jaxxonpollux

[jaxxonpollux]

I really enjoy just existing in hotels. The long identical hallways. The soulless abstract art. The weird noises the air-conditioner makes. Strange city lights in the window. Six stories off the ground. Strangers chatting in the hall. Nothing in the dresser. No past, but an infinite present. 

[jaxxonpollux]

reflections on past jobs, for no particular reason

for the past few days, i’ve been trying to shake off a funk, a slump, one of those holes you can fall into if you’re the depressed type. where you spend entire days in bed, or crawl out at 2pm to eat a pile of leftover mashed potatoes between a mindless barrage of youtube videos or sudoku puzzles. just drowning yourself in distractions until you finally get fed up with it and start down that familiar path of Self-Care, which is probably a little different for everybody. for me, it involves leaving the house (which i’m convinced has some paranormal draining effect on my soul, or perhaps just dust, mold, cat pee, dandruff around the house intensifies my doldrums on a base physical level), going out to eat or sitting around in a coffee shop to read. reading is always my touchstone for “getting better,” like i’m flexing some intellectual muscles that i’d been neglecting for the past few weeks, or even months. i’ve said before that i’m a terrible english major, and have a lot of trouble starting books let alone finishing them, but i just think it’s a habit that needs developing, a habit that can replace the easier, mindless ones like scrolling through tumblr or playing through a game i’ve played through a thousand times. 

a friend of mine suggested the other day that reading is equally a waste of time as playing a video game, though, a comment that really kind of fucked me up and made me feel embarrassed for trying to use it to cheer myself up. i think i’ve come to a point now where i can disagree, heartily, with that comment. no video game inspires this much thought in myself, or makes me want to write. maybe it has to do with the TV screen itself. i’ve read that the blue light TVs have sort of a trance effect on you, like how the fluorescents at the supermarket make you want to browse around and lose focus, or how phone screens trick your brain into staying awake because it’s the same kind of light that comes from the sun. it does feel like a trap sometimes, an addiction. and some video games really do manipulate you to play them as much as possible, some are just designed that way. i’m not ashamed to say i’d throw video games out of my life entirely if i could, they never have made me feel better about myself. they’ve never inspired me. maybe i’ve just had some poor experiences with them, skipping homework to play games, staying up too late, getting angry at certain levels, forgetting to eat or go to the bathroom. they just command too much attention and force me to forget about myself entirely, don’t allow me to think about anything other than the game itself. the only real positive influence they’ve had on my life is that it’s something to do with other people if i can’t physically be with them. like virtual worlds to hang out in with your friends. even then, though, it’s more about spending time with people i care about in a setting that’s comfortable for me, not about the games themselves. ANYWAY that’s my argument for THAT

like i was saying, shaking off a funk. i was at this coffee shop today, maybe been there three or four times. i don’t really drink coffee, and coffee shops have never really been my scene, but they’re great places to just sit for a couple of hours to read and write, and nobody even bats an eye at you. can’t really do that at a sit down restaurant, it’s too easy to feel self-conscious, especially if there’s a waitress depending on flipping your table as efficiently as possible. 

but the point of this story is to talk about the doughnuts they were selling at this particular coffee shop. big, fat doughnuts, a few with outlandish glazes, strawberry glaze, for example. one was just entirely purple. and when i say fat doughnuts, i mean like, when you see it, it’s golden brown on both sides, and then it has that pale ring around the outside that the oil just never got to when they flipped ‘em in the fryer. that ring is the sexiest part of the doughnut, it’s like a stretch mark to show you how plump and decadent that particular doughnut is gonna be. not all doughnuts have those rings either; if you go to kroger or something, their old-fashioned doughnuts? just dry brown rings. probably a lot of factory doughnuts lack that pale ring, now that i’m thinking about it. it’s really a sign of some gourmet shit happening behind the scenes, somebody hand-cut that doughnut and fried it themselves. that’s how you know you’re eating something nice. probably worth the $3.50 i paid for it. well, maybe, that’s still kinda steep. 

my imagination was going like this the entire time i was at the coffee shop. i had seen them when i came in, and resolved to get out only on my way out, maybe two hours later. should i ask the cashier where they got those doughnuts from? would he even know? maybe they even made them in house, i thought. now THAT would be exciting! they did have a few food options on their menu. i think one lady next to me had some fried plantains or something. that would suggest they had a fryer, right? but then i figured, there’s no way, a coffee shop this size just wants to deal with a few baristas and that’s it, any fancy gourmet stuff would be brought in. it would be such a hassle to hire a pastry chef just to make doughnuts and scones, i don’t think the sales at a place this size would justify a batch of anything. i did daydream a little, however. made me want to work there so that i could figure out the secrets behind the counter. maybe there’s a real master doughnut-maker back there, and i could pick up at least that juicy little talent from working there, if nothing else.

this is what sent me down into a spiral. flipping through all of my past jobs, half regretful, wondering what exactly i took with me when i left. the job i have right now is the only one i’ve ever formally considered to be a real skill builder, a real job that actually means something. yet that doesn’t mean i’ve just been wasting all my career-building opportunities up until this point, does it? i always imagined that jobs through high school college were just, in general, real time wasters, real whatevers. you could literally have whatever job you wanted and not feel a tinge of regret about it, as long as it paid something. internships were for rich kids, kids that had their parents plan out their careers for them and finance it all the way through. retail jobs, cashier jobs, delivery jobs, these were there for kids who were gonna figure it all out later. normal people. looking back on it now, though, i really would do it differently. i would at least like, have a theme to the kinds of jobs i was going for, you know? jobs that logically led from one to the other, building up tips and tricks that would make you way more impressive to your coworkers down the line. this is probably also a false regret too, because there are those people that change their career paths like, really late in their lives. like they were a nurse for 30 years and now they wanna learn how to be a real estate agent, just from scratch. it’s brave, and i’m sure they sometimes wish they could have gone back and done things differently too, just started with the thing they loved before they knew they loved it. or maybe not, maybe they needed to hate something before they learned what they love…who knows.

what did i learn from my jobs then? i just wanted to go down the list and put together little stories, or sketches, rather. i know this isn’t exactly the most readable thing, and i don’t really expect anybody to read it. it’s entirely biographical and probably entirely boring, but it’s a fun exercise for me, at any rate. if you’re the kind of person that enjoys this sort of thing, i’m beaming on the inside for the both of us. anyway, here we go!

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[jaxxonpollux]

seattle ramble

not as nauseatingly hipster as i expected it to be, not as portlandy. still has a ton of young people in beanies with old timey mustaches, composting and diy culture. i guess i just have a bad taste in my mouth with those types of people from my run-ins with hip sects in columbus. but the waterfront is beautiful, and the mountains on either side. the big cranes down next to the highway, the drawbridge, the "hollywood hills" feel, wealthy folks' houses tucked up there on display. the waterfront especially is awakening some real love of the sea in me, something my dad left in me from his yacht club sailing days. makes me want to move someplace by the water, or be a fisherman, something like that. a class of preschoolers was having lunch down at the sculpture park, and they even had little signs put up on the walkway to say they were in session. it was quaint, slice of life

downtown was nice and busy, not very many businessmen like i would expect, a ton of places to eat. i guess it's not much different from downtown columbus, but it feels much wider and spacious. the roads all have bike lanes and trolley lanes, and the hills make everything seem so dynamic. a lot of construction, like you'd expect. city's always growing and changing

went past an argentine steakhouse with tango classes. went past a cat cafe with little pawprints on the sidewalk leading to it, from a few blocks away. a lot of graffiti and vandalism in some spots, but none of it feels gang-related or anything. and most of it is really nice and polite? stickers that say "love yourself" and "sissies rule!" soft anti-police warnings in a place that doesn't seem like it needs heavy policing to begin with. i can only imagine it comes from high school and college kids posturing, practicing their tags, flexing their conceptual art muscles. ran across a few sprayed graphic art portraits too, some of which were repeated here and there, someone's character. whiffs of pot every now and then when you walk down the street. lax rules about people riding their bikes on the sidewalk, like really lax.

and then there's oddfellows, which i wandered to again on the second day. it seems like it's a pretty well-established place; they have their own building with a few different businesses and it's a multi-purpose type of place. bookstore, coffee shop, and apparent student study hall on one side, bar and restaurant on the other. cup of coffee for 3.50 which is where you wanna be for students (i only say that because this place is packed with students right this moment, and maybe like one old guy reading the paper).

i still don't know shit about coffee. seattle is horny for coffee. i ordered an americano because that's what annie ordered yesterday. it's more bitter than a standard coffee, i think. i think? but i would need to probably line up an americano, a cortado, a macchiato, and a cappuccino for a taste test before i could tell the difference between any of them. it's like wine, every type tastes different, and every brand tastes different, and they often overlap. one man's malbec might taste just like another's pinot noir. same with coffee. there's probably someplace in this city that has the perfect coffee for my tongue, "the best coffee in seattle!" if i even liked coffee. but there are so many places that serve their own brand of coffee, trying to find that place would be like trying to find a droplet of pepsi in a bottle of coke.

yesterday annie insisted i try a wine from the bar, a rose. not as dark as others i've had, not as mild. it was nice enough. my first actual drink at a bar too, a glass as expensive as a cheap bottle from the grocery store. actual selected and curated alcohol (side note, curator always makes me think of charlotte from sex and the city for some reason, even though she was an art dealer not a curator. whatever!)

also had a sip of some alcohol the bartender was chattering about, in a conversation i couldn't really keep up with at the time. a lot of jet lag and a little disoriented trying to take it all in, meeting my friend for the first time and whatnot. the alcohol, the name of which i've already forgotten, was apparently really popular in (chicago?) and some lady started making it in her basement after the original dude died because it was so beloved. anyway it tasted alright at first, and then coated your mouth and throat with this weird bitterness that developed into all sorts of terrible flavors over the next few minutes. it was a fun drink at the very least! but not a go-to, i don't really know what the hell people in (chicago?) think is a good time.

they (bartender, annie and etc) also had a very animated conversation about a restaurant with wood paneling that baffled me just a little bit. that must be some seattle-ism, i can't remember the last time i got excited over interior design, if it ever happened at all. the bartender seemed like the kind of guy at which i could get really infuriated and jealous. he seemed a little bit like the "have you even heard of that?" type. showoffy, i guess, but my impression of him was so brief that it would be really unfair to skewer his character like that. still a stranger to me. i'm sure he's the nicest guy in the universe, or whatever.

and annie! is a sweet girl, and more attractive than she is in pictures. a little shorter than me, seems like she's growing up into a very stable adulthood, like, mentally and physically i mean. actually i don't know what i mean by that. like she has the manual for her 30s, she has drive and standards and takes care of herself as well as she can. not married yet, maybe not even of interest to her, maybe still not completely in love. or maybe in love but the rest of daily life doesn't make any sense for marriage yet. she said she had a crush on that bartender, which i thought was kind of funny. but it makes sense, like her brain is still shopping around for excitement and success and something fresh and new all the time. and other adult stuff too, health insurance, sensible habits, trying out nicotine patches again. some concept of where she wants to be in ten years, a commitment to baker's life, a love of creating and inventing recipes. not as harebrained and scattered as she thinks she is, i've known people way worse. studious attention to her plants, like trying to put together the puzzle pieces of having a successful and thriving houseplant (side note, houseplants seem really symbolic sometimes??). it's cool when someone has little projects and it doesn't make you feel envious, just glad for them.

her boyfriend is nice, seems a little trodden down, like a lot of depression under the surface. not like me, wearing my depression right on my dumb face. he seems kind of your average sort of intellectual composting seattle young guy, nothing outright offensive about his character. also seems like he has a few big ideas tucked away, again, diy things, projects he wants to work on if the universe ever found a way to give him the time and money to do it. seems like the kind of guy who likes hiking but gets bored of it after a while. stuck in the same kind of situation as annie (and myself, to some degree), works as a line cook, or probably any kind of cook he wishes to be depending on where he wants to work. never making enough money. seattle is so highly saturated with restaurants, becoming a chef seems like something you could slip into easily if you're drawn towards food at all.

by the way, when did money get so stupidly important? sometimes all i can ever talk about is money, and i just hate the stuff. the only times i care about money are when i see my friends talking about needing investors to get their dreams started. or when i see those preschoolers at the park and start thinking about my own future kids and the opportunities i could give to them. or when i see the waterfront here and get a huge wanderlust boner, half wishing i could hit a reset button and grow up all over again in another part of the country, try to do it better than i did already. it really makes me seriously consider going all-in on a pure money-making job. i told annie i spend all of my money on my friends, and hearing stories and having so many talented broke people in my life really makes me wish i could help. i wanna finance things and put my eggs in every else's basket (which could easily lead to me like, losing everything, but it's just the kind of person i am).

--

it's really weird every time i see couples squabble. it always feels like a precursor to something kind of bad, because the fights are always something that... like, they're something that you have to have been working at for a while. like your personalities have to be grinding up against each other for long enough for little things to really start driving you crazy. like when one person has the day off and doesn't do the dishes, which is something my boss literally complained to me about her husband the other day. small deal things that get amplified by feelings that have nothing to do with whatever it is and become Very Sizable Deals. i can't tell if annie has a bad temper or if there's just like a vague upsettedness bleeding into places where it doesn't really belong. we talked a lot about our careers and life goals at lunch and there's a lot of frustration there on both ends. probably a lot of people our age feel that way, feet stuck in the mud.

i hope it's some comfort to annie that i still really look up to her in a lot of ways, and in my eyes, she really has accomplished a great deal. i do still look to her as a mentor, even though that part of our relationship is still in development. really bummed i couldn't get to work with her the other day, i wanted to see what she was like in her element. i wanted to see what would make her raise her eyebrows about what i do in the kitchen and show me Her Way of doing it. she's just threatening enough to be a good teacher, i think. and she's had enough bad mentors to know what to avoid when she's consciously in that zone. i'm bummed!

i sometimes wonder what it would be like if we ever got together, during that minute we had the hots for each other. either she would have shaped up to be a very different person or i would have. i think she made right decisions, and she dated guys that could show her things i couldn't have, experiences and hobbies and new passions and friend networks and generally stuff that intimidates me entirely. like going to bars and shows, or being handy with a screwdriver. maybe it's just my low self esteem talking again, but i'm glad i didn't have the chance to drag her down.

i still want to be a better person, i just live a very slow life. half the things i discover make me feel like a newborn baby, i've spent so long isolated in my own head. i can't even really appreciate seattle in the Big Picture sense because i get caught up on really stupid small

details with such bright eyes. like when i was trying to cross the street and the crosswalk sign kept audibly telling me "wait!...wait!...wait!" and then when it was time to walk, it started playing what seemed to me like the beginning of a techno song. people back at home are going to be so disappointed when i tell them the story of the techno crosswalk sign, but those are honestly the things i paid attention to. i guess i get a really limited sense of seattle by noticing those sorts of things, i'm not gonna be able to tell people what seattle is like with any accuracy. i hope people don't ask about the trip too much. i'm failing miserably at taking enough pictures to accurately portray the place so that i don't have to explain it...

i act so idiotically flippant with money when i travel. i literally throw it in the garbage. i'm not like, a wealthy dude or anything, i just stop paying attention to prices when i'm "vacationing," and i let future me worry about it. i wonder if that leaves a sour impression in people's mouths, that i spend money like it's poisonous to me and constantly say stuff like "don't worry about it" when people tell me something's expensive. who am i, the great gatsby?? mediocre gatsby maybe. the truth is i'm just so violently eager to treat people to something nice when i have the opportunity, and i never want to spend on myself. i desire so little, and i only really value companionship and love and dumb poetic things like mountain views and puns in barbershop windows ("y'all comb back now, ya hair?!"). i hope i don't come off as a huge cunt, anyway.

i should probably walk back to the hotel now. need to remember to take pictures of oddfellows in case people ask about it. it's been giving me an inordinate amount of anxiety for some reason.

--

stopped at the bookstore at oddfellows walking out, why the heck wasn't i shown this before? took a peek at the cookbooks, they all seemed really good quality, unlike the ones you find at half price books, and in the poetry and fiction section, i started to notice all these little tabs on the shelves; they were notes written by (other customers? seemingly) who wanted to promote the books they had read. it made my fucking english major heart melt. look! there is still a place where people are excited about reading! maybe i'm just really sheltered and these places are all over, but it was the first time i came across it. i guess i've seen employee recommendations at barnes and noble back in the day, but this was a different level of adorable. anyway i got really horny for reading and spent 90 bucks on books.

and a tote bag. i don't know what it is about seattle, but i've been feeling like a huge asshole when i don't have a tote bag with me. i went to the grocery store for snacks and was really miserable when they asked "if i needed a bag." there's only one grocery store in columbus that i've been to that really expects you to bring your own bag, and i always dismissed it for just being in a self-righteous neighborhood. but i get the impression that most of seattle is pretty eco-friendly, or uh eco-award, so i feel like a real sore thumb when i go around like your average terrible human.

maybe i just don't walk often enough, but i've found myself very much in disagreement with about half of the crosswalk signals i've come across today. it's comforting seeing that just about everyone else out on the streets shares this view; i witnessed a great deal of jaywalking today and committed it quite a few times myself. walking around all day really kind of inspires me to do the same in my own city. i'm always complaining that i've lived in columbus all my life yet i've experienced so little of it. maybe that's what it takes, a long walk in a neighborhood that isn't my own. poke my head into a restaurant or antique parlor every now and then. the areas i've lived in are not very friendly to walkers. i used to get threatened walking home from high school, back when skinny jeans were popular. some people are just really, really not a fan of skinny jeans, for reasons i don't really wish to decipher

[jaxxonpollux]

intimacy

i’ve been thinking a lot about lifestyle choices, or what can even be thought of as “character choices,” things i’ve done during my lifetime that define the kind of person that i am. i mean, what else is there to think about, really, when you live the kind of life i do? it’s a constant reflection, second-guessing, looking at the world as if you’re an outsider, living inside my own head, etc. same old bullshit, but that’s what happens when you’re alone so often. you scrutinize. you wonder what went wrong, where it went wrong. i heard this a few days ago (and have experienced it myself!) that when you’re with other people, your personality changes. you find enjoyment in things you normally wouldn’t, you have conversations you don’t think about when you’re alone, you act differently. wear a different skin. and this same source said that when you happen to dislike yourself, you find comfort in this same phenomenon, because you can kind of like, play a different part. let loose a part of your personality that doesn’t make sense when you’re by yourself. this i do also partially agree with, though i have also been with people that inspire absolutely nothing new from me, and thus are subjected to my horribly boring, domestic eeyore self.

anyway, that being said, i often wonder about relationships i’ve been in, not so much about what went wrong, but things that happened in the aftermath. some relationships are just wipe-of-the-hands done, nothing left to examine. i was 14 and it just didn’t work out, whatever. other times i check in on people and see where they are now, see how they’ve changed since the last time i knew them (and oftentimes wonder if they’d get along with me better with me nowadays). and i don’t know. it’s hard wondering about that kind of stuff. 

i still do think about vivien a lot, though not in the same way i used to. i don’t really know how or why. i wanted to call her the other night, and came very close to doing so, but realized i didn’t really want to talk to her. i just wanted to see if she would answer. i feel like i’m still awaiting a reply, and therefore don’t really have anything more to say. i don’t want to share my life anymore with someone that makes me feel so alone at times, like i’m talking into a void, sharing my best ideas and all of my writing and then never receiving anything in return. it’s not that different from writing here in a journal actually, except here i don’t have to expect anything. i did goof up with vivien somewhere, and it’s hard to wonder about that kind of stuff. 

she’s still an enigma to me, in some ways, and i know for sure i am to her as well. she told me so herself, that first night we were together in miami. she had no idea who i was or what i wanted, and i guess she was frustrated by it. she was probably a little drunk, but i do believe it’s something she at least thought about. i feel the same way about her, too. another one of our twin flame things, i guess, being completely indecipherable. and it’s strange too, because i feel like i’m an open book with just about everybody, but i must be written in latin or something. i share stuff, but none of the like, important stuff. like what i want out of life and whatnot. those sorts of things are even difficult for me to articulate, to be honest. i love telling stories, and talking about movies, things that i like, books that i read, fantasies i’ve had, dreams i’ve dreamt. i love showing what i accomplished in a day, explaining why i liked the porno video i watched, picking out my favorite details in a person’s face or walk or speech. and i guess those things don’t amount to anything when people try to figure out the kind of person i am or who i’m trying to be. i speak only in poetics. i’ve never thought about who i am in plain terms, and i always just hope someone else can figure it out for themselves. i’ve failed to define myself so many times, and i’m kind of open to suggestions at this point. tell me what career i’m really fit for. buy me a hat you’d think would look fetching on me.

side note, i did see a woman at the grocery store today, her name is jess, she used to come into the cafe when i worked there. i had a little bit of a crush on her, like the shallow kind, like she was very beautiful and seemed nice and like she had a lot to her and it was appealing to me. and she was there at the grocery store checking out with her baby in a stroller, and her husband (boyfriend?) who, to me, looked like a complete idiot, like he had both his ears pierced and was wearing sunglasses indoors and was in all black clothes... like he was still really hung up on looking cool, as a grown up man with a child. i don’t know why i’m so malicious about stuff like that. i don’t know if it’s like some vague sense of jealousy or if i’m just really disgusted by what i assume to be vanity... anyway i digress! the point is, i had myself a little daydream that i was that guy instead, and she had some well-paying corporate job, and i was the stay at home dad... it’s really silly sounding, especially the way i constructed this paragraph. looking down on the boyfriend and then immediately after imagining myself in his place. why do i do that? i do it a lot too, it’s like something you always hear about girls doing, eyeing their competition up and down and stuff when they meet another girl with a boyfriend. it must be like, really primal.

i do think it says something about me that daydream about being a stay at home dad, though. i just think at this point, it’s the role that makes the most sense. i don’t really have any ambitions when it comes to my career, only that i want to make enough money to advance through my dang life, and that’s about the end of it. and i’m certainly not achieving that as a baker, even though baking is something i really do enjoy; it’s just that the part i enjoy about it is completely devoid from the job i’m doing right now. i want to care for people, feed people, make special things and have people say “wow! this is so lovely. thank you.” i want my cooking to have a purpose, or to be recognized. i don’t want it to just be a price tag. “well, you made 2000 donuts today and we made x-thousand dollars. yay for the company! this money shall go to something completely unknown! and you will never see the faces of the people you made food for! huzzah!” at least if i was taking care of a kid, i mean, sure, kids grow up all the time being unappreciative of what their parents did for them, but at least i’d know it was amounting to something. and it would show, in little moments throughout their life, when i could go “i sure did right by taking to science camp that one year,” or whatever. or the bad version “where did i go wrong with you?!” at least it’s something to work at. i would probably be one of those parents “well we got it right with the second one, at least!” hah

and as a stay at home dad, i’m not thinking about career ideas. it’s no longer a concern. they call those “hobbies,” and man oh man i could sure cook up some powerful hobbies. and i would no longer be hire-able after like, ten years, but i’ll be well-versed in a good couple of things, i assure you. and i would care for my hard-working wife, great and powerful wife, and i would be powerful in my own ways too. i’d only worry that someday she wished she were in my shoes, and i in hers. maybe we’d both work to some degree. it’s hard to think about

and then i think about that whole “live in a rv and travel around the country and work only from my laptop” kind of life. and it sounds fun, but i would need a stable career from my laptop, which is like, not really something i can conceive of at this point in my life, being a baker and all. like i’d probably eventually grow comfortable with bathing out of a bucket after the first few weeks, but i know it becomes real draining after a while, being a wanderer. i’d get bags under my eyes. and i’m not a very good bohemian, i feel like that’s something you have to pick up in middle school or high school, or some other formative year.

none of this is stuff i actually wanted to write about! it just happened! i wanted to write about intimacy. i read today that intimacy isn’t really about sex, or even love, or any kind of physicality. it’s about being able to tell the truth to someone, tell them truths about you and have them say “i accept you. it’s ok. and i’m going to protect your truths.” deep dark secrets, as vivien and i used to say. we always promised we would pick a day and then on that day tell each other all of our deep dark secrets. she always seemed like she had a shotgun of stories to that effect, and even though i too promised to tell mine, i can’t think of what they would be, off the top of my head. it’s another one of those things people just have to figure out about me, what my deep dark secrets are. probably the most alarming things about me aren’t things i think of as secrets, because i always think of apparently tame things like stories about my drunk dad, or how i hate and love my brother at the same time, how i used to masturbate with strangers on the internet when i was like, 15. stuff like that.

she would always tell me things that were probably supposed to alarm me and didn’t. i don’t know if that made her concerned, or pleasantly surprised, or just disappointed or what. i like to think that it made her feel accepted, and i think it did the first few times at least! like she’d be telling me she felt like a wreck, and i’d be patting her on the back and offering to get her a diet coke. i did try to do the best i could, and most of the things she told me genuinely didn’t bother me during the times she told me. none of it stopped me from wanting to get to know her. i really do crave intimacy. i think i just go about it the wrong way. i accept people hoping to be accepted and end up feeling rejected. that’s a pretty regular cycle in relationships, i think, like it’s a major factor why regular people have intimacy or commitment issues, right? anyway

i feel like i did fuck up somewhere along the line. like maybe i said something that gave her the impression she really couldn’t trust me after all, wanted to distance herself from me. maybe i talked about her too much to other people, people tend to get upset when it feels like you’re talking about them behind their back. even though i was merely infatuated and never said a negative thing about her. i really do admire things about her, and the only times i’ve ever felt any malice is during the times when she stopped talking to me and made me feel hurt. but even then i never turned around and told the nearest person she was a bitch or anything. people at work still think she’s “my girlfriend,” even though we haven’t spoken in months, and i only called her that as a white lie because i didn’t know how else to refer to her at the time. but anyway, i do think being a gossipy little bastard bothered her, and she stopped wanting to share stories with me...

or maybe she was genuinely afraid i’d finally find out something about her that i wouldn’t be able to take. which is hard for me to picture, knowing what she’s already told me, and knowing that people grow and change all the time. like, most deep dark secrets require a context. certain things might bother me more if i was like, her husband, or other things would bother me less if i knew she was only a kid at the time. or if it’s something i think i would do in her situation. i don’t like playing therapist too, i think that had something to do with it, like i wouldn’t try to make her explain things she’s been or done. just hear it and move on, like a confession booth. have her say a few hail mary’s and all is forgiven. maybe that was wrong too. maybe she needed someone to tell her how fucked up she is and here’s how to change it. or maybe she wants to be with somebody more fucked up than she is (i mean, i’m fucked up, but again, in kind of difficult ways). i do think she had the impression that i’m really put together (which i’m not). she always used to say i seemed very clean. like untarnished, or something. i’m sure my life seems really simple from the outside, really solid and Just Fine, but internally i’m always struggling from the inside. i’m always so unhappy, always pining, always wondering, always trying to figure out what’s wrong. i could be bipolar or something, but i’m highly dismissive of any self-diagnoses like that. i don’t want to be the kind of person that organizes my life around disorders, lives by disorders, relies on disorders. i feel like that’s a big trap, and i’m probably naive, but it’s the right choice for me. and i think i’m just naive, maybe. she’s also told me i was an “old soul,” and of that i’m also not always convinced. sometimes i feel like quite a young soul. i feel like i’m gonna get dumped by a woman when i’m 65 and it’ll be something i’ve never experienced before.

i kinda need to backup on that last sentence, it’s a thought i had in the shower that came after a great deal of other thoughts. what i mean is, i do feel like i’ve missed out on a lot of relationship stuff, like i’ve never had someone cheat on me, for example, and if i’m ever an old man and it happens to me, i can only hope something like maturity or a sense of humor cushions me from being too hurt by it. like, when a teenager gets into a pickle like that, they just go ballistic with emotions and it’s hard to come back from. i still have yet to experience the very highs and lows of a relationship, and i really do yearn. i want to know what a 5+ year committed relationship feels like. arguing over groceries. feeling like they don’t love you anymore. jogging together or buying a house together. helping the kids take a bath. being comfortable with sleeping in the same bed with someone. right now in my life, i tell myself “i would LOVE to be with the same person, forever,” and i want to live to a point where i can prove if that’s actually how i truly feel. i’m at a really weird spot right now, where i look at all relationships like a visitor from outside of time and space, just watching, knowing i could never be a part of it. really kind of hopeless and dismissive that i’ll ever be with anyone again, and putting very little effort into doing whatever the fuck i’m supposed to be doing. picking up chicks in a bar, i guess. making a really impressive tinder profile, growing my hair back, being an extremely eligible bachelor, somehow. it’s exhausting to think about, trying to figure out how to attract people, i’ve so given up on the whole idea. vivien was the closest i’ve been in a long time. kinda made me feel like maybe i was a little bit eligible after all. she yanked me out of the swamp a few inches, but i’m sinking back again. and it sucks. i really need to go to bed

[jaxxonpollux]

[jaxxonpollux]

notes for vivien during her whatever of whatever v3

hey pee brain

writing here makes me feel less bitter, and it helps me maintain some level aloofness i think. moreso than calling you twice a day and pining away like a ghost wife that passed away out on the cliffs, the moors or whatever, waiting for her sailor soldier husband to return. i know you're a sweetheart but sometimes you're a real pain in the butt too. a real heck and a half. and i'm not like, dumb. i know what busy is and i know phone calls can still be squeezed in even then, but business and time are never really the problem when this stuff happens. i know i don't make myself very easy to talk to, being a sassy emotional sack of old balls and all that, so i wouldn't expect you to either. just enjoy being where you are and living a big life again and i'll watch your cute butt as you leave the room.

that's like a real mad men thing to think and say huh? "boy oh boy i sure do love to see her leave a room!" even when you dress it up and disguise it, it still sounds piggish. something joan would narrow her eyes at, or at the very least give like that phony 1960s "i'll take that as a compliment, you dumb pig man" smile.

i don't know why i feel bitter. god why do i have my ceiling fan on? i'm freezing, it's been in the 50s here. anyway, i don't know why i feel bitter. it's a gross feeling, it really does make me feel like a ghost wife, like just haunting you from the past and trying to drag you back into the deep black water. very selkie actually. it's loneliness doing its evil things and whispering in ears and gnawing on hearts and making me reach out my ugly haunted hand and trying to either have you pull me out of the afterlife or pull you back in. i just spelt gnawing as "knawing," and it doesn't say that it's a typo, is this some secret alt word i've discovered? some special 4am word?

knaw

Verb

(third-person singular simple present knaws, present participle knawing, simple past and past participle knawed)

Archaic spelling of gnaw.

Verb

(third-person singular simple present knaws, present participle knawing, simple past knawed, past participle knawn)

Eye dialect spelling of know.

what the hell is eye dialect? it sounds like when people talk with their eyes "her mouth says no, but her eyes say YES"

"her mouth says no, but her eyes say KNAW"

or basil's wife perhaps, "oh i knaaawr." you gotta slap an r at the end there because they're british. anyway

writing gets real out of hand real fast at 4am y'know. and i'm writing this on my phone too, what kind of sick fuck writes his autobiography on his phone? that sounds like the kind of thing b would do, but i don't have any business knowing the kinds of things b would do

is there anything i actually wanted to say? i've been buying and drinking wines like a madman. i drank half a bottle in an afternoon when i was trying a new wine and my mom goes "that's a LOT of trying!" like not really tho. wine is a trap cuz you gotta drink it freshly corked or else you're fucked. you gotta share wine, i'm always trying to coax my mom into a glass or two so i don't feel stupid drinking it all by myself. i feel like how my mom used to describe my grandma (on my dad's side), taking her wine medicine every day because "it's healthy" or whatever. i really don't drink like that. i actually forget that there's alcohol in there because it never occurs to me. i've still never been drunk. i was possibly tipsy when we had two bottles in miami and we were sitting out on the smoking bench together, but even then i was just slightly louder and happy.

i've tried merlot, pinot noir, pinot grig, rose, sauvignon blanc, "laurel blanc," chardonnay and i've got a riesling on the way, stashed someplace. i feel such like a stereotypical college early 20s girl when i drink wine, like hmmm like the thing where they order fancy tasty alcoholic drinks at bars and stuff? where they can't taste the alcohol at all and get wasted really easily? not that i'm over here getting wasted, but i mean that i'm picky about flavors, like sometimes wine to me is just bad-tasting grape juice that burns a little and makes you want to burp. i popped open a chardonnay yesterday and the intense oaky "full-bodied" flavor kind of offends me. at the end of the day, i'm still just a real soda jerk at heart, like i wanna drink things that taste good. sugary snacks and orange juice and stuff. sarsparilla. wine tastes bad in comparison to most other beverages (like, let's just be real here for a second, all alcohol tastes worse than a sprite), but makes me feel more sophisticated is all, and i already drink bitter black teas to fill that niche in my life.

i'm more just drinking all these different wines to take a peek into a life i don't live, i think. try to understand people i know that drink wine a little better. i wrote about this before, getting to know you through the back door? watching abfab and fawlty towers and reading swamplandia, following in your footsteps, inching my way through the path you hacked through the jungle. like that scarjo alien movie (another example), living in your skin. why is it so impossible for me to talk about getting to know you without diving into some creepy stalker persona? i don't get it. i must be naive to my own creepiness. i have been called "a creeper," but only once in middle school, and i don't think i was doing anything creepy at the time. just standing somewhere looking sad and emo probably. people just called each other creepers back then left and right. it really is a hurtful term, considering i still vaguely remember it

anyway, i have no idea what you're doing in new york, why you're doing foot stuff with strangers, who you're hanging out with, how long you'll be there, why you can't ever think about me or call me or have any space in your life or in your thoughts for me and i have no idea why everything is so difficult and i have no idea about divorce or wine or new york in general really. and i'm just always over here baking 50 loaves of bread and 600 chocolate bavarians and dumping rainbow sprinkles and maraschino cherries into bowls and putting 350, 850, 1100 pieces of flourless chocolate cake on plates over and over again and checking instagram every time i walk through the halls because it's the only way i know you're not dead. and i know you're awake at 4am when i'm walking into work and i miss you and think of you then, when we're the only souls up at that hour, but then you get like 7 likes on your 4am instagram post and i realize that's actually bullshit and yeah. i'm a dumb jealous bitch, but only like, a little bit, and every person that comments on your instastuff i just imagine that it's somebody that lives in new york and is in your entourage and is more important to you and more interesting than i ever was and i should really just keep dumb mouth shut about everything.

i warned you i was a boring boy, and i warned myself too. you're out there living big again, cool people dragging you into cool big city cocaine club experiences, swapping stick and pokes and fur jackets and call girl stories, writing novels and shooting music videos and hosting parties where you get to avoid your guests and be in the vip back room... (my imagination is endless you see!)

and i'm like a dumb ducking small town country hick boy pining and sending senpai-notice-me pictures of rice krispy treats as if it's anything to sneeze at (it isn't), pretending like my baking or my pictures of clouds or cats is worth anything in your life, because i'm just fumbling and grasping at straws and presenting them to you, like hey look at these straws eh? pretty neat eh? wanna go out with me? i feel like that picture of that kid holding a bunch of roses out to rihanna. a reference which is apparently too dated to show up on google images, grumble

speaking of baking, i went to this japanese bakery the other day to inquire about a job opening and the girl there, well first of all it's really cute because all the girls there wear brown berets and brown overalls, but anyway the girl there said they have TWENTY bakers working there. TWENTY. i keep telling people this hoping for a reaction because apparently only a baker understands how bonkers this is. a small mom and pop bakery with TWENTY bakers. i mean, their stuff is pretty nice, and they do a wide variety of things, but i work at a place with three bakers and we make food for hundreds of people every day.

what else do i have to say, hmmm... i feel like i dropped the ball on the whole self-loathing thing really early, like those couple of paragraphs up there are really more of a finisher but whatever. i'm just rambling, just ranting, just stream of conscious jack kerouac jacking myself off and it's honestly just fine, i don't gotta organize this any particular way do i? nah

but like, don't take any of this stuff too seriously (but do if it makes you like feel really bad for me and miss me or whatever heh), everything is a fleeting thought or feeling nowadays, some times are better than others. some days i text you simply because i wanna share something with you and i'm thinking of you, real simple, and i don't even think about how dumb and bitter i can get, but other days i just want to give up on you and crawl back into my haunted lake and stop trying and kill myself or hurt myself or at the very least make desperate phone calls to people i used to talk to and make myself feel relevant again. but eh. what a soap opera. i like how you think YOU'RE crazy when i'm like just a pile of flesh filled with howling, howling winds, like i'm a real fucking whirlwind in here, a real wuthering heights crazy animal sex energy in here. haunting away from my creaky old miasma mansion. i'm just full of sludge, i'm the swamp and trump never drained me, turns out.

anyway, like i said don't take it too seriously, i'm ok. i'm only flexing muscles, really, but i do miss you, and probably will forever, because i don't think we'll ever be Together Like That. which is fine but it also sucks. "don't you forget about me"

hey also if you happen to read this prior to halloween, or at all, send me some songs for a playlist i'm putting together for no particular reason. i listen to it at work. i've been in a real halloweeny mood even though i never have time or any reason to dress up. but i do all the other stuff, i carve pumpkins and wear candy corn socks and do generally love the season. nobody ever sees it, but i do love the season, i just never share my love with anybody the way i wish i could. just don't send like, the marilyn manson version of i put a spell on you or whatever, unless it's really good, i didn't actually look into it.

sincerely,

from out here on the moors,

the other brian

p.s. just in case new york actually really sucks for you right now and is really not fun or exciting and you are actually feeling very rotten and lonely, i do aplogize profusely! my imagination runs too fast for me to catch up sometimes. just always missing you and always beating myself up. i hope i don't ever rub you the wrong way. https://youtu.be/UDhmnoBVYlQ

p.p.s. 11am now, just wanna say i stand by this big black chunk of coal letter, except i didn't want it to be quite so angry and bitter. your business is your business and i'm silly for assuming i need to be included, as per, i'm really not as desperately invested as i come off. i feel stripped of a friend maybe, but not helpless hopeless careening into a black hole or anything. stay warm stay safe, i'm here when you need my brand of friend again, but i'm gonna make a concerted effort to stop prying. xo

[jaxxonpollux]

notes for vivien during her leave of absence v2

“how’s mammon crossing over, you half-breed piece of shit?”

sorry, i’m watching constantine right now and keanu reeves just said that. it smacks of our old fave “hey pee brain, can you teleport?” this is a hilarious movie! now he’s punching a devil guy in a suit using gold brass knuckles with little crosses etched into them.

again, i’m writing this for you because, well, i’ve got nothing left to do. it has been 15 days since i’ve heard from you, and apparently i’m the kind of person who cannot handle that kind of thing. it’s not as bad as it was the last time, when you were in the hospital, because now i just assume you’re in the hospital. which is horrible! i want to know your room number so i can come see you! i have the day off tomorrow, i could do it. i hate being in the dark, i just wish i had something to grasp onto. and i really do hope you’re ok and come back. i hope you didn’t hurt yourself. that’s my main worry, i didn’t do enough to prevent that, i desperately wanted you to come to me if you ever felt depressed enough to do anything. i hope nothing sent you over the edge. i hope b isn’t making things hard and miserable. and, selfishly, i hope that if you’re not talking to me, you’re not talking to anyone else either. as ugly as that sounds. i always have that gnawing in the back of my head, that i’m the only one that’s being blocked out, i did something wrong, i’m not good enough, blah blah, you have all new secret facebooks and instagrams and tumblrs that specifically avoid me. just typing that makes me feel and sound like a crazy person! you’ve told me about guys that used to be crazy over you before, like that kid in ireland who would cut off his fingers and send them to you in the mail or whatever. i mean, he had his own whole set of problems, but i wonder if this is the kind of thing that makes dudes crazy for you? just stewing in their own heads like this

i promise i won’t do anything crazy. i’m patience incarnate. i’m here when you need me. i’m not an obsessed boyfriend. i’ll be ready when you come back, if you ever come back. i’ll probably move on if lightning strikes me again, but that doesn’t happen very often. i’ll always care for you in a platonic sense, even if i’m married with 10 kids or addicted to crack cocaine out on the streets or whatever. even if i don’t talk to you again for another 10 years. 20 years. we’ve always been on this weird twin flame cycle anyway, like we happened to come into contact right when our lives were the same! and now the planets are quietly drifting out of alignment again and we’re in different places. that’s ok. i’m still here and i’ll still grow, even if i sorely miss you.

one crazy thing: i did have a weird experience with what i thought of as “your ghost,” or your energy, something along those lines. i really hope it isn’t a pisces intuition thing. i was lying in bed in the dark about five days ago, and i felt like you were there, wrapping your arms around me from behind. i could feel you and smell you, i remembered the way your bones and your breasts felt. it was like an echo. and it wasn’t a dream; it was like a shiver. that’s why i was worried it was you in ghost form, giving a hug farewell. i really hope you aren’t dead. you should have at least written me a fucking note if you’re going to be dead.

had a similar feeling the other night too, but i think it was just a very realistic sex dream, like something that gets pulled back up out of your subconscious. it’s weird how memories work that way in dreams sometimes. and then i was at work yesterday...um scooping muffin batter, i think, and i kept seeing a shadow out of the corner of my eye, and i thought “gasp, it’s vivien! trying to communicate through the astral plane!” but then i thought maybe it was just a mouse. then i thought it was just my reflection on some metal bars. this was after a long series of days of getting little to no sleep every night, so my brain was ready to go just about anywhere.

but i have been working a ton. a lot of 12+ hour days. a lot of naps. i’ve been meaning to write something like this for like a week actually, but i never got around to it. i’d constantly think of something or see something i’d want to share with you, but i’m getting sick of texting you and giving you a backlog of disjointed garbage to read, i don’t think you like that kind of thing. it’s hard to share things with someone when you’re not sure if you’re being purposefully ignored or whatever. like, i don’t want to come off as a complete fool. so a lot of vivien thoughts come and go. but every day at like, 5am, when i would be walking into work, i’d write a mental list of all the things i would tell you. dumb things, like dreams i’d have. billboards. i even got into the habit of writing in my iphone notes like you do. let’s see what i have there actually...

“michael kors bought versace for 2.1 bil”

just thought it was wacky, like a faux high end brand purchasing an actual high end brand. or maybe they’re both the same. i mean, clearly they are now

“dream about my dad strangling my old baking teacher, only to have her revive”

i actually remember this one a little bit. i was living at my old dad’s house, and found my pastry teacher dead under his bed (which is already ridiculous because he sleeps in a waterbed but anyway). when i inquired, he was sort of flippant, like “oh yeah, i woke up from a nightmare in sort of a haze and just ended up strangling her.” and my reaction to this news was like, extremely furious, like i was yelling and throwing things and saying things like “YOU CAN’T LIVE HERE” and i eventually banished him from the house, feeling very vindicated about it too. “taking out the trash,” as it were. anyway, the next day i was “getting off the schoolbus,” and i saw my pastry teacher alive and well, corralling a bunch of students. which led me to think that she was undead, like a vampire or something. then i woke up

see, i don’t know why i want to share things like this with you. usually when people tell me about their really convoluted dreams like this, i just kind of zone out. victoria has a lot of boring dreams like this, ones that don’t have anything to do with anything, they just reflect like, social anxiety or something. 

“man with man bun and skydiver clothes in wheelchair talking angrily on the phone with a trombone in his lap”

this is actually a guy i saw like, an hour ago when i was down on campus getting food for my mom and myself. i believe he’s what the tumblr kids would call “chaotic energy.” i don’t remember what he was talking about, on the phone. something about not being able to work at the tollbooth. or parking garage. shrug.

i can’t think of anything else i wanted to tell you. a lot of things have come and gone that are just stale by now. erased from my morning vivien diary. like we had a few dinners for a group called “the lions” last weekend, which is one of those clubs or guilds or whatever, like the masons. it’s just a lot of sourpuss old men, at least from the perspective of a food service professional. people complaining that they got the vegan cookie desserts instead of the Lovingly Prepared disgusting sugar free brownies i spent two days preparing, either because they sat at the wrong table, or because the idiot temp servers we hire don’t understand what dietary restriction means. then before you know it, you’re in hour 13 of the day, piling up plates full of caramel corn because for whatever reason ten tables didn’t get any desserts at all. as one girl i work with is known to say, “i don’t have answers, brian.”

i’ll write more in here as things come to me. i’ll make a concerted effort now that i have it started, anyway. i’m sure your life has still been moving on, which is good, given that you’re not hospitalized or dead! like i’m sure you’re making plans to get your stuff back from new york, live with that ogre marxist guy for a few days, yada yada. i feel bad for being upset with you that time you asked for money. i don’t want you to feel like you can’t come to me for things. i’m just...always wary of pitfalls. i wanted you to really love me, and i really didn’t want to be another guy story for the next guy. that’s just how it happens, though,  huh?

i do think about that too, way back when you told me b was using you a lot in his writing, in his stories, making characters based off of you, borrowing your experiences and such. or early on when i’d ask you to tell me about guys you’d been with, and then you’d tell me a story and in my head i’d have the guy all sorted out. like i wouldn’t know them personally, but i’d know like, what they’re about, and i’d just wrap them all up in a neat tidy package. like a chapter in a book. i hope you never tell anyone else about me, after you’ve moved on and have me all figured out. i try to avoid that kind of thing when people ask about you, i’m very vague, or find a way to drop the subject. victoria is always so frustrated because she doesn’t have anything to ridicule you about when she’s jealous, she just knows i spend a lot of time with you and i’m very defensive when it comes to talking about your character or your personality. 

it’s gonna be a tough day if i ever have to put you into a box for a girlfriend down the road, i honestly don’t know how i’ll describe you. in a way that depicts The Way We Are With Each Other, i mean. like, the details just add up in really zany ways “well, she was married to this guy in new york and had just gotten out of the loony bin when we started talking, but i knew her from this stupid website called tumblr, we talked a lot about like, dolphin handjobs and donald trump and such, oh she really liked britcoms and thought i was callous, she read my palm in a hotel room once and she was very pretty with big blue eyes and kind of walked like she was falling forward, she’s the reason why i drink wine and she was supposed to give me a tattoo but we never found the time, anyway she’s dead now, tell me about yourself!” i’ll do my best to omit you, i think. it’s probably what you’d want, just like how i’d want for myself. god, why do i keep talking like you’re dead? please don’t be dead!!! i hope you’re back for halloween at the least, i always imagined that that’s when you are at your very best

to be continued, probably

[jaxxonpollux]

“why do i always pick people that don’t want to be with me?”

this is completely cliche. i know it, probably everybody knows it. it’s something you’d hear on an episode of Degrassi, or maybe occasionally on Full House. poor Uncle Joey, let’s give him a throwaway line to say to, i don’t know, Bob Saget or twin baby Michelle so that they can monologue something heartfelt over our staple sentimental TV show score. that’s like, our thing. or, let’s have this teenager guy say this to his lady bff so she has a reason to look sad and throw herself at him. something that would never happen irl except under desperate circumstances.

and i know why i said it too. not because i truly felt it, in all honesty. i mean, i did felt some semblance of rejection from a variety of people i had spoken to or heard from or looked at in the past 24 hours, but the notion that i’m so pitiful that i’m just “picking the wrong people” and wearing blinders is kind of a a joke. i can just as readily give up on somebody as i can be obsessed with them. it’s some ugly cosmic power i have. i always allude to my vague sense of pride, and that’s a part of it, a refusal to be desperate. i’d rather be alone forever than be desperate! you don’t say things like this because you mean them.

it’s intentionally pitiful. manipulative. again, not a word that i like to wear, but it fits nice and snug around the ol’ waist. and i tap into it even during the smallest interactions. i don’t know why it’s a part of me. maybe it’s the way i was raised, maybe miasma is really a thing, and i’m just converting all of my dad’s alcoholic guilt-trip energy into something equally ugly and not yet as sinister. sometimes a conversation is like an experiment. sometimes you just say things because you wonder about the response, not to get things off your chest.

i said it and she paused for a second, and then said “i’m sorry.” like she was complicit in the crime, a #metoo with an entirely different meaning. an admission that she never wanted to be with me either. which, like, doesn’t really bother me at this point, but it’s interesting to hear people react that way. not a supportive “aw shucks pal, you’ve got the right person for you just around the corner! and besides, i love you tons, c’mere you big pile of marshmallow!”

or maybe she could just smell the manipulation. i do that too, like, when homeless people go on a tangent to explain how much of a christian they are before they ask for money. i met one guy who crossed his chest, pointed at the sky, and made a cross with his fingers all within the span of 5 seconds. it kind of made me feel like a vampire or something. anyway, when you smell a manipulation tactic, the first instinct is always repulsion, and it’s usually the one you go with. maybe that’s why she said what she said the way she said it, a casual brush away. not playing that game. it makes the whole probe kind of a dud, but that happens with probes, doesn’t it?

it’s peculiar, treating conversations like experiments. trying on personalities and characters like masks. you can’t really do that without some kind of cost. it ruins your image, to the people you don’t want to be ruining your image for. you can’t have any fun anymore! as i recently said to someone else i know. there’s no rehearsal when it comes to this kind of stuff. no rewind. you just say it and let yourself be destroyed. for science, i guess.

---

anywho, i think i’m becoming more comfortable with being an awful person. like, just letting the floodgates loose. i had a girlfriend when i was 14 who was very catty and loved to gossip, one day she said she was gonna try not to do that anymore, it made her feel bad. i begrudgingly went along. i think it destroyed the magic. and anyway it didn’t last very long, people can’t really make choices like that for themselves. i mean, maybe some people can. i don’t really know. but i’m just accepting some of those evils now and letting them boil on the stovetop. all the things i try to hide or not be. all the things i don’t want people to see when they look at me. i suppose it’s a victory for “being yourself,” isn’t it? isn’t that the ideal everyone tries to reach? or is that just another piece of teenage tv melodrama advice that doesn’t really mean anything? i saw a clip from the new spider man movies, spider man was like “you’re right, i should just be myself,” and his fat friend was like “c’mon peter, nobody wants that.” he might be right, and maybe a lot of people aren’t themselves because they know they suck.

i still feel like i don’t know who myself is. there are some people out there that spend every waking moment worrying about what other people think about them, about trying to put their best face on every day, trying to be a really good person, under the assumption that it will also make them feel good. be kind, love, and be loved. constantly wondering what the best thing to say is, and constantly drawing a blank. people like me! i feel like half the time i hear somebody i don’t have any reaction inside. it’s not that i have secret hateful thoughts that i bottle up or anything. i just have like, a lot of undeveloped land in there, somehow. i could run a kid over on his bike and shrug it off. i could be having sex with a beautiful woman and not feel a hint of arousal. my mind goes blank a lot.

or maybe i just have a lot of cellophane over certain parts of myself. does that make sense? i haven’t had the experience that required me to unpack that box there in the back. i’m sure if i actually ran over a kid, went to court, had to face their sobbing parents, got slapped around by some interrogating police officer, spent time stewing in a jail cell, my heart would be bleeding with guilt and regret. i just haven’t gotten a chance to make that mistake yet and unlock that part of myself.

or maybe when i’m faced with things that i ought to care about, a big shield pops up, a wave of protection, and everything goes blank. a sort of dissociation, which i really hate in other people when i want to know them, but maybe it’s something that i have too. like a wall of fear that doesn’t let anything in or out. it’s paralyzing, being put in a situation, and not knowing what you would do in that situation. your head doesn’t let you know the next step, so you wait there, dumb and sweating. it’s only until directly after that everything comes flowing through, kind of like that “oh, THIS is what i should have said, this is what i should have done” feeling that is so incredibly common in everybody.

or maybe i’ve just locked the front door, but the back door is still wide open. and things only get to me through specific channels, ones that i wouldn’t normally count on but are tried and true. i don’t know what i’m doing in a bed with someone, but i come alive naked in front of a webcam. i’m a wallflower at parties, unless i get a specific concoction of drugs and drinks in me that pulls everything out, wit charm guts and all. i can’t talk for shit, but i can write up a real enthralling tale. who knows what’s going on in there?

---

i feel like i’ve been trying to get to know this girl through the back door, the front door is locked. like, talking to her, when she makes herself available (scarcely), doesn’t bring me any closer to knowing her. KNOWING her, whatever the hell that means. so instead i’ve been digging around in everything she tells me she ever liked, movies she watched, books she read, things that had a profound effect on her. trying to put together machine parts and figuring out what potions were sloshed together to make her. it’s a backwards way of trying to get to know someone.

i want to get to know people by living with them. i feel like it’s the purest way, learning a person’s diet and mannerisms and how often they do the dishes. it says a lot about how someone feels inside, i think, the time they wake up for work, or the food they have for lunch. every person i’ve ever met, i wish i had gotten to live with them for a while. i want those nitty gritty details, i thrive off of them. sometimes i even want to become people for a while, like some psychotic twist on method acting. 

actually, that’s probably not true. i tried to think of why i would want to be somebody else and it’s just exhausting. and i think i only want to understand other people so i can shape myself to be the best for them, again that kind of manipulative “i’m trying my best to be perfect for you” desire. the problem is, i’m never going to figure anyone out, and even if i did, i don’t think i have the proper judgment to decide what would be best for them either. i need to figure out a better way to interact with people, clearly. letting people just be themselves and not thinking about it drives me nuts sometimes, but it’s obviously the best. i just don’t want to be one of those Men that goes through life steam rolling everyone else under whatever my personality ends up being, just being unabashedly unashamedly “myself.” that kind of person gets on my nerves too. i get the feeling some people really love that kind of person, but oh here i go again trying to decide on “kinds of people” like i’m trying on shoes.

it’s honestly a mess. maybe i’ll grow out of it. like maybe i’ll have a kid and the only person i’m allowed to be is a good dad, for the rest of my life. there’s some comfort in that, knowing who you gotta be and just committing to it. right now, i could still be anybody. i don’t know if i’m a baker or a writer. i don’t know if i’m an artist or a mindless consumer. i don’t know if i’m a bad boyfriend, a libertarian, a genderfluid fruit basket, or just a total sack of shit. and that really bothers me. i mean, obviously.

[jaxxonpollux]

notes for vivien during her leave of absence

i’m writing this mostly to talk myself down from going crazy. i don’t know what my problem is. you’d think i’d be able to handle a girl being gone for a week; and i mean, i definitely COULD, if you had said something like “hey, i’m going on a yoga retreat for a month, toodles,” not just disappeared. it’s the unknown that makes me feel nuts, like the possibilities that just bore into my head. i’ve written a mental list like a million times wondering what could have happened, trying to figure out the most likely possibility. we talked about trump. you went to do laundry. then nothing. and i definitely have a void, and i keep feeling like i should do something. write a letter. hop on a plane. call you at various times of the day (maybe you dropped your phone into the couch and just can’t find it?). 

at the same time, i do recognize how pathetic it is. it’s like, symptoms of a guy just after being dumped. sending constant affectionate support messages and all that, whiny messages. “miss you, sending my prayers! sending good energy! hope all is well” i honestly hate being that way, even if the feeling is genuine. i want to be more stoic, aloof, nonchalant, casual, not fretting and biting my nails and whining and moping and all that. maybe they’re just thoughts i should keep to myself. maybe there are a lot of things i do and say i should just keep inside. i don’t think they’re very flattering. they’re all things i wish people would do and say for me, i think, which is why i do them, kind of like a “treat others the way you’d like to be treated” mentality. it really is sorta gross. i just need to be affectionate in more subtle ways. here i am again, stuck in my own head.

i do hope you’re okay. and i hope you realize i’ll understand no matter what’s going on. even if it’s a situation that like, sucks for me, like you got back together with b or something. which is something i half expect a lot of the time anyway, even though i really don’t quite know how the two of you get along, what the story really is. i’m just always ready for it. in any case, i’m still fine with being a platonic friend, i mean, we do really get along, you have to admit that. even if we’re not meant to be together. “meant to be.” another strange term for a strange thought. i know i was thinking about stuff like that a lot before you were gone, whether or not you liked me the way i liked you. always this fear of my affection being reciprocated. or like it rapidly started to wane after i came back from miami. i don’t know.

the same thing happened with ainsley, my disney channel girlfriend? i went to see her in plano, we were stuck in bed with each other all day every day. we’d go to the museum and she’d just want to go back home and lie in bed together again. we’d go to a movie, i’d feel a little sick, and we’d leave early, go back home and lie in bed (i think the movie was the grudge 2. didn’t miss it). and we’d be in bed all day under her parents watchful eyes, it was a little embarrassing really! but i remember she had her head in my lap in the backseat when her mom was driving me back to the airport, when i was leaving. i had her listen to mad rush, by philip glass on my ipod, she nearly fell asleep. it was appropriately sad, and sweet. it was a real Boyfriend and Girlfriend thing to do. it felt like the type of scene that belonged in a normal long distance relationship, the longing creeping in just as the good part came to end. always in contact with each other, feeling as much of each other as possible while we could, so we could save the feeling until the next time.

she broke up with me about a week or two after i got back to ohio. and it makes you really reflect back on everything with like, extreme paranoia. like if she was thinking about it the entire time you were together, or if she was just putting it off and ignoring it. was she thinking about it when we had sex in the shower? was she thinking about it when she was showing me old acting videos she did as a younger teenager? at the movies? at the museum? maybe staying in bed all that time, spending all the time together that we did, the closeness, maybe it was just her saying goodbye. and that’s the kind of thing that drags around behind you for years, not the breakup. all the wonderings and questions without answers. it’s probably why i still think about her, even ten years later. just in reflection, not in a pining tortured way. but wondering what it meant for me, how it shaped me, what it really meant. another one of those “mysteries of life,” or something.

i felt like coming to miami was the beginning of something. but maybe it was the end. shows how intuitive i actually am, huh? pisces boy, head in the clouds. sweaterboy, always trying to please, never thinking of himself. at the very least, that memory of staying with you in that hotel room is gonna be with me for a long time, no matter if it was the beginning or the end. even if you decided you’re done with me, even if you’re with b again, even if you’re locked up in an insane asylum, even if your head got lopped off, even if you’re an alien and had to go back to your home planet, that weekend meant a lot to me. i don’t know how many weekends you’ve had like that with other people, probably loads, but it was special for me. and i’m gonna be in my deathbed looking at my palms, trying to remember what you told me about my lifeline being so long, or my love line disappearing into nothing.

anyway, what else should i write for you? i had to go to work in about an hour, so i have at least another hour of writing, huh. we’re getting all that focaccia ready for trump tomorrow. we also have a small plate up for about 370 people, and i have to make my “famous” giant lavash crackers for the trump thing too. apparently they split up the culinary folks into two different teams for the trump thing, since we’re all gonna be trapped in the battelle ballroom all day to prepare for it. i’m on the team headed by “chef frank,” who has been described to me as our “corporate chef,” i.e. the boss of my boss. visiting to be in the presence of the president. he’s a very judgmental, pig-headed italian man, but luckily i have an agreeable personality and kiss his ass enough that he doesn’t bother me. my coworker, however, ambyr, goes ballistic whenever she hears he’s in the building. ambyr is like one of those millenial names we were making fun of, isn’t it? jaxxon. madeighsonne. anyway, it’ll be a hell of a day on friday.

--

i finished all of mad men too. i was SO happy pete and trudy got back together, honestly just happy for trudy. i have a crush on trudy, especially late-game trudy. don’t judge me. and pete was honestly still pretty weird and pathetic, i wouldn’t have gone for it if i was her but EH. pete was doing ok with that real estate girl but he kinda botched it by being a workaholic, she had a short attention span it seemed.

what else? glen and betty was creepy and semi-sweet at the same time, as usual, with him all like “YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN MY BITCH >:)” and betty like “:) no no :)” like not really that aggressive and probably totally down for it under different circumstances. anyway, i’m sure glen died at war, and poor sally! just got dumpstered on, that was the real shame. betty just fading off into cancer town. bobby never got to grow up. harry never got to have any character development either, just stayed terrible. ken kind of turned bitter? with his eyepatch, that reminded me of you too.

and then ol’ don. kind of upset that stephanie didn’t stick around and have a whole litter of his babies or whatever, and i was half expecting don to be swept back into that traveling bohemian millionaire genius group again. instead he ended up at a hippie retreat. was the implication that don wrote that hippie coke ad? for crummy mcann? i was kind of expecting him to die tbh. shrug, well good for him, i guess. bert ghost was sorta odd, i didn’t realize don even gave a shit about bert.

and joan had a sad ending too!! oh UGH i was SOOO upset when they introduced her old man “boyfriend” like in the last few episodes, i knew it as soon as i saw him. like oh great, here comes the last minute savior for joan right at the very end of the show, what a stupid cop out. glad he was muscled out at the last second by joan’s massive business dong. she has bigger fish to fry! and then she goes and asks preggy to be a partner with her, and preggy goes and says NAH at the very end. i was like, so what the hell happened to joan then? hopefully she just got to be a millionaire the rest of her life and moved to paris or something.

preggy and what’s his face romance was sort of contrived. and a long time coming. like good for you guys, eye roll, you young idiots. who else? i guess that was everyone important. oh, yeah, roger shacked up with megan’s mom, i don’t blame him, she was pretty hot. i love a bitchy woman. roger’s daughter kinda depressed me, on that stupid hedonism hippie commune. whatever. and yeah, megan became washed up just like you said. she basically like never even acted at all when she moved out the california, that whole thing was a huge mistake.

i guess that’s all for now! mad men wise. i’m at a loss for what to watch next. i think there was some show i told myself i was gonna have YOU watch, but i can’t remember what it was now. it might’ve been something you’ve already seen.

--

i do hope i hear from you again soon, and i’m not still writing stupid posts like this a month from now. but we’ll see. i really miss talking to you. if i don’t hear from you before the weekend, i think i might just keep your birthday present here with me, for fear of it getting lost out in the world. i don’t even know if you’re in miami right now. but there’s a lot of sentimental stuff in this box, and i’m putting a lot of effort into it, because like, the plan was for you to have an ENJOYABLE birthday for a change, right? like, i thought maybe i’d order you some wine and we could watch a move over the phone and just have a regular date night, not even think about birthday stuff. and you’d just have this big box of random little surprises that i’d have spoiled you with. and it would just be nice and not a headache.

i think you’ll be 31? sorry if the number makes you cringe. honestly the attitude you have towards aging really makes no sense to me. it must be a woman thing. like, i understand feeling like you’re not fulfilling your goals on a healthy timeline, but i feel that like, every ducking day, and i don’t think that’s what bothers you. i think you just don’t wanna feel and look old right?

i’ve said it a million times, but you’re so beautiful to me, and you will still be beautiful at 31. or 35, or 45, or 99. you have all these wonderful features right now that are so attractive, your big blue eyes, your tiny blushing nose, your incredible nefertiti neck, your scrappy scarecrow straw hair. your legs and thighs are so soft and luscious and warm, your butt is full and round and really cute, you’ve got bones that point and poke out at the shoulders and elbows and things that remind me how small your upper body is. your voice is still my favorite ever. and when you get older, you’re gonna still have a lot of these things, you know? they might be different, but they’ll still be beautiful and wonderful and You, and you’ll have brand NEW features too that’ll be just as endearing. i always think of like, creepy old men staring at old women licking their lips like “mm-mm she’s a looker,” and wondering, wow, i guess an old man’s tastes really change as he grows older too. or like, they just appreciate things more, or they know what beauty looks like even when it gets kinda wrinkly and gray.

plus, knowing you, you’re gonna keep things up as high as possible for a very long time. you’re not just gonna attract older men, you’ll have like, college guys trying to climb up and mount you when you’re 60 years old. you’re gonna have the air of like, a whorehouse madam, no longer in the game but still incredibly sexy and intelligent, with every single trick still up her sleeve and too much dignity to ever use them except in extreme circumstances. smarter than any man you’ve ever encountered, and always ready to swing the dagger. you’re going to be different flavors of beautiful every decade that passes by, and i never want you to feel like getting older is a detriment. biological clock bothering you? uh i’ll come knock you up right now if that’s an issue, i’m down for it

maybe things get out of hand at 6am, i’ve been up all night. gotta get ready for work in about 20-25 minutes. please be safe, please come back. i promise not to wait forever, but you’ll always be a part of me now.

[jaxxonpollux]

this is a dog leash in my neighbor’s yard. essentially a hooked wire attached to another wire that spans across the yard; you clip your dog in, and it can run up and down along a single path ‘til its heart’s content. kind of like an updated version of a dog chain connected to a stake in the ground, the kind of ones you use for violent junkyard dogs or whatever. i always look at them kind of like a necessary evil. at first glance, you feel like it’s cruel that their dog would be confined to such a small space, or maybe they’d find it difficult to lie down comfortably, get tangled up in their own contraption, things that maybe don’t bother dogs as much as they do people. on the other hand, you tell yourself there’s probably a good reason the dog is locked up, and there are certainly worse options, like keeping your dog in a kennel or a cage all day, muzzling them, hacking off all their limbs so they can’t even move... not that that sort of thing happens! but you get what i mean, necessary evil.

back when this contraption was actually in use, my neighbor had two dogs: one big quiet black dog that could put his front legs up on the fence and let you pet him all up and down the torso, and another tiny white dog, a scrappy little guy who would incessantly bark and growl and foam at the mouth at anybody he could cast his tiny eyes on. i’m assuming he was the troublemaker and the reason for the leash machine. probably the type of dog to gnaw on the mailman’s ankles, or run out into the street to chase squirrels or cars, totally oblivious of his own stature or mortality. he always annoyed me if i was out mowing the lawn, parking my car, or visiting his friendlier, less vocal cellmate. they were both always chained up.

they were even out there during the winter, pretty much the entire time. and we have cold winters here! this is when you really started to feel bad for them, or like they’re being abused. they used to have their own little dog houses, but it’s not like they had indoor heating or anything. maybe a few pillows. i remember seeing the big black dog constantly trying to endure the harsher days in his house, sitting still and trying to ignore the wind and the chill. the little guy, i mean, he was relentless as always, like it was his job. running around in the snow, yapping, steam coming out of his mouth. the poor guy looked like he chewed at his own fur every day. maybe that’s just the kind of breed he was, but he really seemed like some crazy old man screaming at the moon. in any case, he made it hard to feel sorry for him most of the time, he always seemed like he had a vitriolic personality. like, if he were a human person in his deathbed, he would ask you to lean closer to hear his final words, only to rip off your nose with his teeth. i understand he was just trying to overcompensate for being a tiny guy, just like all tiny dogs do, but sheesh. there’s a reason i never owned dogs, i guess.

on one particularly blustery winter day, i was out in the yard and found it to be suspiciously quiet. usually that little guy would be barking at me before he could even see me, just the sound of my footsteps made him horny for hatred. this time, it was silent. i peeked over the fence and what i saw was pitiful, and somewhat alarming: the little white dog had gotten himself tangled pretty badly in the leash, which i mentioned was one of the pitfalls of such a contraption. it was somehow wrapped around his legs and body in such a way that he was suspended in midair, kicking feebly, hanging from his neck, like a failed suicide. at first, i was alarmed, thinking he was suffocating, and my instinct was to trespass into the yard and save his life; then, i had a milder thought, gosh, that must be at the very least very uncomfortable, and he probably has no strategy for getting out of that mess, being a stupid dog and all. in any case, i did jump the fence, grabbed the little guy and got to work untangling him. he didn’t bark at me. he didn’t try to bite me. he just hung there, like he was embarrassed, and probably incredibly cold. i set him down and he tried out his legs, looked at me. not with his tongue hanging out or anything, or a wagging tail. just looked at me, like he was confused, like he was sleep walking. i felt quite good about his rescue, however, and felt the urge to go knock on the neighbors door and lecture them about how i had to save their stupid dog. because honestly, the notion that their dogs were being treated cruelly had been gradually pushed to the front of my mind for a while now; my mom and i would discuss it some days, peering out the window at those poor guys in the snow. thinking, what could possibly be keeping these terrible neighbors from bringing in their dogs for the winter?

i hopped back over the fence into my yard. and like it was his cue, the little white dog started yapping again. like nothing had ever happened. i saved his lousy life and he still wanted to act like he hated me, like some breed-specific instinct just popped right back up to the surface once he saw me in less threatening location, right back on the other side of the fence. all he got from me was the biggest eyeroll he’ll ever get.

i went to the front door, confronted the neighbors. i think they were a fairly newlywed young couple, at least, that’s how i always understood it. we don’t really make effort to meet our neighbors in this neighborhood, that’s just how it is. we’ve never knocked on doors and nobody ever knocks on ours. anyway, the wife lady answered the door, and i explained to her in my humblest tone how i intervened and rescued her dog from certain death. didn’t mention anything about them being cruel or whatever. she said something like “oh, i’m sorry! thank you!” and closed the door. didn’t give me an explanation, or a preventative strategy, didn’t shower me with praise and invite me inside for cocoa or whatever the heck i expected. just and oh, okay.

it was puzzling, briefly, but interactions like this always force you into thinking a little creatively. i began to make assumptions and build a little story for myself: those are just her husbands dogs, she actually hates them! that’s why they’re outside all the time. in fact, she’s the one who went out there and strung up the poor little guy, tried to make it look like an accident, i foiled her master plan. or, maybe she was just allergic. maybe the husband’s allergic. maybe they’re both allergic. maybe the dogs have fleas or they were never potty trained or they tear up all the furniture. maybe she’s trying to have an affair with another man and doesn’t like when the dogs watch her fuck in the house. whatever the case, it seemed perfectly clear to me from her reserved response that she was the reason why the dogs were outside all the time suffering, whether she was aware of their suffering or not.

this became only clearer to me when i stopped seeing the girl around. one less car in the driveway. heard from my mom that they had gotten separated or divorced, which was really only speculation. likely true. also heard from my mom that SHE heard the husband was crazy, had serious mental problems that drove her away. also speculation. probably seeded into my mom’s brain because the neighbor guy only mowed his grass once per season, was growing a scraggly beard, rarely seen outside the house. at some point, two elderly people also moved in with him. presumably his parents. maybe he really was crazy and they were there to take care of him. or maybe he rented out a room and they were new tenants. or maybe he had a kind of revolting sex triangle thing going on with them. in any case, they stayed for about a year or two, clogging up his driveway with two or three extra cars. the dogs were inside now, almost exclusively. or maybe the big black dog died and they just keep the little guy inside. i honestly stopped paying attention. every now and then, the little yapper is outside at nighttime, without the leash, and he has another little yapper friend with him. and on the back porch, the neighbor is there, shrouded in darkness, watching them. giving them a few hours of outside air, i guess. i still don’t really know who he is or what he looks like. what his story is. all i know is he needs to mow his grass.

[jaxxonpollux]

new perspectives on loneliness

it’s important to try to stay away from your bed sometimes. i never used to be the type to spend the entire day locked away in my room, but the past few months have been exactly that. i even rearranged all of my furniture one day just to change things up, update and organize everything in a way that made more sense. pointed my bed towards the tv. put my clothes in the closet, in my bed drawers (which is astoundingly a habit i’m still keeping up!). organized, alphabetized, and filtered through all of the stuff on my bookshelf, made better use of the space in my room. there’s still some stuff to throw out. there’s still dust accumulating. but it’s a snail’s step, a healthy move inside of a swampy situation. i don’t want this room for much longer, or at least i don’t want to be trapped in it all the time, but i’m glad i fixed it.

Keep reading

[jaxxonpollux]

First Times for Second-Timers, revelations and stuff from a stay in Miami

whew, i don’t even know where to begin with this. i had half of my mood for writing this yesterday, and half of it today, so there isn’t really a single perfect time. yesterday i had the patience to write it, but hadn’t thought about the content, and today i’ve thought a lot about what i want to write, but can’t find enough willpower. writing is just one of those things you have to start doing, and you ride the cart downhill from there, i think. i really just want to recap every small detail from my trip to Miami this week, it’s not really something that should ever become cloudy in my head, because it’s honestly one of the more important events in my adult life, at least so far. i kind of want to compartmentalize this post too, just so i can make sense of it all easier. i don’t even know what blog to put this on, because i don’t think most people would even be that interested in this particular personal life experience, i kind of want to write it in a very embarrassing don draper diary “i feel like a schoolgirl” type of way (mad men is becoming a sort of language between us), and jot down mundane stupid details as well as the more important feelings and moods. i dunno y’all, we’ll see

Keep reading

[jaxxonpollux]

growing up isn’t the problem. forgetting is.

it’s kinda weird how certain things line up and just put little hints in your brain until it becomes a full-fledged feeling. like just random stuff you pay attention to during the day, it all adds up eventually and completely influences your mood, your opinions, your character. sometimes it feels like destiny the way it happens, like you’re being guided to feel a certain way so that you never forget who you are for too long. it reminds me of back when i used to be at home all summer vacation by myself, without any friends really, and eventually i’d get cooped up and feel trapped and be desperate to get out of the house; i’d always find a way to make myself feel better. i’d get on my bike and ride around early in the morning and come back and write about it, and people would read it, and it would feel better again. and there was no stopping it, my body would force me out of depression. when you’re faced with something like that, it’s odd, you always find a way back out. you always remember what’s important to you.

lately, i’ve watched a couple of movies that kinda stuck me on this path. one was this movie about this woman who was taking a vacation trip to the countryside, and the entire time she was remembering her childhood, which she clearly didn’t enjoy, but looking back on it as an adult made her see things in a completely different light. like, she was basically treated like crap by her sisters and family and classmates, with just a few glints of happiness here and there. but she just wasn’t at an age where she could appreciate what other people were going through. she tells this great story at the end about this boy who sat next to her in class, and he was kind of a shrimp, and he had no friends because he was from another school, but he would always bully her and tell her he was gonna beat her up, and refused to shake her hand even though he shook everyone else’s hand. she took it really personally, like he specifically hated her for some reason, like there was something wrong with her, and she carried that with her through her whole life. but the guy she was telling it to basically said, he wasn’t treating you that way because he specifically hated you, he was doing it because you were the person he was closest to, being that you sat right next to him in class. therefore, he could actually be himself with you, and tell you that he wouldn’t shake your hand, because he probably didn’t want to shake anyone’s hand. and he bullied you because you were the only one he could bully, and it made him feel better about being alone. i’m still trying to get my head around it really, it wasn’t originally in english so it’s harder to understand the way i’m explaining it. anyway, it’s about remembering your past lives, i guess, as an adult.

then, today at work, i don’t know, like i guess whenever there’s a pretty girl in the restaurant, some of the older indonesian guys there kind of chide me if i let them walk out the door and don’t try to flirt with them or whatever. i guess they look at me and think i’m just wasting all of these opportunities to meet pretty girls or something, especially since they have so much trouble doing it themselves here in the united states. so one of the guys tried to tell me he’s only had two girlfriends in his entire life, and he’s like some 40-something year old guy. and i told him that wasn’t that bad!! and i started to think about tried to count how many girlfriends i’ve had, and i told him i’ve only had four (which he said was a lot, man). and after that, i started thinking about each of them, my ex-girlfriends, and how different they all were…and i was thinking about the girls who could’ve been my girlfriends, or the girls who were something other than my girlfriend. and i just realized how rich my teenage years were, at least as i was remembering them right then and there. like, i was a whole other person, and i’ve already lived so many lives that came and went, so many stories i forgot i had because i haven’t lived any new stories lately. i used to belong to this entire clique of friends, all people i knew online, i used to flirt with people and have cyber sex (and have long conversations afterward, or none at all) and use my webcam and ignore people and apologize to people and call strangers i’ve never met before and spend all night just talking to them. even when i started this blog, i was a whole different person, and my blog was completely different. heck, even right now, i have a list of artists on my blog because that’s what i thought It Would Be All About, and now i have no desire to update it because it’s not what i believe anymore. it’s not really even what i use tumblr for anymore. i’m really just here out of habit, i think, or maybe i’m still trying to keep up with someone, or maybe i’m still waiting to be inspired while i reblog illustrations and old paintings. one time, i even tried to use my tumblr to get a job, and now i can’t really see myself trying that again. it’s just not who i am anymore.

i guess this whole post is just me trying to remember who i am, again. when i worked at macy’s, i was horribly upset because i stopped writing, i stopped trying to adventure, i stopped people watching, i stopped reading; i basically stopped doing everything that i thought i was all about. and when i started my new job a year ago, where i am now, i thought i was doing much better, because i was someplace i cared about and generally enjoyed doing the work i was doing because it felt like i was adding some of myself to the business. and it’s true, i like meeting new people that come into the cafe, or seeing familiar faces, even though it’s hard to break out of being a little robotic at times (when you cashier for a year, it’s pretty easy to fall into routines, muscle memory, always saying the same thing at certain times, sounding kind of scripted even if you don’t mean to. that’s one thing i kind of hate, not trying hard enough to make every encounter unique, but eh. i guess it’s better not to get to know every single customer on a personal level. i’m mostly not that interested a lot of the time). but even now, i realize i’m still not back to where i want to be. i’m still doing this thing where i go to work, and come home, and wait for work, and watch youtube videos in the meantime. and that’s my life. but all these little experiences lately have reminded me that i’m the kind of person who loves, like, being kind of a kid on the inside, reading children’s books or watching movies meant for kids. and i’m the kind of person who can go down to campus at midnight and just people-watch, and just witness stories, or make them up, and not feel like i’m missing out on college life. 

even the last girl i had a crush on, everytime i saw her, i tried to act like a different, chiller guy, because whenever i tried to be more like myself, i could feel her shying away. like i’d go on a date with her, talk about a bunch of stuff, and then come home and write her a big long rambling message (which i’ve been known to do if you ever used to talk to me online or call me on the phone), and then when she wouldn’t have much to respond to it, i’d go “ah shit, i messed up, i trying to be chatty and open and goofy, trying to have personality. scared her off.” i don’t know what kind of person she thought i was, but i just can’t let myself be so insecure that i let myself fake it like that. and i’ve mostly felt insecure because i haven’t been doing the things that make me me, you know? like, i don’t have any stories anymore, i don’t have any experiences anymore, i don’t have any cool thoughts, i don’t have anything cool to write about. i mean, i do, they’re always there, but i’m not good at thinking of them anymore. i used to never worry about what to talk about when i met new people (well that’s a lie, i actually had a list once of weird questions to ask people when we’d go out for coffee and junk, but that died away pretty quickly when i realized how crazy it was to talk to someone with a list of stupid questions. they were just intended to start dumb conversations anyhow). but i mean, i prided myself on feeling like “well, if they just gave me a chance and talked to me, they’d really like me” with just about anybody. especially when it came to talking with people on the phone, i’ve happily called people who claimed they get really anxious about phone calls and never have anything good to say and talked to them for HOURS about literally anything and had a good time. that used to be me.

lately, i’ve been trying to figure out how to move out on my own. i haven’t been focusing necessarily on like, apartment shopping as much as i’ve been trying to figure out what kind of situation i want to put myself into; do i want to live alone in a little studio apartment, or do i want to share a house with some strangers, or do want to share a house with a LOT of strangers, or?? what’s best for me, for who i am?? i’ve had some trouble figuring it out, mostly i think because i’ve had trouble figuring who i am, and who i want to be.

i still have a long way to go; like, whenever i think about possible career paths, i get depressed by all of ‘em, i just see like drabness and loneliness in all of it. but maybe i just haven’t stuck my toes in yet, maybe there are things out there that are rich and colorful and let me be myself and enhance myself and still retain all the child in me, the learner, the grower, the watcher, and it’s just something i haven’t realized yet, or something i haven’t discovered yet. i’m not there, but i hope to be someday. right now, i’m just happy that i actually looked at my bookshelf for the first time i have in a long time tonight, and i even read a little bit too. i want to write in my book again, because i haven’t written in cursive since my new job, and that used to be something really special about me, i thought.

as usual, i’m sorry this is so ugly and poorly thought-out and really really really not reader friendly, but i don’t think many people read this stuff anymore anyway. i have no idea why i was so much better at this when i was in college. i guess all i want to say is, if you feel like you’re lost in your life right now, if you feel like you don’t really have a voice or personality anymore, if you feel like you don’t really know what you want of life, it’s ok. it’s there still, somewhere. you either forgot it, or you haven’t discovered it yet. but it’s there, and you will find it eventually.

[jaxxonpollux]

poetry?

so it’s 6am and my head is throbbing and i’m like, burning cds or something to pass the time because i don’t feel like sleeping yet, and i’m just...trying to do stuff to tap into that creative side of myself that’s always dead during the day and totally alive when i’m sleep deprived and half crazy. so i’m just listening to the music i never hear anymore, i mean geez i haven’t even just listened to music in a fucking long time, i know that’s basically part of any normal person’s daily diet, but for me it just doesn’t happen. so that’s kinda nice, it gives me moods to feel and memories to dig up. but yeah, and i’m also kind of trying to read some poetry?? i used to be really big on poetry before i had a full time job and tried taking my life seriously, so i went to “the poetry foundation” website to skim around and find cool stuff to read. and it turns out most poetry sucks.

like i’ve read some really fantastic poetry, stuff that really hits my soul, stuff that makes me wanna write too. i have some on my shelf. but i realized when you try to look up Great Poetry, all you get is what can only be described as Academic Poetry. basically every one of these stupid poems just has some element that yanks you right out of it, right when you really want to get into it, when you want it to hit your soul, and then the poet has to get all Academic and throw in a word like “ragamuffin,” or refer to far off places that don’t mean a damn thing to you or most other readers, places you’ve never heard of that don’t mean a thing, and after reading poem after poem of obscure places, you kinda start to realize it’s just a trend. like you have to be a damn scholar in order to feel anything, like the poem isn’t even meant to be felt, it’s meant to be analyzed. you’re meant to put the poem in a damn classroom, bust out the history books, bust out the world map, bust out the encyclopedia and look up what “falbalas” is, what a monsoon is symbolic of in indian mythology. like??? who are you trying to impress. i don’t mean to sound insensitive, unmulticutural, but it’s honestly not even about culture. it’s about pretension, and it’s the reason so many people are so BLAH about poetry these days.

example

Say you are neither disloyal nor pilferer. And sit tight on the icons and rocks of meaning gathered from the paternal household, the talismanic counterfoils, even the fewest and smallest from the fierce storehouses of articulation and defensiveness. You will remake these goods in your own blood

this was in the category “relationships: men and women.” can you shut up??? does this even mean anything? ugh maybe i’m just impatient now, i need the poetry to be relatable. if it doesn’t resemble anything in real life, it just won’t resonate with me. i read a poem once where he described a string attached to the doorknob of his house, wrapped all around the curtains and lamps and things, and the other end was tied to his dick, and when the door was opened, a little angel would sing from his cockhead. like yeah, that made sense to me: you love your wife so much that you get horny when she comes home. not hard to figure out, definitely something i can relate to. but i don’t know. just so much of poetry is so cryptic, it can hardly be enjoyed half the time. even if i were to listen to people read these poems--like, i’ve tried to read them aloud and most of them still sound so boring and academic, i can’t imagine another reader would suddenly breath life into them, make them make sense. here’s one:

Sorrento, at night the long fingers of your orange lights Prick me in the sizzling streets, where the pinnacles Of other people ring tinny and papier-mâché. Is this the way Up to the murderous cliff? It’s most important that I get there And leave no witness. Ah, is this the majolica medallion Which marks the grave of girl abducted by a stallion Whom she gave a lump of maple sugar?

at least it sounds cool. like it would be fun to read, rolling off your tongue. but otherwise it’s kind of meaningless. i don’t know, maybe i’m harsh, but that’s just how it is.

Tom, will you let me love you in your restaurant? I will let you make me a sandwich of your invention and I will eat it and call it a carolyn sandwich. Then you will kiss my lips and taste the mayon­naise and that is how you shall love me in my restaurant

Tom, will you come to my empty beige apartment and help me set up my daybed? Yes, and I will put the screws in loosely so that when we move on it, later, it will rock like a cradle and then you will know you are my baby

this is beautiful. it’s everything you want in a poem, or the first few stanzas anyway. it doesn’t make my head gag on ragamuffin and bethlehem, it doesn’t try to be lofty and crafty. it’s just real. even if there is no tom, there is no restaurant, it’s all just a metaphor for whatever. it’s the kind of whatever i can get behind.

[jaxxonpollux]

5/9

some days i work with this other driver, jon, who is generally a pretty nice, jolly kind of guy. i probably get along better with him than anybody else there, and we always have a good time when we work together. but even though he’s like, a very polite and easy-going older dude, he has some weird undying hatred of christians for some reason. like, if there are ever any college students or religious students in the cafe studying the bible, he always gripes about it in the backroom a little bit.

yesterday after i cooked up a couple of sandwiches, i took them out to this young couple, and after i walked away, i noticed they clasped each others hands above the table and began to pray. i couldn’t help but think it was really cute and sweet to do that, just to be happy with your food, your lover, and your god all at once. i guess i understand where jon is coming from, but i think i understand christians a little better if you get what i mean.

[jaxxonpollux]

so i was just reading a tiny bit about jared fogle, that subway guy who was put in prison for making child porn or whatever. and just hearing the media refer to him as a “sex addict,” and how he has a long way to go before he can really take responsibility for his actions because he’s still justifying or minimizing his actions. which got me thinking, what does it mean to take responsibility for something like that? where do you end up after you accept what you’ve done, what kind of life are you supposed to live afterward? what do you recover into when it’s something like several pedophilic sex crimes? like it’s a little different from being maybe a drug addict, because i don’t think society ever really forgives a pedophile, they’ll never trust someone like that again. you would have to become pretty fucking humbled to recover from something like that, so humbled and so meek and so regretful that like...? i don’t even know what would be left, you’d just have to feel so sorry for the rest of your life because people will never change their mind about you.

because i feel like, if you’re a drug addict or sex addict or if you’re in some way totally destructive in some aspect of your life...your road to recovery should feel somewhat, like, fulfilling, and you’ll feel like you’re becoming a better, healthier person, and you’ll actually start to have a better life and that’ll help you ease into taking responsibility for things you fucked up in the past. like every day sober and being good to people you’ve wronged will encourage you more and more to be a better person. but like pedophilia isn’t really something you can ever take back, and i don’t think it’s something you can ever apologize for, because nobody will accept it...i don’t know, it’s weird and kind of scary, because if you’re not getting anything out of your recovery, you’ll just feel more and more frustrated and repressed and like it’s not worth it to try and change.

i feel like i’ve kinda gone through this cycle with stuff i did as a teen, fairly harmless stuff, but it didn’t make me feel like a very good person. so it’s weird thinking about someone who may never come back from that, who will only be able to keep themselves from complete depression by isolating themselves from the society until they somehow find some inner peace. somehow.

[jaxxonpollux]

4/24

i still don’t understand how dating is supposed to work for people my age. if you’re both in school and you both have part time or full time jobs, and they’re both the kinds of jobs that have wonky hours, then how are you ever supposed to put time aside for each other consistently? sometimes i feel like dating is a privilege or something, like a wealthy person’s privilege, like either a college student who doesn’t need a job because their parents pay for everything, who lives on campus and goes and does all sorts of cool things and never leaves their little campus bubble...or like, an adult with a constant 9-5 schedule who is interested in another 9-5 adult. in my mind, the 9-5 work schedule is basically like a symbolic marker of having a successful adult career. i don’t work 9-5. i work 11-4 and 4-9 and 6-2 and 2-9 and then i have one random day off sometimes.

anyway, i’ve been trying really hard to hang out with this girl, like we hung out briefly one night after work and it’s just been a ball ache any time we try to coordinate a night or afternoon or morning to hang out. not that i have any clue where to go or what to do for a date around here, but like there isn’t even the opportunity. we had a bad streak, “oh i have to go to my grandma’s funeral,” “i’m actually gonna be out of town for an art show,” and then after that i’m pretty sure she completely and utterly lost interest in me, and it feels rotten. i bought ballet tickets and invited her to go with me next week, but i don’t think she cares enough anymore to even try. i’m not really planning on pushing it too much either, the last thing i need to do is come off as a desperate chump to someone i can barely make an impression on.

i think it’s one of the reasons why i want to be back in school so badly too. just to have a chance to be around people again and maybe socialize and even do a thing or two with a girl if i’m a lucky duck.

--

that reminds me, there was some guy named JIMMY who worked with me for like???? a day??? he was a horny college freshman, he was like “uhh so a lot of like really pretty college girls come in here to eat huh??” when he went home that day, the boss told him he was “on call.” and then he was on the schedule the next week, and he didn’t show up. and then he showed up a week later to eat and he still thinks he’s “on call,” but he’s not even on the schedule anymore. he’s kind of like one of those privileged college kid types i guess, barely pays enough attention to know if he has a job or not. geez i am a bitter old man.

but it’s true, there were like??? like 90% of the people who came in today were pretty college girls. like it was unusual though, just like we had turned into a sorority or something. which is fine with me, i had lots of little cute moments, like little jokes and giggles and junk. i guess i don’t really hit on girls as a cashier, i just try to create cute moments. my favorite one is when people order orange chicken and i go “ahh i think we only have purple chicken left.” haha. see, it’s wayy too lame to be a flirt, i’m just so lovely and platonic all the time~~~

i did some binge shopping last night to feel good. which is weird because i never binge shop for clothes really. i usually do it with expensive cookies. 

--

i’ve been feeling really anxious today. but like good anxious, like “oh boy, i can’t wait to see what my schedule looks like this week! (because it’s monday)” and “oh boy, i can’t wait for that new video game thing that comes out tomorrow!” so it’s been an ok feeling day. it’s weird how one or two little things just literally make your whole day, like whenever people say that something “ruined their entire day.” just any little thing. like putting toothpaste on their toothbrush and then dropping it in the sink. it just like, sets your mood, and it rarely gets too much better or worse from whatever point you started at. before i went to work, i had a piece of toast with some butter as i was walking out the door and for some reason i was like “HMM I SHOULD DO THIS EVERY DAY” and i guess it’s because it helped put everything on a positive note. just a bit of bread and butter. wow this is boring, good thing no one follows this lol