holyfuckingshit

I think I startled myself as much as the rest of my house tonight. When I subtly announced that I leave this place in scarcely a month I experienced some sort of bastard hybrid of adrenaline rush and severe projectile nausea.

I leave my island in just over a month.
Again.
And I have no idea when I'll be back.
Again.

So if I've been here before why does it freak me out so much this time?

The space between choice and chance is measured differently by everyone. For some of you there is no space. For me it is wide and always has been.
Only their words make me doubt that gap.
Their words and their eyes.
Throughout this twisted ride I have never seen choices.
No crossroads. No rock-bottom. No yellow wood.
I am as unapologetic as my uncertainty allows.
Regret is exclusively directed toward my vulnerability to commentary. Whether commending or condemning you snag my flesh and spur me on. Motivated far too much by spite and expectation.

Show me my choices that I might trade your ignorance for insight.
Or see my path and stop fucking my balance.

Thicker Than Water

I just stumbled across a poem I wrote when I was 17. The class assignment was to write a little verse about love and recite it to the room. This one caused the teacher to double over and call me a "sick son of a bitch". Gotta love invoking profanity from authority figures...


*My darling dear, or should I say, my former eyes delight
Assuredly it pains my heart to send you off in flight
And though, at first, my heart did fear I'd never find your equal
My soul now revels in the joy that I have found your sequel

You see, my darling, 'twas not you whose spell had me enslaved
Though sweet, you are, and charming it is simply love I crave
So now, my dear, I've found new love to woo with gentle whisper
And for that love I must thank you
For I've just met your sister*


That counts as a love poem, right?

Sagittarius:

You'll compete with the Devil for your immortal soul in a midnight game of Scrabble, and win handily when he can only think of creepy, depressing Latin words.


(I want to marry TheOnion and bear its ungodly children)

Anybody want to buy me a new pair of boots?
I think I'm getting trench foot.

Blue light, pale, flickers across your face in twisted premonition. If I knew, now, how to read the flashing I don't believe this act will have played out any different. Revelation comes far too late for any less time to be wasted.
But his picture brings words to resolution. Words will make this concrete. This flickering blue casts understanding on your oblivious frame, curled in fetal slumber.
You sleep sound like a child...
even when you're awake.

Please Welcome...

There's been a lot of talk about this kat...
maybe too much talk.
This kat is not a rebel kat.
This kat is Nicholas, bloody Nicholas.

defeat.

Alright, Christmas.
You win.
I am now officially Santa's bitch.
Happy?
Jolly?
Ass.

14 hours of road-tripping this weekend has given to me the priceless gifts of a permanently cricked neck, acute numbness of the arse, and a new album hoisted among the ranks of my alltime favorite discs.

There's nothing quite like a weekend in rural Newfoundland spent playing " 5th-rate poetry set to 6th-rate music" to sear and, well, urinate on a man's love for music. Burlington was the town (mayhaps even village) whose church invited us out for the weekend to provide sonic backdrop for their worship of everyone's favorite triune deity. The weekend itself was nothing terribly noteworthy beyond my learning how to pray angrily with my guitar. The important episode was the 7 hour trip home where I received the healing touch of Matt Slocum, boy genius.

If you have not already done so I suggest, yea even demand, that each and every one of you acquire a copy of Sixpence None The Richer's self-titled album. If at all possible make sure your copy was pressed before the addition of "There She Goes" and has enough scratches on the back to completely remove any trace of "Kiss Me" (if not, the "skip" and "stop" buttons on your player will more than do the trick).
This album now belongs to an exclusive grouping of compositions I call my "Healing Discs". Music that makes the world a better place. Well...my world, at least. Also appearing on this list are Fiona Apple's "Tidal" and Over The Rhine's "Good Dog Bad Dog".
Buy them.
Hear them.
Love them.
Love me for pimping them.
Repeat.



(it should also be mentioned that, though the official theme of the weekend was PhatFish's "Heavenbound", the unofficial and vastly superior themesong adopted by us Protege dwellers was "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" by The Darkness--a song that makes me love Jesus more than any other song from that weekend)

Tavius Marshall

If anyone was wondering, he's the guy in that Paris Hilton sex video.

You're totally missing it.
The Drews are fighting and you're all the way over there. Not all the Drews, mind you. That would just be crazy. No, today it's only a couple of me that are at odds.
Today is goofy, anxious me vs. serious, brooding me.
They're fighting over who gets to post on the blog.
Goofy Drew wants to ramble on about how little there is to do at work, how amusing the bitter, sex-deprived battle-axes in his row are when they rail on against the "governing authorities", the healing virtues of drinking a liter of wine, and his growing fascination with "Hello Kitty". Serious Drew, on the other hand, wants to post cryptic and over-thought pseudo poetry about how his "realm is tainted by expanding clouds of the faithless and afraid" or some fag thing like that.
Unbeknownst to Andrew and Andrew, the heated battle affords commentary by a third person.
THE third person, actually.
And there's nothing Drew can do about it.
Not even Drew.

When toy shopping, look for the Joe Mantegna Seal Of Safety. It's your only guarantee that the toy has been deemed safe by Joe Mantegna.

Fighting Z.

Ramble long and flaunt verbose finesse to sandbag sagging consciousness.
Harness all the fury of pretentious diction for crystal deception
for perspicuous fiction.
Cranial mining for superfluous findings finds my fanny aligning with these corporate bindings- bound to white women whining about a boss above a basic request regarding respectless reproach (revealing relentlessly retarded reasons for recourse removed from reality).
Really.
(what I won't do to stay awake...)

I apologize.
Insanity stabs into me, sans intimacy, stating violently sad hierarchy: she dominates me, smiting normality, shaking mercilessly sound legitimacy.
Sucks to be me.

(i'm done now)

There's nothing like a healthy dose of Catholicism to start off your Saturday afternoon. At 3:21pm I awoke to a phonecall from Clouston (who had also just risen) and an invite to Saturday mass. What red-blooded charasmaniac could refuse an opportunity like that?
So there we sat--a pair of sharply dressed protestant twentysomethings amidst a sea of the balding, the middle-aged, and the jack-removal refusing. There was no question in anyone's mind that were a hot, young, gay couple too ashamed to attend the Sunday meeting.
I live for silent, ambiguous controversy.
It was a fantastic service, though. We're considering making this a weekly ritual so I'll keep you updated on how quickly I master the congregational responses.
This weeks successes:
"thanks be to God" and
"and also with you"
Next week I'm going to work on knowing exactly when to cross myself and figuring out why nobody in the building takes their coats off.

Peace be with you...

Injustice.

This reminds me of highschool.
I've been stricken with melodic inspiration in the midst of my apathetic stupor. This always happened to me at the worst possible times. I'd find rhythm on the bus. Basslines in the parkinglot. Lyrics in the bathroom...wait...that was lyrics in the classroom, limericks in the bathroom. Of course by the time I made it home the song had pretty much disintegrated due to lack of any way to transfer it from my mind to a more stable container.
To date I've produced at least 30 fully-formed stillborn compositions.
On the one hand I suppose, this could be a good indication that my 2+year bout with writer's block is nearing a close. On the other hand, though, I've got this great new tune that might never kick the ass of anyone anywhere.
I'll bet Buckley never had to deal with this.
Bah.

I was pretty bored at work today so I applied online to join something called the "FLQ Nouveau" .
Apparently, if they approve my membership, I get one of those cool-looking French guy hats and unlimited subway tokens.
They sounds like a really swell bunch of "hommes".
Wish me luck.

Sometimes I'm so useless it hurts.
Everybody.

If a man were to step out into his years first autumn snowfall would you think him foolish for not wearing a hat?
If that man were to walk the length of his street, with the frozen assault forcefully beautifying his hair, would you look down on him?
And if that man, when out of public view, produced an umbrella and shielded his head as he walked beside the river, would you mock his absurdity?

Just checking.
A friend wanted me to ask.
Um...
Yeah.

So many things I can see, now, that are devoid of opportunity to spoil. It's by simple virtue of the fact that I don't even deserve to be part of them. Virtuous ignorance affords me occasion. Allowance by inaptitude.
I've finally started to understand why this canvas has been kept blank all this while, save the yellowing of time. There are colors that simply don't exist in this place. Only dry, faded, cracked monuments to character long past. Only sun-bleached specters of purpose.
This is far beyond just cause for departure.
This is why it looks like I've already left.
Tired flesh will rise to meet wandering soul.
And this is why.

It was something in the way she gnawed on my hand that made me think perhaps this wasn't the best of choices.

Sick of watching fluid joy through passionless eyes.
When my hermit's stretch finally pulls itself limp I should hope it finds me a little less numb.
Every morning I wake with tired feet. It makes me wonder if my soul has grown so tired of this sessile drone that it has found a way to wander off when it knows I'll notice least. Every morning I wake with vague memories of foreign streets and strange faces that fade the moment I rise.
I still can't tell the difference between premonitions and consolations.

So I just heard a great joke. It starts with,
"C.S. Lewis, Rich Mullins, and Jesus walk into a bar," and ends with organized Western Christianity suffering a massive aneurysm and spontaneously combusting.
I don't quite remember the punchline but I think it was something along the lines of, "to get to the other side."

*badumching*

Isn't it sad that I only just figured out how to put links up on my own blog?
Ah well.
For all those interested, behold the fruits of my boredom at the "InkBlots" link over there.
Right there.
Waaaaaayyyy right.
Over there.
Yeah.

That's the one.

Just got off a conference call with Fred and the WordBird. Apparently the word of the day is "unclever".
That hurts me. I know you know it.
After a few agonizing moments of self-probing (bite ya tongue) I came to the conclusion that, with all of the effort I expend trying to convert thought to wit, I quite often lose the intent. On the other end of my verbal spectrum is my tendency to vaporous complete thoughts into vague haze when I'm feeling particularly unwitty. The result is a jumble of communicative bi-polar opposites that, more often than not, leave the tired, huddled masses scratching and/or shaking their heads in utter befuddlement.
Utter befuddlement--say that out loud.
Exhilarating, isn't it?
Sad it is that my medium becomes my message (mad props, Mr. McClu)
That message, of course, becomes either:
"I am an ass"
or
"I am an ass with a thesaurus"
Could be worse, I guess. I could be a thesaurus with an ass.
And you think I'm anal about word choice now!

I'm sorry.
That was hurtful and unnecessary.
And I've already lost my point.

*EJECT*

Are trial and error part of your timings grace?
There are so many new questions but do I have to live the answers before I can know the answers?
Expectations from the sympathetic have a much greater weight. And I fear that I...
I fear.

I feel crazy.
Crazy like the man who poured the empty glass over my head, again and again, because he felt that I needed a drink.
Crazy like I felt that night when I wished the glass was full.
I feel crazy because I think that act may have been more symbolic than he realized.
I feel crazy because I tilted my mouth and sang my heart skyward.
Crazy because I think the reply came third-hand over fiber-optics.

(crazy because I think olive oil wards off moose...
but that's beside the point)

If I were God I'd want all worship music to sound like Portishead.

And suddenly I find myself somewhere entirely different.
Entirely removed from the metaphoric realms that have afforded me words to draw the scattered few into my line of sight. Brilliant walls and darkened doorways faded out long ago, though I'm not sure when, and I am left to drift.
This neitherhaze that surrounds seems impossibly immune to words. I cannot scream through the undark. I cannot paint vague landscapes in my unheard whimpers. You cannot see how the guilt of my absence lingers as a sickening companion.
Prying my lips and creeping down my throat in a slithering gesture of malcomfort.
And still I wait.
Wait for the roared notes of origin.
Wait for them to deafen me with a purpose to this.
Deafen me with something.

Nod your head to the static-shot beat crackling from my mouth.
Force a smile as if to show you hear familiar songs.
Crank the volume till the garbled verse shreds your last patient nerve.
Change the station.
It's not mine but at least you know the words.

To my friend the Flaming Sword Angel:

I am now officially out of debt.
Tonight there'll be chilled wine and chocolate-chip cookies waiting for you at the foot of my bed.
Ready when you are, big guy.

Welcome, my children.
Hurry and take your seats up here in the Drewtopian Peanut Gallery.
Thanks to my insidious colleague, Ms. Klasson, we are now opening our gates to the genital public so be sure to pay her adequate props when the rioting commences.
In the meantime sit back, open your thesaurus, unwrap your over-ripe produce, and get ready to summon your inner Statler/Waldorf.

If you've never had the opportunity to speak with an 84-year-old woman I strongly urge you to seek one out. Even beyond the sagely outlook on existence that only seems to accompany the aged there is a definite charm that you just don't find anywhere else. It's something in the way they unashamedly display their take on common sense, I think. Or maybe the fact that they all seem to have grandsons named Andrew.
Yes, it's definitely one of those two.

Amazing how much dust can collect on one's thoughts, no?
The last week or two have found me floating in ethereal haze, tirelessly seeking the answer to questions like.
"How useless CAN one person be?"
and
"Excuse me, ma'am, but is that my ass or a hole in the ground?"

Been a little difficult to herd free-range thoughts and brand them in print but now I'm back from outer space.
I just walked in to find you here without that look upon your face.
You should have changed your fucking lock...


...but you'll learn.

*tiny cobweb*

So today was the first day of taking calls after nine weeks of training by my employer. I learned quickly that the best procedure for an informationally overloaded drowning man like myself is to panic just long enough to invoke a adrenaline rush and say the first thing that comes to mind.
Yes, sir, you can use a pen for that form.
No, sir, you don't have to use a typewriter.
Yes, ma'am, fax machines are terribly complicated abominations.
Yes, ma'am, especially complex for the chronologically enhanced.
Have a great day, sir, and enjoy your taxes.

I am such a tool.

With apologies to the jealous and the uncomprehending...

I am a realist frequenting the fantastic.
And though I sometimes question which world is which
the only lines I cross are imaginary.

In recent months I've come to the conclusion that my only real creative muse is overwhelming frustration. Being that I am a man who is trying his damnedest to be a career artist the fact that I am mono-museal is, itself, overwhelmingly frustrating. Now, one would think that such a scenario would be a mechanism for perpetual inspiration.
And yet this is the end of my post.

There hangs a wire, slack and silent, scarce below the sky. Swayed by the tiniest of currents, it offers scant safety in passage. Tower though it does the fall is swift enough to make you feel as though the earth was dropped upon you or the sea was poured out mercilessly on your unsuspecting body. The only question, it would seem, is one of dropping to the left or the right.
The water, churned in profane rage, swallows whole the purest of intentions.
The earth lays spitefully dry and split, scorching any trace of compassion.
We never seem to ask what's on the other side.
We've past the point of believing there is even an answer.
We walk tight-liped across a tightrope of narrow hope.
And the only prayer of balance is the silence we cannot hold.

No insult intended toward the poor, sweet lady at the front of the class but after nine straight weeks of HR training I don't think it's humanly possible to care less about the stream of Greek and muted horn sounds coming from her mouth. I'm sure she's a very good trainer. She may even be the best in the whole of the company. But when you choose 8am to start a day-long lecture on tax protocols for aging pensioners you can't expect anything but total, class-wide zombification. All it takes is three words about disability pension supplements or Medicare reimbursements and my eyes cross involuntarily and my head bobs and weaves like a very drunk Mohammad Ali. I never thought I'd find an earlymorning misery that couldn't be cured by an inhumanly gargantuan dose of caffeine. I am left with but one solution.

Tomorrow I rise and fill my travel mug with Jack Daniels.
And when I say "go" I want you to shoot me in the calf.
Fin.

This morning I'm thinking about hiding. I did it so well in a dry and distant landlocked city. One would think that a land devoid of hills would have slim selection of places to conceal your conscious corpse but one with such a thought would prove herself quite unimaginative. Hide in a townhouse in a row of townhouses on a block of rows of townhouses filled with displaced Newfoundlanders and Asian pushers. They teach us to cut lines, we teach them to gut trout.
When that charming scene loses its taste, dress pretty and hide in retail. You are now faceless, voiceless marketing medium in Boss. Invisible pusher thanks to tips from Ling.
What I may miss the most is hiding behind three-dollar pints in a crowd of the brooding and jovial. There's a man on stage with a car outside full of...supercans, I think. I can't be sure. I'm distracted by that lady who's at least cute in the dark (never seen her in the light). Not that I'm eavesdropping, but how many times DOES she have to tell him she's gay?
It's also quite easy to hide on stage. Take up your lute or lyre and take position behind lanky singers baring souls with bloody eyes ever closed. From here the only eyes that can slip past that scarecrow shield belong to that mischievous-looking redhead with the Keith's. As long as her xray eyes cut through that ID card in my back pocket she'll be just fine. And so will I.
Anonymity would remain forever unchallenged were it not for that potheaded Frenchman in the Kashtin tshirt.
He demands a solo.
So much for hiding.

I thought I saw something move. Still far too dark to know for sure if what passed through my eyes had any hold in the space around me. Through year after tired year I've watch my mind conspire against me with nearly every sense I have but this looked different. Past the poisoned oasis of malfocused eyes there's a tiny drip of color. Neither bleeding nor fading it seems to be tracing the outline of a door. Still so early, far too dark.

And if this is illusion it tastes sweeter than most. My will is better killed by hope than beauty.

Very late, very tired, very far from sleep.
It's just one of those nights you want to curl up with a warm body and wait.
Wrap your arms a little tighter, rest your head in the curve of her neck, and let the sound of her breath sweep you off into dreams.

Maybe soon.
Before I'm too old.

And now I'm off to the Catholic basilica to play third rate worship music for thousands of young folk all in the name of staying away from those nasty drugs. My friend Josh, the singing ex cokehead, will be telling us all about how he cleaned up his nose. Then we'll be listening to, world-famous former Puerto Rican badass, Nicky Cruiz talk about how he stopped being a badass. Josh could have been on the PGA tour and Nicky was once portrayed by former CHIPS star Eric Estrada in a movie also starring Pat Boone. And this is pretty close to a normal day for me.

welcome to my world:
where the neon sky looks like it might be fur-bearing

Welcome to the wall.
I don't know if I am to walk through it or slam my face against it.
But on I walk...

generalizations


Whenever I walk through a college campus I get the urge to shave my head and practice Wicca.
Does that make me a lesbian?

"When man talks to God, it's called prayer. When God talks to man, it's called schizophrenia."
-Fox Mulder

What can be said of my character if I can walk blameless in the eyes of those I neither respect, nor trust. Maybe vindication and honor are not so akin. Parallel but very separate.
Maybe time will run the transversal.

My mom never comes here. Doesn't even know this place exists. That being the case, I have prepared the following statement:

Damn.
Damn, damn, hell.
Shit, shit, hell, damn, ass.
Sodomy, sodomy, fellatio, autoeroticasphyxiation.
Penis.
Penis, penis, penis.

(come to think of it, my mother has become rather internet savvy as of late and may very well stumble in here some day. In light of that I feel I should inform you all that a very bad man also has the password for this blog. He's a nasty, wasty, potty-mouth who shakes babies and rapes kittens. Indiscriminately. Sorry mom...I'll see you in church.)

"Maybe I'll just wait until my break to get coffee."

Great idea, Collins.
Smegging brilliant.
Now I've got little red squares on my forehead that bare an uncanny resemblance to the number pad from this keyboard.

Some days I'm just plain silly.

Not to offend any Hindus in the crowd tonight but I have developed a case if Sitar Envy that would have sent Freud screaming into the arms of his loving pharmacist.

Just far enough outside the city for the night to be as dark as a cold night should. What narrow starlight shines uncovers a thick mist rising from the water. The lake, I understand, just needs to know that, through the darkness, a sky still hovers over.
Just dark enough outside the city for my mind to reach back as far as a clear mind should. I remember the night, four years before tonight, when you walked me down that narrow hallway. We stood in front of that door and you asked me to sit. I still felt you standing over me as you turned down the lights. The shape of that door burned in my eyes as they shrank to meet the then unfamiliar darkness.
Just long enough removed from light for the lingering shape of a burning door to have cooled and dimmed beyond recognition. Or location. Like filthy ragwater I wring out fears that I didn't catch you slipping out the way we came in. Or maybe that my ears were too clogged with silence to hear your calls to follow. These are the thoughts far darker than the oblivion you've wrapped me in. All I can do is stretch out my hands through the dark to feel if you still hover over.
Thank you.

liquify me
liquify these walls
let me see them gushing like niagra falls

"You, oh Lord, are a shield about me..."

Met another demon last night. Her name was Alison and she shook me while I slept. She hovered over my dreams. She mocked me while I couldn't move.
In my partially lucid, earlymorning state I can see a little clearer the need to constantly revoke the rights they never really had. I've got half a mind to let her come back tonight so I can scorn her the way she scorned me. But really, what right do I have to torture the fallen host?

Thanks for the warning, love.

***WARNING***

Any coin insistent upon holding position on tracks in proximity
to this sign are in immediate danger of being rendered flat by
oncoming locomotives.
Sheen offers no protective advantage.
Pretty pennies are not exempt.

I seem to have contracted an acute case of homelessness. The condition, my physician informed me, could most likely be attributed to the pre-existing presence of "financial leprosy" somewhere in my social circle. My thoughts turned immediately to my father who has become infamous for flinging finances about like a naughty primate hurling goods of a more deficatory nature. And so, with the infectious culprit fingered, I set out in search of the reasoning behind my glutial displacement...

...and thus, before my very eyes, the epic tale unfolded like the paper crane I used to jot down Martha Stewart's recipe for rosemary duck...

This particular episode of financial leprosy found my father's wallet, worn and weary, spewing funds unto the hardwood floor. The floor, it would seem, was in dire need of a bath in toxic fumes. Legend has it that when the moon is in the Seventh House, Jupiter aligns with Mars, and enough vile chemicals are applied to hard wood, said wood changes color and our house will become some sort of enchanted utopia where no one ages, every day is Christmas Day, and...um...the floor is a darker shade of brown.
The rub in this particular issue is two-fold:
1-so harmful are these chemicals that their fumes will kill a man in his sleep should he prove himself foolish enough to remain in his house during the application
2-the atom-splitters and genome-crackers with whom I live neglected to inform me of the impending arrival of this "hardwood death cloud"

And so I found myself with precious few moments to gather together three days worth of necessities and secure lodging for the duration of this exercise materialistic futility. But really, what small sacrifice it is to live in a magical land where nymphs and pixies dance upon a floor of brown.

Ha ha, God, you're really funny.
I get the point.
Now please cut it out.

It all looks so clear in the separation. When I can feel the divide between spirit and flesh, when I slip away form the beat of my everslowing heart, the echoes fade and again I can hear. Only in that separation of self can I understand the distance of the others. Like wanderers passing in a fog each step away fills the remaining void with twisted vapor. Each steps worth of fog twists their eyes against me. Each word I swing to fan away the cloud is lost in the shuffle of departing feet.

And so at the edge of the fog I stand, blurred and deserted.
Burned and distorted, I find that separation and rise above myself.

The fog, I now see, stands between us not around us. The feet departing, blurring vision, drowning words, are my own. The distance is mine alone. Twisted understanding twists by my motion. I cannot blame them as they blame me, nor can I adopt the blame as my own. For, at the other edge of the fog, behind departing feet, below the separation, beneath the feet of those whose eyes have blurred me, the ground is fast eroding. And in the separation I now understand just why I had to leave.

Oh that there were precious blue pills to make rigid my impotent tongue...

There are many things one can learn from failure. Unfortunately, there are also many instances when failure teaches you naught but the fact that you have learned nothing. I fear this is one of those scenarios.
Succeed and I will have gained a new skill, grown deeper in social adaptability, and become an all-round better human. Fail and I may very well have to adopt drinking alone as my lifelong occupation.
Wish me luck, mom.
We'll cook you up a grandson yet.

...oh...and eyeshadow...you can never wear too much blue eyeshadow

that i might never lose this air of resolution...

It's always the cold nights- the bitter darkness that becomes the corridor between dissonance and sanctuary. I don't know why. Maybe it's the sadistic mercy of providence that knows I need to be numbed. Maybe it's another of the decreasingly subtle ways my mind conspires against me. Maybe just the unfortunate timing of coincidence.

And so, in between, the night cools my mind and the shock heats my need to survive this.

When once again my blood begins to move I find the echoes settling around me as dissonance resolves to unified thought. Stifle restless urge as I begin to sort. What I know. What I wish I knew. What I wish I thought I knew. What needs to be despite arrogance, ignorance, and hope. Resolve to resolve and finish your drink.

Repeat.

Weary of the flipant fridge-buzz that is my audible voice I have decided that mayhaps a new medium is in order.
Safer than an escalator handrail, and nearly as clean, this is what the inside of my head looks like...