Ticked off

A few months ago i wrote an entry about signs. they are everywhere. they are like fairies, tinkerbells if you will, appearing to announce good news, giving us a little magic to encourage our doubtful hearts and mysteriously aligning the universe to lead us into a direction that we unknowingly have already began to head towards. some call it coincidence, others believe its synchronicity, but whatever it is, they exist in our day to day lives and should never be ignored or brushed aside. now, having said that, i have a story to share. a few days ago, i was speaking with a good friend of mine, cornbread. cornbread captivated me with a grotesque tale of how a tick had yet created a parasitic relationship with the epidermus on his stomach. what he first thought to believe was an itchy scab, manifested into a tiny sac that hung around like an unmotivated college buddy that just needed to crash for ‘a night’. yikes. im from los angeles, either its cleaner here, or im just not outdoorsy enough, but ticks to me are in the same category as other notorious creatures like the boogeyman, the abominable snow man, things that go bump in the night.  Ticks aren’t supposed to happen to me….right?!? well, turns out the universe had a different plan for me and ticks. Last night as i lay awake typing on my keyboard, my new little friend crawled off my hand and onto my laptop. it was in a rather slow-mo kinda way, like when you have to take a double take and convince yourself that, yes, your neighbor is mowing his lawn in a lemon colored speedo…but i digress. i just grabbed a tissue and scooped up that little intruder and flushed it down the toilet. before you could say lime disease, i was on google researching everything anyone would hate to know about this little monsters. paralysis, transferable disease…DEATH. i was in trouble. big trouble. i ran my fingers on every pore of my body waiting to feel a bump, a scab, a new formation on the topography of my surface…until i got to my back. there was only one thing i could do: wake up susan. i knocked on her door incessantly until i heard a groan. i whispered through the crack to let me in as if i had vital information to share, as if only i could utter the words that could save mankind. she finally let me  in, groggy and innocent. i took off my shirt and said, “tick. on my hand. i can die. check back. please. now. NOW.” she inspected me like a admissions prison guard, everything short of squat and cough. nothing. Nothing?! i questioned. she was tired and annoyed and i knew that if it wasn’t a tick, she’d give me something to complain about…so i left. a little shaken, rather doubtful, but somewhat appeased by the due diligence. all there was left to do, was to let the hypochondria subside and hulu. i turned on the latest episode of royal pains and watched intently, all the while lifting up the sheets and checking to make sure there wasn’t a family of ticks moving into my leg or my armpit. the feeling wouldn’t go away, and although i was engrossed in the storyline of a healthy highschool athlete suddenly immobilized by a mysterious condition, the ticks scurried around my brain like ants to a picnic. it was chaos. so here it is, the punchline, the ending to my story. the ending of the episode was sooo horrific, i am surprised im able to type these words at this very moment. the boy, with the mysterious disease was miraculously cured as Dr. Hank Lawson pulled a tiny deer tick out of his ear. A tick. A FUCKING tick. I almost lost it. i couldn’t sleep. ticks were in my thoughts, i felt them on my body. I even woke up to put earplugs in my ear to make sure none would call it there new home. So, in hindsight, i’m thinking to myself that this has to be a sign. but for what?! what do ticks represent? teeth usually symbolize embarrassment, death – joy, etc etc…but ticks? apparently, on dream dictionary ticks in dreams mean: 

  

Ticks

• To dream you see ticks crawling on your flesh, is a sign of impoverished circumstances and ill health. Hasty journeys to sick beds may be made.
• To mash a tick on you, denotes that you will be annoyed by treacherous enemies.
• To see in your dreams large ticks on stock, enemies are endeavoring to get possession of your property by foul means.

This doesn’t make sense, because i didn’t dream about them, and c’mon lets be serious, i don’t want to own this sign. rather, in a pointless and blogworthy way, i’ve decided to consider it a meaningless coincidence. im ticked off. ticks invaded my life yesterday, but to believe that rubbish above would be more parasitic then an arachnoid species that happened to congregate in time and space in my life yesterday. so, the point….well, there isn’t one…but the conclusion…ticks suck and the dream dictionary can be a very dangerous playground if you let it be. so there it is. ticks and me. not the best friends, but can dwell peacefully from here on out. ciao my darlings.

it’s my party and i’ll laugh if i want to

i even laugh at the thought of the sight of me laughing at myself for the past two nights. the house is silent, with only the slightest hint of me cracking myself up on jokes about suicide and vanity, damn vanity. it’s hard to be somber when there is a cagebird outside my window chirping away like the first day of spring. rain, i need rain. somber is what i should be, but in reality im more amused than anything and the whole thing is a bit funny, to say the least. others won;t understand my lighthearted humor engaging in the darkside. it’s unheard of. people start to worry. i don’t like to make people worried. its just funny in the only way funny can be. the strange turn of events that leave even the most heartwrenching circumstances bearable, and not just bearable but laughable…well, thats just too much for people to handle. bad things happen and i guess people just expect people to crumble. tuck ourselves away under a rock or in a cave or on a blog. but it’s not that bad. its logical. it’s not torment, its liberation. its inspiration and encouragement. its you, its me, its the only type of life we know how to lead. it’s not that bad, really. and really is usually a term we use when we try to convince ourselves, rationalize with our emotions, put on the ‘brave’ face. last night i spoke with a dear friend in town for a funeral. a tragic death really, and not in the least expected. we disclosed to one another that despite the chaos, the tragedy of life, there is always a moment when emotions and logic align and…well..its just not too bad. ok, yes, i know what you’re thinking…funeral?! not so bad?! but in the wise words of my near and dear pal, you can’t spell funeral without fun! bad, i know, terrible right?! ugh, why do we do this to ourselves?! why do we expect everyone to drink the koolaid?! what happened to fingerprints and pheremones? the good ole days when cubby’s were yours and not ours?! why do we buy into the notion that unfortunate events in our lives call for self pity and a pint of ben and jerry’s? these things happen and i figure its time to start again. sadness is not a final destination, EVER. its seems to be the general consensus. these horrible things happened to me so its over, im over. but why?!?! sadness is the accumulation, the evidential proof of that much joy in our lives. it’s not something we dwell in, its rather something i wish to appreciate and exploit as yet another mechanism for launching into another road to that same sadness. it’s not about the whole ending bit. its about the opportunity that presents itself so beautifully amidst the ugly face of sad. and i can’t honestly tell you what i write, where it came from, what my point is…my point is…well, being sad sucks. BUT…its not too bad. you can laugh when you’re sad, its allowed. hell, you can make a joke about funerals or speak lightly about tragedy, but only if you wanna, not because you  have to. just like crying, those poor souls that feel guilt because they can’t cry. so you can’t cry! no biggie, who says you have to?! ok, this is never gonna end is it? i gotta get some sleep. i just wanted to feel my fingers on the keyboard. sorry this one was a bit depressing, but im glad about it. i hope you could be too. or cry. if it makes you feel better. 

good night my darlings.

beef spew

its an image that everyone has seen in a glossy movie once in their life. indiana jones, moses perhaps? The moment where the sword wielding villain strikes his sword and shatters the spout of a barrel to reveal an outpour of grain or sand. it just pours out, seemingly unending. thats how i basically poured my outrageous thoughts to mr. salvavidas tonight. chatter about a parallel universe fueled by our connections with others here on this earth, the black, infinite amount of possibility that would swallow us if we were ever to cut ourselves open metaphorically and, of course, my fave, how digging a hole to China isnt the most absurd idea. i couldn’t stop, i was spewing, i was sick off of the notion that every breath of air i inhale doesn’t just fill my lungs and send oxygen to my brain, but also finds its way into a whole new depth of my existence in which moments here in my perishable life drop into a well that sits lonely atop a majestic mountain. the type of magical well in which you can be almost positive that the water is black as oil, where pebbles can never let out a cry or  a well in which your echo can sound like the song that never ends. and my chest, oh my chest feels like its gonna burst and i am trying to recall what it was i ate that makes me feel this way, but maybe its just another self realization anticipating a point of self actualization. i mean, i guess i could ask the question that everyone is afraid to answer, or even when they do, they lie: do you ever wish you were somebody else? but its really the roundabout way to inquire the most important question: do you ever wish you could stop being somebody else and just be yourself? to be somebody else, to be yourself, to know yourself. because that somebody else always ends up really being you, you know, the REAL you. midlife crises, supposed spontaneity, escapes? has humanity created euphemisms for the search of self? a clinical diagnosis of self exploration can now be combatted with a ditzy young waitress and a new porsche. promising? i think not. cold feet. what about cold feet? all these things that we rationalize as ‘phases’ in our own lives…what if they are the subtle cries to ourselves from our own selves hoping to exist in this lifetime. I told Mr. Salvavidas that maybe in life we are all trying to achieve the same thing. everyone, i mean everyone in the human experience. ball players, popstars, sultans, the postman, the stinky girl in the next cubicle that wears too much cheap perfume, our mother. we are all attempting to achieve 4 things: a place of priority in our own hearts, a place in time, a place in a community and a place in the universe of a special someone. we are all trying to resolve our unique existence within ourselves, as well as create a story, a legend in time that can prove our existence, a place in the memory of those we touched, and a place in the heart of someone to share a cosmic journey into another dimension of passion and crossword puzzles and holding hands. and im always, ALWAYS slightly nervous that I can come off sounding like a hippie or a substance abuser or just plain crazy. but i attribute that to my own fear of revealing my most organic self, the part of me in which God exists. so yah, sometimes i wanna spew when i let my mind travel to these untouched regions of the vast universe, the vacuum of infinite possibility, the place that we convince ourselves is not worth the travel time, the weather’s crappy and its dangerous, like india or africa. but sometimes….sometimes i think that maybe i could be creating a distraction from me wanting to enter reality, to grow up, to be a responsible adult. and that…that makes me a little sad. but i shake my head and i convince myself that its not true. god, the universe, the catalyst inside me that makes me want to sing every morning tells me that thats what ‘they’ want you to believe. and i promise, by ‘they’ i don’t mean the ‘people in my head’. hahhahah, or do i?!?! (creepy laughter and nervous ticks fill the air). nonetheless, its back, you can trace my entries to these very moments when absolute clarity and utter confusion rendezvous and i am the love child! they say that richard yates was never recognized as the amazing writer that he so CLEARLY is until after his death (a sad song for many brilliant human beings) but i wonder if he knew. if he knew that it would affect the world. he knew and never cared. because it was just one thing we was able to resolve that he had achieved in his lifetime, aside from the other 3 goals mentioned above. his stories simultaneously converged all 4 goals, to me at least. he was true to himself in his candor of his stories, he owned a place in time as a recorder of his america, he accomplished to touch communities worldwide with his writing, it brought people together it inspired droves of new writers and he found a place in my heart as a special someone. maybe thats it! maybe its not about systematically checking off this so-called laundry list of things to accomplish to be a gracious human being, but rather to infuse the qualities of just accepting who you are and letting the rest take it course. like hitting that sweet spot on a baseball or a tennis ball or a golf ball with minimal effort. so, the importance is really to focus on capturing that sweet spot and to just let the ball fly. yes, i believe it. it must be. this is the lightbulb. and it seems so trivial, i can hear someone in the background saying, duh! but believe me you, it feels like a dog chasing its own tail. i feel better. i always do. soap and bubbles, like a bubblebath for my intense thoughts. its all spew, good ole beef spew. 

good night my darlings.