the planes, landed

news, news. on and on

2011-03-30T16:35:00.004-05:00

I needed some good news today so I opened up a fortune cookie that was sitting amongst my coffee stuff. It was probably about 3 months old and tasted pretty awful which was really disappointing. I opened up the paper slip and read "The stock market may be your ticket to success." Perfect.

I had spent most of the day trying to sketch ideas for the first few pages of the first issue of my first comic and I was not gaining much ground so I needed a tiny little pick-me-up from a magical cookie. I had been reading this blog I found called 3eanuts. They take the typical four panel comic by Charles Schultz and remove the final panel leaving the characters in their existential misery. "Despair pervades all" as they put it. I read all twelve pages that were posted because in this format I surprisingly identified even more closely with these poor souls. And that is quite a feat because Peanuts has been a driving force in my life for many, many years and to somehow give it a seemingly new life, well, the accomplishment cannot be understated. But anyway, I believe it put me in somewhat of a dour mood. The cookie's supposedly hopeful message merely joined the party.

Spring. Come. I have places to walk to and I want to be able to enjoy the journey a little more than I do right now.

brandon

memories an' shit

2011-03-07T13:40:00.003-06:00

I love memorabilia as bookmarks. Right now my place in my copy of Sarah Vowell's essay collection "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" is being saved by my ticket to "An Evening With Garrison Keillor." In W.E.B. Du Bois' "The Souls of Black Folk" is a "World Famous Cable Car" ticket from my trip to San Francisco last summer. I always keep these little bits of ephemera but until very recently I have never figured out what to do with them beyond keeping them in small, decorative boxes. Of course my little boxes are full of things that won't fit in a book quite so snuggly, such as gift shop shot glasses, old t-shirts from parks I have camped in with my parents that are far too big (or too small), and a small chunk of the Blues Brother's vehicle, the Bluesmobile, that I accidentally broke off when my family was visiting Universal Studios many, many years ago.

Speaking of traveling, I have thought about writing a travel essay entitled something like "places I have pooped" because having IBS I have pooped more places than not. Any sort of environmental change engages my illness so needless to say when I travel I defecate. Well, it's an idea anyway. I have found it is always good to get all ideas out so they don't disappear. But perhaps it is best to not write down these ideas on a public blog. Oh well, I am not into editing these posts so it is going to remain. And I will be the one laughing all the way to the bank when the Travel Channel picks up my travel column that spun off of my essay and turns it into a hit T.V. series. So take that, sayers of nay.

a joke

2011-03-07T12:48:00.002-06:00

I just heard this joke as the Ice Breaker on the podcast "Dinner Party Download" from NPR. This joke made me laugh louder than I have in quite some time. I frightened JennyAnyDots who sunk her claws into the bed and puffed her tail up. So here's the joke.

"So Jesus is walking around Heaven checking everybody out. Everyone is all blissed out with their harps and halos and such but there is this one fellow who is sitting all alone with his head in his hands and he is bawling his eyes out.

'Hey, hey there.' Jesus said to the guy. 'This is Heaven, you know. It's the place of perpetual joy and, well, you made it so we can't have you crying. Kills the vibe and such.'

'Oh, I didn't mean to cause any trouble. It's just that back on the earth I was a lowly carpenter and I had a son who was in the profession with me but when he was around 30-years-old he left telling me he had a mission to accomplish. So he went off into the wilderness and I never saw him again. I was really hoping I would be able to see my boy once I got here but I have looked everywhere and I haven't found him.'

Then Jesus exclaims, 'Father!'

And the man stands up and yells, 'PINOCCHIO!'"

Gets me every time.

wretching

2011-03-03T18:51:00.004-06:00

I helped a friend move about a week ago and when we were finished her new roommate was in the living room sitting with her laptop. We came around to her side and she unpaused the episode of "Californication" she had been watching.

I thought about this today because I just spent two lovely days in Lincoln and the moment I began walking up my front steps I began to cry. I tingled all over and my heart began beating powerfully against whatever bone and cartilage is between it and the rest of the universe (and honestly that space seems so profoundly expansive most days but filled with nothing but air and grief). I walked all the way up to my apartment and I sobbingly fed my cat and put my coat on the rack and used the restroom and then I sat on what was once our bed and I wept bitterly for almost twenty minutes. I got up and paced up and down the hallway - into the kitchen, through the hallway, into the office, back through the hallway so on so forth for about half an hour. The whole time I cried so hard I was squealing and snorting. I screamed at God. "What the fuck am I supposed to do now? I can't be alone." So I texted a few friends I knew were there when I needed them but no one answered or they couldn't hang out just then. "Why the fuck should I be alone?
I've been alone before. I've been miserable before."

And then I remembered the show my friend's roommate was watching and I remembered how what happened in the couple minutes I stayed to watch struck me so deeply I could barely function the rest of the night. I drove from the house to an empty cathedral parking lot that was nearby and I wrote down every word from the scene I just saw because the whole thing was coursing through my mind very, very loudly. It is somewhat cheesy just reading it but I was in such a tender place it sliced through me with ease.

Here's the scene:
David Duchovney and his ex-wife were discussing "what went wrong" for them. He has a pretty quick answer. Seemed like a rehearsed answer.

"I would say we loved each other too much. And I think we made the mistake of getting it right the first time, and that put an insane amount of pressure on us to keep it going. And…we buckled. You know what I miss most about – well, aside from our daughter, of course. I miss your smell."

"That’s it?"

"When you left, I couldn’t wash the sheets because I didn’t want to lose that completely — you. And it fucked me up for a long time because I would wake up and I’d smell you and I’d think you were there. And that would — my heart would break all over again. I think that’s why I go in for the kiss all the time and then cry myself back to sleep."

I fled immediately after he said that. As I walked down the back few steps I cried uncontrollably conceding the horrible truth that David Duchovney had gotten it indisputably correct. I still haven't washed the sheets and I still haven't taken down the water color paintings from the kitchen. Or the pheasant feather she picked up and carried as we walked through Boyer Chute - the last thing we did as a real couple, together. I am so stuck. I am so bound. I feel no freedom and no peace.

on deaf ears

2011-03-03T11:50:00.003-06:00

I discovered this amazing curriculum for teaching comic book writing. Drawing Words and Writing Pictures was conceptualized and written by the two series editors for Best American Comics, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden. I really want to some day teach this at the downtown library possibly or at the amazing Kent Bellows Studio here in Omaha. I also stumbled across this amazing comic book store in Los Angeles called Meltdown where these four dudes, who work in "the industry" and have a successful movie discussion podcast called Down In Front, are doing this live DVD commentary on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Holy shit. No kidding, this is one of the best ideas I have ever heard.

I am trying to rack my brains on how to make something like this work in Omaha. We have the film community (speaking of which the Omaha Film Festival is happening as we speak), we have witty and gregarious folk who could easily do a credible and entertaining commentary, and we have people who would attend such a thing. Oh wait. That last one. There's the rub. Getting people to break their bar routine or attend something that isn't heralded as the chicest event since last year's fashion week is like pulling all their teeth out and then punching them in the face repeatedly while pressing both knees into their chest while they writhe on the ground, bloodied and without companions. Where are your accusers? Right here. This city has got a serious problem supporting the talent within its own blocks.

You can read my wrap up of the Encyclopedia Show for Omahype.com here and see that even something as brilliant as that is not worth most Omahans' time. Tragic. Simply another reason why Omaha sometimes makes one ponder the usefulness of one's efforts. It seems there has to be great amounts of spectacle and pomp to gather a crowd. I feel as though grassroots doesn't work quite as well here anymore. I want to be proven wrong. This year, or maybe this year and next year, will be the years of accomplishment and movement. ONWARD!

I can't reconcile these things

2011-02-28T22:17:00.003-06:00

I needed some juice last night so naturally I stopped quickly at the grocery store while driving home. I have been mostly vegan-ish for nearly three-ish years now and during that time every grocery store I enter I immediately gravitate toward the organic/healthy/nutty aisle or aisles depending on how progressive said grocer is. This allows me to bypass all of the synthetic, all of the treated and all of the lesser (read: affordable) fare and feel good about myself or at least about the things that will soon be absorbed into the make up of my biology.

I stood before the cage-free eggs and tofurky deli slices contemplating if three dollars for juice is still worth it. In this section you get your full range of nutrients and you pay dearly for each and every one.

I had been craving some R.N. Knudsen apple or pomegranate cocktail but I was halted at the Odwalla/Naked case. There was among those usual brands a juice I knew from a previous time. Bolthouse Farms juice. I remembered when I had first come upon these Bolthouse Farms drinks. My college roommate "turned me on" to them because he was insanely, possibly artificially fit. (I never found real evidence to corroborate my hunches about how he attained such an inhumanly perfect set of abs). On one trip to the grocery store together around 2 possibly 3 a.m. he picked up this small, green plastic bottle that had an unappetizing mixture of baby poop and Missouri River in it. I asked him why he was examining something so indisputably putrid. He spun the bottle around and showed me the Nutrition Facts label and I had never seen so many items listed beneath the second bold line, you know, where the vitamins and other actually healthy components are listed. I also had never seen so many three-hundred percents and four-hundred percents concerning food contents.

So I waxed nostalgic to the point of exhaustion and while still in this state of mind I glanced upon something that swelled my heart three-hundred percent. And it broke me utterly. Granola. Bear Naked brand granola cereal. I had bought some the last time Melissa and I went to Ohio and my parents' lake house in Indiana. I ate it as a snack the eleven hour trip home. For months after Melissa and I talked and laughed and felt good about how that was one of, if not the most pleasant trip we had ever taken together. This granola symbolized for me everything good and perfect about Melissa’s gift-likeness to me and our marriage to each other. I nearly fell on the floor.

This was an involuntary association and it should have been a rapturous one but even this random granola treat grabbed me by my unusually stretchy cheeks and shook me vigorously as it recounted details of what had been lost, what has left me and what will probably never be again.

I didn't ask to be reminded of all this. I am no glutton for punishment. I have felt more than my fair share of pain. Like I said, this glimpse at the minute losses I am suffering was strictly involuntary and quite unwelcome as it interrupted an otherwise pleasant evening.

These are the things that tell me I have not attained resolution and I have not "gotten over" her. Even at my most focused times of resolute "I'm moving on" mindfulness some lightening always strikes my brain and reminds me I cannot forget. Or perhaps that I can't not remember. This is the madness that breaks my heart because if this continues for the rest of my life I will never have a healthy relationship again. I fear I will wake up in the middle of the night craving Melissa and I will see my new lover next to me and I will feel even more despair than I do now. I fear this is a possibility because these unsought recollections have not remotely lessened. I know it has only been four months but how fucking long does it take? I hate being a slave to Melissa or the memory of our happiness. I hate it so, so much. Am I so weak that I cannot achieve peace and freedom? Is that even correct to say? Is it achievable or is it granted? If it is granted then how should I ask for it? I want peace. I want freedom. I want peace.

absence and fondness

2011-02-26T20:44:00.003-06:00

This has astounding purpose. There is a reason for this as opposed to other ways to communicate as opposed to other ways to process as opposed to other ways to fulfill a need as opposed to other ways to survive something heinously unrecognizable as surmountable. This is necessary.

Onward, certainly. Because this is about me but in being so it most assuredly is about infinitely more or at least contains that inexhaustible nature and its characters and narrative in an infinitesimal corner of the internet. All that to say, there is a lot going on here and pretty much no one notices which is almost beside the point.

As much as I wanted this to exist less as a working out of things and more of a way to showcase projects I am working on it has evolved into a public display of my eagerness to know myself and be known and the journey.

This is the dynamic human spirit, no?

onward

2011-02-18T12:12:00.003-06:00

In order to start channeling this blog in a more positive direction and to be more consistent with my proclamations of being more concerned about others than myself I want to make everyone aware of this cause Change.org is pushing:

With the phenomenal support of 107,053 people from 163 countries -- the most popular campaign ever launched on Change.org -- a tiny group of lesbian activists in South Africa just scored a major victory, taking "corrective rape" from an unspoken epidemic to a national discussion. Now we need your signature to reach 150,000 and crank up the heat on the South African government.

Reblogged from Supergrrrl

This petition is incredibly close to meeting the aforementioned goal of 150,000 signatures. This is grievous and I hadn't heard a thing about it until today. Pass this new knowledge along to anyone you can.

on loving love (love love love love love love love)

2011-02-10T10:16:00.004-06:00

I was deadly serious when I had previously mentioned with great conviction I was no longer going to write about Melissa, our division or anything pertaining to those things. That declaration seemed like a fine idea and a terrific way to move on. It wasn't a bad idea but it certainly wasn't a good way to move on in any respect. Despair set in even more vehemently after deciding to "be over her." Voluntary repression hardly ever engenders relief. Any therapist worth their salt will tell you that.

My apartment, which I often still refer to as "our" apartment, is full to bursting with relics of our truest love. There is scarcely an item in this place that does not have Melissa's literal and phantasmic fingerprints layered upon them. I put on a bandanna yesterday and it smelled just like her. It smelled the way she smelled when we crawled in the grass next to the pond at my school when we had known each other only a matter of hours. And it smelled the way she smelled when she came over after Thanksgiving to gather her belongings from our bedroom. Needless to say, I donned the bandanna and cried into the linguini I made to eat alone. JennyAnyDots, our cat, ran under the table to hide because I began to stumble from sobbing so vigorously.

If I deny these things I am doing myself a grave injustice and I am lying to Melissa. In truth, I do not want her to think I am doing well. I am not. I do not want her to think that everything is copacetic and I will endure. Because most of the time I am not sure I will. I want to fully know what has been lost here and I want Melissa to know the same and be able to grieve it. By pretending I am healing, stable and sane I rob her of the chance to feel sad about what is taking place. That seems dangerous to me because it could shrink her heart. I believe in her heart and the immense possibilities of it. I love her dearly and to deprive her this opportunity to grow as a human with the mighty capacity to feel deep loss and love and fully understand these things no matter how much of it comes out in pain is not a loving thing for me to do. And I desperately love love. Nothing gives me more anguish than when I see love being put aside or disrespected. By myself especially because then I have to deal with the fact of my hypocrisy which is always bound to appear but is always so terrifying to face.

"Don't beat yourself up"

2011-02-07T23:57:00.003-06:00

I have heard this from a great number of my friends in the past few months. Usually it is followed by some form of an encouragement telling me I should focus on myself or get to know who I truly am.

I have always been introspective to a fault. I have always been well aware of my blunders and even more aware of my achievements. I know my limits, my destructive tendencies and the extent of my abilities and traits at least in relation to the people I measure these things against. I am brutally self aware and have been so as long as I can remember.

I know what part my actions have played in my misery. And I am dreadfully remorseful for these things. I am not beating myself up. I am taking responsibility and attempting to amend what my foolishness has broken. For my part I apologize.

As far as what is left now that my marriage is dissolving I am attempting to sit in the middle of the floor of my bedroom and pull all the pieces toward me and then chase other things. The way I saw it I didn't need any of the other shit because I had someone to live for. Perhaps the Christian perspective (which is the one I wholeheartedly attempt to ascribe to) would tell me I should have lived for Christ and all these things would be added unto me. Perhaps but it was my solemn act of worship to God for what was given to me in a loving, beautiful, intelligent woman. And I truly thought that nothing but death would separate us. I was content. I was alive. But it's going to be a smooth death and my heart has a million miles to go.

"We are the sun, we are the sun, we are the sun, we are the sun" goddammit

because of my friend's phone call

2011-02-06T00:50:00.003-06:00

What the hell is happening to our humanity? I am and always will be entirely convinced a crucial aspect of what makes us alive is our living in communion with others like us and unlike us and the ability to act in a manner that is more supportive and useful to the group than to the individual even if that community consists of only two people (even especially if the community is two people). That differential is what sets us apart from a stone that has no relationship to the craggy hillside it finds itself on other than the fact that they both exist in the same general space. But they can do nothing for one another. The stone cannot decide to humble itself and not roll down into the grassy knoll where it will surely be more cushioned and possibly more safe from corrosive elements but instead remain with the craggy, windy, practically barren hilltop because this stone adds a beauty and uniqueness to something otherwise incomplete without its presence. This will not happen. Perhaps an earthquake (or as I heard on Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me this morning: a dreaded hurriquake) could shift the stone to a new location but this sadness would not be so severe because this is the way of things. Anyway, none of that would be sad at all. Stones and hills don't feel. And that is it exactly.

We do feel and we have a choice to live to create unity and share and cooperate and refuse to participate in anything or with anyone desiring division and selfishness and exclusion and destruction. Remain angry so you do not inadvertently allow evil but stay in love so you may intentionally create life and bring what is separate together.

unavoidable obviousness

2011-02-05T00:33:00.003-06:00

I finally saw 127 Hours tonight. Good God that movie was relentlessly enthralling. My wonderful friend, Rachel, joined me. Immediately, once the movie ended, I turned to her and told her I have not felt such a affinity for other movie viewers I have been in a theater with in a very, very long time.

Terrific feeling. Terrific to feel at all. I must admit my time in Ohio was not the most sensational as far as being emotional tactile. My family and friends did a mighty job attempting to draw me out and provide me with a great deal of experiences to help me cope, grieve and progress. But, and this is no fault of theirs, all this effort was sadly not a suitable rival for the unparalleled numbness the unavoidable obviousness of the void my lover's absence created. I certainly collected memories I will cherish for eternity on end but my hopeful intent of relaxing away my anxieties and coming to grips with some internal demons was not realized. I did return with an incredibly valuable revelation, however. I understand more fully and unmistakably that Omaha is my home. I came out here to build one and now I see that I accomplished just that. At this point it looks and feels a far cry from what I thought I set out to establish but it is here and it is sound.

In an almost identical manner to the way Aron Ralston gingerly/greedily sucked water from his nalgene while he was lodged in the crevice with his boulder I am lapping up the times I am sharing with my friends. They are affording me such life giving moments that feel so perpetually sustaining. When I leave their presence I no longer feel so parched or chapped. When I depart I know I can last until the next time I get a chance to take in great gulps or even shallow slurps of this incredible cloud of friends I have been granted. Luckily I have more than a 150 ml supply of friendship beverage unlike Mr. Franco/Ralston.

re:

2011-02-02T01:51:00.000-06:00

"I never went back... The longer I was away, the less I wanted to return and see how small the place must have grown, how sparse the stars, how perfectly ordinary the tract houses, how trim that mysterious house, the jungle of a yard. And even if I managed to come at just the right time of year, and the neighbor's pear tree still stood, and I managed to find a late-season pear in an early snow - would the voices of my friends come wandering down the dark road, calling my name as I bent down to claim it?" - Elizabeth Gonzales (from Half Beat from The Greensboro Review)

I certainly reconnected but I cannot say for sure it made much difference. I think what I know now is that I do not care to waste time re-ing anything. Reconnecting, remembering, rehashing, redoing. Except for reconciling. If it is broken then there is true necessity for healing, redemption, reconstitution. But otherwise forward motion is all that counts. Recognizing the state of these relationships with my family and oldest friends (and newest friends that feel old) and taking them into new realms and to new heights of honesty and integrity and intensity and fruitfulness.

I have felt what I feared I would feel returning to Cincinnati. Every time I have pulled into the neighborhood of my adolescence I have felt the same thing I felt in high school. There is a pull and a voice telling me to leave. "You should not be here. There is nothing ultimately good for you here and you cannot grow. Leave not as an escape but as actual movement. To stay is to stagnate and you must go on." I believe that voice because the longer I am here the more I feel as though my passions are evaporating and my heart is regressing.

Not that it is bad for me to be here for short stints nor that my parents have not attempted to build a home that would foster an environment of great and mighty achievement for us four boys. For this moment, however, when I am most confused, lonely and in need of solidarity encompassing me the unsettled commotion this place offers is unmooring in ways I don't need right now. But steps had to be taken over these last few days and difficult things needed to be said and heard. This winter has been my time to live uncomfortably because for the time being there is no consistent comfort for me.

I am very unsure of what is reliable right now and what will not crumble under my weight when I try to use it to support myself. It seems most everything is slipping away extraordinarily quickly, especially my trust in constants and anything or anyone who claims to be thus. I am more skeptical than ever and therefore even more alone because I don't trust myself to any greater extent than anything or anyone else. Perhaps I am about to embark on a stage of life involving imminent commitment issues. This has never been the case for me since everyone I have tried to commit to has abandoned me when I asked something of them that seemed reasonable to me at the time and as I consider each circumstance now, still rings very justified and menial in certain respects. I was never the one who had to be convinced commitment and persistence were possible and positive. There have only been three people I have sustained what in my young life could be considered long term relationships and none of them stuck around when I had wishes of my own that would cost them something that I always assumed was slight compared to what I thought they should be willing to offer in a relationship such as ours. Anyway, I am having a hard time seeing myself as lovely or lovable and this trip has not done much to quell these feelings. I hoped it would. On some level. I just feel more motivated to "go out and get mine" but this is mostly spurred on by anger and self inflicted indignity. I want to conquer my corner of the world but only to make noise and be noticed and that is never satisfying. If I am truly honest with myself I actually just want it all to come to me. I was talking with my youngest brother, Jarrod, and I realized I have never been pursued by anyone. No one has ever taken such an interest in me without my initiation that they began doing things to secure my affection. I have done that for multiple people abundant amounts of times to no avail. I am alone and I am partnerless. I am learning to wait without expectation or bated breath. I am learning to breathe and exhale prayers. I will be heard and I will be found.

At the end of nothing

2011-01-15T14:05:00.002-06:00

It has come to my attention that I was never loved. There was scarcely a mite of care to muster during the last days of a one-sided, fruitless and aside from just getting two people on to another portion of their life, utterly pointless relationship.

At this moment I am not devastated by that thought. It is more freeing than it previously was. For my part, I did everything I could to care for the crippled horse of our relationship while it was simultaneously being shot in the head and kicked in the throat.

I have hope that I am not unlovable. I still sense a great deal of love within me that is more than pleased to be bestowed upon another. The fact of this spark not being snuffed out and merely flickering even when being huffed and puffed upon mercilessly gives me great hope that I will be able to find myself at some point loved in return as well. I will fully believe it when I see it but I have faith in its existence.

So without further ado I am altering the direction I have been recently taking this blog. I don't give a rat's ass about discussing Melissa any longer. Writing about her has run its course for me and I am extremely weary of it. I have more vital concerns to attend to and I refuse to chase a friendship that would clearly end up no different than the marriage only to a lesser and more stupid extent. I have joy and dreams to strive for. I have traveling and writing and living and loving and praying to get on with. I devote myself and my public writings to this end. This weekend in Lincoln was a beautiful foundation for a life much more well lived.

A single man

2011-01-12T22:38:00.002-06:00

I know this doesn't mean a thing in a reasonable or practical sense but the .25 inch space where my left ring finger attaches to the rest of my hand that used to be occupied by a simple white gold band has been sensing a phantom ring for the past few days. The ring was a reminder of enduring commitment, unflagging devotion, and care above all else for another. It seems its absence makes just as much noise.

To an extent, this is how I know (or hope I know) I am proceeding in correct a manner as possible: clarifying joy? I state that questioningly because I am not certain that is truly the right way to describe what I am feeling. I am certainly joyful in moments of clarity when it seems that I have a handle on the meaning of the past and the present is not a burden and the future is of course unknown but not frightening. Sadly these moments are few and far between but I find they always arrive when I deliberately make a decision. When I do not merely allow things to happen to me. Whenever I do that I get smashed by a bulldozer or lose my keys or get denied a job interview. But when I truly and fully stand up for myself and do the things I know I must to see that not-so-frightening future come to pass I feel the fleeting joy. It comes and it goes but I swear it is keeping me alive or at least letting me know I actually am alive. Feeling pain after pain does not feel much like living so when a small streak of light makes it through the blinds it can fill up a whole room. And I have a lot of empty rooms these days.

I made up my mind not to alter my tone when writing on this. This is basically my diary and I believe only two or three people read this sporadically. So who do I think I am impressing anyway? This is the way I write when it just flows out and I am going to celebrate that as opposed to apologizing for it. I need to celebrate myself a little more anyway since it is ridiculous to me now to think that someone else would want to.

you can take my body, put it in a boat. light it on fire, send it out to sea

2011-01-10T16:03:00.004-06:00

I discovered, or rather had unveiled to me, today something that would have been extremely helpful to know much earlier in my life. I am very high strung and uptight. At least as far as questions about my intellect go and my emotional stability. I mean take this blog for instance. This is where I unload my most emotional thoughts and where I try my darnedest to be taken seriously and be seen as mentally capable of high achievement. So with that consideration, look at how formal I write on here. Even that last sentence. High falutin.

Maybe I don't know how to take it easy. I assume a lot of my friends would tell a different story because I have been told I have a pretty joyful disposition. But I need to relax. I cried in the shower today and all my muscles wretched. I felt as though I was transforming into the Hulk if he ever got the weepies. My skin feels so tight and I feel trapped by it. I feel enclosed on all sides by something so restrictive it begins to seem sinister in those times when I really need to have thrown off everything that hampers.

Bah, see! That was such an uppity sentence. And now I am getting worked up about not being able to calm down. What a cycle I am caught in. I need to eat a clementine, read my book and wait for my friend, Tim, to whisk me away to the home he is dog sitting in.

look for the ancient paths and walk in them

2011-01-08T01:06:00.002-06:00

I found this poem in a post I wrote nearly three years ago as I was leaving my former employer, FedEx Kinko's now FedEx Office. In the original post I remarked immediately after that I wrote it completely off the cuff and that even though it was intended to be a eulogy to my old occupation it was still strikingly sad. I agree. I also think that it doesn't make much sense but I really, really like it. I relate to it now some how.

a reprimand

what comes of a position of internal
rearing
and a nature not tended to
initially
and quite nearly eternally?
what comes is a disrespect for the self-
ish things that always engenders the tension of living
for others and with yourself.
a disrespect from all
sides
and withering from the same
and whispering and hoots and calls
because you're distracted
not interested
in purposelessness

I want you to know, you are the sleep that sleeps between my toes

2011-01-08T00:34:00.003-06:00

Tonight was the first time in a very long time that I was angry in public. Perhaps no one noticed. (Except probably Rachel, to whom I once again could not apologize enough). I didn't beat anyone up, damage any property, or scream in a pissed off manner. But I felt furious. I felt enraged. It was insatiable.

I met for the first time today with who will most likely become my new therapist. She was wonderful. Mainly because, and this is no indictment of my friends and how they have lovingly treated me, I felt listened to thoroughly for the first time since everything has occured. Her eyes were so compassionate and her remorse was so evident. I wept for an hour and a half in her office recalling the most excruciating few months I have ever and hopefully will ever endure. I had a morning full of hope. I spoke with my mother and father and they are such loving champions of my dreams. They make it seem as though I really can accomplish those things I always hoped I was intelligent and tenacious enough to acheive.

And that is all very well and very good but like I said in an earlier post, Melissa is not replaceable. Least of which by my parents. I want a peer to be not merely a friend and not merely a lover. I want what I was duped into believing was right in front of me for three and a half years. I want validation for existing from one person who is able to appreciate me. Not only able, because there are plenty of people who have the ability to appreciate someone else, but who desires to appreciate me. Who dreams of ways to make that happen. Who plans each day a new way to show me I matter and their life would be nothing but a gaping throat of darkness without me. I want what I thought I had. Someone who thinks romantically about me without it being a pain to them to do so. I want to be their joy. I really want Melissa to stop being my joy but I had to love both of us and therefore I truly loved her as myself and now that she wants to severe our promise I cannot help but feel the gouges and broken bones and gasping arteries that have been sheared apart.

The only thing I want from her is to do this next step together, compassionately and with full respect for both of our thoughts on every aspect of it. It has become her doing this thing TO me and that was never what I wanted. Even at my lowest when I told her I did not want to stay married to her I never meant I wanted either of us to rend our marriage and in doing so make a mockery of it. It meant everything to me and I am so sorrowful to see it get trampled upon.

two months

2011-01-06T22:23:00.002-06:00

The closer I get to Melissa as a friend the more I see her as only such. This is a good thing. The closer I get to Melissa as a friend the more hopeless I feel. It is a charade. Just over two months ago we could sit in the same room and smile about the same things and then lay in each other's arms and again smile at the same things. In an instant that vanished. Truly an instant. There were excruciatingly painful issues at play but there was still companionship and loyalty and, I thought, love.

I just don't want to be so fucking sad anymore.

I am well aware that I will move on someday and this death will get harder then easier then harder and so on. But Melissa is not replaceable. And contrary to what she may believe neither am I. I am not so easily forgotten and I matter a lot more than I am being shown I do.

I have a lot of work to do and even more that I hope to accomplish in the semi-long run.

Three members of my ex-family moved to Spain a couple days ago. I cried for the distance and I cried because I have been ostracized for nothing I had done. They call me family but I do not feel it. All dynamics have changed and I am reeling from the daily shock that practically nothing I cared for is around anymore. In only two fucking months.

revel

2011-01-06T00:06:00.004-06:00

I asked Jenny if I told her I love her enough. She jumped down off my desk, stretched out on the floor lifting her rump as high in the air as she could without lifting her chin and chest but a few fractions of an inch from the hardwood floor. Like a flawless transition from yoga pose to pose she straightened out and looked me straight in the face with her large, uncommonly gorgeous green eyes. At first she just yawned, licked her upper lip and finally said, "meow." For Jenny Any Dots is my adoring cat. Yet I still think I want a dog. I must really have it bad.

Remember what I said about the universe shitting on my face? Well, it has struck again. My already, sadly abused vehicle was smashed into by a medium sized bulldozer. Yes, a bulldozer. And I left the second pair of gloves I have lost in two weeks at the movie theater. In the first case I was just trying to do my civic duty and dispose of my live Christmas tree responsibly and in the second I was merely trying to stay comfortable during an intriguing movie. I have experienced enforce two old adages: No good deed goes unpunished and there is no comfort for the miserable. Or something to that effect. Luckily at the Christmas tree recycling/disposal spot I was with two incredibly calming and edifying new friends who helped me remain composed as I surveyed the damage and came to the conclusion that I truly am the protaganist in the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man. I am Job. Nothing gold can stay and apparently no gloved hand shall remain as such.

It is truly and despicably unfair that I have no one to hold me when I could not possibly need to be held throughout the night more. That is probably the hardest idea to bear. When I am most in need of being loved without regard I am being shown that I am unlovely and a fool to believe in love that doesn't regard any obstacle worth regarding. And this is stealing my happiness. For the first time in my life I had an occupation I actually loved and now I take absolutely no joy in it. It is not only that but I feel as though every moment of everyday is all but fruitless. I am utterly dry and if Jesus commanded me to produce him an apple I don't believe I could and he might as well demand that I shrivel and die. Perhaps that is precisely what has taken place. I don't believe in that kind of vengeful God but sometimes personal doctrines change with new revelations.

Do they beat the drum to get you back home or do they beat it to keep you away

2011-01-04T22:51:00.002-06:00

I have spent the last two and a half months crying instead of sleeping. Drinking coffee to gain the energy to smile. Spending time with people only because to be alone is to be engulfed in flames.

When we were eating some sort of enchiladas on Pier 30-something right next to the water I should have thrown myself over the edge and ended your misery and put out my impending fire.

I refuse to be someone else's experimental life experience. I will be cherished.

Now I am Everything

2011-01-03T22:03:00.008-06:00

I meditated at work today and carried a gem stone around with me in my pocket. I don't know what good or otherwise it did or what power it has other than what God has imbued it with. And with saying that I say this: "I acknowledge I am a mystic." And I need a mystic lover. Someone who can leave the ground. Someone who can look down and not be afraid. Although I say that as I hold rocks in my pocket keeping me very close to the Earth.

This was once written on parchment and tacked to our wall:

"Anyone who believes what he sees is a mystic. In the dark move slowly." - tuomas anhava

I am not sure if that is actually his last name or if that is actually two fractions of different quotes or what but those phrases have stuck with me in a penetrating sort of way that practically nothing else ever has. This was the sort of thing she surrounded our life with. And I was/am grateful.

There was a time songs were written for me and flowers were put in my hair and my feet were massaged. Now I am everything you could never want and in some ways detest. I am very nearly the same person I was and I still have excitement about her future even though I may find the curtain coming sharply down on top of my head as soon as the inevitable legal proceedings take their course.

I never thought I would say this but I deserve someone much, much better. I deserve it.

planning to fail is obviously not failing to plan

2011-01-03T10:19:00.003-06:00

I wish it wasn't cold because the field across the street looks very inviting in the late morning sunshine.

I used to walk to this part of town from the northern side of midtown all the time. I did it bymyself. I would nearly always offer an invitation to melissa to join me and also try very hard to make it convenient for her but I believe there were really only a few times I made the really beautiful walk with my partner. I wish I had had a dog during those times to walk with me and I know that sounds much worse than I mean it but much like my adoring cat, Jenny Any Dots, a dog loves her kind friend without reservation and with foolish abandon. There is a journal drawn by Nikki McClure called "Things to Make and Do." It has divisions based on different verbs such as dream, create, hope, and the like. On the first page of the plan section she wrote "Make a mistake." I pondered that for an exceedingly long time before I began to understand the nature of regret and failure in light of that phrase. Especially being under the heading of "plan." To be sure I never, ever planned for my life to end up how it is now. The most intriguing aspect of the last five years of my life is that for the first time when something catastrophic (or nearly so in some cases) has happened to me I can't trace events back to one or several dimwitted decisions I made. I am out of control and I washed up on what appears to be a God-forsaken bank that is more stone than sand and there is no place to lay my head and rest.

Certainly no one is an island but I feel as though I have been stranded on one wishing rather to actually be one than on one. For what can an island be but and island and therefore has supreme ability to be content. But what of the lonely inhabitant who has no claims and has no identity? What of him? What of me?

That's why

2011-01-02T00:05:00.002-06:00

Sometimes I have tiny fantasies that people are sending each other links to my blog saying, "hey, you should check this site out. It's just a dude whose wife recently ditched him and he just talks about pain and shit and it's really depressing but in like a Woody Allen Manhattan sort of way. You know tragic but hilarious." I also fantasize that my parents read my blog and know that I use foul language: the unacknowledged moral crime in my family. Every one of us has a dirty mouth(except my father who is thoroughly pure) but since my mother is mostly blissfully and willfully ignorant of this we never mention it and we all tame our tongues around her. She inquired one time about something my brother wrote on the internet where he said fuck several times or something equally shameful. "Do you use language like that?" My youngest brother had recently visited me in Omaha so our colorful conversations were fresh in my mind. "Well, I'll put it like this, when I get together with my brothers we all tend to get rather salty." This brother I get salty with is now engaged to be married to a lovely girl with her masters. He is 21. Mazel Tov.

Anyway, I need to find new contexts for my pain. Or at least for the painer. I, the painee, need to submit her to a series of experimental reconceptualizations wherein she will take on the form of just any one of the people I know who does not cause me pain. She is living her life and her new context for me is one of bemused disinterest with a tinge of sentiment that I can only assume causes her guilt and is therefore rejected outright and quickly. Of course now I am just speculating and it is not fair to paint her in such a light. But even if I do move on to someone who will actually love me and appreciate me and see me as not an obstacle but a conduit to more fuller living I will never be able to remove the deep, deep grooves of scars that did not have to exist at all and were once freckles of joy.

This makes me feel better.

How I know I was known

2010-12-27T14:20:00.008-06:00

You chose my funeral song. The Neko Case song you chose for your own would make a beautiful and fitting dirge. I hope whoever buries you knows of this and fulfills your request.

I was/am listening to the Starflyer 59 album containing the song "We the Ordinary," the song you reverently chose to play at my service should you outlast me. I remember you were sorry for having chosen this song after scrutinizing it some but I was and still am imminently moved by your choice. There is only a faint tinge of a remembered hope in this song unlike the usual threnody that tries to push images of "the great beyond" and arriving in better places or flying away to home.

We're ordinary people
Close but not the worst
But I think you know
We're all the lonely people

Alone but not at first
But I think you know

The older living people
Who've been through even worse
But I think you know
Just like the other people

Alone but not at first
But I think you know
Sometimes we don't have a life

True, very true. Maybe one of the saddest songs I have ever heard but also one of the most resonant. I used to my brothers and sisters who share the same faith I do that we have the ability to not even know what it feels like to be lonely because we have the spiritual presence of our Lord's comfort. I was incredibly foolish. Jesus was a man isolated and rejected above all and knew practically nothing but loneliness. I had not intended to go here but I used to use this matter of loneliness and the supposed lack-there-of as a selling point to myself for why following Jesus Christ makes sense. I once wrote a very simple and creativity poor poem in high school called "I like goodbyes" that explained why I prefer parting rather than greetings. I said I liked the intense feelings they engender because I found those more profound than the ones accompanying meeting someone new or the gradual warmth of a friendship burgeoning over time. I relished loneliness because I thought I was above it and it was a sort of luxurious treat to partake of when I knew I had stored up enough joy to withstand it. The rush of self-inflicted isolation was thrilling.

Little did I know there is nothing as heart breaking or despised as the person truly alone. I thought emotional pain was a game because I was delusional concerning the immense wall I had constructed around my heart and soul. There has only been one person I have ever truly loved selflessly and only one person who has showed me that love of that sort exists. Also, belied by your duly chosen requiem for me, you were the only person who truly knows how lonely I have been my whole life.

I have no idea if that warrants a thank you or something else but nonetheless I thank you with only fond thoughts from now on.

I also wish to point out that on the ablum containing "We the Ordinary" it is only two songs away from "Fell in Love at 22," the song we danced to at our wedding. The most hopeful and perfectly nostalgic song I have ever heard.

blocked. no, not blocked ... beleagured

2010-12-23T23:26:00.003-06:00

But hey, look. I'm fucking prolific. I think I might just break last years record of 26 posts. An accomplishment I don't think I will be brandishing too conspicuously. This blog in and of itself is a pitiful testament to the lack of humanity I have come to accept as my lot. I was empty but now I am seemingly only full of less than positive things to say. So who's to say I am better off or not.

I lost my keys today and I cried. It is no secret that crying is a daily activity for me. But the keys really got to me. I went to a lunar eclipse party the other night on the winter solstice and it was miraculous and mystifying. I felt so much and so little staring up at the color-shifting night sentinel. I was very aware of the Earth and the Sun and the power of planets. I felt moved and movement. I felt the order or things. Many people in my life refer to the Universe in similar terms to the way people who claim to be theists refer to God as someone upstairs liking them. These people in my life will say things like the Universe really has my back. After losing my keys for absolutely no discernible reason and in an extremely brief amount of time I cursed the Universe for having the back of those who are in much less turmoil than I currently find myself and instead merely shitting upon my shitty situation. The connection was lost and I feel heavy-laden. Jesus Christ, unhand your light yoke. I am crushed and abandoned.

a toast

2010-12-23T13:24:00.004-06:00

There is a Bjork song I listened to once and I posed the question asked in the song to my car partner. "Where is the line with you?" AT the time I was referring to sexual perpetuity I wanted to assure myself we were congruous. As with all things at this very particular time in my life this memory and Bjork's query has taken on new meaning and received a new context. So where is the line? The surer I become about what it is I ought to be doing the more I become inverted and entirely unsure of everything. What is my place? Where once I felt like (in the words of Bilbo Baggins) butter spread over too much bread I now feel like those burnt corners of the toast that the butter never reaches and will either be torn asunder from the rest and given to the dog or left on the plate to become stale, worthless and wasted.

I do have confidence in somethings, however. American justice is not dead nor entirely ineffective. My terrific friend was granted the payoff of determined justice seeking. In the name of self preservation and love of the ideal of a safe, peaceful city she has proved hope and diligent resistance can combat any evil. Dragging into the light secretive injustices can embarrass and make impotent those who think they can get away with treating another human as anything less than an incredible creature worthy of respect and compassion.

maybe we never married

2010-12-21T12:13:00.004-06:00

I took my good friend, Tim, on a date tonight.

A person can say things in an inward only manner. Speech from the heart. Speaking only by means of not speaking but knowing and existing in. Perhaps if she never said it in her heart nothing ever happened. But then it was a sham and I have been fending off that notion so I don't want to invite it as a possibility. Real is only barely relative but I know there were aspects that must have been real concerning the last five years. I refuse to engage the thoughts that keep hounding me saying I made a nearly unforgivable mistake and my doom is loneliness as retribution.

Maybe it was easy because it never was.

Nothing is simple now and I am rebuilding all of it. I know I am young but I had such a structure.

Clementines surely saved my life and erasing your name

2010-12-21T11:26:00.003-06:00

Waking up is easy but the second my brief rehearsed routine of feeding my cat and standing in the center of my bedroom wondering what to do next has concluded I begin trembling and feel hungry and nauseous and I stare so long the top of my head begins to ache.

I ate a bowl of cereal because I knew I was hungry. It was delicious and repugnant. So I walked over to the couch, got down on my knees and wept. I asked God for relief. I asked for ability to let go. I was clutching the afghan covering the cushions, pushing my fingers through the holes like they were eye sockets and I thought about forgiveness.

I don't want to medicate. I am not disordered. Everything is well ordered and falling into place. Every friend and every breeze bringing winter in further tells me this is all normal. I should not be ashamed. I am not ashamed I have failed and I am crushed.

If I felt nothing the problem would lie with me. My mind and body are not the problem. Don't worry about me. I don't. I have immense worries and I tremble for a reason but it is not for my own sake. This, I am told, has been the root to all the trouble however. An ostensiblly unhealthy view of love in a modern context. Looking outside one's self for satisfaction and comfort because although a person may be truly lovely and strong a person is not enough. I fear I may only ever love myself because no one else would desire to. For years I had enough love to sustain two people so I am entirely certain I have enough to love my mere self. That has never been a strain for me.

I am hungry again. A little shaky and a mostly uncertain about everything. But I now eating clementines and going for a walk.

sitting space

2010-11-30T15:37:00.004-06:00

I am letting myself go. Not in the sense of allowing myself to become unkempt and corpulent but I am releasing myself to Greaterness. To The Greaterness. Not of humanity but beyond humanity.

There is snow outside and it is colder than it has been all season. You can sense it most in the bathroom of this apartment so I wanted to write this in there but the only sitting space with a view out the window is on the sink counter. And since my wife is leaving me her half-packed belongings are occupying nearly all of the sink counter sitting space.

I began writing a poem this morning about explaining a satisfying pooping experience to a man that doesn't seem to understand me. This is a man I have sought out because I heard he could help me with a project but I quickly find out he cannot help me and so as a means of escape from this situation that is very uncomfortable for me I begin detailing how satisfying and often enjoyable pooping is. All of this is just for the poem of course.

But then I got to thinking. What kind of man writes about poop when his wife is leaving him? Or even better, what kind of adult writes about poop and calls it poop? Isn't the mature thing to do to call it shit? And more accurately, what kind of a human writes about talking about poop? And what kind of human writes about poop when his wife is leaving him? Well, at least I didn't write about shoving shit down his fucking throat because his idiot fucking face can't seem to understand he only makes things worse when he doesn't listen to me. I mean, that sounds more adult but not any more human. I am going for humanity. No. Like I said before: The Greaterness beyond humanity.

American Television

2010-09-19T19:14:00.004-05:00

Well after an extremely short search on the internet I found out how to write on my blog using my IPad. Yes, this is being written on an IPad. One of the very first things I did when I bought this thing was open up my blog and attempt to post. I was unsuccessful and I simply assumed Blogger simply isn't compatible with this new, fangled thingy. So instead of utilizing the full spectrum of homogenized technologies inhabiting the IPad (such as the internet, etc.) I just pouted and decided that it wasn't worth it to me to take the three seconds to figure out the solution to this minor of minor problems.

So this is the first time I have ever jumped so quickly onto a new product band wagon. This is the first time I have even purchased an Apple product. Those who know me well might point out that I do own an IPod Touch but to them I must point out I painted my mother-in-law's laundry room and as payment she gave it to me because she felt owning an IPod she never used and an IPhone was a bit redundant. Speaking of redundancy, I am reading a novel by Muriel Spark and she keeps referring to all these men as being redundant and having a tough time making ends meet. She is british and I suppose redundant in Brit Land is synonymous with "unemployed" on this side of the pond. But Spark gives very few clues to suggest this and I am no expert in the field of vernacular of the modern Britain. It probably took me far too long to figure out this simple semantic issue and perhaps she was writing with a purely British readership in mind but I still felt put off by the whole thing. I suppose, even on this dinky blog, I write far too "American" and use several phrases that would confuse the world's masses if they weren't being pumped hours of American Television every day.

one t-shirt larger

2010-09-02T13:06:00.004-05:00

Fascinating story. On NPR this morning I heard the tail end of On Point, the brilliantly mediated discussion show, where Tom was talking with a linguist/cognitive neuroscientist, Arika Okrent, about invented languages. She brought up Klingon and Esperanto, two of the more well-known invented languages from recent history. And as interesting as it is to try to understand why people would invent languages I haven't been able to stop thinking about how lovely it is that naturally occurring language is so consistently disjointed, obtuse, illogical and contradictory.

It is obvious why it would be advantageous to devise a flawlessly structured, immutable language but the fact that our very humanness hatched the strange and hopelessly complex communication standards and patterns we use without even thinking about it says more about what it means to be human than could ever be explained by the means allowed by any language.

Oh, and speaking of NPR, at my place of business we just got in an NPR shirt bearing a faded pair of headphones, the National Public Radio logo and then the somewhat snarky phrase "Get Smarter" across the bottom. I think my wardrobe is going to get one t-shirt larger very soon.

brandonpiercegeary

writing exercise

2010-08-06T10:23:00.004-05:00

Perhaps not a true writing exercise because, for the life of me, I can't think of what this is teaching me other than getting me to appreciate metaphor a little more.

The first sentence is the original and I merely replaced all the "in's" with "is's." What fun!

1.
the fruit picker who lived all those years in a motel (incomplete sentence and only moderately interesting)
The fruit picker who lived all those years is a motel. (Ahhh, now there is something to ponder and within the trappings of a proper sentence to boot)

2.
The carrot shaving in my salad looks suspicious. (Hmm, I think I am already losing steam)
The carrot shaving is my salad (and) looks suspicious. (Yeah, this is already becoming redundant. Perhaps I should quit while I still care.)

Point is, I recently acquired a second means of some income. I am writing copy for Hayneedle.com. Product descriptions and so on. It is extremely gratifying and taxing because I get to come up with charming and witty paragraphs about things I rarely ever think about let alone write about and I am also responsible for coding a great deal of what I write. HTML. Good grief.

Anyway, so I tried to come up with a writing exercise before I dig into another task. This was the best I could come up with without consulting other people. Sort of failed but the carrot thing was kind of silly so maybe not an entire loss.

brandonpiercegeary

'Harvard Musical Anthropology Survey'

2010-07-14T11:09:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I tried to upload one of Harvey Pekar's last stories but something was going terribly wrong and the image was only 80% visible in this little dialog box I am typing in. So here is the link instead. This is not necessarily indicative of his usual fare but it will at least give you an idea of his sense of humor. Most of his comics are funny in the same way Peanuts was funny. The characters are miserable, lonely, rejected, frustrated, unbecoming, but they have their immutable intelligence and solidarity with others who are poor in spirit.

In the passage of the Bible where Jesus is remarking about these sorts he says they will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. When I was trying to remember what he said they would inherit I thought it was "the Earth." But that is what the meek get. I really thought it was the complete opposite. In the Christian faith I supposed it was the truly humble and contrite who gain access to God. But it seems it is merely the tread-upon. Actually this is making an immense amount of sense because why would those who lived desperate lives on Earth want to inherit it?

"every morning in a cold sweat"

2010-07-12T12:05:00.005-05:00

It is more than fitting that it is bitterly dismal today. Harvey Pekar was found dead around 1 a.m. this morning by his wife, Joyce Brabner. (I began this post yesterday but was so disheartened and so terribly busy I was unable to finish).

I don't think I fully understood the term "salt of the earth" until I discovered this rare human who balked at life's menial yet overwhelming daily struggles and yet never made me feel pity nor shame but almost exclusively the most unexpected emotion ever to be elicited by a oft-labeled curmudgeon: love. I believe I fell in love with Harvey Pekar. 'From off the streets of Cleveland' and straight into my heart.

A few months ago just after seeing the film based on Harvey's comic book series 'American Splendor' I wrote a post concerning the life-altering revelations proffered by my viewing of this movie. The implications of a single human's life being so important without being so important struck me about as deep as any proper philosophical account of the same anomaly of living. I re-watched the movie last night accompanied by my enduring partner in art and life (so akin to Joyce in the best ways) and a 2-liter of orange soda (reportedly Harvey's consistent beverage of choice). There is a scene set up like a dream sequence after Harvey passes out in their Cleveland Heights apartment because his cancer treatment is so oppressive to his already feeble body. In this scene Harvey walks among partially illustrated rooms in a nondescript house reciting a monologue about living in his first apartment and coming across other Harvey Pekars in his first phone book.

He is very self-aware and naturally realizes the oddity of more than one person having such a rare name let alone several people. He follows these other Harveys' lives through their presence in the phone book and when they come to die he said, "I was filled with sadness. Although I had never met them I felt we had this inexplicable connection."

This sentiment is what I fell in love with. He was known as cantankerous, which he certainly seemed to be, but he was so generous with his appreciation that other people existed. He was desperately lonely because he valued other people so exceptionally. When I heard of his death the reality of his contribution was clearer than ever. I too was filled with sadness. I had hardly even known Harvey through his art but his unorthodox care was so evident and life-affirming I was completely disarmed by the news. In my estimation one of the most loving humans had passed. He was entirely mortal and just by living his day-to-day he reveled in that. It is not that he was remarkable for his unremarkableness. He was beyond those trite assumptions. He was fascinating because he existed and that is all. And I believe he would say the exact same thing about anyone else.

'Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.'

You will be sorely missed, Harvey
brandon

not so strange magnificence

2010-06-28T23:28:00.002-05:00

The internet we use at home just comes and goes and so it is with nearly everything else as well.
I found a new callous on the back of my heel just below the achilles tendon. Definitely the sign of movement. Progress perhaps.

"The feeling of health. The full noon trill."

I am escaping into the night to read Walt Whitman and to become a man. I don't suspect I shall be gone very long.

I also have an inkling that unless I begin writing something that makes a little bit more sense I am never going to get published. Or perhaps I should actually just submit the material that makes no sense. Perhaps.

brandonpiercegeary

It seems beautiful just the way it is

2010-06-24T19:48:00.004-05:00

In Sebastopol, California I have been able to confront a more ideal way of living with my cynicism and have found myself greatly wanting. This has been the most enlightening, spiritually aggressive and emotionally fortifying trip I have taken in my adult life.

Ideals are not dreams and dreams are not foolish. There is worth and there is worth in everything. I have had a lot of time to think about the order of all things in my life and I don't necessarily feel I will be taking things "back" with me but I feel I am coming into life and understanding love and selflessness. Selflessness especially. All of these things not as preoccupations that somewhat distract from day-to-day but serve to elevate my moments and hours.

I can't remember the last time I felt this sure about anything.
brandonpiercegeary

reality

2010-06-14T13:21:00.002-05:00

In my attempt to primarily only give opinions on my own day-to-day on this blog I feel a little queasy putting this little paragraph about a very timely political conundrum. It was not from a political blog however, it was a philosophy blog. Clearly very different. But I find this paragraph makes an interesting comparison. I also love anything that recognizes the pull and tension between two opposing yet immutable realities.

"This is the rage and anger I hear in the Tea Party movement; it is the sound of jilted lovers furious that the other — the anonymous blob called simply “government” — has suddenly let them down, suddenly made clear that they are dependent and limited beings, suddenly revealed them as vulnerable. And just as in love, the one-sided reminder of dependence is experienced as an injury. All the rhetoric of self-sufficiency, all the grand talk of wanting to be left alone is just the hollow insistence of the bereft lover that she can and will survive without her beloved. However, in political life, unlike love, there are no second marriages; we have only the one partner, and although we can rework our relationship, nothing can remove the actuality of dependence. That is permanent." - J. M. Bernstein, Opinionator (blog), June 13, 2010

everything has a name

2010-06-12T14:31:00.005-05:00

I love living in other people's homes and understanding this has suspiciously led me to want to own my own house more than ever.

Waking up in a bed, bedroom and house that does not belong to me is exhilarating. I remember having this feeling nearly daily when I was in high school living at my parents' house. I was still surrounded by my accumulations and trinkets but somehow I always felt as though I was not "home." My family was there, a great deal of my memories sprung from there, and it always felt secure and welcoming. But I felt like a constant boarder. And, to be clear, this was a very good sensation. It was undeniably inspiring as far as gathering my courage to leave and not be anchored too solidly by the weight of roots.

Being a guest also has with it a certain expectation of courtesy. You may come and go as you please but make your bed and keep the rock music to a reasonable level when others are in the house. I have never owned my own house but for some reason I see it looking like this. Hearing a housekeeper of sorts beckoning me to straighten up the office desk, help clear the table and put the toilet seat down. I don't think I will hear this voice as an overbearing feminine presence as in a tasking mother or overbearing spouse. But merely a genderless, formless nudging towards understanding of everything I think I have may not in fact be "mine."

Everything changes hands. Either to another actually hand or the soil-y grip of Earth. I just think the idea of owning a house that was purchased with money my wife and I have earned is far too overwhelming and the reminder of it would only cause me to consider the fading away of all things.

brandonpiercegeary

look aftering

2010-06-07T10:10:00.003-05:00

There are many a tipping point in one's life. Getting pushed to the precipice is common exercise and I don't even have heels in any of my shoes anymore from pushing against the dirt. I know I have a lithe demeanor but it is tempered with a rebellious spirit. And I have had tremors coursing through this secondary sensibility and I am moved. I have rediscovered the value of faith through the intervention of friends and I am understanding the necessity of movement and progress and dreams. I am moreover furthering my knowledge of love and all the sacrifices therein. For the first time I feel just like the enormous sycamore tree across the street from our apartment. Full to bursting with vibrant, lush green. But instead of this growth merely weighing down my bows I am able to emulate the tree and stand entirely at ease because the leaves cause me no harm.

unsought

2010-04-26T12:09:00.003-05:00

I found this sentiment scrolled onto a tiny piece of notebook paper and it gave me great encouragement:

all be second nature

soon, I promise

I then turned it over and saw that it was a note from my wife to one of her employees she was training about what his new duties would be and how after awhile he won't have trouble with them. But she couldn't fit the whole thing on one side and I believe I found a true message meant just for me in that precise moment. I wasn't demoralized this morning but even so the little two line poem raised my spirits considerably.

brandon

No poem to speak of

2010-04-20T12:04:00.004-05:00

I know I missed a couple poem expounding days but I really don't care. I have been reading some poems but I don't have the time or energy to go the distance with any of them. And I still have those eight Dickinson poems I am leaning on so I don't feel so far behind. In all actuality I am just pleased to be reading poetry again. I haven't even thought in these sorts of critical ways in years.

the stretching is great and it reminds me I need to get back into yoga.

Melissa and I discussed what our mornings should look like from this point on. Or I suppose from the point last night on. There are a multitude of tiny oases in the form of quaint parks mere walking minutes from our apartment. We are going to utilize these weekly and in the morning do something extravagantly creative. Or perhaps modestly creative.

We used to have write-nights and it was terrific. That fell to the wayside far too quickly. But this, this is going to be different. Right? Right.

brandon

no one was there

2010-04-17T13:30:00.003-05:00

Well, I know I didn't write about any poems that I read yesterday but I figured I already broke my cardinal rule concerning the amount of poems from each poet I would read. I also started this whole thing off on the wrong foot by starting in the middle of the month and not planning ahead. Planning is what begins and ends this crazy, muddled up world we live in right? I hope I learned my lesson about preparedness last year when I tried to tend a community garden plot but did little to no advanced scheduling or research and ended the harvest with a paltry yield.

I have come to understand this as a very important month. A month that holds two of my brothers' birthdays, my other brother's college graduation, and a two-fer appreciation month. Not only is it National Poetry Month (the muse behind my poetry writings) it is also Jazz Appreciation Month. So in the spirit of both these I shall regale you with an unsolicited, impromptu poem on the subject of jazz.

gather and push from this side to the back
buckle and jive so full
so much so
capacity's sound jolted to the not yet arrived

Well that is all I could muster. I hope both poetry and jazz feel appreciated. For my part I tried my darnedest.

brandon

"a member of the cloud"

2010-04-15T23:04:00.002-05:00

I am so irreconcilably hasty as far as "classic" poets go and looking askance at them as opposed to absorbing them entirely and often. I just read an Emily Dickinson poem from a collection called Love Poems published by Peter Pauper Press in some undisclosed year. I know the poems were probably public domain when the book was put out but there is still a short forward I assume they would have wanted to copyright. Oh, well. I applaud their spirit of giving. I am not sure if the editors of this tiny volume added titles to the poems or if Emily herself initially intended the titles they appear here with. The one I read is called "Renunciation." It was was sort of long in comparison to most Dickinson I have read and with much, much more vague imagery. I read it thinking of her subject being love because of the name of the collection but I think she is talking about so many things in the various stanzas and sections of this poem that it is either a misnomer to have it included here or the editor included it as way to project an expansive view of love through Dickinson's not-so-much-a-love-poem.

You know what? I knew I was going to do this. I read eight Emily Dickinson poems that were not clearly marked as separate poems all as one large, unbelievably wonderful poem. The order of these must have been selected very carefully. It works so perfectly. She has the same sort of contentment throughout the eight poems and reoccurring themes of suffering saviors, divine gifts, royalty, turmoil over what to do with the grace of earthly love and company. All of it works so well. So the link to "Renunciation" is in fact only the part of the poem that was originally named that by Dickinson. I am trying to find the rest of the parts now.

Here they are: (and read them in this order too)

Of all the souls that stand create

That I did always love

Doubt me, my dim companion! (There are two versions of this one out there. I don't know if she wrote two editions of it or if one is not genuine. I like this one better either way. It is the one from my book)

Come slowly, Eden! (This one is really racy)

God permits industrious angels

He put the belt around my life

God gave a loaf to every bird

Maybe tomorrow I will copy and paste all of those on here into one large, glorious poem. I swear read them all together in that order. It was meant to be. I feel a tad sheepish for not noticing the tiny ferns marked the end of each poem. But in the end I stumbled upon something far greater than I bargained for. As an whole poem she has such a poignant way of coming to terms with her state in regards to herself, her God, her community, her lover, nature, and daily incidentals. Very moving and very sad she didn't write them as one piece to begin with.

brandon

The first even though midway through

2010-04-14T09:54:00.002-05:00

I decided I was not too ambitious but I was merely impractical. I came up with this project too late (sort of). I have sixteen days left of April, National Poetry Month, so I have to read 1.875 poems a day in order to have 30 poems read, one for each day of the month, but the end. I read two yesterday:

"Emaciate Buddha" by Brett Eugene Ralph from Black Sabbatical

and

"Wind Camp" by Joanna Rawson from Unrest

I was pleased with myself for choosing two contemporary poets to begin with. I really thought I was just going to go the easy route and only read "the classics." I found these on Ron Hogan's literature blog Beatrice. I highly recommend you read his blog. He is a writer but what's more is he is a very active impresario of literary arts in New York. In all narcissistic honesty, I would like to be the Ron Hogan of Omaha. I just don't read enough. I am not involved in the literary circles I wish to be.

Frequently I do searches for writing and reading groups around Omaha and I am also dismayed and tickled by the ones that I find. There are abundant middle-aged to elderly women who write and read droll romance and romantic sci-fi. Interesting, but certainly not what I am looking for.

I was pleased to see that Jeffery Koterba, Omaha World Herald cartoonist and recent author of a pretty good memoir (and a jazz musician to boot), was mentioned in a Washington Post article about tourette's.

Oh, and the poems were pretty good. I liked wind camp better. It reminded me of a poem an old classmate of mine wrote in college in which he pondered a tree that seemed to be alive and personified by the enormous amount of black birds rattling around in its branches. He was delighted by the birds but Rawson took a little more offense to the natural activity of these little guys. Her's seems to fit with the Hitchcockian paranoia birds engender or the Poe-esque madness that comes by giving a little too much control of one's peace to incessant bird banter.

And the Ralph poem reminds me of a poet I used to be in monthly reading group with. He was bald too. This was when I lived in Cincinnati and the guy read this one poem nearly every month about him sitting next to the Ohio river and perceiving himself to be a circle on the ground and attaining a zen sort of "okayness" with his state. I was never sure if it was the state of Ohio, the state trying to write poems for a living, or a more cerebral sort of thing. Anyway, Ralph's poem conjured that up for me.

I like the poem but I am trying to figure out why we scarcely see the guy this poem is talking about. Is it that we won't see him? Is he actually invisible? Because if he is displayed like the second stanza makes it sound like he is it seems as though he would be a bit of a spectacle. But, I have a feeling he embodies that seemingly unattainable spiritual emptiness/wholeness that most say they desire but won't commit to. Or perhaps the guy is just a self-made martyr. Either way it is an intriguing picture.

brandon

I don't want to write about writing. I want to write.

2010-04-12T15:09:00.004-05:00

There must be more going on in Omaha literature-wise than I am aware of. It makes me queasy that I am not more aware of these things. Oh, and it's National Poetry Month. Hey, I will read a poem a day this month. Sounds like nothing but anything that even smacks of consistency is a very some something when it comes to my routine. A severe lack of poetry has invaded my life since college. I have a bit of catching up to do today. I have 12 poems to read today. And by golly, I am not going to limit myself to tiny Shakespearean sonnets (although I read a few a couple months ago and was bowled over with how moving I found them) but I am going to take on Prufrock scaled masterpieces. I might even delve into an epic poem here or there. I will chronologue my efforts and I will be back in business. For the first time in months I have that twinge of excitement I so easily allowed to vaporize. Oh and I think each poem will have to be from a different poet. Yeah, that makes the most sense. I'll do that.

in the same house

2010-02-28T20:48:00.002-06:00

I had grand plans/illusions to drive to a semi-remote place with trees and perhaps a bit of grass poking through the snow. I would arrive around five o'clock slip into the back of my car where I have the seat down and turn on NPR because at five o'clock they played an episode of American Routes featuring John Prine. John Prine always reminds me of my dad. Not necessarily the man's particulars but my father introduced me to his music and I was stymied by my lack of knowledge of someone who was so terrific and had been directly under my nose, living in the same house even (his records anyway). Perhaps that is actually the similarity I find between my dad and John. I remember telling one of my roommates in college how fascinated I was with my dad. I was going to write him a letter while I listened to the radio show. I will write him later this week.

brandonpiercegeary

Pretty Music

2010-02-28T18:44:00.003-06:00

I just think that Melissa and I are the kind of people who find a Susan Minot film like Evening a silly, little movie and categorically despise a Nancy Meyers and Scott Rudin flick like It's Complicated. Meryll Streep is in both. We also say things like, "Ooo, I like this already," on the title menu of a DVD because of pretty music.

tiny kingdoms

2010-02-04T20:47:00.003-06:00

I honestly thought this could be the end. Ordinary life is a struggle I clearly am not equipped to struggle through.

I interviewed today for a higher position at the company I currently work for. This was my second interview and, to my knowledge, the one that really seals the deal. I am not sure what it was. Probably knowing what was at stake if I blew the interview. But I didn't keep my cool. I stammered and shook and went on and on about nothing. I prepared excessively and I truly believe I choked.

When I returned home I nearly passed out. I had indeed worried myself sick. I had put all my eggs in this basket and the thought of not accomplishing this made my head ache feverishly and my body swoon. I laid in bed drowning my cold sweat and my mom called. She was actually a wonderful respite. I was still shaking though. I couldn't get over the thought that I had thrown my immediate future completely away because I didn't control my nerves.

Eventually I realized that the whole deal was completely out of my hands now and I needed to engage in something therapeutic. I cooked the brussels sprouts I had bought to experiment with. I didn't actually experiment too heavily. I read some websites about how to cook them and then I boiled them. I put some left over Taco Bell fire sauce on them and they were delicious and my fears were subsided.

I then wanted to land the crushing blow. I looked around the bedroom for something I could accomplish that would put my gut at ease. I was on my laptop so the missing "h" key was a glaring problem that needed solving. Two of the little pieces including the key itself had popped off a couple days ago and were lying somewhere on the floor beside the bed. I quickly got my wits about me and found the two pieces, tiny as they are. Sparing the needless details, I put the key back in its proper place I could have sworn I heard a tiny kingdom of my loyal subjects feasting and celebrating with the utmost jocundity at this truly remarkable success.

I feel much better now.

brandonpiercegeary

disruption

2010-01-26T22:18:00.002-06:00

I have not done any formal writing in a long time and I am starting to feel the weight of the absence of the practice. I have read to be sure and amassed a small fortune of scraps of paper, receipt backs and tiny notebooks attesting to the fact that my brain hasn't slowed nearly as much as I assumed it would.

"If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions on profligacies with ever-fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire from the word go. I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn't flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames."

Excerpt from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard pp. 16-17

And that is why I am writing this instant. I closed my eyes but the light from the blaze colored the darkness I sought all yellow and orange and left me without peace. The past couple months have seemed too much to chronicle with accuracy yet I was catching fire over the Holidays and I do not wish to be so passive and above-it-all that I doze while it all goes up in smoke.

Not that the last couple months have been anything truly Earth shattering but in my tiny part of the land they have greatly distruptive.

God save Haiti from the ground that seems to seek to devour her. The Voodoo teachings that are prevelant in Haiti say that the nation is a mother. May her own children and the neighborhood kids do everything to heal her. I heard it will most likely take till the end of this century before there is a sense of how things used to be in Haiti before the earthquake. If that is the timeline to get back to that then there is far more than mere restoration that needs to take place. Hopefully Haiti will spring up brand new and hardly be recognizable. No more misery and no more fear.

splendid

2009-11-14T18:11:00.004-06:00

The first time I heard about "American Splendor" was when my older brother rented the dvd. I picked up the case and I scowled at it. I couldn't see how a movie about a depressing underground comic writer could possibly keep my socially floundering brother from sliding closer to his impending lackluster life. That was all I wanted for him then. I wanted him to be happy and happy with other people. Harvey Pekar, the focus of "American Splendor" did not seem to be the sort of role model I was hoping my older brother would choose. I also knew nothing abou underground comics and figured they must be more akin to porn than anything else and my disdain was sealed.

My brother would often watch movies alone in the basement in the dark. At the time I wasn't too hurt he never invited me but thinking about it now it really would have been nice just to be asked. Eventually his lone movie watching turned into lone beer drinking in the dark. My brother continually took on Harvey's likeness as he drooped and sagged inside and out. I knew nothing about the movie or the man but I hated them both. In all honesty, I really thought this movie was another nail in my brother's coffin. He would never do anything with his intelligence or creativity if he idolized twice-divorced file clerks with gnarled teeth, jowels, a large stomach and man boobs.

A couple years ago my friend Jeff showed me his comics collection and let me borrow all of the graphic novels he had by Jeffery Brown and one called "Blankets" by Craig Thompson. These autobiographical revelations made comics more important to me than they were even when I was an avid collector as a child. Ever since I have been enamored with the underground comic "scene." Now that I knew about this world it was inevitable that I would come across Harvey Pekar. "American Splendor" was an tremendous acheivement in comics because it was crass, depressing, coarse and true. When I learned about all this I felt a wave of embarrassment because I knew I had shunned something that could have opened up a glorious new world of art that I had to wait several years to come into.

Perhaps I was not ready. I was very sunny as a high schooler and I wasn't quite into irony.

I watched the movie tonight. I cannot remember the last time I have felt so inspired. Seek out the comics and also the movie. Could change your perspective if you let it. I am glad I saw it so young.

brandonpiercegeary

compulsive

2009-11-10T00:07:00.003-06:00

I would like to be obsessive but I am far, far too lazy. I am battling this, however. Even now. Look how late it is in my time zone. I have to be out west at 9 am tomorrow. That is much less sleep than I am accustomed to. I am spending more hours awake and thus doing more. At this fertile time in my life more is more. I did take a nap earlier so that was a couple hours out of my "doing" time but I am making up for that right now by doing so much I can hardly stand it. I am researching for an album review that I have not yet received the green light for but I don't need to be told when to do and how anymore. I am just up and away. I am doing. I am go. I am awake and it is midnight and I feel terrific. A sleeping cat in my arms and I can still type away. I have it all under control. Battling that laziness never felt more like accomplishment. I am making lists and following through. I suddenly feel a real jolt of the importance of what I am doing. Perhaps my first notion was hasty. I am on fire.

I am going to bed to be with my wife.

brandonpiercegeary

a dream upon waking

2009-10-26T19:37:00.005-05:00

I wish to extend the content of my last entry. I was considering the ways in which I view my job in contrast to the prattling Kinko's employee or my crass supervisor. I think we all see our job as just that - a task to be done. I suppose the biggest departure in our understanding of our job is our duty. What is our relationship to our occupation as compared to our relationship to everything else in our life?

It seems to me that during my parents' and their parents' lives a person's job was mere occupation. The notion of a calling in regard to work was reserved for missionaries, families with a long history of doctors or lawyers, or people involved in a family business. A person had a job and worked because that was what one did. There was no room for personal ambition or fulfilment of desire because the practicum of the day-in-day-out had such a bloated importance. And I use the word bloated in the most reverent of manners.

My brother-in-law recently wrote about a lady who wrote a book about young people's collective and individual narcissistic entitlement frenzy especially as it relates to assumptions concerning degrees and subsequent careers. I can attest to the clear idealism that pervades the upper-middle class young Americans these days. I am just as guilty of the most disgustingly under-deserved self-important visions of grandeur as the next literate, laptop equipped youngster. And like the others I usually don't have the maturation of mind to understand it was all but a dream. Most white kids my age in America have it pretty good. There is great luxury in the very visible safety nets we hedge all of our bets on. In most cases our parents or our ruddy good looks and cleverness (or a strange combination of the two) will be our bail out. We can't lose.

I think it must also be stated that the rules and therefore the expectations have changed in the decades since our mommies and daddies were home bacon bringers. The new young professional is the upwardly mobile standard and an aspiration that seems crucial to all of us who not only want to take home a paycheck but also dignity. It does not feel like enough to come home around five thirty in the afternoon with head held high because a full-day's work was put in at the ol' office. It does not feel like enough because of what I was perplexed about in my last entry. What is a full-day's work anymore? When am I allowed to be satisfied? A person is confronted with the option of being their job or being very little. Many of my friends have jobs and have "side projects." These appear to be hobbies but a slightly closer look reveals them to be entreprenurial strivings. Small businesses are the new quilting bees. These are the ways we get involved with our neighbors and invest in our community. And not to mention move on that hope that the thing we love to do may be the thing we make big bucks doing. It seems this is the only way to get gratification from one's job and in this economy to just get by. I believe that is also why so many people are going to work for non-profits. Perhaps it is to prove that you can do what you love without being motivated by money alone (although CEO's of most non-profits make a pretty fantastic living).

We are a disappointed and disappointing people. Because we choose this pursuit of a "birthright as means of job satisfaction." As the middle class it sure seems as though that is what we are charged with seeking out - that sole occupation we can fill. We will know it when we see it, nay feel it. It is supposed to seek me out, I think. It is actually difficult to say. I know I may not have a place in the sun but I certainly have one out there somewhere. A progressive architecture firm dying for my copy writing skills. That must be it.

I think it is good that we have high expectations from within and without. Hopefully the dream lasts long enough so that when we fail we still have enough hope juice to strive towards the next impossibility.

brandonpiercegeary

I should be sleeping like a log

2009-10-24T23:13:00.003-05:00

"I refuse to do anything work-related when I am off the clock." Someone in a sales and customer service training session at FedEx Kinko's once barked this out after being given a scenario where an opportunity to endorse a product arose outside of work and it knocked the wind out of the training manager. The manager told the story of this uncooperative employee with a tremendously angry scowl to the group I was in during one of my training sessions. I understood her anger and I shook my head, distastefully looking at the conference table and making a far deeper frown than was merited or that I felt. Even though the manager had my sympathies I could not help but mostly side with the rogue.

Where do my loyalties lie? Does my every waking moment belong to my employer? Not hardly.

I have had a similar quandary at my current place of business. My bosses are very strongly encouraging us to utilize our social networking sites to the advantage of the company. In truth, I am not that concerned that I would not be compensated for posting 140 characters about a sale or promotional push. I am more disquieted by the dishonesty. I, like most people I presume, only bring up my work if it is pertinent to a situation. If someone is having a problem finding a new pair of pants that fit the way they would like then I would be remiss if I did not suggest they look at the place I work. But then again I would also suggest they look at a couple of other places because my primary care is that my friend find decent pants and not that my company make money by hawking a less-perfect product. But sneak attack an advertisement with blatant intentions just feels two-faced. I have never promoted anything on my sites before, usually including my bands which I am fully committed to and deeply invested in, so why would I blithely remark about a 50% off womens sale? I don't enjoy partaking in self-promotion and I don't appreciate being used for commercial promotion.

It seems to me that this is a matter of boundaries. One of my former supervisors once told me during one of his more practical rants (he was given to vehement, nonsensical diatribes about bus drivers, fedoras, and the evils of noise music) that the advent of the mobile phone broke down all previously constructed walls between work and home. "Now you're always on the clock! Your boss has something to say to you they don't wait until you come to work, they call you up. How do you escape? You don't. And they fucking got you. And it ain't the money, man. Fuck money. It's the personal freedom. Don't tread on my goddamn freedom."

I understood him and I was afraid. I decided I never wanted to be salaried. Then they really have you. You could work a back-breaking 50-60 hour week and make a measly 40-hour week paycheck. There is no justice.

I would love to sit down at a desk at nine in the morning then pick up my blazer from my chair at five in the afternoon and pass the threshold, the line that must be crossed to make it understood that I am no longer at work - I am home.

It seems more people are desiring to go into fields where they can feasibly work from home. These people are either very clever or have no self respect and no sense boundaries. Hopefully someday I will become one of these people and when that time comes I pray to be self aware enough to report which of those things I am.

brandonpiercegeary

kin

2009-10-24T22:18:00.003-05:00

I burnt my hand quite badly and also made a delicious potato onion thing. This was the first proper injury and meal in our new home. We now live on Nicholas Street and have all the conveniences of a quaint, one-bedroom apartment of the 1950's. I haven't used this sort of gas oven for a few years and I forgot about the pilot light underneath. I had stored some of our plastic pot covers under there and now they are the consistency of Vermont maple syrup. Before it cooled down in our sink anyway. When I had reached beneath the oven to retrieve a lid for the pot I was cooking some green beans in I touched something metal and much too hot to be touching. I have a nice scar on my right, ring finger knuckle and about an inch above my wrist on the back side of my hand. This is actually the exact place on Melissa's hand where a ganglion cyst has been disappearing and reappearing for a couple years now. I feel a new level of affinity to her. We are misshapen and pained by our cursed spot. We are Lady Macbeth. We have secrets. We are kindred and we most certainly have each other for sharing.

brandonpiercegeary

a minute

2009-08-13T13:16:00.008-05:00

There is honestly a great deal more I should be doing than this. My wife grew up with a thing called "mental health days" which I am still not convinced is as health as it sounds but I am big proponent of "mental health fifteen minute sit and stares." So in honor of stability I just want to say that some of the trees just outside look particularly beautiful right now. I must say I prefer the sort of leaf that is compounded and "fern-like." I must also say I have always enjoyed pondering the "greater than the sum of its parts" conundrum. In the case of these compound leaves neither the usual cliche nor its inverse are particularly accurate. I am pleased to look at them up in the tree from this distance only getting a vague (and blurry since my eyes are beyond flawed) sense of the intricacies of each individual portion of the full leaf. Everything is beautiful. All of it. The ins and the outs and the parts and the wholes. It's got the whole package, you might say.

Ah, I feel much better.

no idea

2009-07-30T22:50:00.002-05:00

I was just reading an acquaintance's blog and about his "integrated" media company he built from the ground up. While I highly admire the raw ambition and headstrongness it takes a person to see such a thing through I could not help but recognize a widening emptiness as I read about the possible capitalizations to be made on said entwined media -- producer engages consumer -- experience. He spoke of having a "set apart" sensation from early childhood and that this media exploration of his was to be the conduit through which his intrinsic purpose could be satiated. From my perspective it is no wonder he also remarked on this not actually being his "true calling." It seems to me that if a person has an authentic, birth-rite purpose and if this person believes this to be a God-ordained purpose then pursuing a dream that (from his own description) appears to only serve to put money in people's pockets who have a great deal of it and push content on undiscerning consumers solely for the sake of having more content. Integrate because you can. It's the future and the future is all that matters. It's all we have. The future is fucking now.

New media has always fascinated me mainly because it seems to be a phenomena that isn't. It is only special because someone says it is. Any device that spreads information in a slightly tweaked format is the harbinger of a cultural seachange. It is an irony that I cannot stop laughing at. It is all so self-glorifying. Everything is inward and it is no surprise that most new technologies usually serve to isolate and divide rather than foster community. I suddenly have a notion to entirely throw off all amplification of myself beyond that which can come about through my true voice and body. I could stop this blog immediately. I could never use the telephone again because it only allows a sliver of who I am to reach the receiver. Even letter writing is dangerous. Too much amplification. Too wide spread. Any music I play could only broadcast as loud as the unsupplemented instrument can carry itself. That blows considering my primary instrument is the electric bass which is next to impossible to hear without juice. I shall hone my accordian and saxophone chops then. All is not lost. There are too many stringed instruments anyhow. I need people to come closer. Maybe I will just play my bass on the street corner so people have to crane their necks and press their ears right up to the strings to hear anything and then certainly we will know each other better through this interaction. Much better than a mediated conversation could afford. I want to read books aloud to children and speak without microphones.

I want us all to be heard as we are and not as we seem to be through infinitely integrated systems of "communication." John Lennon and Yoko Ono had this "project" they called real communication. It was quite hokey but the sentiment was earnest and provocative. The project was more of a lifestyle of artistic expressions that drew out honesty from yourself, even if it didn't make sense what you were expressing, with the purpose of engendering community and (of course) peace. They did bizarre things like wear only black trashbags or staying in bed for 24 hours (with plenty of media coverage to be sure). Things that I am not sure were not merely ways to express their desire to attract attention but I suppose there were no moral stipulations on their "real communication" so self worship was hardly taboo if it was merely honest self worship.

I don't know. I have no ideas.

no excess

2009-07-23T07:55:00.002-05:00

I found this story on the "New Voices" portion of Granta.com. Please read it. It is short and very fascinating. I remember in college attempting to write a story from the second person and becoming so entirely befuddled at how to make it sound natural that I recall crying for days. The young writer of the story I linked to not only beautifully used the second person but seamlessly intertwined it with a first person that does not break up the flow or seem like a cop-out. I am jealous and intrigued. Also I love the brevity of each thought. There is no excess and in that way it gains a true poetic voice. It reminded me of the first twenty minutes of the new Pixar movie, UP, in how it gently and reverently guides you through a couple simple, romantic lives without belaboring anything yet skimping on nothing.

I am truly, truly inspired by this story. I want to write like that. Ever since college I have been so enamoured by authors who can write volumes by writing a few perfect paragraphs. I wish to live my life in that manner as well. Full and simple.

brandonpiercegeary

a shower a day...

2009-07-22T19:39:00.002-05:00

It goes without saying that having a day off is a welcome respite. Or should be rather. Today I had a day off work and I feel more exhausted than ever. I do not feel like going to get our car looked at (even though the accident wasn't Melissa's fault and the lady's insurance will surely cover the expenses). I do not feel like reading the Haruki Marukami novel that I should have finished by now (even though everyone else in the reading group read ahead and finished the novel before we had a chance to discuss the first four chapters like we were supposed to so now I look like an even slower reader than the one I actually am). I do not feel like picking up after myself (even though I have been all day). And I do not feel like sleeping (even though I have stumbled through my day in a mysterious half-slumber since I got out of the shower).

And I believe I have finally discovered the base issue. I should not have taken a shower this morning. I find that if I wake up before seven o'clock a shower is just the right remedy for a newly awoken body. I also find that if I wake up after ten o'clock a shower is a lengthy chore that puts a kink in an otherwise productive day. I can prove this is so, just look at today. Lethargy city.

brandonpiercegeary

stupid is: stupid does

2009-07-16T09:39:00.002-05:00

"Any idea that is worthwhile is very nearly a stupid one." (or something like that)*
- Michel Gondry

*not actually part of the quote

I feel like all my ideas are stupid. And not the secretly brilliant ones disguised as stupid but objectively ridiculous. Except for starting to write letters to my father. That was a good idea. But everything else, no good. Actually I take that back. In truth I think far too highly of my ideas. I love them dearly. I hold them so close that no one else can see them. Mine all mine.

I actually just got a great idea. I must water our house plants and water our garden. I believe our brown little conifer on our table is beyond help so maybe instead of watering it I will just sing to it and hope that it had lived long enough to bear seeds and multiply. I think we will be enjoying its kin for years to come... somewhere.

brandonpiercegeary

pontifical man

2009-07-12T12:59:00.002-05:00

I surprised Melissa with a trip to the movies the other day. It wasn't the grand romantic gesture I worked it up in my mind to be but it sure did make her happy and therefore was a success. We saw Enlighten Up about a documentary director making a documentary about a young man she hand picked to be the center of an experiment to find meaning in yoga. It was mentioned in the film how it seems she should have just performed the 6-month experiment herself since it was her own diminishing faith in yoga that prompted her to devise the scheme. But she held that she wanted to see if yoga could have "transformative" effects on the uninitiated. Nick, the subject, said he had never considered yoga or any spiritual endeavor before agreeing to submit to Kate's , the director, plan.

The film seemed to come at yoga from nearly every angle people approach it from except for perhaps someone who would consider yoga offensive, if there is anybody. They did talk a little about how in India, at some point but perhaps not in modern day, people talked of Yogis as demonic wanderers who steal away children and wreak general havoc as opposed to individuals who are merely yoga enthusiasts. Other than that they explored the physical and metaphysical practices associated with yoga. Nick began as a willing skeptic and Kate as the waning believer. By the end they weren't much closer to discovering "true yoga" or a universal transformative power it might hold. The actually ended up nearly right where they began with only a greater sense of the history of yoga and a vocabulary useful in discussing its various forms. Sure it was only six months but I expected a little bit of transformation or perhaps maturing. But perhpaps this is all we can hope for. More knowledge, no wisdom. The two seekers did find they had a deeper desire for the purer things in life: family, health, quiet meditation.

I wonder if their journey's flaw was the fact that they said they were pursuing a means to be happy and fulfilled. They didn't request wisdom or even greater insight into living at peace with others. They kept wanting to find a wholeness in-and-of themselves. I suppose one could spend a lifetime pursuing wholeness in all of its manifestations and never be consumed by it because it seems to me that looking at one's own self constantly gives you the same view consistently. Perhaps if spending ourselves on everyone else and in effect being that magnanimous person of grace before we feel like we have attained what we think is required to live in such a way we will gain a truer perspective of ourselves and see G-d. I think a greater virtue than pursuing inner peace is to make peace.

Modern guilt won't get me to bed

2009-06-22T22:11:00.003-05:00

About a week ago Melissa and I watched the award-winning movie Milk and while I viewed I ate a plate of pretzel sticks and ranch dressing. I gave practically no thought to my light snacking much like any popcorn popping movie-watcher doesn't consider the hand in the bucket and the munch in the mouth. Eating and watching a movie is mindless until tragedy strikes. Usually this tragedy takes place on the screen but of course there is the ill-fated kernel or nacho not masticated properly that winds up wedged deep and painfully in the snacker's throat. At his point is completely impossible to ignore the snack itself since it is clearly not to be overlooked without a fight.

In Milk, the true story of the first openly gay individual to be elected to major public office in the United States (for those of you who didn't already know that which I am actually quite positive any one of the half dozen people who read this knew what the movie was about so I apologize for the patronizing explanation), the protagonist is heinously murdered and the grief Melissa and I felt was enormous. Since the movie is based on actual events the ending was already clear from the outset but as any well-done movie should do it made the inevitable shocking and moving, not just expected. At the moment of Harvey Milk's assassination I could no longer eat my pretzels. Tragedy struck and I could not bring myself to indulge in another salty stick. It would only seem to cheapen the moment and show disrespect. In actuality I bet the real Harvey Milk would want me not to stop enjoying my snack on account of him but I didn't want to break the stirring silence with a seemingly rude chomping noise. When a movie is truly tender and feels quite intimate with the audience then to continue chowing down would be like slurping a milk shake at a funeral viewing and then laughing aloud at texts you are receiving. Truly uncouth. I didn't want to be that guy so the pretzel I had picked up and was nervously bringing towards my mouth found its way back into the bag from whence it came.

I was so self aware at that moment while I was also entirely lost in the throes of the film. It was a very odd sensation.

brandonpiercegeary

bottemless beverages

2009-05-14T23:45:00.003-05:00

I truly believe that life is full to bursting. I like to look at optimism not as taking potentially disappointing situations and seeing them as efficacious such as in the old "glass half full" euphemism but more like a bottomless fountain beverage that is never empty and if we are thirsty enough the glass never has to be quite full either. "Drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." Bottoms up.

I don't know, I was talking with Melissa earlier and she said some simple and profound things about feigning happiness to not honestly feel something unfavorable. It caused me to rethink my motivation for positivity. As far as I can tell and have been told I am a generally, or perhaps more sincerely, haphazardly optimistic. If I am merely compensating for feelings that leave holes in me then I indeed create more holes through my self-delusion. But if I do not delude myself and excuse and then suppress poor situations and instead continue throwing back life so that even when I reach the end and the straw starts making sucking sounds I will pound my tumbler on the table and demand my free refill. We don't have to stay at the bottom trying to slurp the watery backwash trapped under the ice cubes. And to take this miserable metaphor one painfully silly (or astoundingly poignant) step further - when the fresh beverage slides across the wooden planks and into our palm we can continue the fellowship and discourse over the bountiful meal with our friends. We can pour into each other.

Good poopin' that was ridiculous but I meant every word.

oceanic

2009-05-12T11:19:00.004-05:00

enrich, enrich, ENRICH. Enrich and be enriched. I was going to wait to write this morning until I felt some grand new revelation but after reading my wife's blog I decided that was inspiration enough. She speaks of being peaceful, in love and content. I have dulled my ability to feel these things in the past week. I have let loneliness be my security and I forgot there is no comfort in it. I get more and more eager to hear her voice on the phone and I stare at pictures of her for long stretches of time.

While I was in California with Melissa I was so peaceful, lovely and content. I got to know the full weight of her recovery and I found so much strength in it. I felt stable next to her. I left home and I despaired because even though she will be home soon I can't see it. God has granted me the tremendous grace of being Melissa's husband during this time of her healing and learning. I am just not sure what I am supposed to do with it. I feel the need to take it as love and pour it back into Melissa but since she is still gone and I mostly mope around I don't pour it out anywhere else. And it evaporates. I am getting dry and I need to soak in the ocean.

2009-05-09T12:05:00.002-05:00

As it happens, I am devolving. Reverting back to a lackadaisical and also sleepless me has exhausted my will. Thankfully last night was the first and only time this has happened but it shall be the last. I stayed up until five-ish o'clock watching metal music videos and reading years old comments on my myspace. I haven't even visited my myspace in months. This was my first tip off that I was acting suspiciously.

But it wasn't just my behavior. My very feelings went to some strange, familiar, and less me now kind of place. I think was about three o'clock that I was watching some "music video interpretation" of the song "ravage ritual" by the band zao that some sadly misguided kid made for a school project a few years ago and posted on youtube and at this point I realized something very wrong was happening to me. It is hard to explain. I was sitting there actually feeling as though what I was watching was important in some soulless way. And this after three hours of watching OnDemand freezone music videos at my in-laws' house. (bytheway the video for "Airport Surroundings" by Loney, Dear is quite terrific).

I could not conjure a reason convincing enough to actually just go to bed until I was so burnt out and lonely that I nearly wept all alone. Pathetic. It is a glorious truth that yesterday is in the past.

approximate me

2009-05-08T22:12:00.003-05:00

I rediscovered the camera for myself today. I made my first craigslist post. I played with a remote control truck that mostly only goes in reverse. I learned that a former mentor of mine is now a #1 best-selling Christian author. It was a very revelatory day for me. For whatever reason, all of these (re)discoveries have left me with an amusing sense of displacement. What do these things say about me? Not much. Hence the amusement. I seem to be accidentally adopting all manner of zen-like attitudes towards every practical thing.

Like I said in my last post about closeness sometimes I require a feeling of knowing I am in proximity to myself. And yet it seems the closer I find myself to myself the tinier I realize me to be. I can't get near enough. Or perhaps I am actually honing in on my true nature or a truer identity within which my quantitativeness amounts to not so much. Thankfully this doesn't render me wallowing in insignificance because at the same time I gain a superior calling than mere self-reflection but significant co-mingling with (oh, coffee maker just beeped announcing it's turning off. Last call for hot, late-night beverages) the rest of creation to partake in each other. To honor each other and honor God. But then again, the times in my life when I have been able to be the most mindful of God and creation were when I did not do so much self-examination which mostly led to disconnection. I am too inward. Time to take me to the streets.

Good pooping, Beck is awesome
brandonpiercegeary

so, so and so close

2009-04-29T14:17:00.003-05:00

I just finished a mix of songs I am giving to Melissa. This is the second mix I have made for her since she left for treatment. The first I called "now" because I made it as off-the-cuff as one can. This one is called "immediacy" because that is the only thing I have craved while she is away. I just want the satisfaction of being near her. I just want to feel close.

I was listening to the cd and I think I made it too somber. I was trying to compile songs that make me feel close to those I am listening with. Perhaps I feel closest when I relate with people's troubles and frustrations. Or when they relate to mine. Melissa and I are going to feel inscrutably indivisible when we are near one another then.

everybody, get outside

2009-04-23T00:46:00.003-05:00

It never fails that having my friends from Cincinnati visit for even a short evening engenders all manner of grave nostalgia. Nostalgia can be quite destructive if even for the most brief moment it is fully indulged. Because it is a faux joy. A memory of joy. It isn't present and it isn't lasting. It is pleasant but it can certainly, at best, distract and at worst obliterate the fullness of living that is attained when attention is paid to the present and the hope of the future.

All this calls to mind the first time I saw the movie "The Wrong Guys" starring Louie Anderson and Richard Lewis. Several years ago I walked in on my mom watching it some Sunday afternoon on one of the local stations. She usually watched the worst of movies on any given Sunday afternoon. The beginning credits had just begun and there was a voice over by Louie Anderson. I recognized his nasal passage of a voice from my religious watching of "Life with Louie," Anderson's Saturday morning cartoon that lasted eleven episodes in the mid-nineties. As I watched the movie the camera eventually zeroed in on a very nostalgic and also very unhappy Louie Anderson sitting on the front porch of what turned out to be his mother's house looking at old pictures of his boy scouts troop. I asked my mother what this movie was about.

"It is about what happens to people when they don't know how to just let go."

That is mostly correct. Louis's character gets so nostalgic that he gets his old troop buddies back together for a camping trip to the mountain they couldn't "conquer" as young scouts. They run across an escaped conflict and the initial plot gradually disappears but it is an amusing movie nonetheless. Something about my mother's cynacism tainted the way I watched the entire movie. In every scene I looked for traces of regret, self-loathing, and slovenly - all the things I associated with poorly lived lives. And these guys were miserable.

"People shouldn't live in the past" my mom said. It certainly is alienating to live in the very self-obsessed fantasy of your precieved "good times," the halcyon days of yore. Thank God it is a mighty pleasurable thing to reminiesce for most of us but that grace has not reminded me of how grand life truly is as much as it has caused discontent and selfish restlessness.

If I am unsatisfied may it be for future ends not tied as opposed to what has be sealed for years and cannot be exhumed.

Mmm, memory - "she's a crazy animal when she screams"

I never thought

2009-04-13T02:34:00.001-05:00

I just emailed A.J. Jacobs. I must be insane.

dance and dance

2009-04-12T22:29:00.002-05:00

Melissa had a group therapy session today where the participants were asked to choose someone they would like to dance with living or dead. Her mind was compelled to dwell on me and she began crying fiercely and had to leave the room.

I miss my incomparably beautiful, sensitive, glorious partner.

She is so full of emotion and love and passion that the mere thought of dancing with her clumsy husband sends her into fits. What new mystery is this? I don't understand but I guarantee you I share the sentiment in that I cannot contain the verve that violently gushes whenever I consider for the slightest moment the unfathomable impact her love has had on me.

Thank God for your existence, Melissa. Thank the living God for your livingness. You have so much of it. I have never been so inspired by a single person.

It's always sunny in Omaha...

2009-04-11T15:23:00.003-05:00

except when it is cloudy, of course. But as I was walking towards downtown I once again realized how truly dwarfish our "skyscrapers" are. We have two buildings that jut slightly over the heads of the "lesser" buildings and structures but I honestly find it hard to be terribly impressed by them. One First National Center stands a whopping 634' and the Woodmen Tower, made moderately famous to those unfamiliar with large insurance companies by director and local hero Alexander Payne's movie About Schmidt, is a hardly notable 478'. As I passed them today I didn't have to crane my neck or strain my eyes to see their top floors. I thought about how I would feel perhaps a larger helping of local pride if there were immense monuments declaring something to be proud of.

Although this derth of height helps keep a definite humble air about town, even with the fact of being eighth in the country in both per-capita billionaires and fortune 500 companies, it also helps the sunshine reach the wide city streets and numerous neighborhood parks. So when the sun shines it pours all over every cove and alley in Omaha. So in retrospect I am quite shamed by my lack of attention to things that actually matter in making a city truly great. Tall buildings are probably more of a hinderance to helpful pride and happiness as they separate rather than bring community. Even these relatively short buildings distracted me from noticing elements far more lovely than any edifice could afford.

where in the blue, where it's new

2009-04-11T13:23:00.002-05:00

I read a book this week in the shortest amount of time I have ever read a book. Two days. It probably took about 7-8 hours altogether. I do not read so very fast and this was a very short book. To the tune of only 129 pages with each individual page only amounting to about 3" x 5.5" and the margins were also quite substantial. So I am not sure how much pleasure I can take in this feat. But that is okay because the content of the book was quite humbling. It was C.S. Lewis' fantasy about the inhabitants of Heaven and Hell called The Great Divorce. It was a truly remarkable read and without a doubt has deeply affected my view of the two places.

It kept bringing to mind this collaborative song by The Chemical Brothers and The Flaming Lips called "the golden path." It is about this guy who is in a sort of dream where he is confronted by "demonic forces" while navigating "a supposed golden path" to "silver mountains" in the distance. There is a part of the song when he decides to stand up to the "specter" who is tormenting him with questions about how he might have come to die and what to do now. He cries out to God - "Help me, Lord. I've found myself in some kind of hell." But then he feels foolish because he "doesn't believe in a Heaven and Hell, world in opposites, kind of reality." But he trudges on toward these mountains where he hears singing (Wayne Coyne to be precise): "Please forgive me, I never meant to hurt you."

And this is very akin to the journey many of the characters in the The Great Divorce found themselves on. The only difference is that the song's poor soul is all alone save a few ghoulish roadblocks. In the book a host of glorified spirits descend from the mountain in order to discuss with the inhabitants of Hell the obvious benefits to living encapsulated by love and joy for all eternity as opposed to, well, anything else.

the good times are killing me

2009-04-01T02:01:00.003-05:00

When I was much younger and had only been writing poetry for a couple of years I wrote this poem called "listen." I entered it in a contest in ninth grade to get put in this collection called The Ohio Anthology of Youth Poets. It was chosen to be among hundreds of other dilettantes in the publication. One of the last lines in my poem, a line at which I know cringe miserably, has taken on actual meaning to me. I can't help but believe I originally wrote it for the immature and yet common writerly notion that it sounded very much like something I would read in what was my understanding of "poem."

If these are the best days of our lives,
I want to be listening
to the songs of yesterday.

(the line breaks are what I think they might have been. I don't actually remember)

Even though this is terribly cliched and seems to me like a reinterpretation of something I misheard when eavesdropping on my grandpa and father discussing my dad's childhood and old phonographs it actually popped into my head while listening to the Modest Mouse song "The good times are killing me" and the sentiment seemed to be the same. If this is as good as it gets and I am miserable (which I am not currently miserable, I am actually extremely content and jovial) then I don't want to detach from "the bad times." They musn't have been that bad after all. Perspective is becoming more and more obviously crucial to me. And I am becoming that true perspective can only come from truth. From honesty. Especially honesty with ourselves. Honesty that even a grand, spectacular day doesn't have to the end all and be all. We can hope for better days. And we can be honest with ourselves that the dark days had glimmers of some kind of heavenly light within them. Maybe a song.

what was once the only thing...

2009-03-28T00:41:00.002-05:00

...has transformed into everything.

I have never been so calm in an airport before. This is usually the place that engenders in me the most bestial, brutal feelings. I am usually turning green and slipping into some purple cutoffs. It isn't just the perceived organization of airports or even the advertisement barrage, but it is just how transitional they are.

Airports are one place that I have never been able to be content in or thankful for. They are the farthest thing from home. Familiar, sure, but comfortless because it is all just amusement here to keep your vitals at "just so" in order to ensure your body gets on that plane whether or not your soul ever made to the airport is irrelevant. I have floated soulless as the tomato sitting my window sill back home through many airports. But right now I feel full. Yes I had an airport Pizza Hut Express pizza but I feel fulfillment as well.

I should be discontented. Due to reasons undisclosed to me my flight from Denver to LAX was delayed three hours so no I am departing at 12:30 am Mountain Time. But I feel warm and fresh. I am tired but I am alert. I am practically alone save for about five custodians who keep passing with their large yellow trash cans on wheels. I feel in control in a place I usually feel under attack and helpless. I am going to hold on to this.

hope for a tree cut down

2009-03-24T20:24:00.002-05:00

Whoa, I apologize for leaving that utterly life-sucking entry up so long. Well, I mean, I know it is still "up" but now it is not the last thing I have posted and therefore the last thought I have left some people concerning my current state.

So apologies.

ahhhhhh, good lord, my headache!

"i feel like i'm in someone else's home"

2009-02-26T20:44:00.002-06:00

I am so cold.

Is it inconceivable that a person can be happy? Eh, probably not. I feel I am pulling away from myself and the detachment isn't providing the escape I suppose I was hoping for. Not that I have truly intentional split myself up, but since I could see it happening I figured I might cull some silver lining from this inevitable counterpart to being twenty four, having much expected of me and having little to show.

I will make it there.
pierce

the more i sink into the ground...

2008-09-29T11:24:00.001-05:00

I was angry last night. I didn't want to keep it internal but I wanted to keep it pointed inward so no one else would have to care. It is painful when everything hurts and there is no understanding from within so how could I presume that any could possibly come from without, and not from lacking trying, bless her poor, unsatisfied need to save me from myself.

I hadn't written a poem in over a year or perhaps longer. Unless there is one I wrote on here that I have forgotten about. But the intent is always so different for me when I use pencil and my yellow legal pad as opposed to a laptop. I think I had forgotten about catharsis and even truth or honesty. I have just been mostly depressed this past week and I don't know how to pray so my mutterings when I am alone have been requests for instruction on how to request instruction. And I need it to be okay that I barely know the one I'm asking because I am so afraid all the time.

Peacebone

2008-07-15T17:59:00.004-05:00

I am going soon. Going to Ohio and going to Canada and just plain going places. Lot's to see and do. I have proven to myself that a lot can be done with a little bit of money and a willingness to just "be." It is most certainly a deeply spiritual experience to just sit, think, and understand. The brain is powerful and can communicate and perceive in dimensions other senses are too limited to penetrate. I bet God interacts in that firmament more than outside of it. Not because He can't but because when He does anything in time and space is ultimately categorized and digested into something far too understandable to be anything God-like.

Man, Animal Collective is so good. And I love the word gnaw. Gnaw gnaw gnaw. grrrr.

A couple days ago I dissed Pearl Jam and had my bowels handed to me by Melissa. Not that she is an avid defender of all things Pearl Jam but I was ignorant of the premise of their mega-super-hit "Jeremy." Being the smash single that it was in the early nineties I saw many clips of the music video on several VH-1 "this is what happened when you were growing up" shows. But all I ever connected the video with was a very creepy, shadowy and slightly silly Eddie Vedder and quick shots of a boy at school. I had no clue it was about a true story of a young boy who was picked on so much at school that he was driven to commit suicide at his school. Melissa was right, it is a very important social issue and it was very apt and responsible of Pearl Jam to expose it to the MTV watching youth who would someday be able to be in a position to put a stop to such abuse firsthand. I mocked the song and the video. I felt so foolish. I spouted off rash judgements and I really appreciate Melissa for calling me out for lack of a better phrase. I really want to not be cruel to anything. I hate feeling regret over things I say. When I say mean things, even about things I really have no reason to care about, I usually end up feelings remorseful. What a terrible feeling.

brandonpiercegeary

but not like those poets

2008-06-26T12:18:00.002-05:00

I am writing a story about a deformed man and a little girl spending a day together in a sculpture park. She shows him a poem she wrote about water and the world. Naturally it is simple and child-like. Not childish but certainly innocent and trustingly naive, in the best way. I can't get the story off my mind.

too comfortable for closeness

2008-06-17T11:24:00.005-05:00

A writing community would be nice. Last night Honey Bee played at a local store called Pulp which specializes in art/paper products. Mostly it has quite beautiful greeting cards and gift wrap. The event was a slightly haphazard gathering of some essayists, musicians, and a poet, I think. If there was a poet, which I believe I heard there was supposed to be, he or she must have read while Melissa and I were getting pizza. But still, poet or no poet, it was a special evening. It certainly fomented a discontentment in my belly. I have a tiny reserve of unfinished stories I am trying to complete. All fiction, all short, and all with endings that are terribly elusive to me. I sketch and outline and jot and write but feel despondent for want of a community of critics and peers.

I feel envious of Melissa at times. She has a group of young writers built-in to her creative writing program at school. I too had this once. I was in writing classes in college and I squandered so many opportunities for focused composition and critique. I was never fully prepared for the workshops. I pounded out half-conceived stories or poems that only survived because they were so convoluted they were barely evaluable. Oddball twists or indecipherable meaning are my most useful crutches. Luckily for me, I can usually slide by disguising it as postmodern writing.

And I promise, there is supposed to be meaning in what I write. I just have the darndest time conveying it. That is why I want people to help me exhume the purpose I know is...just...right...there...if I...could only...ugh...reach it

can't be bested

2008-05-27T20:14:00.002-05:00

It was a journey and a half getting to and from Chicago. The journey was the understood one involving the car, the trailer, the five people in the car with the snacks and the music. Developing with my friends and my wife into a musical entity that we are more and more proud of and confident in is the half.

I make the distinction because the physical movement had its beginning and its end. The band certainly had its beginning, even if it was when Melissa was born it had a definite starting point. But it has an evolution that defies an absolute ending. It is that faux/possibly actual immortality brought upon a group of people by playing music. Not to downplay other creative efforts but there is something undeniably enduring about music and its ability to engender or inhibit growth in people and culture.

When we were playing last Friday night I think we all felt that. We felt different for sure. There was progress from the beginning of the show to the end of it. It is somewhat sad that we only played one show that weekend. I think the progress leaked over into the next day or two but it seemed to slow as there became more hours between the present time and the end of the show.

Cody's girlfriend, Lindsey, came with us and did a bit of filming of things along the way. She teaches film and different aspects therein at a local community college here in Omaha. Having her around and my older brother's fascination with movies has caused me to consider the finer points of film making. I don't know much about film but I know what I like. I guess that is the case for most people, or all people, rather.

So there.

real life screams

2008-05-20T20:32:00.005-05:00

It's my last day at Kinko's and I am eating a classic twinkie snack cake with a heavy helping of sugared berries swimming in a sugary goo slathered over top. I am celebrating. I know I said in a previous post that I didn't feel a public blog was an appropriate space to air grievances against your employer. I know I said that and I still agree with myself. I however, well, once nine o'clock arrives, am no longer under that heavy lade that is a job at FedEx Kinko's. Jesus once said all you heavy laden, I will give you rest. I cupped my hands and had naught but a Kinko's job and Jesus put a hanky up to his nose and mouth at keep the stench at bay. He pinched that job but the scruff of its neck and placed it in a fish bowl full of baking soda and peroxide. He then reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a yellow bicycle and Urban Outfitters. Well, how about that.

I want to see if I can pull this off and make it worth reading. I want to write a pithy dirge to my soon to be former job. I want to write it on the spot and without any planning or preparation. Let's see what happens.

a reprimand

what comes of a position of internal
rearing
and a nature not tended to
initially
and quite nearly eternally?
what comes is a disrespect for the self-
ish things that always engenders the tension of living
for others and with yourself.
a disrespect from all
sides
and withering from the same
and whispering and hoots and calls
because you're distracted
not interested
in purposelessness

That was stream of conscious. And I think it was quite sad. But I feel freedom. Kinko's makes me sad. And eulogies aren't supposed to be cheerful. Sure they usually embue a sense of hope in some way. But for me, Kinko's stole that little spark. Or perhaps it just buried it in place well marked that I couldn't see until I had an escape route planned. I am onward and I am upward.

Honeybee plays in Chicago this weekend. It will be epic. I assure you.
brandon pierce geary

2008-05-03T12:20:00.002-05:00

I am on a roll. I am butter. Seeping into the crannies. Smooth. I feel very good about most things at this precise moment in time. Sure I fret about money, health (mental and otherwise), dreams deferred, societal ills and conspiracies. Yet I feel peaceful. At peace, even. Probably the sun. It's always the sun, isn't it.

I have been reading anthologies lately. The anthology is quite possibly my favorite literary invention. I love reading a single writer's collection but an anthology brimming with all manner of voices and perspectives is intoxicating. I have been reading from the "Best American" Series. This series is very appealing with its wide-ranging focuses from collection to collection. The Best American Nonrequired Reading is captivating my attention right now but I would love to read the Best American Sports Writing, Best American Spiritual Writing, and Best American Essays. Oh, I love good essays. Creative nonfiction is delicious. I just finished an article in the Best American Nonrequired Reading anthology by Jonathon Ames, a writer for Spin, about a goth festival in Illinois. I gotta tell you, that guy had me in stitches. Stitches!

He was so matter of fact. I think that is going to be a very recognizable defining quality of quality writing of this era we live in. This decade. The best, or most widely acclaimed and watched, writing on television is usually quite dry. Droll is funny and interesting and endlessly amusing. That is why I am so hyped on nonfiction. It is just facts but it can be so entertaining or even just not boring. Not boring is very good. Uninteresting is very bad.

Another thing that is very is good is this:
"Not all of us Americans appreciate the fact that we have about 150 very good quarterlies in this country. Every state seems to have a very good quarterly, and about a hundred colleges have very good quarterlies — from the Kenyon Review to the University of Illinois’s Ninth Letter. So by our estimate there are about 150 very good quarterlies in this country. Maybe more. Now, the thing we don’t always appreciate here in America is that elsewhere in the world there are few to no quarterlies." Dave Eggers from the "Q and A" section of the Best American Nonrequired Reading collection.

THIS IS GOOD NEWS. God bless American writers. I usually am not the most ardent fan of things American. But perhaps the winds are changing if this country values its writers as much as it seems to. Hmmm.

brandon

klondike bar for breakfast

2008-04-25T10:19:00.003-05:00

My brother was supposed to get married but that was a week ago and he is currently single and battling a psycotic ex-fiance who may/may not be carrying his child within her womb. She verbally assualts him and textually annihilates his self-esteem. She says vile things to his face about everything you could possibly imagine someone berating another person for and then she sends seething text messages in order to stick her grimy fingernail just a little deeper into my brother's gaping wounds. He is a shattered person. Melissa and I went to Ohio last weekend because we had the plane tickets already purchased from when the wedding was still happening. We went for consolation and, unbeknownsted to us, manual labor. We spent most of the time lugging furniture from my parents' garage into a storage unit. It was hard to be callous though, since we were attempting to help right a life gone terrible awkward and stupid. My family is close but we have a lot of secrets we keep from each other. Not a healthy situation but honesty is becoming more and more of a priority amongst my brothers the older we get. One of my younger brothers finally stop trying to hide his smoking habit. Another brother finally moved out of the house he wouldn't tell my parents he was living in. And I, well, I don't know what my parents don't know about me right now. Melissa and I share it all, and perhaps those are the things my parents need not know.

So in like manner as my siblings' truthfulness problem, I had a klondike bar for breakfast. I will surely die. "You will not surely die!" OH, YES I WILL. Melissa and I are obsessive. I can hide mine better. In fact until this week I didn't even know I had these tendencies. I am obsessed with MSG. What a horrid obsession. It is so entirely inescapable. So much so that I am beginning to be just a tad wary of just how dangerous it is. I have been reading about the myriad of adverse health affects MSG causes or exacerbates. I am terrified. The world is fucked. Not just because of MSG but who is truly honest anymore? Who truly does things without selfish gain as even a slight motivation?

when looking for new

2008-04-05T12:34:00.002-05:00

I know that to speak harshly of one's current employer on such a public platform as a blog is a veritible shot in the eyeball. So in observance of this fact I will not do that. But goodness it is going to take a great deal of willpower.

My parents are mostly likely in Australia by now. I talked them last night while they were in LA awaiting their 3:00 A.M. take off. They had a 14 hour flight looming and they sounded tired yet excitedly impatient. I burdened them with my job woes so there is no need to unload here. I got it all out.

Speaking of my parents' trip to Australia, I feel quite envious of them. Of course I can be jealous of anyone traveling abroad without even thinking about it, but my parents have been world traversing several times a year for a few years now. Many trips to Hawaii, Honduras, Ireland, France, Belgium, and now Australia. I am proud of my parents and how hard they have worked to be able to enjoy parts of our world that many Americans are not able to, but I am also a bit miffed that this is not myself and my wife. One of the reasons we decided to marry so young was that we both wanted to travel widely and far-ly and we figured it makes so much more sense to do just that together in wedded bliss. So far we have made it to Canada. We are on our way to being true jet-setters. We are actually going back to Canada this summer to lounge at her family's cottage and so I can finally meet an Aunt and Uncle and "crew" of cousins I have yet to. We are also heading East next month to play music for some people are various venues. My parents are in their fifties and have been married over a quarter century. Melissa and I are in our early twenties and have been married about three-quarters of a year. Perhaps all is as it should be.

I've got arms growing out of my vines

2008-03-19T20:29:00.007-05:00

'Perfect.'

'Yep, pretty dismal. Het het!'

The FedEx Ground driver just came to pick up the last load of the evening and his heh's sounded more like het's. His name is Steve.

I decided to just play the bass guitar. I can build with it. My fingers feel so much more comfortable stretching across its strings and frets and wood and such than on an acoustic guitar that makes me want to cry more than it makes me want to sing. I reworked a song I wrote about being sad and alone for the bass guitar. It sounds more cheerful now and thus more bearable and perhaps a touch ironic.

'I can build songs with the bass guitar' is what I keep thinking because I think I can create something I would find full and bold and compelling.

I just want to evoke I suppoke. Ahem, excuse me, suppose. I stumbled upon this project of someone I know nothing about. He seems ambitious and has spurred some fascinating music from some artists I admire and aspire to be like. He wrote/is writing a children's book about a mythical land his great grandfather discovered called Murkville. A group of great bands wrote songs inspired by Murkville and put it on a soundtrack. It is quite lovely.

I drew some goofy pictures today on some extra pieces of paper that I had.

facts, huh

2008-03-04T20:30:00.004-06:00

I was listening to a bit of NPR this morning and heard of another revealed memorist hoax. The half-white, half-native American gang member, drug dealer from South LA, Margaret B. Jones, is actually the all-white Margaret Seltzer from a flourishing suburb in northern Los Angeles. Her 'autobiography' chronicled her foster situation and eventual gang affiliation and thug shenanigans. All false. All complete fiction. Reportedly, a very well-written piece (many ravenous critics praised the newest unique, young memorist) and yet there is the rub because of her deceit and the rub of our culture's reaction.

I had originally been preoccupied with the hoax and hadn't even considered the fact that it probably doesn't matter a wit that she lied. The reasons for her fabrication is simple. To sell a large amount of novels there are certain culturally common interests the author must appeal to. Voyeurism is the tie that binds the population of Americans who are increasingly interested in documentary film, blogs, reality television, and autobiography. As Tim Rutten of the LA Times puts it, "We love tell-alls and publishers love money." He says that our insatiable desire for vicarious living has caused us to demand the most savage and urbane stories as long as it's the dirty little nuggets of truth.

A couple years ago James Frey was at the top of the memorist-fakers most-wanted list. He wildly embellished his run-in with the law in his book A Million Little Pieces. Oprah's book club adored him; he was practically celebrity. Then it came out that he was not quite the overcomer of a life of hard drugs and crime that he said he was. I recently read an essay written by a fellow who had interviewed James Frey before the facts were revealed. He didn't really discuss why Frey would lie or how it could or could not be tolerated, but he wondered more about what autobiography even is.

Some of the most interesting points are made in the essay when he examines how people who write about what "actually" happened in their lives always seem to have the super human ability to remember. Conversations from decades and decades ago are relayed verbatim. Vivid details of memories occuring while the author was not of an age where memories are usually not captured.

That is all very fascinating to me. As of late I have been engrossed by creative nonfiction. I love the notion that facts and events can be written about in an enjoyable and creative manner. The art of essay. I want it.

adaptation

2008-03-03T12:10:00.005-06:00

A great discouragement caught me off guard yesterday. I was having a terribly difficult time playing a song I have been writing for a couple weeks now. A truly terrible time. Well, it was fine at the outset but within a shockingly short amount of time my fingers became overwhelmed and I could scarcely play a chord. Acoustic guitar playing wears out my fingers and my mind because I am so used to playing bass without doing much thinking and I have to concentrate so intently on the guitar when I play. My fingers became forlorn and exhausted. They huffed and puffed their way through the song and then crawled into my palms to make comfortable little fists. Then they proceeded to bash my unsuspecting face in. My body parts tend to revolt against me when I push them to their limits. Tis' sad that my fingers limits are so slight when it comes to guitar plucking.

This is a challenge and I won't shy away.

Also, my wife is quite ill. She has a bad case of strep throat. I have been able to look at her swollen tonsils twice already. They look quite interesting. A bit like tiny brains or the top of a human baby's head as it is crowning when being birthed. But Melissa's tonsils are endlessly cute. hmmmm. I love caring for her in this way.

peace
brandon
pierce
geary

to speak of

2008-02-27T16:04:00.004-06:00

No songs yet. But that's not what this is all about. Well, I mean, it is but it's all supposed to be an inspiration to achieve and achieve. Not merely aurally and melodically. I'm writing a story about a young man who loses his wife to death, a very sad way to go. I feel that completing this piece of short fiction will be a crowning achievement for myself. I have "finished" stories before. But upon a recent revisit to these I realized I was quite careless with my satisfaction with my work. Quite careless. I wish not the same fate for any songs I might compose. Oh, compose! I probably didn't mean to use that word. My stuff is more castles in the air and composure for my scoliotic posturing.

Here's an off-the-cuff poem:

and the ropes

always understated the ropes
hold the trapeze artist
hold the man with the muscles dragging the bus
and the lady to the tracks
always understated and always under pressure

such tension
in the twines and strands
who am i to think i am so threadbare

letting the boat from its mooring is the most polite thing to do

peace
brandon pierce geary

a minima

2008-02-26T19:05:00.000-06:00

The pressure's off. I cannot tell you how achingly I have wanted to be a musician. I have written about three songs in toto. I have assisted in writing songs. I have collaborated in a song writing experience. And I have bystanded while others write songs. Some friends of mine started a 'label' of mostly 'solo' music released on only cassette tapes. I thought 'Gee, my time has come. A goal to acheive to exhilarate the old song writing machine. I'm in!' I have had a rare communion with cassette tapes of late as the cd player in my car is no longer playing discs. So with that I have started playing Melissa's guitar and singing along to the fumbling. Good Grief. I left my guitar in Ohio because we couldn't fit it in my car when I cut and run from most everything I knew but loved less than being with Melissa.

I want to be good. Everyone wants to be good. I want to do it right.

this is comforting

grace and peace
brandon pierce geary