When I am drunk. And when I am lonely. Which seems to be a lot recently. I'll write more here soon (I like how I write that like a promise to either myself or someone who is actually reading this thing.) Whiskey is my muse, and "whiskey is my muse" is a stupid and pretentious thing to write under any circumstance. Eric is now an art student at a reputable art school and he maintains the biggest thing to happen to him was that the critics there do everything they can to make you realize that all your work depends on you and not that you live the "artist" lifestyle--something that Eric had kind of built up in his head as he began painting a while ago. There is a lesson in there somewhere.
I need to get my shit together. This is a fact. I need to head face first into my fear of trying and being a responsible and accountable person. The biggest and yet most obvious secret is that the world is not too tolerant of people like me, who think they can be the execption to the rules or coast by on intangilbes that weren't afforded to them by things like discipline and hard work. 99% of can't coast by and come out the other end just peachy. I need to start doing more than just asking myself the hard questions, but answering them. And answering them in complete sentences with five--count 'em--five supporting paragraphs.
Fuck it. MY happieness is worth it. My sense of security and self is worth not procratinating anymore. Anyone can be a little lazy, careless and a chronic mis-manager of their time...I like to think I can transcend that "anyone" notion...at least I like to think that...
Holy shit, I have a blog? I guess so.
Hey, wanna know something even more messed up? Here's another one I've kept since high school: http://rabbitjack.deadjournal.com/
I know right?
Monday, October 18, 2010
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Water is fine
Jonathan used to live on the third floor of an apartment on the Southeast corner of Damen and Addison. The kitchen in his apartment had a window that faced west. The window, just above the sink, was wide and big; perfect for growing small plants on the sill—which he did.
I didn’t go there too often in the summer, but when I did I would always find his kitchen to be a bastion of stillness and simplicity as it looked down on the traffic that crisscrossed the streets below. I especially remember what it was like when the setting sun shone in through that big window, gilding the faucet’s water with its own sense of importance as it tumbled and rose up to the rim of my glass.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Nightmare
I had a terrible dream the other night.
It was a straight up nightmare like the ones kids have. The kind that people base horror movies off of.
I was lying in bed in my darkened bedroom and this dark, lanky creature managed to wriggle and slip through the closed window and drawn blinds in an otherworldy sort of way. Then it hovered and swayed above the foot of my bed and then loomed over me while I lay there, parylized as it looked down into my eyes. Its face looked like a mime, but the colors were inverted.
I woke up.
It was a straight up nightmare like the ones kids have. The kind that people base horror movies off of.
I was lying in bed in my darkened bedroom and this dark, lanky creature managed to wriggle and slip through the closed window and drawn blinds in an otherworldy sort of way. Then it hovered and swayed above the foot of my bed and then loomed over me while I lay there, parylized as it looked down into my eyes. Its face looked like a mime, but the colors were inverted.
I woke up.
Friday, November 28, 2008
story/screenplay
A young man's two best friends inexplicably disappear and his world comes crashing down around him as he tries to find them.
A rational and honest man alienates himself from friends and family after he experiences what he believes to be an alien abduction as he tries to convince them of what happened to him.
The comic story of how a "nice young man" makes an effort to be a bit of a jerk so her can get a girl.
How a man spends the last six months of his life with pancreatic cancer.
Something about someone going to see a psychic who turns out to actually have powers. A guy goes there on a dare? By chance? Life turned upside down somehow. The psychic is a gypsey woman from Czech republic.
Some friends move into an apartment that turns out to be haunted. The ghost is not malicious, his presence is a mystery that the roomates figure out.
A teenaged kid wakes up to find the world is deserted: everyone is gone.
A young, average, man becomes tries his luck at getting close to a minor celebrity.
The story of the atom bomb from its inception to the cold war proliferation efforts.
A slacker type of guy decides to fake having issues with depression and anxiety in order to participate in a clinical/psychological study at a university so he can make some extra cash by (in his mind) just showing up and acting sad, taking tests and coming back a week later to do it again. In the process he finds that he might be dealing with more complicated issues than he previously thought and begins to realize that he might need help after all. Throughout the story he begins to turn things around for himself through the help he recieves in the treatment (which turns out to be a placebo?).
Four good buddies are marooned on a deserted island and are forced to confront eachother's shortcomings as friends. (like the Breakfest Club meets Cast Away).
A conflicted young man begins to straighten out his life through the philosophies and practices of Zen Bhuddhism.
A rational and honest man alienates himself from friends and family after he experiences what he believes to be an alien abduction as he tries to convince them of what happened to him.
The comic story of how a "nice young man" makes an effort to be a bit of a jerk so her can get a girl.
How a man spends the last six months of his life with pancreatic cancer.
Something about someone going to see a psychic who turns out to actually have powers. A guy goes there on a dare? By chance? Life turned upside down somehow. The psychic is a gypsey woman from Czech republic.
Some friends move into an apartment that turns out to be haunted. The ghost is not malicious, his presence is a mystery that the roomates figure out.
A teenaged kid wakes up to find the world is deserted: everyone is gone.
A young, average, man becomes tries his luck at getting close to a minor celebrity.
The story of the atom bomb from its inception to the cold war proliferation efforts.
A slacker type of guy decides to fake having issues with depression and anxiety in order to participate in a clinical/psychological study at a university so he can make some extra cash by (in his mind) just showing up and acting sad, taking tests and coming back a week later to do it again. In the process he finds that he might be dealing with more complicated issues than he previously thought and begins to realize that he might need help after all. Throughout the story he begins to turn things around for himself through the help he recieves in the treatment (which turns out to be a placebo?).
Four good buddies are marooned on a deserted island and are forced to confront eachother's shortcomings as friends. (like the Breakfest Club meets Cast Away).
A conflicted young man begins to straighten out his life through the philosophies and practices of Zen Bhuddhism.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Master list of scene ideas to come back to
A teenager is caught sneaking out of the house by his grandfather to see a girl and the two have a talk about girls, love and sex.
A young couple in a car are on there way to a family gathering. After a beat of silence the girl looks over to the guy and says "I don't want to tell my parents we met on e-harmony."
Discovering that his pants are really wrinkled when he takes them out of his closet, a guy decides that he could just try and play it off by saying (jokingly?) its the new look. He rehearses that line, "Its the look." a few times to himself. Cut to the party where he says to a couple of girls looking at his pants "Its the look." They walk away.
A guy deals with a bitter break up by reanacting how it went with puppets in his apartment.
Time Life presents "Tom Waits sings his interprations of children's songs."
A bunch of regular guys go to a mystical, magical "lady of the lake" type figure to wish that their friend pulls through something that ails him.
The inner monolouge of a guy writing an apology letter (mic off stage) to his friend for what he did when he got very high and drunk the night before as he sits at his computer trying to write it getting more and more frustrated about word choice describing the bizarre and disgusting things he had done.
A cheery and upbeat (albeit nervouse) "setting up second date/just saying hi and seeing hows it going" phone conversation gets rocked when the guy on one end inadvertantly shares that his mother got the news that she dodged breast cancer the other day. The guy panics and apologizes for getting into such personal details so fast and then hits a slippery slope of sharing more and more things really nervous really fast.
A guy finds out that his buddy keeps ethnic slurs next to his friend's names on his cell phone's contact list. (e.g. Eric the Pole, Mikey the mick, Paul the Kraut). This is shocking as his friend never conducts himself as a racist or even someone who thought that way.
A young couple in a car are on there way to a family gathering. After a beat of silence the girl looks over to the guy and says "I don't want to tell my parents we met on e-harmony."
Discovering that his pants are really wrinkled when he takes them out of his closet, a guy decides that he could just try and play it off by saying (jokingly?) its the new look. He rehearses that line, "Its the look." a few times to himself. Cut to the party where he says to a couple of girls looking at his pants "Its the look." They walk away.
A guy deals with a bitter break up by reanacting how it went with puppets in his apartment.
Time Life presents "Tom Waits sings his interprations of children's songs."
A bunch of regular guys go to a mystical, magical "lady of the lake" type figure to wish that their friend pulls through something that ails him.
The inner monolouge of a guy writing an apology letter (mic off stage) to his friend for what he did when he got very high and drunk the night before as he sits at his computer trying to write it getting more and more frustrated about word choice describing the bizarre and disgusting things he had done.
A cheery and upbeat (albeit nervouse) "setting up second date/just saying hi and seeing hows it going" phone conversation gets rocked when the guy on one end inadvertantly shares that his mother got the news that she dodged breast cancer the other day. The guy panics and apologizes for getting into such personal details so fast and then hits a slippery slope of sharing more and more things really nervous really fast.
A guy finds out that his buddy keeps ethnic slurs next to his friend's names on his cell phone's contact list. (e.g. Eric the Pole, Mikey the mick, Paul the Kraut). This is shocking as his friend never conducts himself as a racist or even someone who thought that way.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The ballad of Chewie C.
The Claire thing blew over. Eric liked my letter and accepted my apology. That was nice. I'm glad. So in the wake of that fiasco, things have returned to a level of normalcy I suppose among the guys. And Chewie is back. Chewie is a great guy and our fourth man--if that makes sense. Chewie's real name is Matt, but growing up in a house with seven older siblings is bound to give anyone a nickname.
I like Chewie a lot. He's an athletic, earnest, smart and cheerful guy. Like I said he grew up in a house with eight older siblings, so sevral of life's mysteries have been uncovered for him many times over. He's from the great City of Omaha in the great state of Nebraska and does bear some of that"aw shucks" mystique you'd associate with the heartland, but that quickly dissapates when you talk to him and find out that he's a sharp wit and not at all averse to voicing opinions. He's not one to put a lot of stock in tangeble things. His existence is a simple one consisting of reading (for school and pleasure) drinking, excercising, chasing girls and engaging Eric (whom he lives with) in discussion (a symptom of their apartment not having a working TV).
Chewy was away for the past summer. Working in New Mexico for a doctor in a small town out there, driving the poor to the clinic and hospital for their appointments. He also spent a lot of time "just cleaning the swimming pool," which is exactly what it sounds like. But he also managed to find a girl out there as well and spent some time screwing her. Around the middle of August he left NM and went out to Denver for the DNC. Now, a lot families have fundemental and specific ties to institutions: a legacy at a university, the military, a business, music, art etc. Chewie's family is one of polotics. Specifically Democratic polotics. His father was a State senator in the late 80's and is good friends with former Kennedy speech writer Ted Sorenson. Chewie made the trip out to the convention and was in his element for a while with free booze and celebrity sightings and the oppurtunity to see Barack's acceptence speech firsthand. I think he also got laid out there too.
Migrating further from Denver, Chewy rolled through Omaha briefly before heading out to Lake Geneva Wisconsin, where his aunt has a lakehouse. He had been there for a couple of weeks when Eric and I went up from the city to visit him three weeks ago. We had a grand, drunken time that night, and swam and played for the greater part of the next day. Chewy also let us know of how he got to have sex with a girl in a nearby lakefront house...a lot.
Three days later he'd make the trip back down into the loving bosom of Chicago and begin his senior year with Eric and Jon.
I've hung out with him a couple of times and its good to have him back. We all compliment eachother.
I like Chewie a lot. He's an athletic, earnest, smart and cheerful guy. Like I said he grew up in a house with eight older siblings, so sevral of life's mysteries have been uncovered for him many times over. He's from the great City of Omaha in the great state of Nebraska and does bear some of that"aw shucks" mystique you'd associate with the heartland, but that quickly dissapates when you talk to him and find out that he's a sharp wit and not at all averse to voicing opinions. He's not one to put a lot of stock in tangeble things. His existence is a simple one consisting of reading (for school and pleasure) drinking, excercising, chasing girls and engaging Eric (whom he lives with) in discussion (a symptom of their apartment not having a working TV).
Chewy was away for the past summer. Working in New Mexico for a doctor in a small town out there, driving the poor to the clinic and hospital for their appointments. He also spent a lot of time "just cleaning the swimming pool," which is exactly what it sounds like. But he also managed to find a girl out there as well and spent some time screwing her. Around the middle of August he left NM and went out to Denver for the DNC. Now, a lot families have fundemental and specific ties to institutions: a legacy at a university, the military, a business, music, art etc. Chewie's family is one of polotics. Specifically Democratic polotics. His father was a State senator in the late 80's and is good friends with former Kennedy speech writer Ted Sorenson. Chewie made the trip out to the convention and was in his element for a while with free booze and celebrity sightings and the oppurtunity to see Barack's acceptence speech firsthand. I think he also got laid out there too.
Migrating further from Denver, Chewy rolled through Omaha briefly before heading out to Lake Geneva Wisconsin, where his aunt has a lakehouse. He had been there for a couple of weeks when Eric and I went up from the city to visit him three weeks ago. We had a grand, drunken time that night, and swam and played for the greater part of the next day. Chewy also let us know of how he got to have sex with a girl in a nearby lakefront house...a lot.
Three days later he'd make the trip back down into the loving bosom of Chicago and begin his senior year with Eric and Jon.
I've hung out with him a couple of times and its good to have him back. We all compliment eachother.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The letter
Dear Eric,
Last Saturday night, I did something awful: I interfered in your life and made a fool of myself when I told Sarah that Claire was sleeping with you in your bedroom. My actions were thoughtless and base; the kind of actions for which there is no sound and clear justification. Despite this, I still want to try to explain why and how this happened because, among other things, I feel you are entitled to an explanation.
To be perfectly honest, I have always been jealous and even envious of you, Eric. It seems that, for as long as I have known you, you have never had much trouble when it comes to women—especially in recent months now that you are playing the field more. That sort of thing seems to come easily to you and, by comparison, is very difficult for me…
That night I had been drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Drinking to the point where my judgment had all but disintegrated. You had been the better man that night in leaving me alone with Claire. That showed a lot of character and decency on your part; where some would have stuck around and ran interference, you gave me a chance to spend some time with her alone. Thank you for that. It meant a lot to me.
When Claire wandered into your room and insisted on staying there (a decision that was all her own) I felt defeated. You had not done much in terms of flirting with her that evening, and yet, there she was on your bed; whereas I on the other hand had spent the night jockeying for her attention and favor. I was angry and bitter at circumstances that were beyond my control. Feeling helpless, and bruised I figured I would let things be and just fall asleep on your couch. I had no conscious recollection of going to Sarah and telling her about you and Claire until I received your text message the next night and began to piece the fragments of that night together in my memory. I want to make it clear that if I was sober I would have just left you two alone as you had done for me. But instead, I drunkenly got up and acted on a wretched, jealous impulse and told on you. It was nothing short of childish and I regret that I had done it.
The simple matter of me being drunk does not excuse my actions in any way, however. I want to take this opportunity to formally apologize for what I did to you that night. I am sorry. Sorry for putting you in such a terrible position, and sorry for acting in such a despicable way.
I value our friendship very much and I hope that we can move past this and enjoy each other’s company for many, many more years to come.
Last Saturday night, I did something awful: I interfered in your life and made a fool of myself when I told Sarah that Claire was sleeping with you in your bedroom. My actions were thoughtless and base; the kind of actions for which there is no sound and clear justification. Despite this, I still want to try to explain why and how this happened because, among other things, I feel you are entitled to an explanation.
To be perfectly honest, I have always been jealous and even envious of you, Eric. It seems that, for as long as I have known you, you have never had much trouble when it comes to women—especially in recent months now that you are playing the field more. That sort of thing seems to come easily to you and, by comparison, is very difficult for me…
That night I had been drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Drinking to the point where my judgment had all but disintegrated. You had been the better man that night in leaving me alone with Claire. That showed a lot of character and decency on your part; where some would have stuck around and ran interference, you gave me a chance to spend some time with her alone. Thank you for that. It meant a lot to me.
When Claire wandered into your room and insisted on staying there (a decision that was all her own) I felt defeated. You had not done much in terms of flirting with her that evening, and yet, there she was on your bed; whereas I on the other hand had spent the night jockeying for her attention and favor. I was angry and bitter at circumstances that were beyond my control. Feeling helpless, and bruised I figured I would let things be and just fall asleep on your couch. I had no conscious recollection of going to Sarah and telling her about you and Claire until I received your text message the next night and began to piece the fragments of that night together in my memory. I want to make it clear that if I was sober I would have just left you two alone as you had done for me. But instead, I drunkenly got up and acted on a wretched, jealous impulse and told on you. It was nothing short of childish and I regret that I had done it.
The simple matter of me being drunk does not excuse my actions in any way, however. I want to take this opportunity to formally apologize for what I did to you that night. I am sorry. Sorry for putting you in such a terrible position, and sorry for acting in such a despicable way.
I value our friendship very much and I hope that we can move past this and enjoy each other’s company for many, many more years to come.
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