we weren't long, close friends... but good drinking buddies, always amiable company... and of the familiar faces i looked forward to seeing once more around the fire at the green someday, you were right at the top... always boisterous, loud and smiling and full of life... and now... incomprehensible...

i really... i don't know what to say, to think, to feel... i'm floored... i'll toast you tonight my friend, sending all the love to you wherever you are, all the strength in my heart to those who must be struggling with such a gaping absence you'll leave... and then i'll stumble down the street til the wee hours, thinking of you with every step...

rest in peace casey

if only i could have everything at once

so many things, so far flung

taunting me with their mutual inaccessibility 

damnit

i've got one penny,
    my very last penny,
        and i've put it in my shoe.

i guess now, m'dear
   i'm waiting, too, with
        hands outstretched,
            to see what comes.

sitting in paris
    with a penny in my shoe
 

... modest mouse

... and filtered cigarettes

... and best of all: a cold bottle of proper ipa

i think ive died and gone to heaven

... but alas, im still in marghera - for about 12 hours more

and thus, red couch, monument in my life that you are,
i bid you adieu in but a few short hours

(and now a little siesta) 

---

make or break?! achieve goals?! are you kidding me?!
this is even a question anymore?
um, no. broken, it's long, gone broken. i thought y'all knew?

and just a few weeks ago bush tried to tell all y'all that vietnam wasn't what it was and that gosh darnit, we coulda won!

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

i know history is often far from accurate, written by the winners and the ruling classes. and though america is still in the upper echelons of ruling powers, last i checked we weren't the winner. not in vietnam and not now. unless it's bobby bare style.

apparently the administration still hasn't given up the idea that no matter how ludicrious, if they say it you will buy it. and given that the charlatan is still 'in office,' and the things that just keep happening, maybe they're right. maybe it is too late.

but america, watching from afar with a sick sense of dread in the pit of my stomach, america, if you really are so ignorant, gullible and niave as to buy whatever horseshit they shovel your way, than maybe it is indeed past time that i renounce you as long past any hope of rationality, sanity or salvation.

---
(PS - and if the general populace either elects or allows the strong-arming of another republican 'president' into office, i swear to every god in the sky: that's it, i'm not coming back, not even to visit, punto. please, for the love of reason, tell me you're not all such bloody fucking stupid sheep!)

what could be better than a foamy hoodie? 

heart racing, breath quick,
a spring and skip to each step,
as i walk down the street to giardinetto
in search of dinner,
bursting with small yips of pleasure,
rocking on the balls of my feet as i wait
unable to quell the wide grin plastered to my face
nor the twinkle in my eye

i am positively quivering with excitement.

just now, for the third time, i've said 'see you thursday, in paris'
to my dear amiga, for our last hurrah (for now ; )
my new interest, whom im curious and nervous to see
and just now to my old friend,
the last person to watch me walk away on my native soil a year ago,
and am blown by the reality of seeing this side of the atlantic

this week is looking better with every moment that passes
there is only one person's presence that could possible improve it
but i know i can't have everything, and am more than ecstatic with what i've unexpectedly been given at such short notice
(though i might hope for the miracle of a job thrown into the mix...)

thursday morning, just three short days away...

"i can see you shiver with anticipa..."

 "The Six of Swords card suggests that my power today lies in transition. I have what I need and am willing to trust the process order to move on, seek refuge or new opportunity. I'm not willing to remain where my perceptions are invalidated but being vulnerable I must rely on guidance to move in a new direction or trust that I can make it or be led to security and new hope. 'Wherever you go, there you are.' I am empowered by perseverance and my virtue is survival."

-------

this is particularly appropriate today.

it keeps coming to mind that maybe i took the wrong train last week. sometimes for whimsical reasons, sometimes for something deeper and nameless, and sometimes because i simply don't know if my nerves can take it.

i've put on tallahassee, i wonder if anyone will notice

my very first blog of record, tre anni fa:
(from 'things to do today: exhale, inhale, exhale. ahhhh.')

karma means you dont get away with anything - july 12, 2004

"in the end these things matter most: how well did you love? how fully did you live? how deeply did you learn to let go?"

buddha's little instruction book

learning to let go is by far the hardest. let go of preconcieved notions, of things that please, of things that hurt. but in order to let go you have to experience it fully. let it flow in, and then flow out again. and in turn, learn to accept.

this is the lesson i'm working on.

two weeks later my assessment of blogging was such:

(edited slightly for presentation)

so i'm thinking the blog thing is kinda cool. it kind of grows on you. at first i was like blah, what's the point of that. who the hell would want to read my petty rambling ... and now i'm more like, hey this is kinda cool. who gives a fuck if people want to read it or if they think it sucks or whatever, *i'm* having fun. it's a little scary in that you never know who'll read it ...

but it's like i've got this whole wide space to just let my mind wander. and it can be random and go on tangents and bounce off things and yahooty ...

but like most things, as you realize a new freedom, you dont neccesarily know quite what to do with it. got this big empty space in front of me, and not sure what to fill it with. a dab of prussian blue here, alizren crimson there.... hmmm what can we make ...

a conversation with myself... i like that.

being recently threatened by a new acquaintance that they were going to read through my blog looking for signs of who and what i am -- and yes, though im being mostly factitious, in a way it does feel a bit threatening, because though you put these things up fully knowing theyre viewable by the public, intending it, craving it, an exhibitionist wanting to show yourself secretly to the world, desperately desiring that people read and understand and know, leave comments on how fabulous and insightful you are and whatnot, thus finding validation and bolstering the fragile ego, it's a whole other ball of wax when you actually know in advance someone new is going to be reading it, nailbiting as to what they'll come away thinking after a glimpse into your carefully constructed virtual soul -- i responded, only half in jest, that it was a dangerous endeavor and they'd judge me certifiable the further back they went, thus depriving me of a new friend.

so in turn, i decided to go back myself and see what was there to find, reassess where ive been before moving forward again. all the way to the beginning, from the three separate blogs ive kept to date, every page of archives loaded in a new tab, the whole mess making 45 in total. phew.

and no, i havent even come close to re-reading half of it. i made it back as far as last october, then started from the beginning a bit, leaving most of the middle still a mystery. but i've seen enough for now. and what i've come away with so far...

first: i've concluded that that i don't need to write a book anymore: i've already written one. i just need to figure out how to copy and paste the SOB together.

second: im surprised to find that even with my plethora of insecurities and neuroses i think i can honestly say ive improved over time, both in my writing and my issues. more in the former though ; ), but i'll address that later on.

working back from the end then considering it next to the early days, it seems more substantial, mature, thoughtful - even if it is still rambling, random and tangential, so loaded to the brim with run-on sentences as to make a high school english teacher cringe. there's a greater depth in the details and craft, i think, to the observations of my life and their presentation, better articulated and more insightful. the pictures painted with a finer brush and a bit greater intensity. and a greater honesty with myself. though it's still mostly all rough draft, it's coming out with a bit more polish off the fly. a long way from finished, and it's certainly not all or even majority of quality, but still an improvement. but enough touching my pussy, so to say.

third: if my new friend actually makes it back through the stacks, i should be written off by the time he reaches march, october at the furthest. i said i see evidence of improvement in myself, but that's not entirely meant the way it might sound. i don't mean i've gotten better, found a cure. in fact, i'm probably getting worse with each passing year and each successive fallout, honing finer my self-destructive skills. the evidence is there in the archives: i'm a trainwreck waiting to happen, with about a two month ticking clock from the moment i am writing this.

but i'm working toward greater recognition, clarity, acceptance, honesty, articulation of the condition. also far from realization, but improved. i don't know if it's evident to others in what's written, either in subject or content; if a trained professional would read it and say i'm on the road to recovery; it might just be in the reaction i feel re-reading and placing myself back in those dark moments, trying to find words for the things overwhelming me. but as i go back in heart and mind, feel the pain and isolation again, i can feel a shift forward. i may still fall apart for roughly half the year, still periodically being capable of posting no more than a cryptic 'fuck everything, i quit.' but at times my awareness of it, the clarity and honesty with which i attempt, if not succeed, to regard and convey it, and more so the frequency with which i let it out - admit to myself and others that i am not ok - is a step up from the blind desperation of years before.

but perhaps this is just delusional.

fourth: i still really love these two quotes, and will probably redundantly repost them periodically for years to come

"Johnny: Loretta I love you. Not…not like they told you love is, and I didn’t know this either. But love don’t make things nice. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren’t here to make things perfect. Snowflakes are perfect. Stars are perfect. Not us. Not us. We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and to love the wrong people and..and die…I mean the storybooks are bullshit! Now I want you to come upstairs with me and GET in my bed. C’mon. C’mon. C’mon…"

~ moonstruck

"cigarettes have been my punctuation in life, the periods, commas, hyphens and exclamation points (especially after sex) by which i divided and organized my day. without them i felt like one endless run-on sentence; a formless, structureless bundle of anguish, always off balance, like a person forced to go weeks without looking at a clock. ... what on earth to do with my hands, hour after hour, day after day, week after week?"

~ jonathan hull, losing julia

fifth: my life sounds, on the surface, a hell of a lot more interesting these days. instead of cathartic rants about call center customers and jaunts to the local redneck bar, im writing of afternoon walks to the prado, impromptu trips to the south of france and croatia, lovers strewn throughout mediteranean europe, flippantly considering if i should live in venice or paris or madrid. but the reality of it is, as mike always said, though the bastard never talks to me anymore, the reality of it is that my life is still just comprised of the day to day. although these things and more sounds exotic and fabulous when i think of myself sitting at the green or the muff a couple years ago, now they are no more than a part of my day to day struggle to survive, and far more within my means than having a pint on micro night would be.

sixth: ... shit. i think i just ran out of steam. ça va. i also think i just had serious qualms about the wisdom of trying to dissect these things, evaluate myself. it's odd being a voyeur of yourself, obsessively re-reading your past words and trying to understand who wrote them. i'd best stop before i get any further deeper in shit than i already am. i've written more in the last few days than i have in months, and it feels wonderful, but my left eye is starting to twitch from the glowing screen.

seventh: in conclusion, as in the beginning, this is a place to let my mind wander, to engage in conversation with myself. others are welcome to come and go from the dialogue as they please, but in the begining and end it's for myself, and i shouldn't forget that.

"in the end these things matter most: how well did you love? how fully did you live? how deeply did you learn to let go?"

ok, basta.

i almost forgot to mention it, but...

thank fucking god, august is finally over!

woot, woot and welcome to september!

on to the next steps in my convoluted and uncertain life...
well, after i finish this english camp.
but soon enough, my time here is almost done.