notthepiper-blog

[notthepiper-blog]

Something More Positive

In each new relationship with someone (and I mean relationship in the general sense), I must bring into it all my awkward, distracting baggage that I haven't been able to let go of. The bad things that have happened, the pain I've endured, all my insecurities, and every unanswered question that keeps hanging around, pestering me with the potential consequences of each possible answer.

I have a lot of baggage, but I'm good at packing. I can cram all that garbage and detritus into a small, tightly sealed container and attempt to keep it concealed as I get to know a new person. Or at least, I try to.

But all the worms in that sealed, heavy can are the only things I know. Letting someone get to know me necessarily involves letting some of them out. Sometimes situations and conversations crack the seal and I struggle anxiously to keep it together.

But that's my personal struggle. I'm getting better at throwing away worms I don't care about, that never mattered. I even squish some of them outright.

But my problem is that I can't find new, fresh people. Everyone has their own baggage of course, but somehow, for me, everyone also carries around my old baggage. They've scraped up and gathered every worm I've left behind and flick them at me when I'm not looking.

Sometimes they find bullshit, other people's bullshit, and happily scooping up handfuls with one hand to gobble greedily, use the other to hurl fistfuls of shit my direction.

Fortunely, this is just a metaphor or this whole city would reek of manure and fish food. (keybo: fist food works too! Haha you're catching on to metaphors!)

I need to get back to Jesus.

I am the unfortunate focus of this hypocritical swirl of detriment. The filter between immediacy and discourse reinterprets me to suit it's own needs.

But though the translation may betray the source and tarnish it's reputation, it can't change it.

As long as the source is intact, it can stay true.

I have to find a way to use this machine to bring positive change to the world.

I really do have to be perfect somehow. It's the only way to get all the "that's so fucked ups" and "we can't do this to hims" and "this has to stops" in my head to translate to the real world.

I never read the Bible, but I think Jesus had a chat with the devil at one point. Did he convince him to stop being evil?

Nah.

But when he came down from his DMT trip he decided, "Fuck the devil. I don't need a filter."

And he got to work.

[notthepiper-blog]

Fathers

(Most of this is probably wrong. I made it all up.)

My immediate situation, ultimately, should be the most important scenario and story for me to write and find a good ending for.

But I feel lost, at the least. I feel like the world and everything is telling me I don't matter, but I also feel like nothing else should matter but me, right now. Both of those are correct.

I cared for Robert. And even the Anthonies. Drew. Varkas. Spencer. Mikey. Reagan. Woody. Eli. Chris. Cayce. Some other ones I'm forgetting right now. I know that they matter. They're important.

But I don't know if they see that, too. And why.

Mikey's the number one reason I think people need to stop having kids. Not because of anything wrong with him, but because according to his story, no one has ever wanted him. And again, according to him, he doesn't even care. 

"Does anybody miss you when you go to jail?"

"No."

"Well, don't you want someone to?"

"No, fuck everyone else. They don't want me, I don't want them."

That man is a father. (According to the story.)

Chris was also a foster kid, but from his description, had seemingly better parents. And he also doesn't really give a shit about things. He just hangs out and plays video games and tries to get laid and get high. He claims to be fine with that.

He, too, is a father.

Spencer grew up in a Mormon family. The black sheep, got stuck on heroine and outcast. He calls his parents occasionally for help, but they've given up. He's in Tucson, stuck, probably doing anything he can for some black or an oxy. He asked me for help, but I've seen his routine. He gets in a bind, and contacts every single person he knows or knew asking for help.

He is a father as well.

Cayce is not a father, but wants to be. He comes from a Christian family, and in between [stuff] and [other stuff] still claims to be Christian as if it means anything at all.

"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

"Probably back in prison."

The man can be dangerously attractive and is a much smarter conman than he would ever admit to his marks  Obviously. He could do almost anything, legit or otherwise. But his plan for getting his shit together starts with getting someone pregnant. That will be his motivation. He hopes.

Reagan, a father. Anthony 2, also a father. Eli? Him too. Jerry doesn't know it, but he's also been a father sometimes.

And of course there's Woody. For some reason I'm thinking of the cowardly lion as I write this, but maybe that's only because I'm mentioning him last. He may have his faults. The cops and high horses certainly wouldn't like him (or his character...), but he's a good man.

He puts his daughter first. Even when he can't see her. He's teaching her how to protect herself and be strong. A Woman one day, never a bitch. She has a good father. Not good like the high horses think is good. But Human good. (Again, this is all according to what they tell me - that's all I have to go by.)

Human good. We've overcome nature almost completely, gradually, over thousands of years. Millennia ago, passing on our DNA became less important than passing on knowledge. Genetics has an important role in shaping who you become. But humans are thinkers. Learners. Teachers.

Nurture. Nurture. Nurture.

We've overcome the bitch-god Nature. Stop being animals.

[I want to mention that I know nothing of these men's mates. But they have the biggest and most important and possibly hardest challenge anyone could have. I hope they have a good family themselves. They'll need help. It's too much for one person. Not with Media and Government and Church and Nature and Reason and Douchebags all telling them different things. 

God mostly stays quiet, watching silently as Man as he ponders his existence, alone under a bridge.

You're on your own, kid.]

[notthepiper-blog]

I've been stuck at Jerry's since my car went missing. I think he's been encouraging me to get out of the house in his subtle way. I leave for a bit, wander around the wash, listen for answers to come floating on the wind, and go back.

But The Wind is not particularly helpful or informative. It's a known liar, actually. But at least the air keeps moving. I let that damn breeze dry my face, as Fiona would say.

I am likely to miss the main event

If I stop to cry and complain again

So I will keep a deliberate pace

Let the damn breeze dry my face

While I don't think that music reference was deliberate on the part of The Thing, it probably applies anyway.

I still have a hard time coming up with any story that puts me as the bad guy or the target of serious malcontent. I can't think of any one person who would have valid grounds to hate me, let alone a number of people. Especially someone like Adam or Jerry or Julia who should know me best. So there must be a way for me to get to "the party," and they're trying to get me to figure it out. Otherwise, they would have asked me to go. Jerry always assures me he's my friend and keeps inviting me to stay, even when I freak out over nothing and start believing The Wind.

But that verse applies in general, even if there is no party to find. I've already explained The Party metaphor, once. With the tiny bits I heard about a year ago, I figured it might have been an actual thing, but the only way I could actually process it all is if I accept that it's not real. Metaphorical. Then I can make sense of something that is "in my head."

The main event, the party I keep missing the invite to, is my life. I've already missed my teens. My 20s. I had hoped that this year I might get it figured out and make 2018 the first year I can be proud of. But I've been stuck trying to figure out how or if that could be possible, since the real, invisible delusion refuses to reveal itself and it's imaginary impersonators spin new stories for me, attempt to trick me, and unceasingly try to convince me that I actually am completely worthless.

The reality lies somewhere in between those two, and my struggle to separate them is laughed at and exploited by all. I think. It's something I should be able to deal with. I shouldn't have to, because it's essentially abusing and exploiting mental illness, while emulating it, and encouraging the addiction that feeds it. I think.

Unfortunately I continue to receive bewildering inputs.

I head out from Jerry's again, upset at loud music and what it may hide. This should be an interesting walk, along the bike path. I feel like many people are in their back yards talking to or about me. But I can't understand what they're saying. Even if I heard one of them clearly, nothing would be explained.

As I pass a yard, I hear a man say something that may have had the word "loser" in it, and "Kelly." Then there was a SMACK. I don't know why I keep thinking snippets like that are relevant to me at all. How could he know my name, or that I was even nearby? I was being quiet as I walked the path. I don't like attention.

Then I strolled down into the wash where I can't be seen, and waited for The Wind to answer questions no one else will. What do they assuming I'm doing? Did I actually hear him say my name? What does he assume I heard and why does he assume I didn't respond? Do any of those possible assumptions connect in a logical way? It's unclear how any thought of me actually doing anything out of the ordinary right now could keep perpetuating.

Probably they go on to do something else and aren't really interested in what I'm actually doing.

But as I stand here, in the same spot where The Storm hit 5 years previous, The Wind brings me what I expect:

"Idiot!"

"Pussy!"

"Faggot!"

And of course, "Loser!"

If I stay long enough, The Wind will bring me the sounds of spitting, smacking, heavy breathing, and grunts. Which always leaves me wondering if it's me they have issues with or the people that follow me.

I never can make sense of it. I continually miss it, because they believe I understand their "talking." And they also believe they understand my "voices." But I don't understand them, and they definitely don't understand mine.

But the only voices and words that can matter need to come from a mouth and a face willing to back them up.

I think I few times I've heard Cayce today, or at least The Wind keeps reminding me of him. Another homeless guy, about my age, I met him a couple months ago, and recently Jerry agreed to let him rent the couch.

He's been missing for two days.

Last time I saw him was about half an hour before I noticed my car was gone. I think I've been hearing him, though, a confusing offering from The Wind. I don't know what that means or what he's saying or where he could be, but I think I'm supposed to know. I think I deserve to know.

But I can't know. The Wind can't tell me. The best I have is the assumption that he "borrowed" my car. And won't text me back or answer his phone.

But I just can't understand how he could have any grounds to do something like this, and anyone knowing about it not thinking he's a total douchebag. I've been trying and trying to get anyone to actually discuss any of this with me.

Because all I know about Cayce is what his face has told me. And he's either worthless scum or he has some story of me in mind that doesn't add up at all.

There's a fantasy reality where he and his respectable heroic good guy buddies can read this right now. In that dream world of privacy invasion and douchebag worship, I wonder why they think I'm so hung up on Cayce at the moment.

They probably assume I'm in love with him or just lust for him madly. Because those guys tend to be in love with themselves. I've encountered them many times.

I can think of a number of reasons why he's stuck in my head right now. Other than the obvious.

The foremost reason is that a few days ago, we got high and he was awkwardly trying to not give any indication one way or another about anything and I was awkwardly trying not to give any indication either.

But I figured out something I could say that was more important than discussing his fear/hope/expectancy of having his crotch grabbed (AKA my desire to "hit that"):

"Did the world shit on you today? I don't understand what or who you really are, but I'm trying to show you that I'm willing to be the one person out there that will believe you. Believe IN you. Because I need that too. The world shits on me all the time."

The second biggest reason I keep thinking about him (and expect my car back and the world to rethink what the fuck they're getting wrong over and over again) is that I keep trying to convince him that he deserves something more than prison.

But I deserve something more too. And it's not this. I don't know what this is. Maybe just bad luck. It can't actually be a conspiracy.

But having to choose between just accepting that people are going to take off with my car and nobody really care and having to file a police report on someone I keep trying to convince is a good guy is completely fucked up.

It's also possible that he got carried away with celebrating making a couple grand off my car and OD'd already.

As I walk back up to the house, my thoughts return to Jerry. The Wind had been talking the whole time about me and my car and my situation and Cayce, and bringing me accusations of various random crimes I would never take part in, but left me no closer to understanding anything. Now, back at Jerry's, The Wind focuses on him and his neighbors and hypothetical extra people in the house.

But The Wind reliably fails me, so I look for answers in the next logical place: Facebook memes and videos.

Someone posted a video with a story about Gossip. A man had accused his neighbor of being a thief. The neighbor, due to consequences of that rumor, eventually sued the accuser. 

I naturally assumed this was relevant to me some how. I assumed I was like the accuser.

The day before judgement, the judge instructed the man to write down everything he had ever said about the neighbor, tear it into small pieces, and toss them out the window one by one on the way back to court the next day.

He did, and when he arrived at court the next day, the judge told him to go gather up ever single piece of paper.

The man complained about the impossibility of this task. "But the wind has scattered them all over town!"

And the judge told him:

"In the same way, simple words and comments may destroy the honor of a person to such an extent that a person may not be able to fix it. If you can't speak well of someone, don't say anything at all. Let's all be masters of our mouths, so we won't be slaves of our words."

From the point of view of the accuser, but as it may apply to me, I would be thinking, "Go ahead and blame the fucking wind! It's not like you asked it to come to car and take your words and throw them all over the place. And it's not like you invited it to peel them off your screen as soon as they've left your fingers. The wind stole your thoughts and said they were accusations!"

But I remember what Judah said, about the wind. A song already important to me, but has even more significance now that The Wind is the bearer of words and voices:

You can make it better

But it takes an empire

Don't wait for fairer weather

No, make use of the wind

And then I realized, that if I am anyone in that story, I'm the neighbor being accused of being a thief. And yet here I am, still stuck, after wandering around the city for a year searching for tiny scraps of words that might explain what's actually going on.

I guess I just don't know how to use The Wind properly. And just like sex, or friends, or work, it just gets harder and harder as I struggle to catch up.

I've been wasting away. Struggling to write a story that was already written, but no one wants me to read. 

But it has to stop.

[notthepiper-blog]

If I can't find the cure, I'll fix you with my glove.

The Second Coming

The same story - Better Materials

[notthepiper-blog]

The Second Coming

The same story - Better Materials

[notthepiper-blog]

@mentally ill atheists who were told their atheism is a result of their mental illness: you’re wonderful and powerful and there’s nothing wrong with you

[notthepiper-blog]

[notthepiper-blog]

Ralph Waldo Emerson  |  @wordsnquotes

[notthepiper-blog]

Emily

I keep seeing myself in other people. I believe some of this is intentional, and some of it isn't. They're obviously aware of what they're imitating, but it's almost always a shallow reflection of someone else's issues. But I have to find a way to learn from everything, even in the worst case: when a lesson is intended. So I find my meaning and lesson in every person and situation.

Most of what I see in people, for a while now, is how they are just as fucked up as I used to be. Other people won't accept that, but I see it all the time.

Like when Poncho and his friend were running Spencer around in circles, dangling the hope of desperately craved opiates in the ever near future (not yet, but soon). Or when Mark realizes it's never going to be the same. Or when police put Robert in cuffs and he wonders if they have some ulterior motives.

"Is this politically motivated? No, it can't be that..."

But with most encounters, unless they want it to be obvious right away (and that's the superficial, not real part - you never know anyone from their own introduction), it's something you realize gradually. Sometimes only after learning more about yourself, years later.

It was probably July, 2013. Robert and I had been staying under the bridge for a couple weeks now. It was a time of stealing beer and sharing it with strangers, debating crazy conspiracies and listening to [a band] during the day, and being paranoid and telling more personal stories in the dark. It was a good time, I think.

[But it could have ALL been fake. Obviously that won't be revealed until the later chapters. It's first person limited point of view and always will be. It's my story. This is exactly what happened, as I experienced it.]

New people would show up regularly. There were lots of reasons to go to the bridge. To escape the sun, to paint, to smoke a bowl, or to get your dick sucked.

One night, a woman was dropped off in the parking lot by a man who helped unload her baggage and then took off. Her name was Emily and she needed a place to stay for the night. It was dark. It was hard to tell what she looked like. She might have been hot, although daylight would tell a different story.

I don't remember all the details, but I do remember smoking her and Robert out. And I remember she was a lingerer. She didn't seem crazy at first, but she did want to join our little camp under the bridge. Robert told me she was confused about whether or not he was her son, and her sexual advances were even more confusing. She demeaned him and talked shit about me to turn him against me. That was his story. He also mentioned she had blue waffle, which wasn't a breakfast carb with berries, but something else.

By the second or third night, we realized she was completely crazy. (Unless she was a faker, too!) Maybe I had shared too much drugs with her. Maybe she hadn't slept. Or maybe she was just too horned up and frustrated by being around Robert. But she went nuts.

Borrowing my phone, and shining a flashlight on it so she could see the keyboard, she sent out the craziest unintelligible paranoid plea for help. I wish I still had the messages. [They were on my old phone, and could really help complete this story. Can I get that back now?] It wasn't clear if she thought the government was after her or if her friends had betrayed her or she was confronting the man who raped her and other women like her.

By the time I made her give my phone back, she started ranting and yelling. We couldn't have that here, under a bridge in the middle of the night. It would attract too much attention. So we told her to go.

And she did. Dragging her bags out of the wash, screaming about liars and thieves and carrying on about who knows what the fuck.

How did she ever get so messed up? Robert said she could have been an informant, which I countered by arguing anything she says it's completely unreliable. He thought maybe the police had dropped her off.

It was more likely a Jon. Or a Jerry. Or an Adam. Someone who was willing to give her another chance, but just couldn't answer her questions.

How did she get like that? Did she have a choice? Or did a combination of factors and influences beyond her control make her like that? Did she have some dangerous bit of information that had to be buried in crazy? Did the entire world start fucking with her about an event she never found out about?

Or was it just because she had a blue waffle?

[notthepiper-blog]

I wore flip flops today. They used to be Mark's. Thanks Jerry!

[notthepiper-blog]

Forfor

[Four years ago, I was mostly homeless and lived under a bridge which ran over a wash or creek used to divert water from flash floods. The large concrete structure carried six lanes of traffic and the underside was divided into four large rectangular areas divided by three concrete walls several feet thick. These chambers were generally referred to as tunnels, and various residents would move in for a time, then move on. I was there for the better part of nine months.]

One night, Varkas and I were getting ready to crash out under the bridge, when two guys showed up. One of them held two dogs on leashes. Big dogs.

The other guy jumped on the mattress and starting throwing punches into Varkas. He brought his arms up, one of which was still in a sling after being stabbed in the arm a month earlier. I lept off of the mattress and kind of just stood there unsure of what I should do.

I knew what the fight was about. I also realized that it wasn't really fair to jump him while he's already laying down, but if I joined then there'd be another guy to contend with. And two big dogs ripping into us.

So no, I didn't back my buddy up. Fortunately he hopped up a second after me and ran out the side of the wash. After reminding me it was best for me not get involved, the two men and their dogs left.

Whether or not the attack was deserved is debatable, and can always be changed in editing. Throw in a couple misleading interviews and maybe I sold him out myself. 

Pretty sure I had warned Varkas that they were looking for him. But you can cut that part out too. Throw in some better sound effects and the punches would have been more believable.

I don't know if that story explains more to myself or someone else, but I've kind of been feeling like Varkas for quite a while. But I just have to lay there and take it. I don't know where to run. And my buddies just watch, assuming it's deserved, or too scared to join the fight.

There was another time I should have done something to help, but thought I couldn't. It was a few months earlier, again, under the bridge. Matt and Melissa, a couple with three children, one of which had been "repossessed," were living in the tunnel next to mine.

I climbed down into the wash with my bike after searching for snipes (unfinished cigarettes - not the unfindable bird). As I passed by their tunnel, I saw the following scene:

About six or seven men, most of which I recognized, and the couple's oldest son were standing around their tunnel. By the middle of the left wall laid the same mattress Varkas was later attacked on. And on top of it, Matt had Melissa pinned down, with one hand pushing down on her chest and the other pulled back in a fist.

"I told you to keep your mouth shut!" Matt yelled, and slapped her.

I froze as a passed. Several heads turned to me. Matt looked over sharply.

"You don't know what this is! Just keep walking!"

So I did. From the other side of the wall seperating our two tunnels, I stood, agonizing, trying my hardest to hear around the corner of the concrete barrier, too scared to lean around and see what was happening. There were too many people.

But they weren't getting involved. Maybe I didn't have to either.

If there ever was a time

To stand up rather than fall in line 

What sullen bones,

suddenly spineless vertebrae

It is forever

Forever will we find

This mutiny at home

[notthepiper-blog]

[notthepiper-blog]

“In short, Humanism is being good without god. It is above all an affirmation of the greatest common values we human beings have: the desire to life with dignity, to be “good.” But humanism is also a warning that we cannot afford to wait until tomorrow of until the next life to be good, because today— the short journey we get from birth to death, womb to tomb— is all we have. Humanism rejects dependence on faith, the supernatural, divine texts, resurrection, reincarnation, or anything else which we have no evidence. To put it another way, Humanists believe in life before death.”

— Good without god- Greg M. Epstein (via fit-vegan-chick)

[notthepiper-blog]

I’m not religious because...

Who needs a thousand metaphors to figure out you shouldn’t be a dick.

[notthepiper-blog]

[notthepiper-blog]

Ahh fuck it. I’m sick of seeing unrelatable shout outs.

Shout out to all those people who just accept it’s fucking shit and just try to get on with their lives knowing this. Who can laugh at themselves. Who can look at something like a conspiracy theory and be like “actually yeah that could happen, but why freak out about it?”

You don’t have to be positive to be coping.

[notthepiper-blog]