Why do I even need to title these things? They're always directionless rants

When people speak of picking up destructive habits, one thinks of a drug habit, a nasty porn or gambling addiction or maybe even siphoning work from the office petty cash to pay for one of the previous habits. My recently acquired, or rather exploding habit is sitting at my desk staring at my computer all day acheiving sweet fuck all. I've been an internet addict for a long time, as are most people who go through high school or college in the United States these days, but it's never really been this bad. Despite having more interesting classes (in theory) than last semester, I'm a lot less engaged with my school work. Some of the factors causing this include not having to hand in assignments regularly, not finding the intellecctual content of class discussions particularly stimulating and the rather novel problem for me of not knowing exactly what I'm supposed to be getting from my classes. Having studied Finance in undergrad, I've been used to knowing exactly what I'd be learning in each class I ventured into. This totally unstructured learning environment, while theoretically more useful in terms of allowing me to craft an education that fits my very specific needs, is totally undoing me currently. I am an inert mass of unproductive creativity. The ideas are there. I've discussed and even written a couple of pages on some of them. But I've had no motivation whatsoever to progress beyond that point. I'm getting through fewer of my readings, even when they're interesting and finding a theoretical framework to hang any of my ideas around is going to be quite the task when I get around to it.

So what then am I doing with my time? Well, if your blog numbers have gone up significantly, it's probably not just cause Dooce or whoever listed you. Flint has been hitting the refresh button a few dozen times a day. If it doesn't seem like I'm commenting much, please note that I said I was in an unproductive mood. I only want to passively take in your genius. Do not in addition require me to have an opinion or if I do have one, compose it into a coherent form. At this point, I'd like to direct you to my sidebar, where you can read some of the wonderful people who have been facilitating my rooted existence in my desk chair. Hello everybody.

I don't despair too much over my academic career. I did really well last semester and I know in time, I'll get around to putting some effort in. Let's just hope it's not too late. I've been doing okay socially though. Saw Edvard Munch (I love moody, depressing art, and his stuff is quite powerful. It was like a cocaine fix for me and I've never even had cocaine) at MOMA with the Brazilian and I've generally been spending a lot of time with her, trying to ensure that she doesn't freak out too much about the move, which of course, she is. Had not heard from Opera girl since our date on Saturday, despite sending her a text on Sunday and leaving a voicemail Tuesday, and as one is wont to do after a date goes so well, I was freaking out like a little high school girl, checking my email and friendster page obsessively and glaring at my phone as if it were conspiring with the world to destroy any chance I'd ever had of romantic bliss. Luckily, she called today and although I didn't speak to her as we were playing phone tag, but at least I'm no longer convinced that some girl I ended things badly has put a hex on me.

During the interrogation that the first date always is, I confessed to not being the most organized person on the planet and how that had hurt me at my last real job. Opera girl was surprised, saying how put together I looked and asking if that was just an act then. This got me thinking. Superficially, I am actually a pretty together person. Coming from Nigeria, I of course care about my appearance and I generally tend towards neat no matter how outlandish my choice of clothing. So when I wore t-shirts with such high minded inscriptions as: 'Pimp', with the same word written below it in Chinese 'Dic - long, hard, round stick' and that stupid one you might have seen that says The Man, the legend with an arrow pointing up above 'man' and one pointing downwards below 'legend,' I always wore them pretty neatly. Wonder what happened to that legend t-shirt. I quite liked that. My apartment is also pretty grown up, something I'm quite relieved to have finally acheived. Yet, I'm not really an organized person. I'm frequently more than fashionably late, although never for any really important. Juggling the details of several people's schedules along with managing office finances, appointments and shebangys like that, as my old job required me to, regularly drove me to drink and was pretty disastrous from my angle of vision. As I've grown older, I've veered more and more into creative fields where disorganization is more expected. My ideal job would allow me to be a complete idea person, generating and refining them and managing a big picture view, while ignoring mundane details or at least attending to no more than my own mundane details. Anyway, it occurs to me now that there might not be a point to this post and so I think I shall end it. Good night.

Women, coming and going

I hate being alone. I want a girlfriend yesterday and some other interesting people in my life to boot so I don't have to stay in my head on evenings like this. I went on a very good date on Saturday, with a girl who is pretty much perfect in every way but one. She's very pretty, but in a manner I've never really been attracted to. Cute rather than beautiful, she's 24 but could easily pass for 18. I am inclined to describe her as a less angular, younger and cuter Annie Hall. I could be full of shit but that's what I thought on the date. Despite this small problem, she really is pretty much perfect and I'm inclined to shut my mouth, thank the dating gods for sending someone so interesting my way and court, court, court like a French king trying to secure his position by marrying an English princess (even though I don't believe in marriage). She's an opera singer (a "baby" Soprano as she put it) and pays the bills by working for a fashion designer and waitressing. She's smart, funny and intense. I already feel like I have to work harder to be worthy, and that's fine by me. I think the people around you, particularly someone so close as a girlfriend, should inspire you to be a better person. Did I mention that she can dance? We were at some funny little French place in the LES when they started to play some pretty decent dance moves and like a man taking a car for a test drive, I offered my hand to see what she'd meant when she described herself as a dancing machine. What a machine! You know how hard it is to find a non-Hispanic girl in North America who knows how to follow on the dance floor? They played a few salsa numbers and some other stuff that I know the rhythm but not the name of, and dancing with her really was the most delightful experience. I asked afterwards how she'd learned to dance and she replied Cuban ex-boyfriend. See what I mean by having to work to keep up? She seemed like she'd had fun dancing with me, but how does a man relax knowing the girl he's with used to dance with a Cuban and his family? Anyway, the date went well and I was felt pretty good at the end of the evening. At this moment, not so much. I sent a text message the next day saying it'd been good to spend time with her and that I'd like to see her again, soon. No reply. Gah. She might simply be busy. Actually I know she's pretty busy, but it takes about ten seconds to compose and send a reply. I just wanted some ackowledgement that I wasn't the only one who'd enjoyed the date. And now I have to almost physically restrain myself from calling because I don't want to be too pushy and fuck things up. Anyway, that's what going on right now.

The Brazilian is leaving at the end of the week, and we've been spending a lot of time together in anticipation of that. As they always do, things have become more intense the closer to departure she gets. She's moving to Italy to work for the same fashion company she was working for here. She's got some trepidation because she'd rather have moved home to Brazil, but she couldn't get a job there so she took the position offered her in Italy. And now she's stressed about life and happiness and family and whether she'll be able to find fulfillment on all those fronts in Italy. One of the awkward aspects of the relationship between the Brazilian and I has been communication. I've not done much of it. I once mentioned how my relationship with her felt almost like an affair. Well, that's cause I treated it as such. There were reasons for that. One, we both knew almost as soon as we met that she was leaving the US at the end of March, thus preventing us from attempting to form anything too close in terms of attachment. Secondly and more damning for me though is that I never really thought I ought to be with her. Meeting her at a crazy Halloween party where she was almost unrecognizable, yet incredibly foxy in some crazy wig and a micro mini skirt, I thought of her as someone I'd have a one night stand with and then never call again. When she refused to give me her phone number, I ought to have known to leave well alone. But I didn't, instead going on a date with her where I failed to correct a small but rapidly snowballing lie I'd told on the night we met. You will probably like me a lot less after the following disclosure. It was a small lie. As we made out at the Halloween party in someone's ridiculous loft, she mentioned that she was 34 and asked how old I was. Calculating the likelihood of my ever seeing her again and putting that against the derision I almost always get from older women for being younger, I tacked on an extra four years to my age. A small enough lie right? I haven't corrected it yet. Yes, four months after I met her, she still thinks I'm four years older than I really am. of course in order to cover up that lie, I've had to tell a few more. I mean, my birthday was in January and I couldn't invite her to it or explain why I couldn't, so I simply didn't tell her about it. So when she asked a few days ago when my birthday was, I had to make up a date. You may reserve whatever vitirol you're thinking of spitting in my comment section. Whatever you're thinking of calling me, I've called myself worse. It really does bother me to deceive a person in this manner and it's created a strain throughout our relationship that's prevented me from being myself or opening up much to her. Strange now that I actually consider the possibility that we will stay in touch and maybe stay friends when she moves away. What happens a few years down the line when she realizes my deception? No, this is not one of the finer acts of my life.

While I don't make a habit of such horrendous deceptions, I do wonder what things like this do to my soul. Not that I believe in religion, but I do have some concept of an internal spirit that's damaged by our falsities, foolishness, greed, pride and all those other human foibles; and I wonder what condition mine is in. What right do I have to ask for happiness or love in a relationship, if I so cavelierly deceive someone who invests themselves, however slightly, in a relationship of some sort with me. Anyway, enough of the public self-flagellation. This isn't a request for pity or even a bid to be despised. It was a stupid little lie that I should have owned up to early in our relationship but I didn't because I wasn't really letting her in that close to me anyway. I suppose the more important point in the whole thing is what I was doing with someone I was so reluctant to let close to me. Our communication's never been great and I do still think we're definitely not right for each other. But I've grown fond of her and as she leaves, I do regret and am horrified at the deception and also at what it does to the possibilities for us to be friends in the future. As much as I consider marriage to not be for me, she's someone who clearly wants it and I'd have loved to be there when she found someone she thought worthy of spending her life with. As it is, I know it's far more likely that I'll allow us to fall out of touch so I'm nothing but a pleasant memory from the past for her.

One cynical, jaded sumbitch

I have the feeling that dating for me is going to be a really tough thing as the years progress. I finally asked for and got an answer from Boston Girl as to what happened to us. It didn't feel right to her. She was thinking about the future and family and life and all of that, and things between us just didn't feel right. I guess that conversation where I casually mentioned not believing in marriage helped that particular feeling. So there's my answer anyway.

This will not get any easier. I dated someone for about 4 months last year and she ended things over this very thing as well. Seven years older than I, she was thinking of marriage not in a distant future but as something real that needed to start quite soon. Even I wasn't such a cynical bastard, obviously I wasn't the one for that. Hence, it was nice being with you, but good bye now. As I approach my thirties and all the women around me begin to comtemplate the same boring societal mores, I expect this problem will be cropping up quite a bit. This is not going to help my serial dating habit.

I don't believe in empty promises. I'm going to three weddings this year, and knowing about the 50% divorce rate here in the US, quite frankly I expect two of those will end up in divorce. I'll even bet which two. Why can't a relationship be enjoyed for what it's worth? Why do people need these assurances, even knowing that they are probably false? DeBeers and Anna Sui, ruining romance for Flint in 2006 and onwards. There's a poem I read in some lurid Marilyn Monroe bio when I was about 13 that I've never been able to put out of my head. It's something about, "This is the wisdom, to make prayers and wish nothing of the the gods, to kiss the lips and stroke the hair, to have, to hold and in time, let go." I've never been able to find the book again to get it right, but that pretty much sums up my approach to relationships. People would have much more fulfilling relationships and less bitter partings if they simply held this view. Live life, work at it, enjoy it and don't try so hard to control what can't be controlled. If you're going to fall in love, fall in love. If you're going to fall apart and don't want to, then work at staying together, and when it's no longer worth it, walk away, cause life is simply too short to be bloody unhappy. Wedding rings and all that nonsense? Fool's gold if you ask me. And yes I know it's jaded, yes I know it's cynical. It's also right and it's also my view and if there is anything I am, it's an individualist. I'll listen to other people's opinions but the only truth I know is that I came onto by myself. And that's my truth. Unfortunately, the unpopularity of that view is going to cost me a lot of potentially interesting relationships. I won't lead anyone on. Who I am and what I am are pretty much always on display and if in my lifetime I can find one or a few women willing to accept that, then I suppose I'll be as happy I've any right to wish for.

Sunday night blues

Me dad's in town and that's been nice. It amuses me that we are able to get along so well these days with so little to clash about. It's been quite pleasant, although he is monopolising an awful lot of my time. He leaves Tuesday and I will be relieved to get back to doing things my way, but it really is good hanging out with him. I feel like I've had him to myself quite a bit lately. He came by last year in January to surprise me for my birthday and we spent a couple of days hanging out. Then again in the Summer, we shared a hotel suite in London while the rest of the family crashed at my aunt's place. Basically about a week of rooming with my dad. And no one went crazy. That in itself is crazy. If you'd have told me that was possible five years ago, I'd have laughed in your face.

Anyway, still in a bit of a funk. Have ignored everyone of my friends all weekend and most of last week. Last week, believe it or not was Spring Break for us. I spent alternating between my apartment and the library. Still didn't manage to get any work done and this week is definitely going to be jarring for me. I'm even reading the wrong book for one of my classes, devouring Hunter S. Thompson's excellent Hell's Angels even though we don't read it for another couple of weeks. I might not even own the book we actually read this week in that class. I'm frequently amazed that I've come this far in my academic life with such quirks as this.

I find myself quite irritated that Boston girl has lost interest. Having blown off quite a few people in the past, I am well aware when someone is bored, spooked, dissuaded or distracted from their interest in me. Things seemed to be going well and I actually had been relishing the chance to go to Boston, both to get away from this space inhabit so completely and spend time with someone I found interesting and fun, and for the chance to see some of my friends, who I suddenly miss very much. Unfortunately, that was not to be and now I'm sitting here all alone, without no love of my own, yeah (lyrics by Zappa, performance by the Persuasions). I wonder what caused spooked her. I ought to have exit interviews with all these women who breeze in and out of my life and find out what it is that causes things to not work out so. It might help my love life. I mean, it's not that I was all decided that I wanted to be with this girl. But G, who came down from Montreal, had just explained to me that perhaps I didn't need to decide upon every single quality I required and insist on it's presence before I got into a relationship. Her take on things was that people meet each other, fall into bed and then sort of decide they don't mind each other that much and keep it going till the sex becomes crap, then they find an excuse to break up. This approach led her into a recently ended three year relationship that was actually quite decent. So I'd been thinking of going with her approach and letting what would be be, but I guess that was not it. Oh well.

I ought to write about G's weekend here. We went dancing. It was hot. I like to dance and she is a very good dancer. It took a lot of restraint to not jump her bones after she showed that she could really rock the dance floor. I would but I'm tired and not in the mood for storytelling. Maybe next time. Happy anniversary Chelsea Girl. I'm sad I don't have any submission for your celebration, but I'm not in the most creative of moods and I don't even have a digital camera with which I could capture a lazy moment. Enjoy anyway, we will be eagerly reading.

He rants, he raves, what else does he do?

Nothing apparently... I don't think it's going to work with Boston girl. And though I'd not made up my mind about her, odd enough, the dodgy behavior isn't originating with me. She'd been in New York twice in a pretty short period and my spring break just came up, so I offered to come up and hang out with her for a bit. And she stiffed. Claiming that she's busy, she said she'd figure it out and let me know if she was coming down or when I could come up or what. Weird. Whether deliberately or not, she's made it clear that she's less than enthusiastic about my coming up to see her. Odd considering that she made sure to come stay over with me last time she was in town, even though it was an inconveniece for her. Oh well.

If I'm disappointed, it's probably as much because I kind of wanted to go to Boston anyway and hang with some friends. Now I wouldn't do that until I know what's spooked her. So there goes my trip. I'm spending spring break in my apartment alternating the pretense at work with dashes of real work and dealing with my sister's hundreth major (and it is fairly major) crisis in the last couple of years. Some people move away from home and just do their thing. That'd be me for the most part. Others, they leave home and their parents and family are constantly making emergency trips to quench fires. To put out there what probably shouldn't be put out there, we've had to deal with a half hearted suicide attempt, her getting kicked out of school for failing academically and now, a physical confrontation that led her roommate to call the cops. Hell, I fucked up enough times in my life that I ought to sympathize. Even after calming down massively upon departing high school, I didn't get through college unscathed. I still got kicked off campus on some bullshit that was mostly my fault. It's hard for me to sympathize with lil' sis though. After fighting a lot as kids, we settled into a decent friendship in my teens through the time I was in college. She's four years younger than I am, so she finished high school just before I finished college. Upon moving to the West, she didn't go to college directly. We all deeming her too immature, we sent her to some fancy prep school to give her time to adjust before she went to college. I wish I could say it helped, and it probably did, cause she'd probably have done worse by now if she'd gone directly to college. Nevertheless, whatever it did, it wasn't enough. It's always one thing or another, and being the older brother, my dad's sort of appointed me as sort of a surrogate father. Which wouldn't be at all problematic except for the fact that I no longer get along with little sister. I find her shallow, annoying, conformist, critical of everything I find interesting, and uninteresting in general, a chickenhead in short. Wow. Even I can't believe I just wrote that of my sister. Never mind, I think a lot of those things about myself a lot of the time as well. Actually, I worry that the reason I don't get along with her is that she's a reflection of the worst parts of me and I really don't want to be reminded. It might also be that I think I'm working at conquering those aspects of myself and she doesn't even realize they are there or need to be confronted, and that just drives me up the wall.

Anyway, sis is in trouble. The troops are rallying forth. I've not offered to go handle the situation in person, although I'm definitely armchair and telephone commandeering the situation. I'm alternately stressed and bored by it. I've been informed to put out of my head the idea that she return home (to Nigeria) and study there, but you know what? That's exactly my opinion. She's not mature enough to deal with the real world. Something is lacking in either her constitution or her education, and it's fucking up her life. I worry that whatever it is it may be lacking in mine too, even though I've come further along than she has. Anyway, that is the situation.

This is quite a harsh post. I don't feel the need to apologize for that. I'm not a nice person and I think my blog should reflect that. I want honesty here, otherwise I'm not sure what purpose this thing serves. I've been thinking a lot about that although I didn't really intend to address it tonight. It is what it is. Good night.

Friends: An Examination of Flint's crew

The Good

Film Dude: Turkish dude I met through the best friend. Dresses very well, speaks with a heavy accent, total film nut, sees everything; mainstream, indie or foreign. Great dude. Hung out with him last night. Saw Duck Season (good movie), then went to a party with some Turkish people, stopped by Lit and Rififi and had breakfast really late in the morning. Generally not a party monster but an interesting and passionate person. Word is he's gay and somewhat closeted about it. Whatever. He's cool and that's what matters.

Concert girl: Very funny All-American girl. She's from Massachusetts, Rhode Island or some place like that and is your standard Pale Irish. Vicious, vicious wit and incredible store of useless knowledge making her a deadly Trivial Pursuit opponent. She's got great taste in music and has got me seeing a lot more concerts, thus fulfilling rule 3 in a most excellent manner.

The Columbia kids: Grad school kids are great; hard drinking, work shirking, trek to Brooklyn for booze and food kind of people. I like them a lot. They need to work on their attendance at my events, and I'm not deeply involved in any of their lives, but overall, these folks are fine with me. Some of these people should also be in the potentials but I'm not going to list them individually.

My Boston Friends: I've got at least four or five superawesome friends in Boston, really cool and interesting people that I'd like to see a lot more of. They suck because they do not live in New York. If you're reading this, you need to move down here and live close to me.


The Bad

The Best Friend: Once upon a time I thought he was interesting and suave and a great yang to my ying. No more. This fool is failing to evolve and will shortly go the way of the dodo if he doesn't keep up. Less interesting than he's ever been, more socially dysfunctional than ever and worst of all, less cool than he's ever been, he's like a Master of the Universe who's started sweating and swearing on deals and I'm the client rapidly losing interest. Tough.

The Crew: These are the people I've been spending most of my social time lately. Almost all very pretty Asian girls, they are very nice, attend my events, invite me to things (museums, dinner, picnics, birthday parties at horrible, big clubs) and are generally pretty damn alright. The problem then? Well, I suppose it's ungrateful of me, but I'm bored anyway. They're safe, mainstream and generally uninterested in anything too subversive. I sense the potential for true deviance in one of them who seems to have the thrill seeking gene, but she's saddled with a fairly cool but prematurely aged boyfriend who is unlikely to be pleased with me corrupting his little angel. [Editors Note: With my luck, this post is going to be referenced on some huge site and my teeny little blog will be pulled out of obscurity just in time for my friends to see the horrible things I'm saying about them. So welcome any new readers from Pretty Dumb Things and if one of you is with Boing Boing or writes for Gawker, please allow my blog to languish in it's little corner of cyberspace]

The French People: They seemed like they had so much potential, but they're impossible to get a hold of and as they depart these shores shortly, I've sort of bid them adieu a bit early.

The Potential

K girl and her boyfriend: Met these two at a friend's wedding. K girl is hugely combative and probably really a handful to deal with on a daily basis. Yet, she is whip smart, incredibly good looking and gave me one of the most interesting outlooks on racism in America (black guy learns about racism as it affects African Americans from Korean adoptee - I dig it). Her boyfriend is bearded, quieter but no less smart and engaging, and the word is that he's a really talented artist as well. I'd love to hang out with them, but once again they are impossible to get a hold of. We've missed each other a dozen times now and if I didn't think them extra cool, I'd definitely have given up by now. Hope for me.

The lesbian: B is a tall, handsome girl with a shaved head. She definitely does way more drugs than I do. Actually, I thought her a dealer the day I met her. She seems fun, smart and is an undergrad at Columbia. She made sure to ensure I knew she was a lesbian when we first met but seemed enthusiastic about hanging out. I may have spooked her by inviting her to what sounded like a fairly intimate gathering right after meeting her. Haven't spoken to her much since then, but I expect we'll run into each other on campus and that ought to be interesting.


And that dear friends is the sum of my social scene in the city. I must meet more folks so please point me in the direction of cool people in search of the same. Off to shoot some pictures I think.

Friends: The Rules

I am no longer cultivating friendships with uninteresting people. Once upon a time my general attitude was that I would be friends with whoever wanted to be friends with me, as long as they weren't serial killers, thieves or of otherwise deplorable character. Those days are over. I am as bored with my friends as it is possible for one to be. Here then are the rules for the new friendships I hope to cultivate. I must somehow jettison or perhaps limit my time with the old ones in order to make time for new ones.


The Rules
1. Must have a spark of life in them, I'm talking good energy, zest; must feel like I'm talking with a real person when I have a conversation with them. Dull, lifeless people get killed on this island.
2. Must be bearable. In other words, they can't have really horrible manners, absolutely no social graces, or talk about themselves all the time. I do have one friend who I very much love who is an absolute disaster in public places (says the most offensive things, drinks too much, etc) but he makes up for it by being exceedingly loyal and hilarious and he has a great heart in him. I don't know if I can handle anyone else as difficult to handle as he is, but I could make exceptions.
3. Must be interesting, have interests and passions, which hopefully they will introduce me to. Honestly, what the fuck is the use of a friend who doesn't make you more interesting. Everyone has to bring something to the table. Invite me to concerts, parties, drag me off to explore the city or do other weird shit.
4. Must accept my invitations to engage in my passions or just to hang out. I try to invite people to things I think they'll enjoy. I don't drag my introverted friends to loud dance clubs or insist that people do thing they're uncomfortable with. But people must make a fucking effort! This one girl (who just sent me an invite to her wedding) has not managed to make it to one of the four or so events I've had at my apartment since I moved back to the city, alternating lame excuse with not acknowledging my invites at all. Besides that, she's low energy and I've had other friends complain that she's mean. Dead that shit. I've got to go to her wedding, but her emails will definitely be languishing in my inbox.
5. Liberal is good. Republicans aren't necessarily bad, but you can't be in your twenties, living in New York City and conservative. We've got life, we must fucking live it right? Right people right, we must!
6. There is no six. I just need good, interesting people who aren't bores, rigid automatons, racist or ignorant idiots, who want to fucking live life. Is that too much to ask for?

The next post will feature an examination of the good, the bad and the potential within my friends pool.

I say, JUMP!

Watching the opus of fabulousness that is "Pump Up the Volume," I'm forced to wonder how far out of myself I could wander. I think of famously introverted musicians who nevertheless were/are the most electric of performers, particularly Hendrix or Andre 3000, and I wonder if I can get that out of myself. I'm about as insane as Charles Manson and could get further out there than Trent Reznor. It's all in here, but I'm struggling against years and years of conditioning and societal strictures that I've always despised yet have managed to internalize. High school wasn't a fun time. Unlike Happy Harry, I didn't hide my head in public and rail at night. I railed, railed and bought myself some very hard times, butting heads with everyone from principal to the seniors. In a country that takes it's religion very seriously, I declared myself a non-believer in God and dealt with the fallout until for the sake of my sanity, I recanted in an obvious and barefaced lie. I even began to believe again until I came to this country and a bunch of really devoted Christians managed to get me to think really deeply and decide once again that the God which so many people put their fears and folly into, if he or she does exist can take that very existence and screw himself with it. God, I fucking hate religion. And I bought trouble for myself in many other ways, saying things they didn't want to hear, hadn't pushed their weak and constrained minds to even thinking about. But in the end, I did compromise. I did make a few friends, and aspire to the very same things they all did. I'm only able to think as far out of my existence as the language and discourse of my time allow me. Yet, even within that space, there is so much more I could be, if I could only let go, jump, even if I fall, just jump and take the fall. And I'm scared, no doubt about it. I worry about failure, despite the fact that I know my existence will have no meaning if I don't take the chances I ought to. I need to concentrate, find my groove and work it, work it, work it like a mine for diamonds and no slave labor but mine required. I'm as smart as anybody needs to be, as creative as any Beatle that ever wrote a song or Fellini that directed a movie. And I'm narcissistic enough to know that I am all of these things. I need to work harder, one of those things they tell you all your life but I've never really learned and cared for till it serves my own purposes. I need discipline, another stricture of ordinary society that is essential for genius to flourish and I need space so I can do these things without being held back. I want support, similarly intelligent and ambitious people eager to take on the world as it is and make it into the world we'd like it to be. Goodness, how pathetic of a life would be it be if we all took this energy within us and the only thing we did with it was earn a living, breed and die. How fucking pathetic would that be? Oh, I need to jump, I definitely need to jump, no harness, no chute, just hope and my talents. I need to jump. I have a good feeling about this year and I'm gearing up for the jump and if this time next year finds me in the same place, then what I really ought to do is jump off a real bridge.

Trifling

While watching Lord of War at the Brazilian's, I idly began playing with a hair clip on the coffee table. I clipped my shirt, then my pants, and back to my shirt to my belly through the shirt, and idly on to the skin of my arms. I hardly noticed what I was doing till I clamped down on a nipples, that most inexplicable aspect of the male anatomy. I gasped at the sensation, surprising but not unwelcome, and then continued to experiment, more consciously now. I returned frequently to the highlight of my experimentation. If the Brazilian were not asleep and grumpy, I might have gone to try my new discovery on her. Now, sitting in front of my computer, my nipples ache and I'm fiercely annoyed. I expect the Brazilian will experience an act of petty cruelty on my part some time shortly. It's not misogynistic. If the best friend turned me out of his place at 2.39 in the AM, he would probably experience pain in some manner shortly after. Three more weeks before she leaves the country. I'm uncertain about Boston girl, who managed to get on my nerves with an act of selective hearing last night, thus making her the nine trillionth person on my case currently. I feel trifled with and I don't like having that feeling when I'm earnestly attempting a new relationship. Perhaps this is a bad idea. Perhaps I'm being a whiny baby. We'll see in the morning.

Ugly passions

I wonder how many of them it will take till there is no kindness left. Careful with the good ones, the nice ones, because when you are all done with them, there may be none left. The woman I'm thinking isn't even the one that hurt me most. That prize is for another who I cannot think of without reflectively ending the thought with 'bitch.' Yet she did her job well, bringing out of me strains of cruelty that I'd have strenuosly denied existed before I met her. And now? Now, my fantasies of her scare me. Of all the woman I've tangled with, it's her I'd most like to get back in bed with. Is she the fairest of them all? Probably. The vainest? Definitely. The cruelest? Who knows? She's definitely the lustiest, a demure Southern front the appetite of a Succubus within. Even then I knew I could do far more than I did then, go much further into those places you don't like to admit to anyone you'd ever think of going. And I regret not going those places, but know that it'd be better for her, and for me (my soul at least) if we never again met. Because when my mind wonders to her during mastubatory fantasies, there is nothing nice or kind involved; even things we did together are tinged with passions generously dipped in ugly, hunchbacked beasts with no redemption within. Tomorrow I venture into her territory, and though logically I know the chances of us meeting are slim anyway, I can't help but wonder what if. Yeah, pray for me people, even if I don't particularly believe in prayer.

Rambly post #1253 (of 49 total posts)

I find myself fascinated by so much. In my class discussions, I frequently find myself coming back to that phrase or others signifying an endless fascination with the world and all that it comprises. That this wonder rarely coalesces into concrete questions about these things sometime worry me. I rarely form complete ideas or thoughts about things, preferring instead to pitch in surrounding minds hasty constructs of the aspects of life that most befuddle or bedazzle me. I don't if this reluctance to form complete thoughts or push things to their logical or illogical conclusions is a good or a bad thing. Is it a sign of laziness, or simply the way my mind works best. It's always ben hard for me to determine how much I ought to rely on habits whose origins I'm uncertain of. Certainly, I tend to rely on my unconscious to do lots of work for me, and it rarely does fail me. Approaching a problem and finding it unyielding, I often retire and leave it to the little elves in the back of my head to pound the shoe leather and stitch the clothes together. I wake up in the morning and behold, a new suit of ideas for me iron the kinks out of and emerge in gloriously. Little posts like this serve much the same purpose, allowing me to play with ideas that bug me less self consciously and more spontaneously. Part of the reason for the infrequency of posts on here is that I rarely force myself to finish any of them that do not want to be finished. And rather than return to them, I frequently find myself rewriting from scratch the entire piece in one sitting. You must understand that I spy beside this window a first draft of a post called "Beef wellingtons and soft boiled eggs" that must now be discarded. This blog is for me an experiment in expression, in whatever form that may take. I get to try little stylistic tics, learn or attempt to learn the wonderful descriptiveness that brings life to some of my favorite blogger's tales, which I somehow never learned in my own education and figure out what sort of writing it is I would like to do.