care to join?

I just got home from work.  I'm cooking myself dinner at midnight.  I work again tomorrow morning... uh today at seven.  anyone wanna come to my pity party?  anybody??

PROLOGUE

Sergio is staying in San Diego and not coming back to live with me.  now it's just my uncle and I living here, along with his insufferable new lady friend that shows up to make dinner and dumb comments from time to time.  today I moved all Sergio's things out of his room, and I am now relocated from the air mattress in the living room to the shitty mattress in the second bedroom.  

I'm not ok.  I feel like Kevin Spacey's wife from American Beauty, trying to convince myself that everything is fine and I'm happy and life is good and normal.  but no, it isn't.  when I'm distracted at work, things are fine.  but every day for about the past week, I've gotten home and, after relaxing for a bit and having something to eat, the sobering reality hits me again.  I'M ALL ALONE.  every person I care about is 1,269 miles away.  what the fuck am I doing?  I'm stuck here.  I'll go back and not have a job and be behind in school and never go anywhere or be able to love anyone or make something of my life...  it's a runaway cycle of negative thoughts.  

since I can remember, I've had a problem with getting sad.  I don't get sad, I get mad.  coincidentally, when I get extremely mad - which is exceedingly rare and hard to bring about -  my eyes start to water like I'm about to cry.  I think some axons got crossed and mismatched in my brain.  

early this evening I was sitting on the edge of my bed, leaning forward, intently staring at the suitcase in the corner that still holds all my clothes.  I am all alone.  I should be in San Diego.  I got so sad I wanted to break things.  most people call this emotion "mad."

I realized I'm not about to strike up several friendships anytime too soon, so my time alone in the near future should be spent in a productive way that can provide an outlet for what I'm feeling.  I needed music.  in one of the closets here, I came across an old Yamaha electric keyboard that I assume belonged to my uncle's friend who moved out in January.  I pulled it out, saw it had no DC adaptor, and turned it on to see if it had battery power left.  no.  frustrated, I decided to get on a bus, go downtown to a pawn shop I checked out once before, and blow my grocery money on an acoustic guitar.  as I was getting my wallet and house key, I realized it was already 7:30.  pretty much everything in downtown except bars closes at 6 or 7.  maybe tomorrow.

MONOLOGUE

"passion" was taken from Middle English, from Old French, from the Late Latin "passio," from the Latin word "pati," meaning "to suffer."  the word was mainly used in Christian theology to refer to Christ's suffering.  Mel Gibosn's Passion of the Christ wasn't referring to His love for mankind as many would think, but rather to His suffering so graphically depicted in the movie.

an artist may declare, "Painting is my passion!"  with the way our language has developed, we understand him to be saying, "Painting is what I live for!  It is what I'm driven to do, and I do it for the love of it, and I will never stop painting unless both my arms are cut off."  

and it's easy to see how this evolution of meaning came about.  there were artists like Van Gogh, who quite literally suffered for art.  you know... the story of how he cut off his own ear because no matter how hard he tried he could not paint it perfectly???  actually that isn't the real circumstance behind the incident, but it makes for a good illustration here.

people calling something they felt great affection for a "passion" was hyperbole, but not to a great extent.  a man says he is passionate for football.  he is a true die-hard fan.  he will go to the away game in the snow with his chest painted and no shirt on.  he loves his team so much, he feels so strongly for it, that he will in fact suffer for it.  

his act of suffering for something shows his level of regard for it, and this is called being "passionate."

if I was passionate about something, I would probably be sad for days, weeks, even a whole month if I thought I had lost it.  I might ruin my own life just so I wouldn't have to see the thing itself be ruined. 

it's not something I have asked myself recently, but wh am I really passionate about?

my bad sleep habits

I was tired all day.  I passed out on the couch this evening some time past nine.  I woke up at eleven with the lights on, my phone open on the ground, and five new texts.  so I got ready for bed properly, got "in bed" (more correctly, "on air mattress"), and of course now I can't sleep at all.  

It occurred to me that I should get on Craigslist and look for a cheap acoustic guitar.  I've been meaning to get one and see what becomes of the two of us.  

on the Craigslist main page, I was browsing the categories and sub-categories wondering where I might find me a guitar.  under "for sale" is the link "music instr".  I was looking for a free guitar, not one for sale.  no selling or buying desired.  my eyes went back up the page and landed on "missed connections".  I was thinking "What?"  I saw it was under personals, and I wondered what entertainment this might hold.  

I clicked w4m - woman for man.  I don't know why I chose that, it's not like I expected to see one for me (I'm not quite that vain).  just curious I suppose.

if you went on the Seattle Craigslist and checked out the missed connections and clicked "Costco cutie!!!" you could read about a W who saw an M looking at muffins or some shit at Costco, and how she wants him to email her.  

ok this is not entertaining.  what was I doing again?  a guitar?  I clicked back.  

similar dumb headlines, then farther down one said "Your arms around me - w4m - 42".  my interest was sufficiently piqued for whatever reason.  there was one solid paragraph at least fifteen lines long.  I didn't think I would read it all until I started, but for some reason I continued through all of it.

I am so lucky to have you as a friend in my life again, after so long. I remember when your arms around me felt like heaven and there was nothing that could distract me from that loveliness. I got to feel your arms around me again last night, hanging out as old friends do, and I thought I was strong enough not to cry about how your arms made me feel when we said hello and goodnight. I don't know what you are working through, or why you can't follow your heart to me, but I respect you and am only hoping for you to heal from whatever it is. Anything beyond that would be greedy, but I do really wish I could tell you that you still can make me feel all tingly and I imagine you could so easily spark up my teenage crush on you again. I don't know why you keep looking me up, I don't want to be just "something to do on the eastside" when you are here. A little part of me hopes you are testing your feelings again. A bigger part of me wishes I was immune to the feeling of your arms around me so that I could just dive into some kind of therapeutic affair to get over you again. I remember you telling me you loved me, and you tried to again years later, and again years later, and I feel like I must be good for you in some way that you aren't all the way receptive to. I really want to get over you if you are actually not going to explore your feelings with me again. It is a little hard to get over you when you look at me the way I think I saw you look at me last night. I wish you touched me, I have not let anyone touch me for a long time. Don't you want to feel love, even a little love, from someone who has been enjoying you for so long? Doesn't your skin feel lonely? Don't your lips miss being close to mine? Don't you miss teasing me and laughing together and flirting? Oh my god I wonder why I bother asking these questions. If you don't know what you want, I shouldn't be interested. I should pay attention to the guys who have been really after me instead of ignoring them. I had given up shallow affairs but maybe I shouldn't have. I have put off my passions for too long, I think, and it is muddling my brain. I bet anyone else reading this thinks I should just get out there and forget you.

this woman is 42 years old, apparently single, and still feeling like this for her teenage crush it sounds like.  she can't go for the guys who want her because she can't move on.  but she's 42 and her life isn't waiting.

to me this was one piece of thread on a needle passing through the lives of two strangers, of people I know, of my own, through my fear of the passing of time, of love lost and not regained.  her paragraph could be made into a whole movie that people would love and hate.  I don't know the thread's place in the tapestry or why it's there or the larger picture to which it might be contributing its color.  I saw this one tiny thread, and I was looking at it up close wondering what it is going to mean.

a good night, too many words

tonight at 8:00, M. Ward played in Seattle.  I still don't have any "friends," per se, so I caught the bus downtown by myself.  when the bus was halfway there crossing the West Seattle Bridge, I realized I forgot to  bring my paycheck with me, and I had less than $20 in my checking account.  I was pissed at myself.  where I went wrong: I bolted out the door and down the street after I realized the bus was coming in less than two minutes.  I forgot to look down and to my right as I exited, at the coffee table by the front door and the paycheck lying on top of it.

after a couple minutes of being mad, I accepted it.  "ok Brian, this means you'll have to catch the next bus home, grab the check, run back to the bus stop, and head downtown again."  but after 6 PM (it was ten past seven), my bus runs on the half hour.  so I'd have been arriving downtown with my paycheck in hand at least one hour from then.  I knew I'd probably only miss the opening band, but still... I hate that.  I might like them, they might have something to say, I'll give them a shot.  (it's funny how I'm so different with live bands versus music people recommend to me.  live, I'll give anyone a fair chance;  I normally try to dislike bands I'm not familiar with when I listen to their stuff on myspace or iTunes.  it's closed-minded and dumb, but that's me.)  

I was speed-walking to the bus stop on 3rd Avenue, hoping to catch the 125 as soon as I got there.  as I was half a block away from 3rd I saw a bus pass down it headed south, the way I needed to go.  I was thinking, "I hope I didn't just miss the 125.  I wonder what bus that is..."  the 125, of course.  fuck me twice.

so now I'm thinking, "ok my Capital One credit card has some available credit left, but I don't know how much, and I don't know if they'll let me get a cash advance.  maybe I can put it into the ATM and see what it says."  I need twenty dollars.  somehow, I'm going to get into this show.  

and suddenly I remembered... oh that's right.  I have several hundred in Savings.  I just never think about it because I hate spending my Savings money.  so I hit up an ATM, took out $40, quickly quelled any qualms I had with the withdrawal, got some teriyaki at "Scaryaki" (the construction workers' name for it), and talked to Gina on the phone with my mouth full.  bad manners.  with $34.50 left, I jaywalked Pike past a bunch of people over to the Showbox.  then I realized the bunch of people were actually the line to see Mr. Ward.  cool.  I got in the back of the line.  

a bouncer walked by and I thought he said tickets were sold out.  I asked the guy in front of me if that's what he heard.  he turned around, reluctant to talk to a stranger but polite enough about it.  yeah, that's what he said.  

shittiness.  ok, well I saw a couple black guys walking up and down the line mumbling, "who wants tickets?"  I thought I'd catch one of them next time around.  about twenty after eight, the line started moving up slowly.  for a minute I was worried I'd reach the door before they came back.  he came by, I said "Hey.  how much?"

"Fifty bucks."

I laughed and shook my head.  "No man."

"How much you wanna pay?"

"I'll pay fifteen."  

He pulled out a ticket.  "Man look.  It's twenty bucks a ticket.  Tickets cost twenty bucks, and they're sold out.  Gotta have a ticket to get in."

"Nah it's for my friend.  He wants to come.  I'll pay twenty-five."

"Man I'll give it to you for forty."

I laughed and smiled.  "Nah."  he walked away.

when I reached the very front of the line, the main bouncer held out his arm to let the jam at the door clear up.  I asked him if there were any tickets to buy, he said it's sold out.  right then the same scalper came up to me and said, "Man I'll give it to you for thirty."

I had it ready in my pocket.  "Here it is."  we handed off and I walked in.

the opening band was decent.  a couple of songs were pretty good.  I think the band was called Port O'Brien.  for their last song, they handed out pots, pans, and spoons for people to bang on as they pleased.  it worked out very well, and the band got a good send-off.

after much standing around, M. Ward (just Matt himself) came on stage with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica hung around his neck.  I was already smiling.  I'm pretty sure he improvised his first song.  at one point he stopped with a smile slowly creeping onto his face, trying to find a rhyme, and at a loss, used the same word again.  people cheered.  later on he actually got people stomping, dancing, and cheering along with his jam (no lyrics, just instrumental).  I've never seen anyone bring so much energy into a crowded room with just one acoustic guitar, but he did.

and his voice is beautiful.  many guys are careful with using that word, especially when referring to some attribute of another male.  but really, his pitch is close to perfect, and his tone is raspy enough to keep it from reaching perfect and to bring it to some other beautifully imperfect place.

then the band came on.  first one old guy with a receding hairline and at least forty five years under his belt came onstage to whistle an accompaniment to Matt's guitar playing.  I was about to laugh, wondering if this guy is paid and driven around the country to whistle (very well, actually) for this one song.  but after that song, he grabbed another guitar, and the drummer, bassist, and keyboard player came onstage.

much of the rest of the show is a blur of good memories, but the drummer stood out.  at first he was playing very simplistic, rudimental rhythms.  I was still thinking he might be a local guy the band picked up when they rolled into Seattle, just a session drummer to fill a spot.  but as the show went on, his demeanor began to make an impression.  he was cool, and I mean cool like you would describe an old, overweight, black jazz drummer wearing a suit every night to gig at a dimly red, blues / jazz dive.  he just did his thing.  he wasn't looking around to see if people were enjoying the show.  he wasn't looking at the band for cues on when to do more, when to do less.  after a huge fill, smashing all the toms and crashing two cymbals at the end, he didn't look at anybody to say "how do ya like that?"  he just did his thing and knew it was good enough.  

after at least an hour, the show wound down.  then the first, fake goodbye that everyone knows is fake.  curtain call, encore.  M. Ward came out with a smile on his face and all of their faces, and they played "Vincent O'Brien."  I loved it, everyone loved it.  one or two more songs, and it was the real end.  

I never realized until tonight how great of a vocalist, how excellent a guitar player Matt Ward is.  tonight was one of those rare occasions when I become re-invigorated to pursue music.