Rilo Kiley - Science Vs. Romance

i used to think if i could realize i'd die

then i would be a lot nicer

used to believe in a lot more

now i just see straight ahead

that's not to say i don't have good times

but as for my days

i spend them waiting

crash sites keep me up at night

impact division it splits in two

directly underneath you

as for those things

that act as markers in your life

but in between you can't remember

and so it seems that you've grown up and over me

and these silly things i like to dwell on

test sites keep me up at night

chainlink and meters

i talk to you

it's cold out there but i'm telling you

i'm lonely too

facts versus romance

you go and call yourself the boss

but we're not robots inside a grid
text versus romance

you go and add it all you want

still we're not robots inside a grid

zeros and ones

So I'll write

Every fucking month for 5, 6, 7 days at a time. It didn't used to come this often, this consistently, this much like clock work... now it's routine, routine punishment. (no, I'm not getting my period) How many years has it been like this? how many months or years spent in hell after hell after hell.... in hell there's no telling time, when you're there you were always there. how many oceans have been unfairly seeped through my eyes? I've heard so fucking theories from so many fucking know-it-alls about why I get depressed, I just wish I could believe the one that makes it stop. They say it's a chemical imbalance. I go on medication. They say it's bad thoughts. I go to therapy. They say it's because I don't respect myself. I quit smoking cigarettes. They say it's because I don't feel good about myself. I start working out. They say it's because I'm not doing what I want to be doing. I practice what I think I want (I don't know what I want) and I'm content in my life. They say it's because I'm not expressing myself. I start this piss poor blog (haha, blog pity). They say it's because I'm lazy, so I make myself busy. They say it's because I feel sorry for myself, I learn to feel gracious toward myself. They say it's because I don't get enough sunlight, I move to Mexico. They say it's the fucking polyester in boxer shorts, so I switch to fucking silk, WHAT DO I DO?!

Although those things do improve the quality of my life for the other twenty days of the month (especially the silk), twenty days isn't enough, I want to ALWAYS feel like living. Okay, there's definitely people who get depressed and wallow in it and stay there to the point where they're more comfortable being depressed because it's much easier to give in and watch yourself sink into oblivion, because depression itself becomes a kind of catharsis, and struggling against that requires pulling will-power virtually out of thin air (and the air only gets thinner), and usually someone will be there to drag you along. I understand that. I know, I've been there, but that's not where I am now... I don't want to be dragged, I'm standing on my own and I want to be! and still every fifteen days or so, BAM it hits me out of nowhere for no reason. Oh, but you say theres is a reason Tim. Really? I have a reason to feel like dying ten days out of the month and the other twenty I don't? that makes sense. No, the truth is I do like myself, I do like where my life is right now, I do like being happy. It's not not even manic-depression with it's exhilarating highs, it's just depression and it's been nothing but a pain in my ass since I was? since I can remember anyhow. I'm really sick and tired of having my equilibrium taken down a notch twice a month every month and I'm forced to will myself around like a zombie... occasionally bursting into great sobs of anguish and snot.

I guess I'll have to quit smoking pot now... there's no other clutter to remove from my life besides my life itself. Unfortunately I've ruled out suicide, and lethal accidents are rare, so pot it is. And I just bought a fuckbunch too. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I hate this. I'm a fucking joke to god.

But that's not how I usually feel... and it's never been how I like feeling.

Shit. I'll be pulling myself out of the muck forever unless I beat this. What else can I do?

blindfold me

a man on the bus.
a blue surgical mask
where one shouldn't be
this man was not a surgeon

.

sunken fabric that did not shift

blasted eye stymied behind

like a mask askew was concealed

the gaping ruin left beneath

.

something missing

a yawning hole

why do you hide

something not there

.

to shield our good eyes

to guard our good faces

to stay our poor pity

to save us our terror

.

spare the child's innocence

until it happens to her

then cover her face

so god only knows.

.

take off your blindfold

it's our blindness to wear

it's us who can't bear

the sight of the truth

Monument to Pro-Life:

The Birth of Sean Preston
















Monument to Pro-Choice:
The Raising of Sean Preston

soda drink money

My friend Natalia got mugged last weekend. She was leaving the gym and was almost home when she felt the knife up against her side. She gave up her wallet, her book bag, her house keys, her cell, and when that wasn't enough he started to fool around with her belt. That was more than she was willing to surrender and she started screaming for help. Apparently this was all in plain sight (and hearing) of several bystanders and a pig cop, but did they do anything? No. The guy decided not to push it, I guess, and took of running down the street with what he had already taken.

Then Natalia realized that in her backpack were the 500 pages that she and her friends had spent the whole week translating, about $6000 (dollars) worth of work. She goes racing after the guy. He looks over his shoulder and sees her gaining on him and he throws her a look like, are you confused lady, haven't you ever been robbed before? now go home and cry like you're supposed to. But that's not what she did. She caught up with that bastard and started punching him in the head until he let go of the bag then she grabbed it booked the hell out of there.

Okay, street thugs aren't the sharpest crayons in the box, but who robs someone coming out of a gym?! When people leave the gym they usually aren't tired, they're fucking pumped up. If you want to rob someone who's not going to put up a fight, you wait outside a hospital or an all-you-can-eat buffet or a buddhist center, but a gym? You might as well rob people coming out of a shooting range.. or a hockey game.

Despite being a fucktard moron he still managed to escape with the rest, including her house keys and ID with her home address on it. For some reason the jerks who own her building haven't changed the locks yet so she's been staying with me. You gotta wonder if a guy like that's gonna come back. Her place is already kind of a mess, so maybe he'll think she's already been robbed and go away.

I hear that everyone gets mugged here sooner or later. Gaby's little brother got mugged last year by a couple of guys with nail clippers or something. He beat them up too. Another girl basically got taken hostage on a public bus while he emptied everyone's pockets. That guy had a gun.. I admit I've never seen anything like this at all and I only remember a few times when I even felt in danger of something like that happening. None of the white dudes I know have been robbed except by the police (here they call that soda drink money).

Yeah, I guess I've been lucky.

American Dreams

When I watched American Beauty the first time and saw Keven Spacey smoking up a doober and lifting weights in his garage while rocking out to some Zeppelin or Floyd or something, I thought, that is cool. Actually, it's not cool at all, it's needlessly masochistic. I got pretty high before going to the gym yesterday... not my greatest idea. They have this eliptical machine that measures your heart rate and adjusts the difficulty based on your specified target range. I usually set it to 170, and it rarely reaches that level, but yesterday my heart was racing up towards 160 after only a minute or two and into 170 after four or five... I was getting my ass kicked hard. The other two machines, the treadmill and bike, were another 40 minutes of unusual intensity. Then I really had my ass handed to me. I moved on to the leg weights and discovered an entire new realm of punishment. I remember glowing red lava being poured on my legs and my stomach was giving birth to hell daemon, I looked down and expected something to pop or rip or fucking explode in my legs or abdomin. Every repetition was another blooming flower of agony and each set was a bouquet. I should have stopped... but I couldn't be bothered to, so I kept going and going until it was finished. Getting up off of every sequential machine became more and more awkward, I could barely lift my legs off the ground with each step... they had become some new variety of dense rubber, like the kind NASA would use to make dildos. Yes, my legs had turned into space-age rubber dildos and it was all I could do to not to walk into the wall and fall over. Even with total concentration and focus on every little step (waddle) I still managed to trip twice. Well, anyhow, I got through it okay, but kids, don't get high before intense physical excertion (unless it's sex) and don't listen to anything American Beauty has to say about drugs. And if you ever pay $5000 for a nickle bag of pot, it had better get you high for years. Dumbasses.

I went back to the gym today and I've kept going for ten days straight now, so I've accepted that I'm serious about this, just like with the smoking. Everyday forever. I'd like to post some half-naked picture of myself every week or two, so that six months from now I can flip through them and it will look like I'm turning into The Hulk... except, you know, white. I'd really hate to artificially boost the popularity of this blog with my handsome body (this is strictly a writer's blog), so I'm starting a new blog just to detail my progress and to be heedlessly self-indulgent and vain. It's http://gonna-fly.blogspot.com

It's the little differences

Everything that had lemon in it in the States has been replaced here by lime. Nestea, detergent, lemon-aid! And most people here think that lemons are limes, because there's no lemons here (in spanish, lime is called limon.)
I have no idea why it should need it, but a lot of people squirt ketchup on their pizza. Why not put some eazy-cheese on it too, and croutons! That spells Yum.
They love mayonaise here. You'd think that mayonaise instead of butter on corn-on-the-cob would be nasty as sin... but after they roll it in crumbled cheese and put a little pica on it, it's fucking tasty as sin.

Everything here is guarded by riot-police types, not just banks but supermarkets, malls, english schools (mine), random sidewalk corners, dog poop, perhaps even shrubbery. And they have a crazy aresenal. sawed-off shotguns, snub nosed sub-machine guns and automatic rifles. What the hell good is a shotgun in a crowded supermarket? You might keep the criminals from swooping your loot, but you're gonna kill all your staff and customers in the process. Dick Cheney, anyone? I'd actually be surprised if any of these kids actually knew how to fire their toys. They aren't even standing on-guard most of the time! Half the time they're aimlessly pointing it, finger on the trigger, like a closed umbrella on a sunny day, and the other half they're leaning the butt on their hip and pointing the business end in the general direction of everyone. I wouldn't be surprised to see them scratching their noses with the end that you really don't want to do that with, would even welcome it. Once Gaby and I were taking a sharp corner on the sidewalk and she came nearly point-blank with this cops's hand cannon. If he had decided to sneeze in that exact moment... well I guess she wouldn't have been much of a talker after that . People like that should have their arms ripped off.

Instead of having a variety of everything in each shopping district, having electronics, clothes, tools, furniture, all together each trade having a shop or maybe two, the custom here has been to have all the vendors for a particular trade together in one place. For example all the places that sell sports equiptment are in one location and all the places that sell... say, computers they all have their own block too. So if you want to buy a toilet you'll be able to find that same toilet from umpteen different retailers all at once and you can get the best deal. They place more importance on value than on convenience, I like that. They also have the typical malls that sell everything together and Wal-Mart and yadayadyada, but that's all foreign influence. I happen to live near what seems to be the wedding dress district (I've seem more wedding dresses than Liz Taylor could try on.) Yikes.

The more she drinks the straighter his teeth get

I went out for lunch with Gaby today, she was all giddy and googly eyed about her new boyfriend Alick and I got a chance to find out why he's hot shit. It's a fairy tale story really; they met in a bar, he has bad teeth, and he likes The Beatles. Charles and Diana didn't even have that much to go on. I think I should report him to immigration.

Seriously though, in spite that I unconditionally hate his queen loving, wrong side of the road driving, tabacco in the spliff rolling, smarmy guts , it's been a long time since I've seen her smiling like she was today. I saw some light in her eyes. She's had it so rough... something good needed to come along for her. Whatever it is that she needs from him, he better give it.

That said, I hope his cock rots off. Slowly.

World Democracy Tour '06

 

Chicken Soup for the Extremist Soul

 

Ani Difranco - Marrow

The answer came like a shot in the back
While you were running from your lesson
Which might explain why years later all you could remember was the terror of the question.
Plus, you weren't listening hard
You were stockpiling canned goods and making a bomb shelter of our basement.
And I can't believe you let the moral go by while you were soaking in the product placement.
And where was your conscience?
Where was your consciousness?
And where did you put all those letters that you wrote to yourself but could not address?
Yeah, I'm a good kisser, and you're a fast learner
And that kind of thing could float us for a pretty long time.
And then one day, you'd realized you've memorized my phone number
And you'll call it and find it's a disconnected line.
Cuz I got tossed out the window of love's el camino
And I shattered into a shower of sparks on the curb.
You were smoking me weren't you between your yellow fingers
You just inhaled and exhaled without saying a word.
where was your conscience?
Where was your consciousness?
And what did you do with all those letters you wrote to yourself but could not address?
There's a smorgasbord of unspoken poisons
The whole childhood of potions that are all bottled up
And so one by one I am dusting off labels
I am uncorking bottles and I am filling up cups.
Go ahead and have a taste of your own medicine.
Here I'll have a taste of mine
But first let's toast to the lists that we hold in our fists of the things
That we promised to do differently next time.
Cuz the answer came like a shot in the back
While you ran from your lesson which might explain
Why years later all you could remember the terror of the question.
Cause I'm not listening to you anymore.
My head is too sore and my heart's perforated
And I am mired in the marrow of my "well ain't that funny?" bone
Learning how to be alone and devastated.
Where was my conscience?
Where was my consciousness?
And where do I put all these letters that I wrote to myself but could not address?

Finding my Identity

I shouldn't say that my parents ignored me and certainly they didn't neglet me; I never bled to death on the kitchen floor or anything like that and I never went hungry or naked or dumb either. But parents are supposed to do more than feed and clothe. Parents are supposed to help you form an identity so you can relate to the world. They were supposed to teach me my history, which was also their history. Most of my parent's relationship and my early upbringing is a giant question mark.

They were supposed to teach me their core beliefs and values so I would have something to either believe in or rebel against... either way would have given me some point of reference at least. Eventually I labeled them with what I suspected their attitudes to be, I guess they did the same thing to me because they just didn't have a fucking clue about me either (and neither did I). Everything important in life was a topic to be avoided.

I remember when my Dad moved out of the house, my parents made it a big point to not technically get divorced for my "sake". My Dad actually ended up living just down the block because they were so concerned with raising me right... what a joke. My Dad was always much more interested in making symbolic gestures than in doing the real thing (throw money or a lawsuit at it and it goes away). Like they could have just officially gotten divorced, learned to live with it, and then he could have taken a more active role in my life... but his way he could still pretend like the family was intact without actually having to do anything to make it so. Weeks after my graduation they finalized the divorce like maybe I wouldn't notice.

My parents used this same hands-off approach to teach me about sex, drugs, rock and roll, the bible , the body (actually here maybe a hands-off approach is best), etc. I prepared my whole adolescence for "the talk" and it never came. The subject of "the talk" changed in my head over the years (the tooth fairy, smoking, drugs...), but it never got around to happening. I mean, I knew what these things were and I found them out well before they would've gotten the chance to tell me anyways, but there were times when this unsteady silence hung in the air where "the talk" should have been, like for example, when I got arrested with drugs. My dad's symbolic gesture here was to tell the police to keep me.

That's not all I remember... they made me get drug tested for two or three months after that (symbolic gesture), but after failing all of them, not only did I not get in any trouble, not only did I not get lectured, I didn't have to go get tested anymore! See, they got to feel like they did "the right thing" and nothing was risked and nothing was lost (except urine). We never had to discuss it again. Good job and bravo for appearances. *rolls up a joint*

So I kept using drugs and I kept partying and having sex and doing all the things I wasn't supposed to.... but they didn't feel like things that I wasn't supposed to do. I didn't do them out of any gleeful rebellion. Why would I feel guilty for or rebelous towards something that my parents were so ambivalent about... it couldn't be that bad if they cared so little, right? So, I did those things mostly out of boredom, and because those were the only options present that I was curious enough to investigate. (Blogging hadn't been invented yet.)

During this same time I used to have giant parties in the backyard and while my mother was home too. Either she never noticed the music and the smoke and the passed-out people in the backyard... or she just denied their existence altogether. Christ, I'll never know which because I'll never ask her. I mean, she must have noticed that it wasn't the same person going to the bathroom over and over again, that it was in fact 20 different people of varying facial features, heights, and genders. I mean, WTF?! Anyways, all that partying had it's own consequences for me so I eventually put a a damper on it myself. I still don't regret what I did... I'm in disbelief that I got away with it.

I much prefer being a foreigner in foreign lands, than feeling like a foreigner in my own. Strangely, I'm finding more self-identity here in Mexico than I had ever found back in Columbus. In Ohio I was just another below-average height white slob, which didn't exactly set me apart from the crowd. Now here strangers call me guero (blondie) or gringo (devil), anyways I get noticed. And they may have their own labels about who I am and what I'm about but I get to choose whether to accept or deny those preconceptions. I'm finding the perspective here to look back on my old life in the United States objectively; recognizing how my life has changed since then allows me to distinguish the things that I value from the things that I don't. Being here also exposes all of my preconceptions... like that bums are snazzy dressers for example.

In recent years I've sought out my own answers for all of the things I grew up never knowing and I've tried a lot of different approaches to life. Only now do I feel I'm finally putting my own history together, finally confronting myself outside of the only environment I've ever known, and I'm finding that I'm much stronger than I would have ever ventured to guess. The truth is we make our own identity and we make our own purpose. I'm preparing myself for the day that demands I make a choice, that I take a side, that I do what needs to be done. I will be ready when that time comes to pick up my sword, it won't be forged in symbolism, it will be forged in fire and wielded with certainty.

The song I never stop singing (sighing)

Everyone's gotten some fragmented song stuck in their head. The tune (the clip of the tune) may start at the chorus and goes on until you get to those words that were never quite clear, you try to wrap your head around those missing lyrics, grasping at anything vaguely familiar to fill in the missing gaps so you can finally have a whole song and move on with your life. Sometimes they drift from memory. But as soon as you hear a couple notes wafting in on some foreign breeze, then the obsession begins all over again.

Gabriela, the song I still sing, the one that I never sussed out, some parts so clear that I can go there and remember what love was like, other parts I've rewritten or forgotten or exaggerated in my head. I am writing what I can before I forget, before I warp it any more. There was a time that it was pure inside of me, that time should have never ended.

I'm just going to put all of this out there. It needs to be out of me, out into the world, just not looping in my head. I don't want my every other post to be about her and this and what could have been and what should be; it needs an end. I want to just get on now, but you know how it is... the more you want to get that song out of your head the more entrenched it becomes in the quicksands of the mind, you have to stop resisting if you want it to surface. You have to listen to it.

There's a room in my memory that Gaby lived in when she was still of my heart. The room remains intact, just the way she left it. Her scent hangs there in the stale air, her bed's still dimpled like she used to sleep there, her breath is crystalized on the mirror I look through.

How did we meet. First there was curiosity and long glances. Then there were the nights of talking and smiles. There were letters and there were poems. There was music and laughter. There was sharing and there was honesty. There was telepathy and there were signs and there were dreams. There was desire. There were promises. There was secrecy. There were many sacrifices. There were worlds moving. There was knowing. There was love.

Before she came to Columbus, on the night of my birthday, she asked me my wish. I said all the obligatory stuff about it not comeing true if I tell her... but what I was really more scared of was that it would. I made a big point of not telling her... because it really was my wish and because I felt this monumental gravity would be stirred up if I told her, like many things rested on this wish. She insisted, I gave. I tried to give it some feeble poetic phrasing, something like, "A beach where the Sun shines so brightly that even the night has memory of it's penetrating brilliance." What I didn't say, but secretly wished in my heart, was that she would be there with me, in my arms. It did come true. I never told her that second part. I hope she knows she made my wish come true just by being there.

The first time I laid eyes on her in my own city, I was already done for. I held her and felt for her breath against me and when I did I knew she was real. When I kissed her, it was right. When I smelled her, it was right. Her eyes, her smile, every freckle. My mind and body were humming, I needed every inch of her. When first I made love to her, I made love to her. She fit. She felt like home.

I had my teeny apartment all set up for us together, I really wanted to make it our apartment. She appreciated that I think. I took her out to meet all my friends. She was a little shy with them, but they liked her; Ben and Jalena especially. I wish that I had included my friends with us more, but I was being protective. It was mistake. We did have a lot of good times with just the two of us. I miss being outdoors with her. We went to my farm a bunch of times and walked around and layed around and made love in the green grass. We hiked in yellow springs and ate shrooms on this big boulder while we plotted out our deaths. There was a weekend camping in the hocking hills, we had this great little campsite. After hours of trotting all over that beautiful country, we had hours sitting together by the campfire and then we sacked out in the tent I put up. Man, what a good time... so many of my favorite things together. I want that again.

So, at first things were really great... then they got really not great. It was apparent that Gaby wasnt going to find employment; the US isnt interested in foreigners unless they're tourists or terrorists. Her money ran out.... then mine ran out, then I lost my job and my wallet with my last paycheck in it and in the same week... This weighed heavily on our relationship and especially on me. I stopped going to school and fell into a major depression. I checked out.

I hadn't really made the extent of my depression clear to her... I thought there would be time for that, I didn't anticipate its onset so soon, so she was unprepared to deal with it and not in any place to help me help myself. When my depression reaches it's depth (usually after such great heights) all I want to do is give-up. I told her I was never going to be well, that I would always be a wreck. I told her to go back to Mexico. She went. She wanted to go. By the time I surfaced to lucidity she was already gone.

I want to go back to that Tim who said and did those things, I want to slap him, I want to hurt him, I want to do whatever it would have taken to wake me up to reality of what I was doing. I was abandoning her; this incredible woman who had been so full of hope and love and light, who had sacrificed everything to be closer to me. And for what? Because I didn't feel good enough, I didn't feel in control. I would bleed out my heart, I would drag my naked body through Hell, I would quit smoking A MILLION TIMES if I could only change what I was then. I was wrong and I am so sorry for it.

Returning to what my life had been before was a bleak substitute. Before meeting her I had already made up my mind to leave Ohio, possibly even the country, before the start of winter. Actually, Gaby was my final motivation for staying and after she was gone so was my attachment to Columbus. I sold everything of value, gave my mini-van back to my Dad, and moved down here to D.F. Things were on-again, off-again (as was my depression) for a long time, then we made the real split just before New Years because her mom thought we were really together.

I've seen a few girls since this year, one even fell in love with me, but I haven't felt an iota of what I feel for Gaby with any of them. Nothing. Not even hardly a blip on the radar. Even sex has lost most enjoyment for me, it's become something merely better than being numb. Is this what happens, is this what turns the boys into bitter old men with no room in their hearts for anyone because it's already occupied with the ghosts of their broken dreams. Is this how it goes? Alot of the time I do feel like an empty husk, only moving for the sake of motion. Everything I'm doing, the meds, the smoking, the exercising, the dating, the blog; I do it because if I don't I'll die from the numb. If I stop I drown. The only time I feel like a real person is when I do these things and the only other time is when I'm with her.

I don't want to fight my own nature anymore, I do love her. And I should; she's proven herself to be deserving of it over and over again. She's been good for me. What I don't want is to keep feeling this lacking, this emptyness. It's the sense of lack and emptyness that tranfixes my mind, it's these holes that make the fragments loop in on themselves, the single line on the broken record. So I'm going to finish this song. It was terrible and it was beautiful and though we wrote it together, I'll end it alone. I promise to always keep it with me, but in my top five list instead of in my only thoughts.

The missing part, the ending I guess, is that my life is better for all of it. Yes my thoughts are often turned toward regret, but the fact of the matter is that love and the loss of love have inspired me to do things that I would never have done otherwise. I'm in Mexico City! Jeez, maybe if we had just done things differently, if I had come here first instead of her to me, things could have worked out for the both of us.

I'm sorry that Gaby got nothing for all she's suffered through with me. She left her boyfriend, who she was/is still in love with, and quit her job to come to a piece of shit city and live with a guy who fell apart over the course of three months, only to come back to Mexico, have all of her stuff stolen, and move back in with her loony parents. What did she gain? And even after all of that, she's been so dependable and supportive while I put my own shitting life back together. She never told me to pack it in and go home like I did, but then she's much stronger than I am. She deserved better. I could have given it to her. I wish I still could.

And that's all I have to say about that.

I'll close with one more song:

Greg Brown - Lord I Have Made You a Place in my Heart

Oh Lord, I have made you a place in my heart

among the rags and the bones and the dirt.

There's piles of lies, the love gone from her eyes,

and old moving boxes full of hurt.

Pull up a chair by the trouble and care.

I got whiskey, you're welcome to some.

Oh Lord, I have made you a place in my heart,

but I don't reckon you're gonna come.

I've tried to fix up the place, I know it's a disgrace,

you get used to it after a while -

with the flood and the drought and old pals hanging out

with their IOU's and their smiles.

bare naked women keep coming in

and they dance like you wouldn't believe.

Oh Lord, I have made you a place in my heart,

so take a good look - and then leave.

Oh Lord, why does the Fall get colder each year?

Lord, why can't I learn to love?

Lord, if you made me, it's easy to see

that you all make mistakes up above.

But if I open the door, you will know that I'm poor

and my secrets are all that I own.

Oh Lord, I have made you a place in my heart

and I hope that you leave it alone.

The invisible people

There's a lot of homeless people here in Mexico City. A lot. Thing is, only so many go out to beg, so I haven't even glimpsed their actual number. Most of the impoverished are relegated to the slums where they are far outside the small spectrum of concern offered by the typical city dweller.

At the average subway station you'll find maybe one or two beggers at the entrance or at the bottom of an escalator; most of them are elderly or with small children. Sometimes there'll be some dude passed out on the sidewalk or off next to a building, sometimes in ludicrous positions like the outlines Wile E. Coyote left behind at the bottom of that cliff, like they just crashed flat on their face.

The real shame are all of the apparently abandoned children. If they're old enough to walk they're old enough to be on their own and wandering in the streets. They band together into gangs of children and must organize themselves somehow because they routinely wash windshields or go begging in pairs. I imagine that alot of these children disappear without ever having anyone acknowledge them in the first place.

Some bums will set up camp in the street, literally in the street, or on the sidewalks for months at a time and longer maybe. There's one guy near the Oxxo food-mart where I live, he's got his piece of foam and some blankets and next to that an up-turned crate with old water-stained magazines on it; it's his own Hotel California. He's never asked for change or been beligerent in any way, he just sits on his pad and smiles or sleeps, sometimes he's poking around with something... rearranging the furniture or what-have-you.

Bums in the US were much more confrontational than that. In Columbus I'd been cornered many times by some toothless bum brandishing horrible breath, but rarely have I encountered something like that here (discounting the bad-breathiness and lacking of teeth), even though there are obviously leagues more. At first I thought they were more docile because there's so many people rushing around that it would be too hard to corner anyone in the usual fashion, but the real reason is because these people are simply defeated, they don't have the energy or will power to exert that kind of influence. If they had the energy they wouldn't be begging, they'd be washing car windows or playing bad harmonica or something that elicits more than being completely ignored by everyone.

Something I had never considered about the street-people I knew in Columbus was how well-dressed they were. I see guys here walking around with jeans that look like they were shredded by the Incredible Hulk, just hanging tatters, socks held together with dirt and grime, no shoes, no shirt. That these people don't have clothing that's intact or a pair of shoes astonished me. I thought to myself, but they need clothing!, as if I were the first person to recognize that these people are literally checkered in rags. In Columbus they had not only clothes but probably a decent seletion of sizes and colors to choose from... not to mention donated food and blankets, if not a cot and a hot meal. And I think every bum readily had access to lots of duct tape and rope, at least from the looks of it.

Let's face it, if you're going to be a bum, the United States is the place to squat. There are actually people in the my city who aren't even homeless at all, but make a living pretending that they are, and do a pretty good job at it too. There was a guy that we affectionatly called the "help is on the way guy," dude drove a BMW. I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I bet the average begger in Columbus could make $10 an hour if they do more than lay on the ground next to a cup. I mean. those bums, they know they're going to get some money out of you if they try hard enough and they're not afraid to show it, but here it's the exact opposite, they expect to be invisible and they largely are.

The kind of soap that makes you dirty

I was getting a healthtricious sandwich at Subway and some new soap was on. Tele-novels (as they call them) here are HUGE, they make kiddy soaps and teen soaps and probably soaps for the elderly and handicapped too. This one soap for teenagers, Rebelde, kinda reminds me of Saved by the Bell, except instead of Screech, there's a super-fat girl and instead of Mr. Belding there's like 10 other super-hot girls. They run around in short little skirts and shake their asses... well except for the fat girl, that would be too much shake I think. Usually these soaps only go on for a year, instead of the never-ending sagas you get in the States, but this one just keeps going on & on and I see it on everywhere. Another soap on here was The Virgin Bride (I wonder how that series finished...) and another, The Stepmother, stars(ed?) Ponch from that old show CHiPs. They're all very stupid and silly and way, way over the top... like the wail of a pipe organ every 15 seconds while the actors do obscene gestures with their eyebrows.

....remind self to never think about this again.

deep fried

The first month after I quit smoking I started eating more... it didn't get out of control or anything, but my choice of food wasn't exactly the best either. Okay... so I've always eaten shit food, but after I quit smoking I was eating even more shit food. (I've found only few other vegatables that are above pasture level, salads have always seemed to me like something cows should be eating.) So, I was rewarding myself with junk, and I had earned the right to do so (in my mind). Grilled tortas with pork chops and steak and cheese or snitzel (?) and hot-dog meat or some other ungodliness, BK... every day I would have either a chocolate milkshake or pack of m&m's and kettle chips, lotsa Coca-cola. But now that I feel like I have this smoking situation under control I don't want to keep going with that. Why should I stop with quitting cigs, the whole reason I'm doing this is to take better care of myself. I should eat better too. And if I'm going to eat healthier, why shouldn't I take care of my body too. I spent an hour at the gym today, (mostly sweating) but what's great is that afterward I don't even want a coca-cola or hamburger or chips, I want to eat something that my body can use. I want water. Did I mention that I've only become this idyllic person that I describe for maybe two days in a row now, lol. Makes no difference, I'm going every day from now on... just like with the smoking, one day at a time.

My balls are irish (mars and jupiter)

Happy St. Paddy's Day everyone.

I feel like kicking some arse today, so don't tempt me. My ex-girlfriend invited me out to this english pub, the black horse, in condesa, but I'm realizing now that she didn't actually invite me, I invited her to invite me. Last weekend her and I were talking;

me: I'd like to go out for St. Paddy's Day
her: Sure, it could be like for your birthday
me: as long as we don't say so. Are people going to the Black Horse?
her: no
me: well, do you wanna do something then?
her: sure

Then yesterday she simultaneously tells me that she made other plans with people and that they're going to The Black Horse. So I'm like: why, we already made plans I thought (kind of like last week when she ditched out on me to go dancing... she doesn't even dance.) After lots of pausing and consideration she invited me to go "when we figure out what we're doing" and I accepted like a big moron. How can I be so stupid?! Why do I even bother... Get it into your thick skull, Tim: SHE DOESN'T WANT TO GO OUT WITH YOU.

Now I have to tell her that I'm not going to go (if she calls), but I can't say it's because she intentionally flaked out on me and only invited me cuz she felt like she had to. She'd never admit to it (who would?) and I'd just look like I'm feeling sorry for myself, which I am. I can't say that I don't want to share her with a bunch of drunken brits either and that I'll happily knock the piss out of the first one who sticks his tongue in her ear (which will take about an hour, more or less, I'm guessing). Too scary. I can't say it's because i want her all to myself. Too possessive. So what do I say? I'll say that it's because I want to be by myself, which is at least partially true... and that it has nothing to do with her. That's a lie we can both live with.

the day after yesterday

I've been mulling over what's in store for me this year. One thing I recently realized about myself is that I've pretty much gotten everything that I've ever wanted in my life... granted I've never wanted very much for myself, but every little thing that I ever wanted passionatly I obtained and then I somehow ended up rejecting it. And everytime, why did I reject it? Because I either thought I was too good for it, or I thought I wasn't good enough. There have been so many sweet experiences, so many good people that I never fully allowed myself access to and that's because I don't trust myself and I haven't much cared about myself either.

Anyhow, my wish for the coming year is that I care for myself, that I trust myself again, and that I allow myself to attract the things that i want into my life. I guess that's three wishes, but wtf, I deserve at least three for all the candles I've blown out having never made a wish b/c I knew it wouldn't come true. I'm done with that kind of defeatist thinking; everything is opening up for me and this time I'm going to seize it with both hands.

It's been 26 years since I was born. I'm ready to take charge of my life. Amen.

I can choke if I want to.

Today is my birthday. I'm somewhat notorious for hating these days... but it's not just me, my body actually has a severe biological reaction to my birthdays, starting around 3am of the day in question. I swear to god, the last few birthdays I can remember were mostly me throwing up and crying. Maybe it's because it's the Ides of March, maybe it's because I'm repulsed by everyone congratulating me for something I didn't want to do in the first place, or maybe I intentionally seek out maladies to make this birthday my last. Whatever.

Objective Thinking

Mexico's ruling PAN party has launched its' latest wave of attacks against machismo and sexism in an ad campaign where the working-class women of the world are replaced by pucker lipped blowup sex dolls... who seem to be doing their jobs... followed by the message, "No woman should be treated like an object." Am I the only person who finds this completely ridiculous and counterproductive?

I mean, I assume the intended audience is macho-macho men (not macho women) and that the intended effect is to make those men more sensitive to their female coworkers. Now, I didn't grow up here and I'm not particulary macho, but still, they (machismos) already knew they were treating women like objects, now they just know which kind of object they've been treating them like. This is at best... a joke that will catch their attention... if they really wanted to hit home with men, they should have replaced the women, not with bang-bots, but with other men. I think the scenes of male-on-male sex discrimination would really put them in their place more than male-on-doll discrimination... so instead of associating women with people they've associated them with inflatable fucking. Great.

I wonder what they did with the dolls afterwards.... I mean that's technically government property paid for with tax dollars, so technically some govt. official(s) should be fucking them too. Or maybe there's a storeroom somewhere packed to the brim with a platoon of smartly dressed blowup women and one very happy janitor with a feather duster.
The fact that this is the sort of imagery those ads call to mind doesn't help the plight of women any, does it?

she doesn't know me

She asked me why do I worry? I say, because I'm good at it.
I know she got along for twenty-five years without me.
Those scars in her body got along for twenty-five years without me.
For twenty-five years of putting out fires she got along without me.

Everytime I see her, she asks me do I hate her.
Once a week when I see her, she asks do I hate her.
Once a week do I melt her from the fires she starts.
Once a week do I love her.

I have some pictures of us together.
I'd never show them to anyone, they're terrible.
We're fat and ugly and we look like we just woke up.
Those pictures are treasures to me.

Age of Undiscovery

There are no uncharted waters or finial frontiers or lost worlds (except in movies of same titles)... and if you can show me a place on the face of this planet where I can't buy a Coca-Cola from someone, well, then I'll buy you a Coke from someone. Not only is there civilization everywhere, but all of natures mysteries have benn explained away by science and forced to follow it's laws. That twinkle in the stars was given some long-sounding name. Now how am I supposed to worship that?

This, now, is the computer age where old information is exchanged back and forth amongst computers in an ever growing abundance.... and most of this is bukkake! And besides porn, the internet is just the saturation of the fact that everything under the Sun has already been done & discovered at least twice and written about at least thrice and analyzed at least five times... there's probably a movie in the works for your silly walk "that no one has ever done before" too.

This blog is an example of what I thought... in my case seconds ago, but for you, what year is this for you, how old are these words? In your time, hasn't bird flu killed everyone yet? And what the fuck good is a computer blog then?! Go clean up the dead bodies you hudsucker! Go kill the birds! Go on, go!

Thankfully there are a few things that will never be explained... or at least not to everyones satisfaction, like the big three: where did we come from, what are we doing here, and where are we going. Besides that we already know that we're going to hell, the other two questions are still anyone's bet and always will be.

Personally, I think the meaning of life is; 'to give life meaning'. Unfortunatly I don't know how to do that.. and by the time I do figure out how to finally do it I'll run into someone who thinks the meaning of life is to blow up himself and everyone else in the coffee shop where I was about to get my Mochachino with whip cream on top... and then where are we? Yup. Hell. At least he'll have company.

Okay, but where did I come from...? Sears & Roebuck? Cosmic bet? A long night of drinking?... maybe all three.

Now that would be a discovery.

Bungal Idiomas Pt. II - Training (to Bend Over)

The training portion of my courtship with Bungal took three weeks. Mon-Fri, 10am-3pm consistining mostly of exercises in futility. In the first week we covered pretty relevant material for learning how to teach English. We went over the main verb tenses, active and passive voice and so on. This is also when we learned the "Bungal Method" of teaching, which consists mainly of saying "repeat, repeat, repeat..." and making traffic signals with your hands.

Their "method" directly incorporates itself into the official ten-volume Bungal line of textbooks... which I am led to believe was written during a two-week long stint of meth-amphetamines and diet pills in the basement of the Bungal office building. ...so many great texts have been written that way.

Every day at the beginning of class we (me and my classmate) were given a "control" that they defined as "the proactive monitoring of a process to guarantee it's result.". Really. That's the official definition. They were quizzes of course, but Bungal couldn't call them that, they had to give it a name that eludes to their dominion over my success or failure. Was I being a good monkey today or a bad one?

These controls were to be averaged at the end of each week and anything below 80% was considered failing. Okay, no sweat, I ace them all, until on Friday of week 1, me and my classmate get a 60% and 40% on one of these, half of the questions being things we never even practiced or learned. Then they tell us afterwards, that Friday's control actually counts for the whole week. Whether or not the weekly average is above 80% suddenly held no meaning. What. The. Fuck.

"Normally you'd have to start the entire week over again, but being as how nice we are we're going to let you take another, longer version of our Controls on Monday."

Thanks a lot for cuddling me after the ass fuckery. First you don't explain the grading process (or you probably make up rules as you go along) before giving me a rigged quiz and now I should feel like you're doing me a favor?! Fuck You. Fucktards. I'll take the damned control over, but don't expect a thank you.

"Now, since you've been such lovely contestants, we're going to make you officially indentured to Bungal by presenting you with these lovely materials (that you have to pay $300 for if you get fired in the next six months), congratulations!"

A cheap tape recorder, a fake-leather Bungal-branded blue briefcase, a mini-whiteboard, a folder, other crap, all on an itemized list. Then I signed something in blood (it wasn't a greeting card) and I was made their bitch.

At this point you're wondering (as am I) why was I enduring this, why would I subject myself to this level of tyranny. The simple answer is; they're getting me my working visa. That's what I really want most right now.

...to be continued

Mama raised me a quitter

In the ten years that I smoked, I made the final decision to quit smoking in maybe ten seconds. I wish I made more decisions this quickly.

I was out on the patio sitting down to read a book and I reached for my cigarettes, which weren't there, and I got up to look for them like I have a million times before. But this time I realize that I'm doing it and I remember all the other times I've gone frantic looking for my cigarettes either finding them or going to the store to get more. This time I know where my cigs are and I know that there are only two (or maybe three) left in the pack and I'll need to get more soon and I only have ten pesos and I'll need to go to the ATM and a pulse of anxiety races up my spine. Imagining that I may have to go twenty minutes without a cigarette two hours from now gives me the jangles as it does every day.

I counted up all the wasted energy (and time) I had put into finding, buying and borrowing cigarettes. I realized all of the activities postponed because I needed to guarantee I'd still have a cigarette to smoke afterwards. I had assumed that I was using cigarettes to enhance my experiences or prepare me for an experience or relieve me from stressful experience...., but mostly smoking was the experience. I was postponing my experiences to smoke. If I had a job interview, I'd have to smoke cigs as close up till the time of the interview as possible (and sometimes during), even though it makes me stink more than I realize. and if I can't have a cigarette I'll feel disjointed and jonesy the whole time, fixated on my next fix. I had given smoking top priority in my life and I was completely dependant on them to fulfill that need.

I wanted control of my life back. This was the greatest urge to quit I had felt in a long time, there were other reasons that came later too, but this was how I came to find my three cigarettes, break them, and throw them in the trash.

It was also because.... Ugh, how to put this. How can I ever take care of myself in life... no, How can I ever care about myself in life when I am habitually doing something as self destructive and self sabotaging as smoking. Something that I knew was hurting me. (I've been lucky with the worser drugs, but it's the same thing) I acknowledged it, yet I went on with it like it wasn't staining every inch of me with its toxins and stink. If it's so easy to kill myself in tiny, tiny incriments, well, what good am I to myself? Ever?

The third reason was not conscious so much as in the back of my head. It was kind of like how you purchase a lighter with the intent of lighting up your smokes, but it makes a great bottle opener too so it would be silly not to use it for both. I figured it would be an equally good reason to quit because it would take my mind off of somebody. Certainly made quitting easier.

48 days later and it's gotten steadily tougher. I had the inertia from making my decision-of-clarity and throwing out the last of my camels, from gaining my control again. All my idealic reasons for quitting fueled me also... but one and a half months later I have to make my own momentum. I'm left with my will power and I must allow myself to exercise it everyday. Still, sometimes I need to rip my hair out, roll it up, and smoke it before I do something that I'll really regret. I think before ripping my hair out though I should probably try something else to regain focus, maybe in the same vein as getting healthy again (I assume I was a healthy baby anyways). Eat better, exercise, get the kind of body that I want... so I can feel good about myself, so I know that I care about myself.

I did go to the gym twice a couple of weeks ago and it felt great. I had all kinds of energy and I felt like I could keep going. And it was easy. I remember jogging when I was in NH and that stuff bout killed me. Cramps, pounding heart, dry throat, dry tongue, hacking up phlem... needing to rest every 5 or 7 minutes at first. But this time it was like I had been running all along, very natural. But then last week I start coughing and feeling a tickle in my throat. This week too. So, I've put off going back to El Gimnasio. I feel better today but I'm still have this shitting cough. Maybe I just suck at taking care of myself. Bah.

I am not a blog

The thing about starting this blog for me was the same as all other things; I'm really good at thinking about about it and talking about it, but when it actually comes time to do it, I stall and think about it some more. I've always been so preoccupied with the idea of doing things right the first time, that there isn't any room for mistakes. The problem with that ideaology is that I can never decide what the right thing is and keep pondering and weighing the different sides. I'd be a horrible judge.

I've had so many things that I've wanted to get out (about myself I mean), but I never feel that I'm ready to commit my feeling to the web because once it's out there, it's encoded in stone forever, there to define me as a person. That's not true of course, people change and they should be allowed to change. I myself change in lesser ways ways every month and in greater every year, partly because of my shitting depression and partly because I've never had any self identity... but everyone changes. To try and hold onto anything that I believe or anything that I am now is foolish and goes against what beliefs I do have, but at the same time I'm afraid to box myself in, to make mistakes, to change my mind. I shouldn't be. I'm so self absorbed and all I want is to not care about my attitudes. When I put these things here on this blog I am not owning them, I am disowning them. Only actions and toasters can be owned, ideas and thoughts and feeling are everyones and they come and go into nothing. I am putting these thoughts down here so i can forget about them, not so I can read them or you can read them and we all get a better ideas of who I am. I am not my fucking khakis. I am not my fucking blog.

Take everything I say with a grain of salt because I take it with a spoonful.