The situation really had nothing to do with the alcohol. And it's not an argument. This is my current stream of consciousness. I won't use any names, so it's not flaming anyone.
A conversation with a friend the other day had everything to do with me finally taking part in a conversation where I could see clearly the extent of that friend's selfish disregard for other people. And how realizing that made me realize the way that disregard came into play in every aspect of my relationship with said friend.
And suddenly, I was disgusted with this friend. And I told my friend so.
And then my friend wanted to know if I was going to stay out of a forum that my friend and I were members of. I can't decide whether or not my friend meant it as an "I was there first" thing; that was the initial way I interpreted it, because my friend had mentioned that fact on so many other occasions. My bad.
Then my friend happened to get their significant other involved, who contacted me in various ways to chew me out for telling other members of an online forum about what my friend had said. That, too, disgusted me. Especially when my friend got their significant other involved by only telling them half the story, conveniently (and consistent with every other thing my friend has told their S.O.) leaving out all the juicy tidbits that would make the significant other upset with my friend. Which my friend had consistently been doing to said other for the year that my friend and I have talked. I don't understand why my friend doesn't just do their own dirty work, and stop treating their significant other like shit.
And I wish their significant other would stop sticking up for someone when they don't know the extent of the story, and when they don't seem to think before they attack. Because all they do is hang their ass out on the line to get burned repeatedly when they find out the real story.
Sigh. Some people's children.
In other news, I promised you all an update. Not much going on, other than I love my new job. It gives me brazillions of free time to write. The only problem is there's no internet access, so all I can do is email my writing to myself, and then read it later on my teeny-tiny phone screen. Oh well! I get my new computer soon, and that's exciting.
So, I've been reading Dorian Gray this week. Been reading a ton lately. Life of Pi again, The Time Traveler's Wife again. The Sea, by John Banville, which if you haven't read you absolutely must! The way it's written, if you read it aloud you can actually hear the rhythm of waves in the structure and flow of the book. It's amazing, and it won the Man Booker Prize. Gorgeous book, you won't find another with such impeccably constructed sentences and wholly poetic prose imagery. I read all of J.M. Barrie's work. Treasure Island again, which I hadn't read since I was twelve. A book called Twilight which Jed got me for Christmas and which I didn't hate even though it was about teenage vampires, oddly enough. I read The Memory Keeper's Daughter, and loved that as well. A memoir of a deaf journalist called "What's That Pig Outdoors?" and a squall of others that I can't recall at the moment.
Playing Dreamfall again, because the storyline fascinates me, and there are a bunch of songs on the soundtrack that I really love. Playing Halo 2 again, as well. Can't wait for Halo 3, but hope that I'll have a 360 before I get my copy, because having the game and not being able to play it is worse than not having it at all. Think about it, you know it's true. I already have Gears of War and Dead Rising for the 360, and that's bad enough. I guess I have access to Scott's though, but I can't go play his in the middle of the night when I can't sleep.
Next up - POEM UPDATES! WOOOO!
I know, I'm the only one excited about it. And I'm not really that excited. All the writing I get done at work isn't actually poetry. I've been working on my book, my collection of humorous personal essays from my childhood. It's taking all my time, but I love it. There's something so satisfying about being able to share your childhood traumas in a way that lets you laugh about it, and cry about it at the same time. Anyway, I wanted to share these poems, in order from oldest to newest:
one
frenzied alcohol
obsession -
novel, new,
needs no
discretion.
amazing how you'll
mask
your sorrow:
lewd tonight, hung
dry tomorrow.
pick
your battles,
for new toys.
stalk libraries, jack
-off boys.
call once,
msg,
call again.
i make you laugh.
i make you
grin.
i make you cry,
at least three
times
and yet
you still in-
sist it's mine.
you chew your
words, fling:
runaway!
motorbike, job,
fiancee!
my newred hair -
your new
confessions -
scramble to cover
past
transgressions.
(untitled)
a little coldclose
frozinside
the year peaks
to a lastditch
slide attempt
to finish
whatever run
i've been rounding
bases from
verbal circleback
to rhyme
it forces meter
eats the time
and harries naught
with stance or fray
winding words
wound
windaway...
windaway
from him
from me
from him
from him
from it
from she
from marriagedeath
dreambirths
and things
loosends windup
in the wings
the centerstage is
burnedblack done
stagehands till
janu'ry won't come
to clear away
the charcoal ash
carrion chattel
soulburnt crash
yearsweep arm
with frozendew
washes all
to something new
new like all
our oldest sorts
new like
china
grasstained shorts
new like the 80s
or nintendo
bags of amish
friendship breadough
or like the way
i've tried
to paint this
silent, blank
in ancient
whiteness
strokes
for Judith
mired deep
in resolution
she dog-paddles
for solutions.
suppose she
thinks that if
she moves
it half-counts
and things improve.
constant effort -
not beneficial -
renders action
superficial.
so she'll wonder
as she stops
what more than just
the ball
she's dropped.
customer. support?
Work is bored
so I am rhyming.
Winding words,
wound,
run the timing.
Fast to five,
i would it go...
nine-twenty-nine
the morning's slow.
Verify your address,
please.
I am trained
to somehow
ease
the strain of
your three-year
-long contract.
You want to cancel?
I say with tact:
(and my own
quiet reservation)
I'll transfer you
to Cancellation.
(For angry customer
prevention,
I can't say it's really
called "Retention.")
Where they'll tell you
the only way
to cancel is if
you choose to pay
the remainder of your
agreement,
a fact of which
we're quite vehement.
Twelve-hundred dollars
or maybe more...
We've made cancellation
a spot quite sore
for those who sign stuff
without reading.
If you pay attention,
we're not misleading.
untitled 2
so fine the line
of in between
the genuine
of meant
of mean
of what was said
and what was felt,
the words we said
the words not dealt.
it's handicapped
this hopalong
relationship
broken
yet... strong.
pah, i detest
this status quo
of saying yes
instead of no.
of answering it
every time
because he wants it.
nevermind.
I've been having a hard time with poetry lately. I think it's because of something I read in Dorian Gray:
"Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize." And now I can't decide what kind of poet I am. I know I'm not a great poet, but I hope that I'm not a mediocre one, either. I like to think I'm in-betweenish.
untitled 3
and what of when
only the slightest of breezes
is required
to blow down
one's defenses? almost
unnoticed
they fall, some sort of
succumbing
to the palest influence.
some nuance of movement.
i only wondered.
what place does faith
have in all of this?
will your faith take you
to where you're needed the most?
i have so much to remember
that i have never learned.
and that is what confuses,
and topples me.
receipt of glad tidings
i echo,
empty.
she is filling
or rather
being filled.
and i am
squandered
on the pretence
of accepting,
of being so
cautiously
happy
for her.
i'm still learning
to steer my way
around the precipices
of a once-broken
heart.
it sounds
so pathetic,
so minutely spherical
in its cliche,
so wound up
tiny in its
overadornment.
alas,
that i
be one to
overabuse
the spindle-legged
terms of
such farce,
such inoriginality.
johnson said the poet
makes new things
familiar
and familiar things
new.
i am not poet
enough
to struggle
verbally
with this
familiar thing.
but oh, it
aches with newness.
it dresses itself in
newness, but
beneath the layers it's
decrepit and as
put-offish as ever.
you can make them
read it. they'll pay
to read it but
they will never
care. they won't give it
the moments
they aren't occupied.
and those are the chords
you long
to have plucked.
it's why you keep
tottering,
some wordfumbler,
some pique
of your own
curiosity.
That's all for now, kiddos. Love ya later!
Always,
IG
love you. <3 chels
@ IG.
Hopefully that came across as complimentary, it was meant to be...)
