The Good Life

It's called zoochosis. It is characterized by repetitive, compulsive behaviors not normally seen in animals in the wild. These behaviors can include pacing, swaying, head-bobbing, feather plucking and self-mutilation. It is thought to be a response to the stress and frustration of captivity, as animals struggld to adapt to an environment that may deny them their natural needs. (Google AI). While common in animals held in captivity in an unnatural environment with little to no stimulation, scientists are beginning to think humans have been exhibiting similar behavior, especially since COVID. I survived COVID in almost complete isolation. I lived alone. I didn't have a job to go to. I lost all contact with friends, except for a phone call or Skype or Snapchat here and there and those eventually petered out as well. I was taking care of my dad who was quickly disappearing and succumbing to dementia at the age of 72. That only added to the isolation as my time spent with him was mostly answering the same repetitive questions, going on the same walks and errands and preparing meals for him. I had lived in the same apartment for 2 years at that point in and was already sick of the boring aesthetic, drab interior and absolutely abyssmal views from the sparse windows. I never saw the sunset. I had a tiny view of the sky in between houses, trees and the overhanging roof. The isolation got to me, whether I like to admit it or not. I never plucked out my feathers out of boredom, but repetitive, self-soothing behaviors became the norm. Mainly a combination of cigarettes, booze, Candy Crush and either music or podcasts on my headphones. Repetitive, compulsive behaviors not normally seen in nature. I didn't know how much that time perior re-shaped my brain. It accelerated a pleasure-seeking mode that I've always had. Constantly on the look out for the next hit. It started out as a candy and sugar addiction, then sodas, then cigarettes, then coffee and cigarettes, then alcohol and cigarettes. Some combination of the two. A smoke and a drink. Then smartphones came out and it was a smoke, a drink and dopamine hits in the form of a touch screen and a constant feed of games, information, photos, videos, pornography and rage bait. I've been under that spell for well over a decade. It would be easy to blame the pandemic, but the roots had taken hold long before. It all started in 2015. It got a lot worse in 2016-2017 when everything changed and hasn't been the same since. I feel like I've been in a constant state of panic and agitation since then. Perpetually waiting for the next awful, tragic, embarassing news headline that comes through the endless scroll. Whether it's another mass shooting, another police shooting, or just wathing the slow collapse of an empire. I've been slowly deprogramming my brain and re-focusing all my energy towards living a better, more fulflling life. I sit for hours staring out the windows, watching the sunset over the mountains. I make time to create for the sake of creating, not for money or attention. I write with pen and paper, just to jot down my thoughts each morning. Just for the sheer joy of feeling a pen in my hand and seeing my beautiful cursive handwriting that took years to perfect. I go for walks around my neighborhood and stop and admire all the wild lawns and gardens that people have grown. Six foot tall sunflowers and fence lines bursting with wild flowers. I stop to collect a handful of cherry tomatoes growing in one of the alleys and pop one in my mouth on the walk home and taste the sun-warmed deliciousness. I make it a point to cook or prepare or a meal every night and eat it at the table instead of on the couch in front of the TV. All of these things that come so naturally to humans, that are de-prioritized and almost stigmatized. It's so strange to sit at a bar and look down one way and then the other and see everyone staring down at their phones. It's become awkward to just sit and stare and enjoy your drink without a phone or computer in front of you. I've been going out and reading IT by Stephen King and so many people want to talk to me about it. Not in an annoying way, just curious to see if it's my first time reading it an what I think about it. I welcome the conversation becuase that book is so freaking scary! But no one ever leans over and asks what you're look at on your phone. That would be rude! All this to say that I think the zoochosis, or whatever the human equivilant is called, is over and I'm starting to feel like myself again. Not as anxious. Not nearly as depressed. I have more energy. I look forward to things. I want to leave the house and be out in the world. I look forward to work, to going to the gym, to dinner. I don't keep streaming re-runs or tv shows or movies constantly on in the background. I'm beginning to remember how 2015 felt. I saw a quote that said (okay it was a TikTok) ... "right now your future self is look at you right now in the form of a memory." So now I imagine my future self in two or three years. On a plane to Germany, remembering when I finally decided to drastically change my life and break free from the oppressive, depressing American life and create something entirely new. I've been reading through all my old blog posts. In the early summer of 2007 I was posting a lot about life in Germany and how I was mentally preparing myself to go back to life in the States. I was obviously very sad about having to leave, but excited to see my friends and settle in to the comfort and familiarity of the life I had always known and grown accustomed to. I settled in to life in America which was great at first because I didn't have to get a job right away and spent my time drinking and catching up with everyone. Then a darkness begins to creep into the writing. Fear, dread, anxiety. Crusing car culture. No walkability. Shitty food. Drinking to get drunk. No public transport. Cars everywhere. TVs everywhere. It wasn't all bad. I kept a lot of the European lifestyle habits around for a while. Then fell right back into the American dread. I guess this is what a mid-life crisis looks like. Looking back to a time when you were happiest and trying your hardest to re-capture that feeling. That exuberance that seems to only last a handful of years before the pressures of life crush you and you give up on all your dreams and just accept that this what life is. For me, it was that year in Germany and the couple of years after I got back. I've been chasing that feeling ever since. I feel like I did then now. I'm looking back at myself in 2009... taking classes at Roanoke College and Virginia Western, filling out paperwork and ticking boxes to complete my teaching certification. Living with Brett. Drinking PBR on the porch. Cooking dinner 3-4 nights a week. Trying my hardest to become a teacher and move back to Munich. I've given up on the dream of becoming a teacher, but the dream of moving back to Munich is very much alive and well and it pushes me to do better and work harder every single day. I practice German constantly. I think in German again! I'm pushing myself to be a better cook, to lose weight, to sharpen my mind and body, to experience new things and meet new people. My future self is looking back at me sitting in my sunny apartment watching the sunset with a glass of German Riesling and chuckling to herself and thinking "you did it babe."

This Must Be the Place

I've found it. The Oasis. It was here along. No trolls. No bots. No banner ads. No subscription required. Just a blank page and a blinking cursor. This is the way the internet before "social media." The Internet was always social media. That's all it was in the beginnig, just two people communicating across phone lines. This is exactly what that used to look like. I can't believe it's still here. I would never have thought to look if I hadn't noticed on my old gmail account that I had a folder named LEAH that I had made when I lived in Munich. My friend Leah and I both loved books and reading and writing and we used challenge each other to write more about our experiences in Munich. We were both from the American South and grew up in small towns where people barelt left the county, let alone the country. And to live there and actually thrive was unheard of. We were each a slice of American Pie that made us feel less homesick as we played out our parts as Ex-pats in a strange place so far from home. I clicked on the folder and read the last e-mail she ever sent me. She apologized for not responding sooner as she was in Fiji and didn't have access to email. Typical travel check-in. It seemed so necessary then to post on Flickr, Facebook, Blogspot, or wherever pre-facebook posts were made just so people back home knew that you were safe and also to humble brag about what a fucking fantastic time you're having. Anyway, she signed off her e-mail with links to her Flickr and her Blogspot. I used to check it constantly just to find out what she was up to, the facebook and instagram came along and it fell out of vogue. I clicked the link, and to my surprise it worked! I was taken straight to her old blog. The most recent ones were about her most recent travels and interactions with German culture. I kept going back and back until I found the posts about her life when I lived in Munich as well and we were all but neighbors. We grew up maybe 300 miles away from each other but became friends in Europe. Re-reading her posts, i was instantly transported back to her 5th floor apartment on Sendlinger Tor, coffee and Camel Light on the walk home. Feeling infinite, drinking champagne till dawn. Everything that is good about life was cemented in my brain that year we spent together. Everything I have done since I left in 2008 has been chasing that feeling. I know she felt it too. Every moment of that time in Munich was pure perfection and we both knew that it would and we could never get it back. After going back through all of her posts, I decided to see if my blog was still active. I typed in the original url letter for letter. Of course it was still there. Like a box of old clothes tucked away in the corner of an attic and not touch for 29 years, there it was. A perfect and untouched relic of a bygone era. It was here all along. Waiting for us to come back. Like charging your old iPod and finding it all still there. The amazing, cringy choices of a younger self, torrenting, downloading, burning, stealing a full-ass LIBRARY of music and media frozen in time. I dug and I dug, deeper and deeper until I was transported back once again to my time in Munich. I went in reverse, starting with the time I was living on Avenham with Brett and Jenny, re-aclimating to American life. Cars EVERYWHERE. Walking SUCKS. Huge grocery stores full of shitty food. No public transportation, etc. Go back further and I'm in Munich, countining down the days before I have to fly home. Lounging around the un-airconditioned apartment. Drinking beer down by the Isar. Smoking weed. (Quite possibly the happiest month of my life). Go back further and I'm in Paris walking around Jim Morrison's grave and eating chewy baguette sandwiches and drinking coffee. Go back further and I'm arriving in Munich to cloudy skies, a brand new job, a brand new apartment, two brand new roommates and a brand new life. it was there all along. (btw, this is just a blank word processor. It does not have spell check. It does not have auto-correct. AI is not predicting what I'm going to say next. This is actually a lot harder than I remember. MY hands are in muscle memory mode from when I took typing class in 8th Grade. It's a lot more satisfying than I remember. This reminds me of how good it felt to share your life with your friends and family and maybe some strangers or new friends. Free of ads, free of promoted listings. It hasn't changed! I still has the toolbar at the top with BOLD Italics and Strikethrough with the HTML code brackets around it. I love it so much! How have we not all started going back to this?! I'm going to start posting everyday! I have so much to talk about and no one to share it with! Stay tuned for more.

Apropos of blogging

When viewing my or anyone else's blog, there's an option to click the "Next Blog" button at the top. This will lead on a never-ending stream of blogs. One after the other. One person's attempts to validate his or life through documentation and publishing on the internet. I found it interesting how many of the blogs were run by women. Maybe it's not that surprising. Many of them were "mommy blogs" documenting their child's trips to the pumpkin patch or commenting on how funny or clever they can be. All of which I, and most people without kids, find extremely boring.

But why the need to share with the world. I watched a TED talk on our ever-present existence on the Internet. Particularly, what will happen to all of this content that we disperse into the digital cosmos after we die. This particular speaker suggested that in the future, we may be able to compile all of the tweets, facebook and blog posts and create a digitized version of ourselves that can interact with surviving friends and family members. You would be interacting with what the collection of random thoughts that I decide to post. The computer would anticipate my most likely responses based on the data from my on-line personae.

I write on this blog because writing is a discipline. I read and wrote and synthesized so much information in college. I had discussion with and interacted with people way smarter than me on a daily basis. This blog is a way for me to keep in the discipline or writing. Why do other people write on blogs? Who is reading all of these. I could spend a lifetime hitting the "Next Blog" button and never reach the end of the endless stream of people's daily thoughts, poems, pictures and personal anecdotes.

What's the point of attempting to document one's life as it occurs for the world to read? Tweets are now archived in the Library of Congress. But who would ever want to read some 200 million tweets that people post everyday? It would take you ten years to read all of the tweets posted in a single day. Would this provide you with a snapshot of what the entire tweeting world was doing and thinking in that one particular moment in history? I take time out of my day, often passing time at stoplights or during my lunch break at work, reading tweets. This lets me catch up on news and weather, sometimes a comedian will make me laugh or I'll find out some bit of news about a band I follow. But what will these tweets, blog posts and facebook updates look like in the future? Will anyone care?

In the future, instead of reading all the tweets anyone had ever written, there will probably be a timeline of trending topics by region around the world illustrating the important topics of the day. On January 20, 2012, there will be a speck with "Etta James" on it, indicating that people were talking about her death on Twitter that day. Of all the thousands of people that posted emotional or clever tweets about the soul singer that day, a point in a graph will be all that is left. So why do we do it? Why do we want to be a part of the endless, global, digital conversation that is the social networking world? Proof that we existed? Proof that we were clever and wanted the world to know it?

Our ancestors felt the same way we do. They painted pictures of what they were doing on the walls of caves. Given that they were nomadic hunter/gatherers, they weren't hanging a picture in their respective houses. They were documenting a part of their lives that was very important to them. "Look how clever I am! I killed an animal with a spear!" They painted it, left their signature, often a hand print, then moved on. Is this the equivalent of a tweet or a facebook post? I guess the need to leave a trace has always been there. Of course, not every member of "early man" felt like cave tweeting, just like not everyone today feels the need to Check In on Four Square or post a picture every time their baby does exactly what everybody else's baby does and pretend that it's somehow unique. Perhaps a few insecure artists afraid of disappearing into the void posted these pictures on cave walls to secure his place in the eternal cloud of data.

Carl Sagan

My brother gave me a book for Christmas by Carl Sagan. It's called "A Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark." Much of the book describes the skeptical viewpoint of extra-terrestrial abduction stories and why they have been so common in America in the last 60-70 years. A majority of the abductees describe very similar experiences. The story is so well-worn at this point that it seems contrived rather than shocking or horrifying. The person is asleep and remembers waking up feeling paralyzed. They sense a presence in their room and often see some glowing face or body hovering or near their beds. They remember levitating, being taken into a vessel and examined by several other alien-like bodies. Most often, they report their genitalia being manipulated or examined. They wake up not sure if what they remembered actually happened, sometimes with identifying marks on their bodies.

It's strange that, as I read page after page of debunked story and theory, I got chills thinking about it. I know that none of it is true, but the thought still affects me somehow. I've never had a dream or occurrence in which anything like an alien abduction happened. So why this eerie feeling? Perhaps it's not aliens that creep me out, its the fact that these people are so convinced that it actually happened that is disturbing. I've always been creeped out by the thought of mental institutions. There's something very unnerving about a collection of humanity that operates on such a different brain function than the rest of us. They're trapped inside their malfunctioning brains, haunted by synopses gone haywire, sending mixed signals and disconnected thoughts at all times of the waking day. There's always been a fear that I would be in a similar state. Having thoughts but unable to communicate. Living in perpetual fear of the voices in my head or what my brain is capable of conjuring if it stopped working properly. Living like an unattached shell of a person while all the frightening, horrible images I've encountered during my lifetime spin, unfiltered through my thoughts. My imagination left only to its own devices without reality to ground it.

The fact that there are so many reported cases is disturbing. Obviously, the thousands of reported abductions did not actually occur. What's disturbing are the sheer number of people who have reported alien abductions and the multitudes who believe that they occurred. Sagan found this equally disturbing and feared for the stability of the country. If so many people are willing to believe in alien abductions, faith-healers, psychic powers, UFOs, Jesus, angels, demons, the devil, etc. how can we progress as an enlightened people? The alien abduction story has been told over the centuries with different abductors playing basically the same role. At first it was demons, then incubi and succubi, then fairies, or angels or any other supernatural being that visited people in the night and took them away. What's strange is how, through the centuries, the abductee reports being sexually molested in some way. Sometimes claiming that they were impregnated by demon or alien sperm.

This sounds crazy to me, but so many people believe it. So many people will believe anything as long as it fits in their already-existing mind set. "I prayed to Jesus and I got better" is a common claim. So few people say "I prayed to Jesus and it got worse" which is more likely the case. So what compels people to believe in all this? Sagan writes that it's the lack of a skeptical mind and culture that exalts the supernatural. We're raised to believe in supernatural beings that do all sorts of favors for us. The tooth fairy takes are discarded teeth and rewards us monetarily. Santa Claus rewards good behavior with gifts once a year. The Easter Bunny....not quite clear on his story, but the fact is, he sneaks into your house and gives you Easter-related gifts including dyed hard-boiled eggs. Strangely enough, we're all okay as children with the idea of supernatural being breaking into our house, monitoring our moral and dental behaviors and giving us gifts. Why wouldn't we believe that aliens watch over us, have access to our house and can take us away in the night and do with us what they please?

We are indoctrinated with the supernatural and the sublime from birth and parents who teach their children to be rational and to be skeptical of all things are thought of as not letting their kids have any fun. Imagine if we spent half the time teaching children science as we do teaching the story of Christmas. The message of that story can be grasped after a single telling and yet, we are told the story every year at Christmas. The birth of Christ was miraculous and humble and he went on to do great things after being born in a barn. However, the story of the monk Gregor Mendel persistently breeding pea plants so that certain traits would appear is taught maybe once or twice in an academic career.

What happened to the Age of Enlightenment? We live in an age where information is more readily available than at any other time in history. So why are we still so in the dark? Sagan believes that people are beginning to view science as some evil force that's out to ruin people's livelihoods and religions. People fear and often hate scientists and atheists. They represent a threat to their religions and their deeply-held beliefs. They are content to believe that supernatural, heavenly beings manipulate their lives. Angels saved them from a car crash, the devil led their son to drugs, God wanted me to go to Wal-Mart. Is it easier to be a puppet of divinity than to have control over one's own life? If America is in a self-imposed dark-age where God is in control and their are agents of Satan around every corner, how are we to compete in a secular, industrialized world? People are willing to blame almost anything for the dumbing down of America, but most likely, it's religion.

Sagan has changed my views on the existence of extra-terrestrial life. Mostly through mere statistics. There's no proof, but it is more statistically likely that there is life on other planets than not. Out of 400 billion stars each with possibly 10-15 planets on each, each planet composed of roughly the same organic compounds that exist on earth, at least one of them has bred some sort of life form. I'm still not sold on whether or not that life has the capacity for intellectual thought, but I can't rule it out as a possibility. I will say this: It is far more likely that intelligent beings on other planets exist than God.

I worry that when I finally have my own classroom, I will be frustrated by the indoctrinated beliefs of the students and of the ignorance of the other teachers. I've been working in schools for a while now, and I am often shocked at things that teachers say. The majority go to church, rarely read any new literature in their respective fields, seem to care very little about what they are charged with teaching and bring up the divine in casual conversation. Perhaps all of the more-informed teachers eat alone in their classrooms poring over scientific journals or reading up on the newest developments in the Modern Language Association. Perhaps I am judging the many by the few. I for one would and often do eat lunch in my classroom, avoiding the tea-time gossip that passes between the people we trust to educate our children. More, now than ever, I feel the need to teach and to enlighten and inspire. I may end up teaching English, but mostly, I will teach children and young adults how to be free thinkers and to never accept what is sold to them without first researching and investigating the facts.

Thank you Dr. Sagan for inspiring and charging my proverbial battery. Perhaps we shall receive a message from you in the not-to-distant future via radiotelescope. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 39....

day 2

Day two of writing begins with a story of blissful sleep. I can't remember the last time I slept as well as I did last night. Even after watching a scary movie called "Insidious," which left me genuinely chilled, I slept soundly. So soundly that I woke up to my alarm and turned it off, thinking I'll just close my eyes for a few more minutes and hold Alicia close to my body then get up and start the day. I woke up at 7:40 which is what time I normally leave for work. I got dressed and Alicia helped me make breakfast and get out the door in record time.

The only reason I need to get to work exactly on time is to be there when one of my students gets off the bus. It's our daily routine and, although I'm confident he could make it to the classroom on his own, I need to be there, if only to keep appearances with the administration. Strangely, when I pulled onto Orange Avenue on a red light right turn, I almost hit a purple Scion, the same car that Alicia drives. I was listening to Panda Bear which makes for good chill out music and reminds me of living in Germany and coming home to visit for Christmas. It does not necessarily make for good driving music. It's strange how when following your own routine, others seem to fit in with that routine. I see the same handicapped bus pulling onto Elm about the same time as me. I often see a purple Chevy Nova in Vinton. There's also a tall black man walking an Irish Setter near Fallon Park Elementary every morning. The same people doing the same thing at the same time every morning.

I drank my hazelnut coffee and everything seemed to be better. I would get to work. I would feel greasy all day having not showered, but at least I wouldn't have dog vomit on my pants like I did the day before. I got to work at a little past eight and stood at the bus drop off to wait for the student. His bus was late. Really late. All of that rushing and stress for nothing. Working in Special Ed can be rewarding, but can also be incredibly frustrating and boring. The students need so much more time to do anything you want them to, and you often have to keep reminding yourself to not give up. You have to remember that there is a point to what you are doing, even though at the end of the day, it may not make a difference. They'll never be able to tell their parents what they learned or did that day. The most important part of their education is that they show up everyday. Do they make progress? Do they learn new things? It's almost impossible to tell. Some things they were able to do one day are completely absent a week later. Their behavior is erratic and unpredictable. And sometimes it feels like us teachers lie to ourselves. We tell ourselves that we are in control and that our words make an impact, but they are immune to consequence, impulse control or deeper emotions like shame and embarassment.

An opportunity came up in the form of a homebound instructor position. I jumped on it as soon as I saw the e-mail. Working with a fifth grade student at home for four hours a week. Actual teaching, actual instruction, actual conversation with a cognitive student. I miss working with regular ed students. I've been away from it for so long that sometimes I feel like a special ed student. Unable to effectively communicate, struggling to make connections with peers and forgetting what I have learned from day to day. Special ed students and teachers are the ignored, the overlooked, the pitied. I can relate to our students in so many ways. I don't pity them anymore. I relate to their isolation and I am often jealous of their blissfull ignorance. Their problems are miniscule, they smile more and get high on the little joys that life can offer. While I feel guilty for my idolatry, they seem revel in sitting in one place without concern or awareness of anything other than the present.

I do pity their parents who have to live with the impending reality of their graduation from high school at the age of 21, at which time, the duties of the state to care for them, to look after them 8 hours a day and to feed them 2 meals a day will be lifted and the burden, financially and otherwise will lay solely on them. They may pass them on to a live-in care facility, but then the financial burden becomes frighteningly high. They will never be able to live on their own or take care of themselves. Their parents will die, but the burden of their children will carry on for years after.

Alicia once told me that she won't feel ready to have children until she knows that she could love and care for a special needs child. It's a frightening thought at any age. Is anyone ever ready?

jump start the blog!

Forgiven me blogger, it's been one year, two months since my last post. I have sinned. I have taken my writing for granted. Cheated on the solace and clarity it can bring in exchange for drinks, streaming internet tv, and hundreds of other distractions, most significantly, a girlfriend. She encouraged me to start writing again. Even if it's just a little bit every day, on here or unpublished, I'm going to write more. Fuck it.

I just had a dream where I was in a college dorm and I was making out with Alicia while we were both wearing suits made of Cap'n Crunch cereal. We were eating each others suits and getting really into it. It was strange. It was if the food were sex. I can't remember any sex actually happening, but the eating was intercourse.

I haven't dreamed about the lake house in a while. My dreams have been so sporadic as my sleep has been diminished lately. It's hard to dream while drunk. The alcohol prevents you from passing the threshold into deep sleep where dreaming occurs. If I dream at all after drinking, it will happen later in the morning after the effects of the alcohol have worn off and even then, they are spare and unfulfilling. But I needed it to fall asleep. I needed it to slip away. To see how far I could fall off the face of the earth if only for a few hours, to not think anymore, to not obsess, to not feel dread.

--He woke up with the ritualistic confusion and pain that had become commonplace since the break began. His thoughts turned immediately to her. The same cycle of thought that had challenged his sleep earlier that morning. The other hotel guests were leaving their rooms and slamming their doors disaffectedly as they squinted into the late December morning, bags in hand. He curled back into the sheets and blankets and wanted so much to not feel this way. His lungs hurt from too many cigarettes and although he did not have a hangover, the sleepless night made the back of his eyes hurt.

Half a bottle of Jim Beam stood suspended in the bucket of melted ice on the bed side table. Enough clothes lay strewn around the room to give the illusion of home, although they would be packed away and all traces of his stay would be erased by the Indian couple that come to clean the room. He started thinking about what he did last night. Check in, first drink, tv, second drink, cigarette, third drink, swig from the bottle, cigarette. At that point he was having fun. Reverting back to those first few drunks as a teenager when it made you feel light-headed and careless. When, by the simple act of drinking, you could shave just a few years off your life when things could be funny without being ironic and you could act silly without feeling uncool.

He laughed to himself when he had realized what he had done after the nth drink of whiskey from the complimentary styrofoam coffee cups. He laughed at the dirtiness of it, the sheer vileness of the act. Few things he had ever conjured felt so wrong, and yet, had felt so natural when he did it.

He drifted off for the briefest flash and another door slammed and he was awake again. Those few minutes felt more refreshing than the entire night's sleep. He rolled out of bed and walked into the bathroom to take a piss. The hotel had ceiling tiles like they had in elementary school. The kind with the metal bars holding them up from which teacher hung paper jack-o-lanterns in the fall and colorful kites in the spring. He thought about poking them up just see if anyone had hidden anything elicit up there. A gun, drugs, a bag of money. He stood on the edge of the tub and lifted the tile and shards of insulation fell out, so he let it alone and just assumed that all that shit was up there anyway. He made a pot of coffee from the single-serve unit by the sink. He sat down and lit a cigarette and thought about turning on the tv, but knew it would all be shit, so he just sat there and made the effort to smoke and drink the watery coffee.

He thought about what it meant to drink alone. It's not so much drinking, but slowly digging yourself into the hole that will become sleep. There's nobody around to keep you on your toes, no reason to stay cogent with arguments with yourself. So alcohol does what it's meant to do, depresses your nervous system until there's nothing left to do but let it power down.

He opened the night stand drawer and pulled out the Gideon's Bible. It looked sad and mangled in a way. The pages were wrinkled so the front cover bowed out a little and the ink that covered the outside of the pages was splotchy. This confirmed it. He had done what he had talked about for years now. He opened to the book of Luke and the pages pulled together in clumps. The paper was so thin that his semen had drifted through the pages of all the way back to Lamentations. He closed the book and put it back in the drawer with a hint of guilt. He shook it off and lit another cigarette.

summer

I find it interesting that I write more about music and pop culture than what's going on in my own life anymore. Maybe it's because there's such a strong connection between what I'm listening to and how I feel. Finding new music makes me feel optimistic and up-beat and excited about art and creation. Unfortunately, I haven't had many thrills as far as music goes lately. Jonsi was definitely a high point as was the new Yeasayer. Then there was a lull. I postponed my emusic account and there just wasn't much music worth paying attention to. Lately, however there's been an explosion in new and exciting stuff.

Starting with the new LCD Soundsystem. I listened to "This is Happening" a few times on-line and loved it. Then watched video of them performing at Bonnaroo. Songs like "I Can Change" got stuck in my head and, of course, I had danced myself clean to "Dance Yrelf Clean" more than once. So I bought it and loved it instantly. Great for driving. He has a way of expressing hard-to-define feelings in a way that at once sounds like your dad giving you advice over a drink and like wishing you were in love with someone just do you could break up with him and return to your record collection or a drunk night of dancing for solace.

Then came Big Boi's "Sir Lucious Left Foot...The Son of Chico Dusty." I knew this one would be great. I've spent a few drunken afternoon's listening to this one on the front porch. This album is long overdue. Not just the fact that it's release was delayed almost two years, but because we've need a universally good rap album that everyone can get behind. Other than Jay-Z's new album, there hasn't been such a record that sounds immediately like an instant classic and makes you wonder how we lived without it all this time.

Then Brett bought the new Beach House album "Teen Dream." I've heard talk about Beach House for a while. I casually caught samples of their earlier stuff, but this one has definitely won me over.

Then I decided to get back on emusic to find out what I've been missing. I heard about a compilation called Broken Bells with the lead singer of The Shins, James Mercher, and Dangermouse. It's good, solid stuff. It actually sounds more like a Beck album mixed with early Shins. Good stuff all around.

Then I checked out the other "Bells" band, Sleigh Bells. I love me some dance music, and I love me some pop. I've been listening, half-jokingly, half-ironically, half earnestly, to female pop singers like Ke$ha and LaRoux. Of course, there's a certain degree of embarrassment to listening to such pop drivel. Although I've adopted a "no stigmas" attitude toward listening to music, it's still not something I'm proud of.












Sleigh Bells offers me the thrill of Crystal Castles with the pop vocals of Ke$ha with the 808's of a rap producer. It's pretty thrilling actually. It's similar to Ratatat but vocals and more concise and directed songsmith. I've spent an evening going through the indie buzz band releases and this album has been the fruit of my labors.


Music aside, it's been a pretty lazy summer. I don't have a steady job and no hope for a job in the future. I'm sad that I won't be going back to Dear Old Roanoke in the fall, but I'll also have more time to work and actually make some money rather than borrow it. It's looking more and more like I'll be subbing in the fall and finishing up my certification. I missed the deadline to sign up for the two final classes I needed and need to take one more test in order to finally get my teaching license. This doesn't surprise me much. I got so used to having no responsibilities this summer it kind of showed me that maybe I'm not ready to be in a classroom yet. Maybe it's just my way of rationalizing the fact that I fucked up and am too irresponsible to do the few little things that needed to be completed over the summer.

Fuck it. Something will come along. It always does.

Twitter and Vegetarianism

I went to the gym today and picked up a magazine to read while I worked out on the elliptical. The cover story was about Twitter and how it was changing everything. I looked through some of the articles and realized that the magazine was a bit dated (about a year old). The article explained how Twitter is becoming a more efficient way of finding new information on topics than Google. Google's search engine is based on how popular a website is. If I search for articles, I'll get the top rated or viewed web page, but not necessarily the most up-to-date.

It explained how Twitter has changed based on the way that people use it. For example, users began using the #hashtag to mark topics that are popular or in the news. The more people put the #hashtag in front of a certain topic say, #worldcup, the more it becomes a Trending Topic. Currently, the top Global Trends are all soccer players...I think. The United States Trends are Edward Scissorhands, Paul McCartney, Argentina, World Cup and BET Awards. So, simply by looking at my Twitter page, I know that these things are happening and being talked about. I click on Edward Scissorhands and learn that some ass-hole is trying to do a re-make of Edward Scissorhands with that ass-hole from the Twilight movies Robert Pattinson and that people are pretty upset about it...as they should be. I learned that Paul McCartney is streaming a live show from London to benefit HIV research/prevention. Good on him. I learned that Argentina played Mexico in the World Cup and won 3-1. And that the BET Awards are tonight.

Would I have learned all of this on cnn.com, my usual destination for news? After much searching and sorting I might have, but not as quickly. I started thinking about the ways that I could use Twitter to find out more about the world. I mean, people are efficient search engines of the internet. They spend hours looking through web articles, blogs, web sites and essays. They love to share what they find and Twitter is a great outlet for that especially when it's something that they care about. FYI: since I wrote about the BET Awards, 60 more people have tweeted about them.

I haven't eaten meat in two weeks. My mom gave me some noodle salad with tuna which I ate, but that's about it. I knew my brother would have something to say about it. Mostly concerns about health. "You should consult a doctor to make sure your body doesn't react to not having meat. You need to do some research to make sure you're getting the right vitamins." He's right about that. Not that I'm going to consult a doctor. Why would I do that? The internet is full of articles about vegetarianism. I searched "vegetarianism" on Twitter and found 5 articles about people's questions about not eating meat. Many of them concerning ethical issues and many concerning health issues. Which is better for yourself and for the world?

Many people tweeted about how they just started their vegetarianism. Silentpad3d is "Considering calling off my vegetarianism for the bird that just shat on me." DrTwitterheimer said, "My response to the claim that vegetarianism is unnatural for humans is You're right. Go out, make a weapon and butcher animals for food" One woman posted a picture of her baked rigatoni with eggplant.

Then there were the articles that people had posted. Articles published in science and health journals, breaking down the benefits for not eating meat. Ethical, environmental, health, religious and economical reasons. There are forums, support groups and tons of information on it, including petitions to stop factory farming and force the government to hold certain corporations more accountable for their butchering practices.

So, within minutes, I'm connected to the network of vegetarians out there. People who are trying it for the first day, people who treat themselves by breaking their streak and eating meat, people who think it's ridiculous and pointless, people who want to share their recipes with people. Whereas, the top three sites on a Google search were: a Wikipedia article (obviously), Goveg.com which appears to be part information part PETA-type activism (with a McCruelty logo at the top of the page), then Kidshealth.org which features a brief article on the drawbacks and benefits of raising kids on a vegetarian diet. Which yielded the better results? Which one allowed me feel more connected to other people going through the same problems, questions and temptations? It's an interesting experiment nonetheless.

Next time you want to learn something about a subject try it. Search it on Twitter, then on Google and decide which one was more helpful.

New Music

I usually post a "Top Five for the Moment" list on Facebook. When I first got on facebook, back when it was just for colleges and no one's moms and dads had profiles, I went to great lengths to post as many bands as possible. There were too many to post. So now I list five at a time.

I noticed that there's an option on iTunes where you can categorize your music by times played. It's always interesting to see which songs you've played the most. For me, it's "Plasticities" by Andrew Bird, followed by various tracks by Grizzly Bear, Passion Pit and Dirty Projectors. I've listened to "Plasticities" 79 times in a little over a month on my computer.

Brett showed me how to make a Smart Playlist that's made up of songs never been played. Currently, I have 4080 songs that I've never listened to at my computer. That's almost 45 days of solid unheard songs. I like to put it on shuffle and start knocking them off the list. But I believe it's mathematically impossible to listen to more songs than I add to my computer.

Anyways, here's my top 5 for the moment*

*now with album art!
Titus Andronicus "The Monitor"


I read about this band on emusic. The band name is taken from a Shakespeare play. They said it was inspired by the Civil War. It was about self-identity, self-loathing. I listened to a few 30 second clips and decided it was worth the 10 downloads. Added bonus: it's 65 minutes long.

I burned a copy and listened to it on the way to Middle School every morning and no matter how tired I was, it got me pumped for the day. Something about screaming "Tramps like us, baby we were born to DIIIEE!!!" on the way to teach 8th graders made life good.

I've realized it's about how much of your identity comes from where you call home. Since leaving my childhood home in Chatham, I've lived in 11 different places for more than a month. My identity has been molded by all those moves, but none so significant as living in Roanoke. It's been almost two years since I've been back from Germany. The lead singer Patrick Stickles sings about and channels his home in Newark, New Jersey and puts a lot of his home into his art. I feel like I've known the guy for years after listening to the album. So I didn't feel to nervous about asking him for a Pall Mall after his show in Charlottesvile.


Local Natives "Gorilla Manor"



If you could combine all of my favorite bands of the last two years into 45 minutes, it would sound exactly like Local Natives. Their harmonies are the best of the Beach Boys, Panda Bear, Grizzly Bear and Port O'Brien. Their drums are the dodos through and through combined with the shades of Vampire Weekend (if the drummer was a member of Greasers and not the Socs).

I listened to this album on the way to and from teaching third grade. I would put it on Track 1 in the morning and everyday, the music started lining up with my drive. Same songs in the morning, same songs in the afternoon. "Airplane" playing at the stoplight at Starkey Rd. Seeing "Wide Eyes" and banging on the steering wheel on the way home.

Yeasayer- "Odd Blood"


I greedily consumed Yeasayer. It started with a video on La Blogotechque. Them singing "Red Cave" in the Paris Metro, banging out "2080" on a piano in a loft and having 20 people crammed into a little room screaming the inscrutable chorus. Then the incredibly beautiful "Tightrope" which just an infant of a song and wouldn't be released for another 2 years on the Dark Was the Night Compilation which, after having bought All Hour Cymbals, I bought.

To say that I was looking forward to this album was an understatement. I saw them play at Bonnaroo for 45 minutes and it was, in many ways the best show of the weekend. Brett, Jenny and I, all in agreement that Bruce Springstein sucks, stood and stared at an empty stage while Bruce played "Santa Claus is Coming Tonight" 200 yards away. We watched them set up their own gear and got more and more psyched. Then they played 2080 and I became one of those lucky few to scream the chorus at the top of my lungs.

That was June. In January, I downloaded the new single "Ambling Alp" and then promptly created mix CDs to facilitate listening to that song in my car. Then I realized that if you pre-ordered the new album on vinyl, you could download it a month early. So I did. I've listened to it, I loved it, I couldn't wait to get my vinyl copy. But I had to wait. Yeasayer live in New York. New York was buried by snow for like an entire month. They couldn't ship out the albums. So I had to wait. Not long after I got my vinyl copy, Brett and I saw them play at the Orange Peel.

But....I still want more. Luckily there's a remix contest for O.N.E. All of the remixes are posted on-line. That means I get to listen to that song get torn apart and reconstructed. Basically hearing the full extent of that song's potential. So, until I can get the next fix, I'll just have to listen to this and sit on my hands.


Jonsi "Go"


I can't believe that I used to write off Sigur Ros as "whale noises." It only took me actually listening to an album and seeing them live for me to get into them. Now Jonsi has taken it a step further and actually added a beat, a pulse and English lyrics. I always knew his lyrics would be really good, but I never took the time to learn Icelandic or Hopelandic, so I could never understand him. Now I know what's in that Elvish heart of his. Turns out he sings a lot about nature.

Sample lyrics "We all want to grow with the seeds we will sow...We all want to know when we are meant to go." I played it for Jenny and about a minute and half in, she snaps out of whatever beautiful trance she was in and said "Wow, I just went to my happy place" or something to that effect. Truly amazing stuff.



Grizzly Bear "Veckatimist"


I've listened to this album about about 30 times on iTunes. I was surprised at that, considering I wasn't the hugest fan of the album. Then I realized that it took me that many times to actually start to like it. I was searching through the hundred or so CDs I keep in my car. I was looking for a mix that had "Two Weeks" on it. Instead, I fond the actual album, complete with the little green Bonnaroo insignia on it. I've listened to about a dozen times since. I like it now. A lot. Maybe after 30 more listens I'll be more able to wrap my mind around this album.

"Do you still write?" Jenny asked me. "No, but I think about writing a lot." This coming from a guy who just taught 8th grade English for 8 weeks. I encouraged those kids to write. Write more. And I wasn't writing anything myself. Nor reading for that matter. Life gets busy. Things get in the way and I retreat. I become an introvert. Thinking things all the time like scribbled notes that just get thrown away. No documentation of an idea. She wants to start a Writing Hour. The premise: meet once a week for an hour, drink coffee and write. No talking, music is allowed and we share what we've written at the end. I can't wait.

I used to write a lot while I was in Germany. I posted stuff on my blog about my adventures in Europe. I felt like this connected me to people back home. Instead of having an hour-long conversation with 5 different people about Paris or Amsterdam or seeing bands, I would write about the experience.

Now I keep things to myself.

Or maybe I just don't have anything interesting to say.

It's so freaking hot. It's 9:15 and it's still 85 degrees. Not happy about this.

The year is already over, but I thought I'd post my top 10 albums of the year. While the internet was abuzz with Animal Collective fever, Merriweather Post Pavilion left me feeling at time ecstatic, but mostly just confused and bored. Most of the year was spent catching up on the past two decades of hip-hop. Biggie Smalls, Nas and Kanye lived in my car for most of 2009, but a handful of albums caught my attention.

10. Wale-"Attention Deficit"
9. Here We Go Magic-"Here We Go Magic"
8. Animal Collective-"Merriweather Post Pavilion"
7. Jay-Z-"The Blueprint 3"
6. Neon Indian-"Psychic Chasms"
5. Phoenix-"Wolfgang Amadaeus Phoenix"
4. Girls-"Album"
3. Passion Pit-"Manners"
2. Grizzly Bear-"Veckatimest"
1. Dirty Projectors-"Bitte Orca"