise, etc. i could talk about the adventures i've had finding an apartment with my sisters here, if there were anything at all adventurous about it, but then, that has been mostly what you'd expect as well (and if one of the descriptors that your thinking of about that process happens to be "pain in the ass" then you happen to be right on). i could whine about not having any money, but i've been doing that to everyone since the first day i've gotten here, and frankly i'm a little tired of it. i could complain that my phone has been shut off, and i am only able to receive calls until i pay my bill, or that my car needs a-fixin, or my things in Buffalo need a-retrievin, or that i'm homesick for my friends...

...but it would all just be filler; what i'm really thinking about is how i haven't hung out with any girls in New City that i'm not related to. i've been staring at this woman, waiting to see if she'll come over to talk to me, because, although i know it is against the Rules, yes, i am egotistical enough to believe that through sheer force of eye-contact i should be able to make a woman take the initiative to come to me. However, we've seen how well that works, and we do regret our decision to poke away at this keyboard instead of being a man and approaching her....


...and now we've missed dinner at grampa's.

i was almost going to update today...

....but i decided against it.


i moved.
so i've been busy.
too busy to make an update.
but soon, don't worry; soon...sssshhhh....'s okay....sssshhhh...


-p

postcards from the fridge...

or, fun with magnetic poetry.


sail the bleeding morning from yesterday
let the sad fire of poetry bellow with your secret life
growl like a ghost over a wild ocean;
a son cut from the soft belly of a god,
a daughter of champaigne & flowers
think less of decaying like a prisoner
speak desire
wake up the night
your sacred fever heals you
a window which opens out on to the universe,
a way in to a breeze we will soon explore;
remember,
& learn to breathe

ramblings of a burn-out

well folks, the end of the world is on its way. the turning of the earth will keep it at bay for only another 11 days -- the process of night to day, and day to night is good for keeping the inevitable away for a just a little while longer. it (that is, the inevitable) will always have to travel the distance of "from then," in the future til "now," in the present...and it cannot do so faster than time will allow.

thank God for that.

but also, thank God its coming.

goodbye Buffalo

i would be infinitely more happy if i had some Lime-aid right now. i am going to go pick some up, i think. at Wegmans.

ah, goodbye Wegmans.

goodnight stars, goodnight moon.

goodnight home, goodnight work

goodnight mom, goodnight dad

goodnight dust of this crummy little town.
i shake you off of my feet and trade you for the dust of some other crummy little town.

-p

reason not to have a girlfriend #6

the ones you want are too good for you; the ones you can get aren't worth your time.

Quick Insights (tm)

Fargo = subverted Film Noir