Current Entries:
	Saturday April 19th, 2008 1:34pm Song I am addicted to today: "Electric Feel" by MGMT Book I am currently reading: "Woods and Chalices" by Tomaz Salamun I've allowed myself to fall into a trance over the past couple of years. I've fallen into Habit, which happens to so many people once they finish college and start working in the real world, 9-5 jobs five days a week. I've fallen into Habit, and it's been infecting me and ruining me. My brain has been turning slowly into Jello-O. So slowly I almost didn't notice until now, and hopefully it's not too late to stir the muck up again and bring some intelligence back to my head. All previous intelligence has settled to make muck at the bottom of my fluidic head. Can I de-muck my mind? Obviously I never INTENDED this to happen. I moved to NYC specifically so this would never happen. College really did a number on me. I became stripped down and unhinged. I was becoming depressed and hazardous to myself. I wasn't heading anywhere good. For a while I knew I just had to drop into a short, temporary coma. I had to get the hell out of New England. I had to lay low and restructure my life, become my own person, pay my bills, and grow up. I did all that, which is great, but then I never awoke from the coma. In effect, I became a normal person. Somewhat. My professor Mr. Wiggins at college warned us about this during our fifth year. He said this happens to people, and he was right. It sneaks into you like a virus or like a weed and it secretly grows and spreads and numbs you and dumbs you. I'm like a statue covered in vines. Cracked. Not yet broken, but definitely cracked. Spending so much time with J.D. has helped me realize the extent of my muckiness. I was aware of it before I met him, I really was. But I just didn't know how bad I had let it become. It's good. He's good. He's good for me. I don't need people. I never have and I never will. But that aside, J.D. came into my life at just the right moment. Exactly as if he was meant to. And I really cannot imagine it any other way now. He's immediately become a part of my life, and it's really, really good. So, I am resolving now to cut myself free from this cobweb cell I'm in. I need to get a little crazy again, as I was 6 or 7 years ago. Time to bring back the old-school freak. Time to take on a new medium, and find a completely new reinvented form of "artist" within me. I'm dying now, I've been dying, in this trance, I've been fading in Habit, and it's time to save myself. Or, as might be entirely possible, die trying. Either way, whatever the outcome, it will be worth it. *** Saturday April 12th, 2008 7:14pm Song I am addicted to today: “Nothing Came Out” by The Moldy Peaches Book I am currently reading: “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer I’m up here in New Hampshire for another weekend with my family. My sister and I went out to lunch today with an old childhood mentor. It brought back a lot of memories that I normally would have thought would make me feel weird and awkward, reminding me of the person I used to be, but in actuality it was really quite nice. This goes into a long story, one much too long for this journal, but in a nutshell while I was in college I went through a bad phase and I tried desperately to become a new person and completely forget where I came from and what kind of kid I was. But, strangely, once my sister had Liliana, my childhood memories have all come flooding back at full-force, linking me again to everything in my pre-college life. And then today, meeting Phyllis again for the first time in maybe over 10 years… brought me back in time again to a person I used to be. But like I said, not in a bad way. It was good. It was really, really good. So good it shocked the heck out of me. This past week back home in Brooklyn I’ve been helping J.D. with his project at school (he’s got a real name but for the sake of our privacy I am calling him ‘J.D.’ for reasons which should be obvious to him and anyone who’s ever been to his apartment). He’s making this dress which is really more of a work of art than a garment… I’ve been helping him cut out his pattern pieces until the wee hours of the morning. And next week I might help him finish cutting out the fabric, if he doesn’t get that all done while I am up here in NH. I’m a different person around him. I feel so… selfless. It’s the weirdest thing! I bend over backwards for that guy, and I don’t even hesitate. It’s so hard to explain what’s going on, so maybe I’m just better off not trying to explain at all. I just never thought I could actually achieve this state of mind with another person. J.D. is unlike any other person I have ever known. This whole thing is different than anything I have ever known. And yet, there’s that evil little dark spot in the corner of my brain that whispers nasty thoughts into my ear- Telling me, “It’s not gonna last!” And, “It will be like all the others…” and, of course, “He will get sooooo bored of you… you’re way too average for a beautiful genius like him…” These voices get so loud sometimes I feel like using a gun to get rid of them. But of course, that’s just not sensible. Instead, I have to try and think, “If this lasts forever, then I am by far the #1 luckiest person on the entire freakin planet.” And, yes, I also try to think, “Well, if this doesn’t last (God forbid) then at least it was amazing while it lasted and I’ve learned some great things and felt some even greater things.” But, alas, I really hope this never ends. “Ah,… Banuch.” J.D., you really are driving my insane. And I like it. *** Tuesday March 11th, 2008 1:55pm Song I am addicted to today: “Cause And Effect” by Shy Child Book I am currently reading: “Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer I’m feeling unhinged. I’m feeling drugged up. I’m feeling displaced and electrocuted. I’m feeling shocked, angry, sad, defensive, mean, insecure, doubtful, careless, selfish, confused. I’m abusing friends. I’m negligent to strangers. I'm snapping at coworkers. I don’t care if my train wrecks or not. I don’t care if I stay here or move to some far-away place. I don’t care if I get thrown on the curb by the guy who has currently caught my attention. I also don’t care if he marries me and makes me his domestic property for the rest of my life. I just don’t care. I’ve become addicted to endorphins. I go to the gym before work and after work every day and also several times on the weekends. I fake my well-being and convince myself that I am ok. But then the endorphin level drops and I plunge back down into reality. Or some fucked of version of what reality apparently is. So, I drag my ass back to the gym and get myself another fix. Indeed, it has become an addiction. *** Monday March 10th, 2008 11:50pm Song I am addicted to today: “Little Bird” by Goldfrapp Book I am currently reading: “The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag” by Edward Field Spent last week in Santa Barbara. It was beautiful and perfect, of course. I tried to bottle the weather and take it back to NYC with me, but I couldn’t get it past security. If CA let that weather leave the state, there wouldn’t be any reason for anyone to come back to CA! I’m having bi-polar reactions to my family circumstance. One day I’m on Cloud Nine, the next day I’m bitchy and have a taste for blood. ‘Normal’ doesn’t exist for my mind’s state anymore. This whole experience is scary, in the ways in which it is changing the person I am. I finally saw “There Will Be Blood” last night. Boy, was I blown away! This is now definitely my number 1 all-time favorite movie! Just brilliant. Just… fucking… brilliant! Daniel Day-Lewis- I worship you! I get down on my hands and knees and I kiss your feet!! And- hats off to Jonny Greenwood for creating one of the most genius scores a film has ever had. You should have taken home an Oscar for that. Heck, the entire movie really ought to have won Best Picture. Will came along to see the movie with me. He’s a new friend. I like him. He’s proving worthy so far… Tomorrow. Which end of the pole will I wake up on? Nice or mean? I hope, for my co-workers’ sakes, it’s nice Kurt tomorrow. *** Tuesday February 26th, 2008 5:06pm Song I am addicted to today: “Lit Up” by Buckcherry Book I am currently reading: “The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag” by Edward Field I am a very tired person today. I’m tired of people asking me on a daily basis how my father is doing. He’s got cancer. How the fuck do you think he’s doing?? Please, please, please stop asking me that question. You’re just rubbing salt in the wound. I’m tired of deadbeat relatives who aren’t there for each other. Don’t get me started on that one. Don’t even go there. Just don’t. I’m tired of people who say they’re your “friend” - but when I say something like, “I think I might need to get some Prozac,” they respond with a dumb ass comment like “Why don’t you just go drink a Red Bull?” Oh yea. Same thing. Great idea. Funny to see just how many of these “friends” have tried to be here for me over these past two weeks. So I’m making cuts to my list of friends. It’s fun, like doing the laundry. If I haven’t told you “I love you” at least once over the past two weeks, chances are you’ve been cut. Sorry. I’m tired of seeing David Beckham all over the media. His face bothers me. Everything he represents, every idea and concept he lives and breathes and bleeds makes me want to puke. The guy is shallower than a pond in the Mojave Desert. The guy is stupid. He’s got “the biggest carbon footprint in the world” and “the largest carbon footprint in human history.” His wife is from the same bimbo planet as Paris Hilton. Yea, it’s true, his face makes my stomach revolt. They actually call that prick a roll model. I can easily think of at least 5 big-time celebrities who SHOULD overdose and die, and he’s one of them. (Heath, I miss you so much, come back to us) I’m tired of the fact that I can’t afford to buy something as small as a studio apartment anywhere in New York City. If I want to ever own my own home, I’d have to move back up north to New Hampshire or someplace just as… not NYC. New York, I give you so, so, so much. SO much. Why can’t you at least give me affordable housing in return??? I mean, really, come on. I’m tired of trying to find models to photograph for free. Why do all of you expect to get paid so much money??? I am not hiring you to think. I am not hiring you to build something. I am not hiring you to save lives. I am not hiring you to do my taxes. I am not hiring you to do any physical labor whatsoever. You didn’t go to college for that face. You were born with it. You didn’t work your ass off for it. You were born with it. You aren’t paying off over $500,000 in student loans for that face. You look pretty. That’s it. It’s not a talent. Its genes. You shouldn’t have an agent, because it’s not a talent. Sewing is a talent. Playing the guitar is a talent. Dancing is a talent. And I hate to toot my own horn, BUT – being a photographer… is a talent! Holding still while someone clicks a picture of your genetically-gifted beautiful face is not a talent. If anything, you should be paying ME to take your stupid pictures. I’m tired of people who litter. Did your mother teach you nothing? Why must you stand 10 feet away from a trash can and toss your candy bar wrapper on the sidewalk or on the subway track? What the heck is wrong with you??? You’re about as smart as a model when you do something as stupid and as lazy as that. Be responsible for your trash. It’s your planet. You only have one, so why go try so hard to fuck it up? Why be so lazy? Walk a few extra feet towards the trash can and put your trash where it belongs!! It’s really not that hard. I do it all the time. If your mother raised you to litter, give me her address so I can go slap her. I’m tired. *** Thursday January 17th, 2008 9:52pm Song I am addicted to today: “Fireflies” by Rhett Miller (featuring Rachael Yamagata) Book I am currently reading: “The Magic Mountain” by Thomas Mann Just finished a three week vacation from work. Which is an absurd amount of time for a vacation. One week was spent here in NYC, and two weeks were spent journeying down the coast of California. All three weeks were spent with someone else, 24/7, day and night. I think I got a fraction of a taste of what it might be like to be married. And let me tell you, it ain’t pretty. But enough about my vacation. I’ve been talking about it to friends constantly since I got back on Monday, and I just want to put it all behind me now. Kurt is a lone ranger, and happy to be one. I am enjoying a brand new computer now! I couldn’t turn down an awesome holiday deal from Dell, and I saved almost $800 on a sleek shiny new XPS M1530. This thing is HOT! By far the most beautiful laptop I have seen to date. Eat your heart out, Apple… cuz now Dell is singing, “My raps - is better than yours…” One thing I will say about California- as we were there for New Years, one evening we were walking across the Golden Gate Bridge. On our way back to the starting side, I looked up at the stars and at the cityscape, and I had a revelation- This year is going to be a great, fantastic, brilliant year! Don’t ask me how I got that revelation, or why I had it, but I had it and I believe it. There’s something in the air… This is gonna be a year to remember. ***
	The entries from 2007:
	Sunday December 9th, 2007 4:06pm Song I am addicted to today: “Siren” by Tori Amos Book I am currently reading: “Steppenwolf” by Hermann Hesse I finally reconfigured my ‘restored’ computer to edit & access my website once again. This time I won’t be fucking up my computer until it’s time to buy a brand new one. I promise! It’s good to be able to write here again. By the way- this journal page looks horrible in Firefox! It shows correctly in Internet Explorer, so I shall investigate a way to correct how it appears in Firefox. There is always a never-ending list of maintenance tasks when it comes to maintaining websites. Last time I wrote was before Thanksgiving. So… Thanksgiving was, overall, good. Sascha wanted to see New Hampshire, so I brought him home with me to spend the long weekend with me and my family. Which, actually, turned out to be not such a good experience, because every single person (besides Sascha and I, fortunately) came down with the stomach flu. We left a day early, and spent the remainder of the weekend at Tufts down near Boston, where Sascha currently resides and studies. My mom’s home-cooked dinner was amazing, as always. I hate that I forgot to bring home a bunch of left-overs with me. But what can I do besides wait another year for the next Thanksgiving to come around? I head to California briefly next week for work. I won’t be there very long, but enough to get a nice little dose of one of my favorite US states. And I’ll also get to see Tori Amos again! Her final performance of her American Doll Posse Tour is in LA while I am there. What a spectacular coincidence! Jim is also actually flying over from NYC for the show as well, so we’ll be going together, just like we have for all the Tori tours in the past. Jim is worrying over the freakish-stalker-obsessive-fan-implications of flying all the way to LA just for her concert, but I’ve reminded him that he’s only paying $5 for his round trip flight (God bless frequent flier miles), and he would be stupid not to go! He doesn’t even have to pay for a hotel, so, really, there is nothing weird or freakish about him flying all the way out there just for this one concert. (But I won’t mention a certain somebody who flew all the way out to San Jose a couple years ago just to see a Madonna concert…) And then- I celebrated my 31st birthday last week. It fell on a Wednesday this time around, and it’s always hard to get people out on a Wednesday night. But I had a decent amount of people out with me. We started out at Death & Co. in the lower east side, and ended the evening at Bowery Bar. It was my first time going to Death & Co., which was a mistake. I should have scoped it out before the evening. It really was horrible- the host was this tall cold mega bitch from Hell. Luckily our waitress was a cute smiley little fragile thing, but she was constantly overshadowed by the monstrous mega bitch. So, we finished our drinks and our appetizers and abandoned ship and headed over to Bowery Bar, which is always a safe Plan B for just about any occasion/outing. We wound up closing the place. We, a group of young cute single boys and men, loud and vibrant, intense and flirtatious, without any care in the world, with drinks in the air, and arms around shoulders, it was a good way to say farewell to 30. I am looking forward to the upcoming several weeks, as I have a lot of time off scheduled. I have almost one whole month off, from Christmas Eve until the 14th of January. It will be very ‘European’ of me to have this much time off all at once. I do need the break. I need rest. I need to get away from the office and other obligations. I need to focus on being an artist again, and creating things that are meaningful to the justification of my life and principals. I am looking forward to spending some of that time alone, some of that time with family and friends, and some of that time with kindred souls. I wrote a poem yesterday. It was my first poem in about 6 months. And it was the first poem in about a year or so that I think is actually worth half a crap. My old way of writing is broken- it doesn’t work anymore. I realized that quite a while ago. The pen was out of ink, so to speak. Nothing good was coming out. So I put the pen down for a long time, convinced it might actually be for ever. It was around the time that “Ghost on the Highway” was published that I ironically thought that I was done writing. I thought to myself, “Well, this is suitable, this book with themes about death and endings, how suitable that I might be done writing poems forever.” But on a whim yesterday I decided to try to reinvent how I write. If the old way is broken, then naturally, a new way must be discovered. And I think I may have found a way yesterday. This poem I wrote, called “Ink to Bleed”, may in fact be one of the strongest poems I have ever written. It is not in any way complex. It does not have gigantic concepts or ideas. It is about a very simple thing, a very simple experience- but I will not say what that thing is. It is a thing which must be left to the flesh of the poem. It is in the description of this simple thing that makes the poem work so well. Anyway, I let the poem cool off over night. I have read it again and again since yesterday- I do not feel the need to make any more edits or changes, and I have not decided yet that it is trash, and so this is a good sign. It feels so very good to have this thing here that I have created, a creation, an act, a practice that makes me feel like myself again, which is a ‘myself’ I have not been feeling for a very long time. I am curious to try my new reinvented way of writing again very soon, perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow… *** Monday November 13th, 2007 9:30am Song I am addicted to today: “When Your Mind’s Made Up” by Glen Hansard Book I am currently reading: “Steppenwolf” by Hermann Hesse I just spent the weekend with my new friend, Sascha, and one of his best friends, Sabina, both from Germany. This was my first time spending time with Sascha since meeting him at South Station in Boston a week ago. I have to say, Sascha has definitely made an amazing first impression... I suspect this will become a unique kind of friendship. I haven’t been up-keeping this journal on a regular basis only because over the past couple months I’ve been having some technical problems with my computer, but it all resolved now, thanks in part to a delightful woman in India who fixed all my problems via remote control a few days ago. So good to have a reliable system again. Just a reminder of how dependent we all are on technology these days. Even a poet needs his fancy laptop! So now I can once again concoct silly journal entries on a weekly basis. Hoorah. *** Monday October 9th, 2007 Book I am currently reading: “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy Song I am addicted to today: “1963” by Rachael Yamagata I’m getting very upset with this horrible summer weather we’re having in the beginning of October. It’s so wrong it makes me sick. This is it, our new world we’re creating with all our technologies and appliances and cars and computers and selfish needs. This is it, the human race committing suicide. Liliana just turned one year old over the weekend. Hard to believe it. This past year went by so fast, seems like just a few months ago we were gathering around her little form in the hospital up in Manchester, New Hampshire. Now she’s a whole new baby, unrecognizable from the one we were all introduced to 12 months ago. Now she crawls, now she has teeth and hair, now she has the hints and beginnings of a beauty sure to make her a stunning woman to behold when she grows up. Life is getting faster, and I’m trying to find ways of slowing it down. There’s too much stimulus. There’s too much to do, too much to achieve, too much to learn, too much to acquire. I miss the slower days I had growing up in a small town in New Hampshire. I miss not having the internet and not having cell phones and not having a big city with way too much temptation for every single sense and desire within me. *** Thursday September 13th, 2007 Song I am addicted to today: “Miracle” by Tori Amos. Book I am currently reading: “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Jim and I are going to see Tori Amos play two nights in a row next month! It’s gonna be sweeeeet! Liliana was baptized last weekend up in New Hampshire, with Heather and me as her godparents. I thought I would cry during the ceremony, but luckily I didn’t. I’d do anything for that little girl, so I guess that’s one of the reasons why I’m her godfather. It’s going to be amazing to watch her grow up and become her own person. She’s so beautiful, so beautiful, there are times I feel close to tears just by watching her do every little thing that she does. Two weeks ago I flew out to California to spend much-needed time with my friends Cynthia and Gordon, and their family. I flew out on a Thursday to Sacramento, where Cynthia and Gordon now live. And on the weekend we drove to Lake Tahoe and met up with their family at their vacation home on Lake Tahoe. California amazes me every time I go by its natural perfection and beauty. If my family wasn’t rooted here on the east coast I’d move to California in a heartbeat. And I am very fortunate to have friends there, so it is very easy to go visit California whenever my time allows. I never realized how big Lake Tahoe was until I saw it with my own eyes! It’s so large, at times I thought I was looking at an ocean and not a lake. It was a religious experience! And luckily, on the last morning there, I even saw a BEAR! Right in the front yard, right in front of my bedroom window! The bear and I bonded and now I feel as though I have part of a bear heart beating inside of me. Ha! Just kidding. But really, suddenly, now bears are one of my favorite creatures. I’m looking forward to the entrance of the fall season. I hope Sara and I will be able to do a road trip out to New Hope, PA, to see the leaves turn and spend a night or two in a cute little bed & breakfast. As I get older I appreciate the changing seasons more. And now I realize I might not have a favorite season. It might actually be the transitions themselves, between each season, that are my favorite parts of the year. Life so far is good with Aaron, the new roommate. He’s not around much, which many people think is a great thing. But I happen to like to know my roommates, and so I’d like it if he was around more often than not. He’s a good kid… hopefully we can become good friends. Saw the movie “Once” last week with Thang. A very good story… and amazing music! I have the soundtrack on my iPod and have been listening to it constantly. I’m trying to encourage as many people as I can to go see it. Sometimes the most simple, the most basic storylines are the most moving, and, boldly, the most realistic. *** Monday July 16th, 2007 12:31am Book I am currently reading: “Stardust” by Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess. Song I am addicted to today: “Confession Of A Murderess“ by J.C. Sone. I woke up about a hour ago and found myself in the midst of a major panic attack. Genia called me. It’s actually the phone ringing that woke me. I nodded off to sleep here in bed quite easily after reading a bit of “Stardust”. She called to tell me of a firefly that had come into her apartment upstairs. She says she has never seen that happen before. I guess she’s right, fireflies don’t enter homes. So I said, “It’s good luck”, and we said goodnight and hung up. Then I laid back down, my mind started wandering to the coming weekend. I am alone. It’s not often I have any problems with that. It’s actually quite nice. Sort of like being on some sort of vacation from an annoying spouse that lasts forever. But then, I know nothing of spouses. But one time I told my sister that I am not sure if being alone is really right, if it’s ok for someone to be alone. She said, “But you’re happy. I can see that you’re ok being alone.” She’s absolutely right to a certain degree. But then, during times of sickness, and then during times like tonight, I wake up, lying in bed, dreading my own thoughts, my own heart, and I turn to my side to wake up someone, to talk, but there’s no one there. I am left alone with myself and with my thoughts, and I can’t even talk about it. I lay, by myself, and I suffer the storm until the morning comes. It’s quite nice, being alone, but sometimes I would just kill for some sweet soul to wake up in the middle of the night like this, someone to wake up and share with him my thoughts, my fears. Someone who could turn and face me, and hear my words, and say, “Listen to me, it’s all going to be ok.” Anyway, I’m wrestling with time. I’m thinking that death is not something you can come to terms with. I don’t think anyone can really truly come to terms with death. There is giving in to it, dealing with it, there is fighting it, there is denying it, and there is running away from it. But there is never any coming to terms with it. At least, that’s what I’m thinking tonight. And look, there’s no one here to disagree with me. So I might as well be right. My Oma died roughly seven years ago. My Opa died about ten years before that. I thought all this time that I had come to terms with their deaths. But in reality, I realize, I haven’t. You would think that you would be over with the drudgery of a death, if it occurred seventeen years ago, when you were on the edge of 13 years old. But it can sit there, in the back of your soul, biding time. Another thing I’ve discovered, here in this empty bed tonight, that a death of a loved one can happen more than once. I don’t mean more than one loved one dying. That is obvious. I mean that the same death of the same loved one can and does happen over and over and over and over again in your mind, in your memory, in your history, in your soul, whatever the fuck you want to call it. It’s like someone just pulled that person away from you, put them in a room on the other side of a wall from you and said “You are not allowed to see this person ever ever again.” That is exactly what death seems to me. It seems that the person is still alive, but they were hidden away and I am told that I am not allowed to see them. Not again, not ever. And it’s torture. It’s the worst kind of torture. I want to talk to them, I want to hear their voices. I want their advice, their answers, their laughs, I want their faces and their smells and the textures of their skin. It’s all right here in my memory, but that’s the part that makes it so tough. I can remember someone so well, they’re right there in front of me in my mind, but no matter how much my heart aches for it, I can’t just extend my hand out and fucking touch them. All I want is to touch them. And this is why we hang on to the material things. This is why we grab out for the photographs, for the hand-written letters, the objects, the plates, the silverware, the pens, the furniture, the clothes, this is why we don’t throw away tattered things that don’t even work anymore. These things are the last remaining physical link we have to the people we are forbidden to see ever, ever again. To the things, to the objects that they loved so much, to the substance that holds so much memory and history, this is as close as we get to being able to hold their living flesh and blood ever again. This is as close I can press my self to that wall separating me from them. I press my ear to it, hoping for a voice. It’s all I can do. There is a wall between me and them, and I am forbidden to see them ever again. Growing old is not the hard part. Growing old is not the thing that sucks. The thing that sucks is the fact that you have no choice but to let go of your childhood, your history, you have no choice but to go forth stark naked into the future, alone, whether you live like me or you live like someone married with five children. You walk on alone, naked, not knowing what the fuck you’re doing with yourself. One by one they go away, it’s like some nasty trick, some nasty predator following you around. You can never go backwards, you can never rewind just to that one point where there was nothing but you and that one person, nothing but that moment when you felt loved so much. It’s all about that moment, isn’t it? It’s about being loved. Someone was watching you grow, was watching you become your own person. You were being loved, and that love made you feel validated, it made you rise up and explode and burn like the sun. I understand why people have children. I understand that none of us chose this. No one chose this at all. We were all, each of us, forced into this. It was thrust upon us. Yes, there are things so amazingly perfect and beautiful about having children. There is something amazingly perfect and beautiful about being alive. I just wish we didn’t have to grow up. I wish time was a thing we could control, instead of it controlling us. You think of those persons, each, one by one, and the way they make you burn like the sun. Each of them, one by one, and indeed yourself, will eventually be claimed by time, forced into a room and forbidden forever again, and all you will have left of them will be memories. It is like all we can really do to keep us all alive is to keep passing love from one to the next. You love someone, watch them grow, and they in turn, hopefully, love you, and when time takes you away, the very closest they then will have to touching you ever again will be by way of memory. I’m still in the midst of my panic attack, by the way. I thought writing about this would help. But it hasn’t. It has simply delayed the unavoidable. But at least I’ve finally finished the drink I started as I came to bed reading “Stardust”. *** Wednesday June 27th, 2007 11:07pm Song I am addicted to today: "Salvation" by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Book I am currently reading: "Hitler Made Me A Jew" by Nadia Gould. It is my extreme pleasure to let you know that a new book that my friend Ed Walters put together, "Ghost On The Highway", has just been published. It features the verse & tales of myself, Ed Walters, Heather Hutsell, and Roxanne Nihiline, and also cover artwork by the amazing Bede Murphy. Since we're publishing this all on our own, we need the help of you, our friends, to get the word around. Also, once a certain amount of copies get sold, our book will become available on www.amazon.com and www.bn.com which would really help get our book out there! But that's not why you should buy a copy. You should buy a copy because we're brilliant writers, you love us, we've put our flesh & blood into this project, and we want to share it with you. This is the direct link to the book- http://www.lulu.com/content/860426 Over the next several months we will be getting together here and there around the Boston area and the New York City area to promote the book as much as possible, until we sell out our inventory (or until we die trying and really do become ghosts on the highway!). So, climb on in, buckle your seatbelt, and come ride the highway with us! http://www.lulu.com/content/860426 *** Tuesday June 12th, 2007 5:12pm Song I am addicted to today: “Jeremiah” by Starsailor. Books I am currently reading: “The Sandman” series by Neil Gaiman. Can family be more than people? Can it be a mountain? Can it be a view? Can it be a cool summer breeze under a cloudless summer sky? Can it be the rhythmic throaty language of bullfrogs in a hillside pond? Or a time-worn path through a forest thick with elder birch trees? Can childhood be contained, preserved, memorized, rooted & cultivated in the very Earth itself? In the rocks, in the trees, in the passage of cows grazing in poetic fields of green? When you let go of a land that is itself a family member, is it right and respectful to mourn it as though it were passing away, not only in the history but also into the heart? Is it right to try to hang on to bits and pieces of it, as though they could all be reconstructed into a minor replica of a land years away down the road, as you try, unsuccessfully, to communicate, to share, to give your own long-gone childhood to the future children of your ever-changing family? Is it possible to find the essence of the connection between physical objects and the memories you tie to them? Is there a scientific code? Is there a formula? A recipe? A magical spell that binds it all together? An ancient chant that gives you your pain when it all gets ripped apart? How can a person walk away from this land, these trees, these hills, these valleys and pastures, these crumbling stone walls, without mourning, or wailing out loud, knowing it will forever be gone, away, invisible, untouchable, like the death of a beloved person? It is just land. But somewhere deep down inside you know it has a beating heart, you know that it remembers you as though it had a mind all its own, and you know, as you walk away, that it is crying now for your passing as well. *** Sunday May 20th, 2007 7:25pm Song I am addicted to today: "Fat Slut" by Tori Amos. Book I am currently reading: "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman. I don't know what was wrong with me last week, I don't think I was sick at all, and I thought I got about eight hours of sleep each night, but when Friday came around I felt as drained as anything. The whole day I felt as if I could fall asleep simply by resting my head down on my desk. Dana invited me over to her place around 10:00 for drinks, so I figured I would take a cat-nap first. I got home from work around 6:00, immediately put my bag down, went into my room, undressed, crawled under the sheets, and I would guess within twenty seconds of putting my head down on my pillow I was asleep. I didn't wake up until about 10:30pm. I still felt tired, so I read for almost an hour and went right back to sleep again. I didn't wake up again until perhaps 8:00 Saturday morning. Whatever was wrong with me, I guess my body needed to drop into a coma to fight it off. In any case, I felt absolutely excellent for the remainder of the weekend! I didn't really plan to do much this weekend, but the moment I got out of bed Saturday morning I immediately started some major, MAJOR spring cleaning and purging of my bedroom and closets. At the end of the day, I had maybe 100 more square feet of free space in my room, and I had three full trash bags of old clothes I dropped off at the Salvation Army bins down the street. And my crowning achievement was uncovering my secret hiding space of my collection of all the poems I've written in my entire life (the secret hiding space was SO secret that for the longest time even I didn't remember where it was)! Then after the long day I took a break and rewarded myself with a couple Smirnoff Ice's and a Margaret Cho DVD. After my second drink Genia called down from upstairs, asking to go for a bike ride. While I listened to her question with my phone to my ear, I considered it- I thought about my present state of intoxication, the twinkly tingly feeling in my legs & feet, and I looked out the window at the rain (which maybe Genia hadn't noticed yet??) and I answered, "Sure, why the hell not?" So, Genia came downstairs and I helped her to some Smirnoff, so I wouldn't be the only buzzed one on a bike, and then we took off out onto the streets of Brooklyn. Intoxicated. Swervy. Soaking wet. And laughing our asses off. Today I spent about six hours straight going through my "hidden vault" of life-long poetry, purging it of double copies & indiscernible note scribblings, etc. etc. and now I have a fully complete, fully organized, fully purged, fully alphabetized catalogue of every poem I've ever written in my entire life. It feels so sweet to say that! Now I truly do feel as though I am finally on top of my world. I thought I had lost the majority of these poems forever. Turns out I just needed to lose them for a bit, and rediscover them as one rediscovers a time capsule filled with notes, pictures, tapes, toys, love letters, hair trimmings, and much, much more. I almost feel motivated to go through this catalogue of at least a couple hundred of poems and pull out the 50 strongest ones and publish a book. I did say almost. Speaking of publishing, Ed tells me he is -THIS CLOSE!- to getting his book published! This is a book featuring the brilliant scramblings and dribblings (otherwise known as "poetry and a short story") of Ed, myself, and one or two other writers, as well as artwork from our fabulous artist friend Matt. Ed's publishing this book all on his own, and with all his own money, and it's an honor and a privilege and a dream come true to have my own poetry woven into his creation. One book featuring the creations of crazy people from Massachusetts, New York, and Alaska. It's just gonna be crazy. Either that, or the combination is going to make it come out completely normal. I think Ed said once it is published it will come up in searches on websites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc., and if so then when the time comes I will have links to it posted all over this website of mine. I take pictures. I write poems. I draw things. I share my thoughts. I expose myself with all these random things I do. I completely expose myself, with no apologies. I do this shamelessly. I do this for one reason and one reason only. Life, as everyone knows, is short. My life is short. My life is short. In a blink, this party will all soon be over. After I die, my essence, my memory, my immortality, my ingredients, my humanity, my honesty, whatever you wish to call it, shall remain in my expressions. In all of my strengths, and in all of my weaknesses, in all of my talents, and in all of my faults, I want to be remembered. Perhaps I would be more subdued if I actually believed in the afterlife. But everyone knows I don't. If so inclined, you may call all of these things, these efforts, my Children. You may love them, you may hate them, you may not even notice them at all. But they are mine. ***
	Thursday May 17th, 2007 3:23pm Song I am addicted to today: “Innocence” by Björk. Book I am currently reading: “Good Omens” by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman. I’m doing everything I possibly can to stop using plastic shopping bags. On practically a daily basis I pick up my lunches & snacks at the Whole Foods market at 24th & 7th near my office. I am so used to the habit of accepting my purchases in plastic bags, that I never really stopped to think about it until now, that I really don’t ever need to use plastic bags in those circumstances. I almost always have my backpack with me, and if not, I am usually buying an amount of stuff I can just carry in my hands anyway. I am also progressively replacing all the incandescent bulbs in my house, one bulb at a time. Small step by small step I am trying to break my bad habits, small step by small step I am trying to become more “green”. When I grew up in good ol’ Merrimack, New Hampshire, I spent most of my time roller skating over at the Good Times Roller Skating Center. For better or worse, I grew up in that place. For better or worse, the owners of that place were my role models. I actually grew up wanting to be just like them. And I was a “competitive skater”. That’s not something I often admit to anymore; not that I am ashamed of it, per say, but it’s not exactly like saying I was on the local swim team or the soccer team or gymnastics or anything like that. Also- it was a period thing. A trend. It was cool back then, and back then it was a cool thing to brag about. But sadly, it went out of style. And I suppose that’s why Good Times is up for sale now. Who will buy it? A roller skating fanatic? A Developer? Someone who might turn it into a personal storage facility? Going back through all my childhood memories, reliving all those days spent roller skating, has placed me in a somber mood. To think of that childhood place being sold, torn down, never again used as it was, makes me very sad. I always imagined my sister and I would go back for old time’s sake, put on a pair of skates, and fly around in circles on the rink, bopping to our favorite pop songs. Heck, I was even looking forward to the possibility of bringing my niece there once she got to a good age, bringing her to experience the kind of thing her mom and I experienced when we were little kids. But it looks like that isn’t going to happen. I even fantasized about buying the place myself, but they want something outrageous like $1.4M, plus or minus, and where is a little nobody like me going to come up with that kind of money?? Who would even care to invest in a roller skating rink these days?? Yea, I would make it cool again, I would do things that would bring the masses back to the rink (I even already have a business plan in my head, complete with theme nights, group specials, multi-use shares, etc.), but really, who in their right mind would back a poor starving artist like me, a hopeless daydreamer? I guess I’m just going to have to finally let go of that childhood memory. The good news is, the Bedford pool, where I spent my summers learning how to swim, and where I eventually become a certified lifeguard for the first time ever, has been completely refurbished and renewed, and is once again beautiful! I do indeed plan to take Liliana there, to teach her how to swim. At least that is one childhood memory I can relive with her! *** Sunday May 13th, 2007 11:08pm Song I am addicted to today: “Code Red” by Tori Amos. Book I am currently reading: “Coraline” by Neil Gaiman. I finally put up the “Designer” portion of this site. I threw it together in just a couple of hours today. It’s there, it’s fair… it’s bare. I’ll be updating it more over the next several months, as it presently does not cover any architectural projects I’ve been involved with from 2001 to today. Basically, it’s just a scanned version of my portfolio from 2001. Nothing more, nothing less. I cannot stop listening to Tori Amos’ new album, “American Doll Posse”. It may be the finest album of her career. If not her finest, definitely among the top 3. I’m already getting butterflies in my stomach for her tour! She better tour with a full band this time around. The dolls deserve that much, don’t they? I did an amazing photoshoot yesterday for Eric’s next book review on the previously mentioned blog site. I shot too models together with the book, and it was very intense. Who knew book reading could be so much fun!! I’ll get the photos to Eric over the next couple of days for his review. That’s it for now. It’s late (for me). And I have a book waiting for me in bed. Tomorrow’s Monday. Kurt needs his beauty sleep. G’night! *** Sunday May 6th, 2007 2:58pm Book I am currently reading: “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman. Song I am addicted to today: “Big Wheel” by Tori Amos. It's so nasty that I never got the 'Designer' portion of this website up and running. BUT... that shall come to end towards the end of this week! I've been working on it, and working, and working, and working... anyway, just a few days and it'll finally be here. Then I can wait another 4 years before updating it yet again! (hey, just kidding). Jim and I went to Björk’s concert at Radio City Music Hall. It was my first Björk concert, and it was amazing! I’m convinced Björk is from another planet. I like her new album, but it’s one of those albums that take several listening-to’s to get into. I have a lot of respect for artists like Björk. How can I not?? A fun little occurrence at the concert was almost running right smack into Elijah Wood in the lobby beforehand. He’s not as short as I was expecting him to me, because I guess all anyone ever says about him when they see him in public is “how short” he is! Maybe he was wearing platforms. I don’t know, I wasn’t exactly checking out his feet, if you know what I mean. I hung out in Soho yesterday afternoon with Jefferson (I picked up an awesome Affliction t-shirt at Yellow Rat Bastard). It was beautiful weather, a great day for shopping and people watching, but Soho gets on my nerves when it gets that busy. Why do people flock to Soho? Because it’s one great shopping hub. All designer and all corporate and all trendy, all things it wasn’t when it was really coooooooool way back in the day when it was all starving artists who lived and worked there. I wish I was here for that part of Soho’s history. But I wasn’t. I can only imagine it was something like Williamsburg, perhaps? Also makes me wonder- will Williamsburg become the next Eurotrash watering hole of NYC? My friend Eric in London wrote a review for an amazing new work of fiction called “Skin Lane” by Neil Bartlett, and he asked me to make some photos to go along with his review. So, I did. My friend Sebastian was more than willing to pose for me, with the book, for Eric’s review. The review & said photos can be found in the ‘fiction’ section of one of the world's most popular gay-themed blog sites. Hopefully to be the start of a long fantastic collaboration between Eric and myself! I can’t wait for it to get a bit warmer so I can start heading to the beach on weekends! I’m so happy that spring is finally here. Nothing is better than a backyard full of grass that needs cutting once a week! Nothing better than green things growing and colorful things blooming and fresh new things smelling so fantastic! My roommate Tara moves out at the end of this month, and Rafael shall be moving in. I can't imagine ever living alone. Friends of mine do it, and I just don't know how it's done. I would drive myself madder hatter than I already am. The sunsets these days, I feel like I can dive right into them... *** Saturday March 17th, 2007 1:14pm Song I am addicted to today: “There There (The Boney King Of Nowhere)” by Radiohead. Book I am currently reading: “The Pale Blue Eye” by Louis Bayard. I haven’t added anything to this journal over the past two weeks because I was going through a long process of revamping my computer. I just posted this entry as well as the one preceding it. My sister keeps sending me these little videos of Liliana over the cell phone. Each new video captures a new aspect of her ever-evolving and ever-expending personality. I love it! Thankfully I will see her two weeks from now at April’s wedding out on Long Island. She’s my angel… my sparkling little fire. Three days ago it was seventy degrees outside. Now, it’s in the thirties, and snowing all over the place. We’re mid-way through March, and it’s snowing. Actually- I don’t mind the snow. But I do absolutely mind the inconsistency of this weather. I wonder what this slinky weather (up and down it goes like a little toy slinky) will do to the overall system of nature? What shall our near future become? I find it laughable that we consider our race to be the most intelligent on the planet. We’re smarter than plants, smarter than all other animals, smarter than rocks, even. So then, why are we the only race that’s destroying the planet? How smart are we now? We’re smart enough to know what we’re doing is wrong, and yet… WE KEEP ON DOING IT. That is not smart. It is the exact opposite- it is really quite dumb. If the degree of a race’s intelligence is scaled off of how the environment is treated, then, by god, even the rocks and plants themselves are smarter than the grand Human Race. We are worse than roaches. We are worse than the deadliest virus. We are worse because we have a conscious and an awareness about what we do; we have the power of choice and the power of action. We know how to right our wrongs, and we CHOOSE NOT to do it. We instead choose ignorance. For that alone our hands shall forever be stained red by the blood of the Earth. The most intelligent… Yeah, right. *** Thursday March 8th, 2007 2:28pm Music I am addicted to today: “Civil Wars: A Tree Is The Best Measured When It Is Down” by Philip Glass/Robert Wilson. Book I am currently reading: “300” by Frank Miller. The brain, the organ for making dreams. The body, the organ for making dreams become reality. The heart, the organ for loving, for hating, for all the flaws and blessings that make us want to dream. I was born in the wrong century. I hate the modern world. Don’t be confused by my meaning here- I love technology. I love technology with a passion. But I hate the modern world. If I could take today’s computers, the Internet, and medicine back to the days of King Arthur, I would. Back to the days when art held a supreme seat in the design and creation of society, craftsmanship was a thing of the hand, and when the land, the very Earth was respected, admired and worshiped. Back to the day when horses carried you from city to city, when knights battled it out on fields of glory, hand-to-hand, and fires were lit each night around which great stories would be told and told and told. I am looking forward to the summer. I am looking forward to spending days on the beach, with friends, and I am looking forward to the moments during which new friends will be made from strangers. My time out on the planes with my Pegasus was a good time, but Pegasus has gone to pasture, and I am left to roam about this jubilant forest alone and happy, until my next Pegasus arrives to fly me away. I am looking forward to a summer Pegasus! I am looking forward to the summer nights with my family, with Liliana, seeing the summer for the first time ever through her eyes. I look forward to cousins growing older and getting married, I am looking forward to those fresh air New England breezes that smell like sun-made perfume, I am looking forward to the happy faces of flowers that show themselves in my backyard, those blood-red rose bushes that I planted there myself, in that earthy soil, my bare hands connecting with the bare earth of medieval times in my mind’s eye… *** Thursday March 1st, 2007 11:03am Song I am addicted to today: “Summer In The City” by Regina Spektor. Book I am currently reading: "Eldest” by Christopher Paolini MySpace. Oh, MySpace. What a strange little device you are! It’s getting to the point where the only people who aren’t on MySpace are either over the age of 40, or are dead, or have absolutely no life and live way out in the middle of the Sahara. MySpace made me sad today. Why? Because I went to look at the Merrimack High page on MySpace. Good ol’ class of 1995. What happened to everyone? They all grew up. A lot of them got fat. Some of them got thin. Most of them got married and became parents. And most likely 90% of them still live up there in New Hampshire somewhere. Most of the pretty girls stayed pretty, even some of the ugly ones managed to blossom somewhere along the road of life. But the guys… the guys all grew up, have facial hair and chest hair, weigh over 165 pounds, and all of them, all of them except for one (me) turned out to be completely heterosexual. And the funny thing is, the funny thing that is really the most depressing thing in the entire world, is that all the pretty boys became ugly men. All my old high school crushes… man how I would secretly swoon over them… they all lost their beauty. So I guess it’s a good thing I’m the only fag out of the bunch. All of these ugly 30 year old men, they were the most BEAUTIFUL creatures on the earth when they were 18! Amazing what consequence of sexuality can do to a man. But high school crushes aside- browsing through all these MySpace profiles made me long for those never-ending years when I was growing up in Merrimack, New Hampshire. I look back to who I was then, and I look at who I am now, and all the crap that played out in between like so many suicidal plays between two cast iron book ends. I miss the innocence, I guess. Even the crushes back then… those high school crushes were the most intense feelings that ever existed for me. You know it was great when a crush on a man could make you feel suicidal! So intense- like the world would just stop rotating if anything actually HAPPENED with any of those crushes. But nothing ever did. I guess those could have been among the loneliest years of my life. If anything, I would write something down on a piece of paper, write down my feelings and desires in black and white, which would for some strange reason make it all the more real for me. But all those words got crumpled up and torn up and tossed away in the end. Those feelings becoming words were the most real things that ever happened to me back then. All these kids who I graduated with in 1995 have grown up and have become different people. Everyone I knew back then, everyone I liked, everyone I hated, everyone I swooned over, all those kids are gone and will never come back. But me? Some major parts of me are still the same as they were back then. My heart is the same. My mind is the same. And most importantly, I guess, my longing and my angst are still the same. Oh, MySpace. What have you done… *** Saturday February 24th, 2007 1:10pm Song I am addicted to today: “Terrible Lie” performed by Mercury Falls. Book I am currently reading: “Eldest” by Christopher Paolini. My dreams are extremely vivid whenever Pegasus spends the night with me. We don’t ever get much sleep together, but when I do sleep, I have dream after dream that are as clear and as focused as conscious reality. It’s quite strange. And then when he’s gone, it’s the usual fragmented, delayed remembrance. Lately I’ve been dreaming of past lovers, coworkers, family members, but surprisingly I seem to have stopped dreaming about monsters, violence and fear that I used to dream about all the time in years past. I don’t know where this is all heading, this thing I have with Pegasus. It’s becoming clear to me that we both are seeking a lot of things, some of them the same, many of them different, in this relationship. I know it is not as simple as saying it is all due to the twelve year age difference between him and me. It is more than that, even though that is a major factor. It is also due to drastically different upbringings. Myself, I know I didn’t come into my own until after I moved out of my parents’ house permanently during my college years. I am curious to see how he blossoms and evolves once he experiences many of the same things that I already had in my past. I have finally reached a point in my life where I have enough experience to look back upon and learn great things from. For example, if this relationship were to happen two or more years ago, I definitely would have done what was my usual thing at the time and I would have run away from it by now. But instead of running, I stop and I compare him to people like Eddie and Sebastian, and I try to be less critical and less paranoid as I always have been before. I am learning to just relax and go with the flow. I am trying very hard to be less demanding and more forgiving of things that normally would send me on an emotional rampage. I suppose I am learning, quite slowly, how to be more… normal. If I can do that, then maybe for once in my life a relationship would actually last long enough so that I can call it a relationship without feeling like I am lying to myself. Jason told me the other day that the only way I will ever have a long-term relationship with someone is if I find someone who offers me something that I actually need. And I suppose that is what my problem is. I’ve never NEEDED anything from anyone. Or if I do actually need something, I will have no idea what that thing is until someone offers it to me. It’s an interesting idea, but I pretty much shot it down the moment Jason said it to me. I shot it down, but I kept its bloody form close to mind. He may be right. But Dr. Ruth Jason definitely is not. I spent Presidents Day up in New Hampshire. Liliana is getting so big! She’s being more vocal, she’s kicking a lot and grabbing onto everything that comes within fingers’ reach! She’s discovering she can actually DO things and MAKE things happen. It’s a fascinating process to observe! She’s the most perfect little being I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I know I keep saying that, but it’s true. She’s sheer brilliance. My goal is to buy a house within the next five years. Somewhere outside of the city, closer to my family. But that’s all I’ve decided so far. There’s a lot I need to figure out. I know I’ll still stay here in NYC on a full-time basis, and I want to buy an old farm house I can fix up and add to gradually, someplace I can get to once or twice a month. And then, in time, perhaps even as far ahead as ‘retirement’, live there permanently. I have quite a few states to choose from – New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Many people buy an apartment. But that’s not for me. I can’t own a part of a thing. I must own a whole thing, independent from any other things. I need to own an entire building, on an entire lot. I need to own a house. An apartment is what you rent. A house is what you own. The idea of owning something like a house is such an awesome one! Especially if it’s a house you know could potentially be a part of the rest of your life. Of course, I could be jumping the gun with that sentiment. And I am thinking out loud here in this journal. All I really know is this: I am going to buy a house in the next 5 years. That is it. My new favorite television series is “24”. That is the only show I watch right now. I was into “Lost”, but I am convinced the writers are just as lost as their characters are. And I was also into “Grey’s Anatomy”, but the writers had Meredith drowned in a river for, what was it? Two or three whole episodes? I’ve lost count! AND they somehow managed to bring her back to life! Anyone dumb enough to buy that as a realistic situation should go take a CRP & lifeguarding course and find out just how long the human brain can survive without oxygen. So anyway, yes, “24”. One of the best-made shows ever made. That’s no exaggeration! I didn’t get into that show until a couple months ago, and they are currently on the sixth season which means I’ve had to buy the prior seasons on DVD’s to get all caught up. That’s basically what I’ve done with all my free time… I am almost embarrassed to admit that. My life for several weeks was basically one long “24” marathon. But I am so addicted… I want to be Jack Bauer! He’s by far the best hero ever imagined. I am in complete awe of his strength, his will, his sacrifice, and his conviction to do what is right. *** Thursday February 15th, 2007 10:30am Song I am addicted to today: "Arrest Yourself" by Hot Chip Buried in snow. We are all buried in snow. It’s cold, it’s windy, I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it. Went to dinner and a movie last night with Pegasus (my nickname for the one who shall remain unnamed in this journal) for Valentine’s Day. The restaurant was dead. We went to Chumley’s down in the village, one of my favorites. Actually, it was dead when we got there around 5:45 but by the time 7:00 came around it was pretty busy. We sat at a small table right next to the roaring fireplace, warm and cozy. After dinner we went and saw “Hannibal Rising”. I expected to not be crazy about it, but I was actually quite entertained, and very impressed by Gaspard Ulliel’s acting ability. I’ve never seen any of his movies before, but he could very well become one of my new favorite actors. Also, Li Gong, I’ve realized finally, is just simply one of the most beautiful women alive. I can watch her forever. I’m heading up to New Hampshire this weekend to see my family. For once I am avoiding the Chinatown bus by hitching a ride with Jason, since he’s driving to Boston Friday afternoon. Liliana is growing so quickly and I really try hard not to miss any of it. Also, dad seems to be doing well with the cancer treatments, and I am looking forward to seeing him. Ed is very close to getting the book published. He showed me the cover last week and it’s amazing. I’m really excited about this project! Hopefully it will peak some interest and will motivate us to do a second book… We shall see. Or, maybe I will try self-publishing my own book, combining photography with poetry. Who knows. It’s fun to think about at least. *** Tuesday January 31th, 2007 11:32am Song I am addicted to today: "A Prayer For England" by Massive Attack Nothing to write about today. Just a little poem I wrote last week: THE BUILDING Graceful ruin graceful death graceful birth graceful face A pillar to the sky high holding high on the top of your upstretched hands Lies my heart. A beautiful ruin, I shall name you Acropolis. Inside of you lives my breath, filling you Drawing you one stone at a time, building you By loving you- by wanting to... I want to fly within you. Pillars raising me so high without you I would die. If you let me draw you, what will you, what will you? Your will... like hewn stones on a plinthe. You are becoming the story of me. But you ask me, Why? An architect draws buildings because he wishes to fly. That's why. *** Saturday January 27th, 2007 4:21pm Song I am obsessed with today: "Precious Things" by Tori Amos Not a whole lot to report this week. Which I guess is a good thing. Well, I’ve seen some pretty good movies lately, my top favorites so far being: Children of Men, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Perfume. Next week I will go see The Queen with my friend Annie. Also, last night I saw a preview for “300”, which looks simply AMAZING!!!! Can’t wait to see that one!! The winter has caught up with us these couple of weeks, so there’s really not much to do besides go watch movies. So, things seem to be going remarkably well with the guy I started dating a few weeks ago. Things are moving so very quickly, which we are trying to control. But we’ve examined it and have discussed it from all possible angles and we’ve decided to give a relationship a try. So far, so good. His birthday is Monday, so we’re spending this whole weekend celebrating it. I can’t say what exactly we’ll be doing, because he may be reading this. But it will be fun, and I also think he will appreciate his gifts which were very carefully contemplated and selected by moi. I’m purposefully not saying much about him, his name, or what he does, out of respect for his (and my) privacy. I know I’ve always been very outspoken in this journal in the past. But things are changing now. This is something very special, and I intend to be very selfish about it and not share it with anyone who is not directly involved in my life. I got a jury summons for Monday morning. I really hope they don’t select me… I can’t afford to take time off from work for a potentially long case lasting several days. If it turns out to be a day or two, I suppose that would be ok. I’ve never done jury duty before, and I kind of would like to keep it that way. Call me a prude. What a dull entry! Well, I said there wasn’t much going on, didn’t I? So, here we are. *** Wednesday January 11th, 2007 5:27pm Song I am obsessed with today: “Silent Shout” by The Knife Book I am currently reading: “Eragon” by Christopher Paolini Here’s a lengthy entry to make up for a long gap of innocent silence- I spent the holidays up in New Hampshire with my parents, my sister, her husband, and my baby niece Liliana. I was there for a little over a week. It was the first time in god knows how many years we’ve exchanged gifts, which was actually a nice habit to return to, despite the mobbed malls, traffic, and parking battles. All week long all I did was eat & sleep, read, watch 2 whole seasons of “24”, and help my sister take care of the baby. My parents flew off to Saint Martin to celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary. I house sat for them while they were away. They left the day after Christmas and returned New Year ’s Eve. They seemed to have a really great time. I’m glad they went- they hadn’t been anywhere since Lori and Andy’s wedding in Barbados back in 2004. I was planning to spend a lot of time training while I was up there, but I injured myself somehow (and will refrain from saying exactly what was injured, as that is rather personal- having to do with ‘manly’ things), and couldn’t run or swim, much less walk comfortably. So I am sure I managed to put on a few pounds of holiday snacking, but I frankly don’t give a damn. But of course, I fully recovered by the end of my vacation, and have resumed my training the day after I returned to NYC. I haven’t been writing any poetry in quite some time, but today I finally managed to put pen to paper, so to speak. My friend Ed up in Massachusetts is working on a project involving a few different writers, myself included. He is using a wide spectrum of poems I have written since High School, all previously unpublished work, and he would like me to write 3 or 4 more poems specifically for this project, which I feel quite honored to do. But since I haven’t written in so long, a part of me wasn’t sure if I could come up with anything worth anyone’s attention. But I wrote 2 poems earlier today, and I kinda like how they came out. We’ll see if Ed also likes them. For the record- I am not posting any more new poetry on my site, aside from what is already there, because my involvement in Ed’s project has made me realize that I should pursue more publishing endeavors, and therefore need to keep all future poems secret & untouched for potential publishers (many, if not all, publishers consider website poetry to be ‘published’ poetry). So- if you somehow like what I write, and want to read more, you’re gonna have to wait for me to get published elsewhere in the future… if it ever comes to that. I will also give details about Ed’s project when it is very close to becoming a finished product. I’m a little scared- I met someone a week ago who I quite suddenly got really intense feelings for. We’ve only hung out a few times, but he’s constantly on my mind. So, now I am trying hard not to smother him or annoy him or bore him with constant phone calls, emails, etc. It’s not often I feel so intensely for someone (I can count on less than one hand’s worth of fingers how many times in the past my crushes have had this level of intensity). I have absolutely no idea if this thing will last a week, a month, or a year. I guess I could compare it to a pregnancy- the first 4 months could mean anything, and it’s best not to announce the pregnancy until after the 4th month, because by that point it’s pretty definite that it’s gonna happen. And so I feel as though I must protect this crush, this man who is the recent focus of my daily thoughts (and who also happens to be the core inspiration of today’s 2 new poems). I feel like with the slightest move, I could lose him, or keep him forever. I’m trying not to let past experiences discourage me. Trying not to remember a certain palm reader’s prediction of my life. It’s amazing how you can meet one person, and suddenly feel as though that one person is the only thing you could possibly need in your life to truly be happy. Blah... Why do crushes always make me so incredibly cheesy?????? I wish I was better at coping with this kind of shit. I was perfectly content before you wandered into my life. But you busted through, made me fall for you, and look at me now! You’re all I can think of… If this thing isn’t gonna last, please do what you must, just promise me you’ll be gentle with me in the end... or, forever. ***
	The entries from 2006:
	Wednesday December 20th, 2006 2:53pm Song I am addicted to today: “Back To Black” by Amy Winehouse Book I am currently reading: “Send Me” by Patrick Ryan The doctors told him he has one to five years left. This idea, this concept, this prediction is tumbling round and round inside of my head constantly without rest without pause without mercy. I designed a crematorium in architecture school around my fears of the future of me and him. But I thought I was creating a fiction. Who knew it would linger around in my mind to haunt me and taunt me. I was foolish to think I could escape it. It makes me want to call someone. Or maybe just hurt someone. Makes me want to jump on a plane and fly to Canada. One to five years. I need to stop that crematorium from becoming my life. It's not about me. It's not about me. *** Wednesday December 6th, 2006 12:51pm Song I am addicted to today: “Break Your Neck” by Shy Child OK- for a brief moment I must write about my three favorite television shows: Gilmore Girls, Grey’s Anatomy and Lost. I am so pissed off that Gilmore Girls has gone to hell in a handbag because the lame ass CW thought they could handle it without Amy Sherman Palladino. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid network!!! It went from being the #1 best show on television to being one of the worst. Thankfully, my cousin Ally got me hooked on Grey’s Anatomy. Thankfully, there are other brilliant writers out there (and other smarter networks for that matter), like Shonda Rhimes, and Damon Lindelof, who do fantastic work and help prevent me from committing suicide over the absence of someone like Amy Sherman Palladino. OK. TV talk is done. My birthday was yesterday, but I’ve decided to take 30 days to celebrate turning 30 years. I started celebrating Friday night, all throughout the weekend, and I will continue every day until the end of this month when I will have a final celebration with my family. Turning 30 seems to be a bigger deal for everyone around me than it is for me. It’s very strange. It’s a landmark year, and the last landmark year I had before this one was 21. So in a way, I feel like I am turning 21 again. I do actually feel younger, but I also feel a whole lot more comfortable with myself, which is definitely not how I felt when I really was younger. This has been a major year for me, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this year has landed on this age. My grandfather passed away. My father was diagnosed with lung cancer. My sister gave birth to her first child, my beautiful niece Liliana. I’ve started questioning my professional reality. On top of all that, I am reevaluating all of my friendships, and I am also trying to examine why I have absolutely no desire to be involved in a relationship. On the mention of my late grandfather- one of the things I got for my birthday was a tattoo. The tattoo artist combined the Sagittarius (me) and the Taurus (my grandfather) astrological symbols into one and I had him put it on my left shoulder. It basically resembles a bull’s head with horns that turn into arrows. The bull’s face also sort of resembles a heart. I did this in honor of my love for my Pop-Pop. Truthfully, growing up I never pictured myself turning 30. 30 was for other people, not me. Or maybe just the state of mind of 30. I spent the better half of my twenties worrying about reaching 30, worrying about never being in my 20’s ever, ever again. Feeling like something major and dark happens when you exit the 20’s. But nothing happens. You get closer and closer to 30 and you realize that it’s really nothing more than just another stupid little number, nothing more than just another day. Nothing changed. Big things happened to Jesus when he was my age, but normal people? Normal people make a choice. They choose to either grow old or to stay young. Myself? I’m choosing to stay young. *** Monday November 20, 2006 10:19pm Song I am addicted to today: Regina Spektor’s “Us” Dad’s in the hospital again. I’ve tried dating again but guys these days in this city they all act like they want you to like them but none of them ever act like they like you. It all seems backwards. The bosses suddenly now think yelling’s a good communication tool. At first I thought it was just me but the walls are thin and it’s all of us, almost like they’re trying to yell us all into resignation. Dad’s in the hospital again, my sister calls and says "This is all growing old is about." Whenever I go home I’m mean to my parents. I argue and scowl and then I run back down to NYC and feel bad for acting the way I do. When will I stop being so selfish? Is it fair for my sister to be up there with them while I live down here and fantasize about dreaming when my sister’s shoulders bear all the weight of my parents’ aging? When siblings grow up, there’s the one who stays and there’s the one who flees. I can’t even bring myself to write three poems. I live for my niece. I'd die just to watch her grow. My friend needs three more poems to finish the job but I just can’t do it. I can’t open the door. I’m afraid. Just two more weeks until I turn 30 and I'm believing I am one of those people who's meant to be something, anything other than the norm. Liliana's got to be the most perfect little being I've ever been able to behold. Simply thinking about the miracle of the life of her just makes me want to cry. All I want is to make something beautiful. A poem, a picture, a drawing, a song, a love affair, but I can’t ever seem to make any of it work. I’m dating a guy and I want him to act like he likes me but all he does is act like he wants me to like him. The one before him was like that too, as will be the one after this one. I can’t bring myself to be the son I should be. I distance myself and argue with my dad and I can’t even be myself at work anymore because suddenly I get emails and meetings instead of feeling and trust. I don’t even sleep anymore. I run and I swim and I bike and I push myself harder and harder until I cannot physically move anymore, like this past weekend I swear I thought I was going to pass out somewhere. I kept my ID in my front pocket to make it easier for the EMT guys to find out who I was. If it even mattered. I can’t even make something of beauty. Not even three poems. I starve and run my body into the ground. I can’t even make a thing of beauty. And he can’t even act like he likes me. I’ve stopped sleeping but my mentors can’t stop the yelling. My dad's in the hospital again. I need to give him a call tomorrow. *** Friday October 20th, 2006 9:20pm Song I am addicted to today: Evanescence’s “Lacrymosa” Books I am currently reading: “Walden” and “War & Peace” (it’s gonna take a while!) Tonight, I put down a group of names I have never actually put together before on “paper”. I just want to see how big a group of names it actually is, for my own sake. Adam, Russell, Doug, Derek, Marshall, Eric, Some skater punk in college who’s name escapes me at the moment, Some Canadian exchange student who’s name also escapes me, Marc, Christian, Mark, Andy, Nick, another Adam (funny coincidence that they were both swimmers), Scott, Fabio, Richard, Tobias, Billy. Nineteen names. I figure that list probably grows one or two names a year since middle school, at most. This has been one of those days where it all went wrong from the moment I got out of bed, literally. Not one thing has gone as it was supposed to today. So I came home early tonight and threw a load of laundry into the machine. I figure I can’t fuck THAT up. I am so glad this day is over with. I’m done! *** Wednesday October 18th, 2006 4:35pm Song I am addicted to today: Starsailor's "In The Crossfire" Book I am currently reading: Neil Gaiman's "Fragile Things" OK, if I put off writing this another day, Jason's gonna come limping over and will beat my ass into a bloody pulp! Here's the big news: There's a new girl in my life! I am, for the first time ever.............. an uncle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOO HOOOOO!!!!! My NIECE, Liliana (the most beautiful name for the most beautiful girl) was born on Saturday October 7th. I got the call at 12:30am Saturday night and took the first bus out of Chinatown Sunday morning. I spent the whole week with my family and got back down here late three nights ago. Liliana is the most beautiful, the most perfect little baby I have ever seen in my entire life. Even just a few days after her birth I could already sense her character developing. She's my new princess! I took hundreds of pictures of her, and helped my sister and her husband out at their house- I put together Liliana's stroller, her playpen, and her swing. I held her, smelled her, talked to her, watched her sleep, and listened to her breathe. When her eyes opened and looked at me, I smiled the warmest smile I feel I have ever smiled since I was a young boy. I'll see her again soon, and before I do I plan on doing some serious damage up at FAO Schwartz! Of course, one of the first things this uncle thinks about is her future. Where she grows up, the kinds of friends she will have, the role she will play in my family, the role she will play in the world around us. I can remember a couple years ago, my sister's husband telling me he wasn't sure if he wanted to raise a child in today's world. That's a thought everyone probably thinks, when weighing the mental pros and cons to having children. My argument to that is this: Perhaps the only way to make this downward-spiraling world any better is by having children and RAISING THEM TO BE AMAZING HUMAN BEINGS. It blows my mind to consider the effect one decent human being can have on the world. Perhaps it is an easier concept to grasp if we regard people as butterflies. After all, a butterfly flaps it's wings... a hurricane strikes miles away. I'm dying in anticipation for the hurricanes Liliana will bring forth onto the world! I will call her birth the Liliana Effect. I wonder about the version of Iraq Liliana will know when she becomes a young adult. How will that hurricane play out? What will she read in the history books about a family named Bush? The world today makes me nervous, I admit. Soldiers raping children, nuclear tests, controlling media... And it's interesting to take notice of the moments during which you can actually understand what would make someone a so-called "terrorist". I myself have a slowly growing list of targets. Were I to start an underground movement, my bomb list (so far) would be: 1. Banks (not all banks, only certain Goliathesque banks with profane & obnoxious fees) 2. Credit card companies (I have to say, I would bomb them all) 3. Cell phone companies (indeed, they're all each and every one of them completely criminal) 4. Insurance companies (only the ones who don't ever pay or are easily scared off by potential tsunamis) But instead of bombing the true criminal entities of America, I find my comfort and satisfaction in simple things. Like a certain book named "Walden". On the subway into work this morning the last paragraph of chapter 8 I read before closing the book made me gitty (for lack of a smarter word). It goes as follows: "You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends." If words like those can still be read and comprehended by the minds of today's people, then perhaps times are not yet all that bad. Perhaps there is still hope for a better world. I've got small butterflies on my mind. Little things of beauty... flapping their wings. The birth of butterflies is ever such a miraculous event. Indeed, I actually feel the wise influence of a Creator some have nicknamed 'God'. *** Thursday September 28th, 2006 5:48pm Song I am addicted to today: Pete Yorn’s “Vampyre” Books I am currently reading: Walden, and War & Peace My dad finished his first (and hopefully his only) round of chemo, and continues with his radiation treatments for another couple of weeks. Then they scan him again to see if his lung cancer has gone into remission or not. And also just another couple weeks until my sister goes into labor! Perfect timing on behalf of nature, no? I just spent a week and California and then the next week after that in New Hampshire. My friends Mandy and Erika own and run their own motorcycle academy in Santa Monica. Next time I go out to visit them I will take their course and get my California motorcycle driver’s license. It would be so fun to ride along the coast of Cali on a bike! That would be a divine feeling of ultimate freedom. Jason moves back from Saudi Arabia this week. At first he was just coming back for a few days to get his working visa in order, but he’s decided to come back for good now. Apparently, the experience over there wasn’t all he was assuming it would be. But I hope he remains optimistic and views it as a valuable learning experience, if nothing else. I broke it off with Jason a couple weeks ago, for two big reasons- the distance, and my family circumstances. Now he’s taking care of the distance thing by moving back to NYC, but there is still my family… It’s hard to explain, but I need to be single through all this. I hope Jason isn’t moving back for me. My devotion right now is to my family, nothing else. I don’t have the time for any other kinds of relationships in addition to the one I have with my family at this point in my life. Besides, Jason really needs to get his career path in order. So, we both have our own transitions to tackle. My neighbor Genia and I have started a morning routine of going running on the McCarren Park track over in Williamsburg. So far so good, and I hope we can keep it up. I have always ran solo in the past, but it’s good to have a partner on the track. If there’s two of you getting up at 6:00am to go for a run together, you’re less likely to hit the snooze button and go back to sleep (you don’t want to let your running buddy down!). I’ve also picked up on my cycling more too. It’d be great to compete in some triathlons within the next two to three years. But I need a new bike, which is going to set me back a couple grand. Anyway, baby steps. I’ll get to my ideal training level eventually. Tonight Jim is taking me to see Regina Spektor at Town Hall. I’m looking forward to it. The girl’s got talent! I’m very happy right now. Usually I would call this a Beginning-Of-Spring Gitty Gitty feeling (this feeling has a similar effect to listening to Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”), but hey, if I feel like this now, at the start of fall, I’m not gonna complain! I’ll take it any time I can, baby! *** Tuesday September 12th, 2006 10:27am Song I am addicted to today: Madonna’s “Erotica/You Thrill Me” Remix Books I am currently reading: Walden, War & Peace, and Mysterious Skin. Last week was the first week in many months that I’ve actually felt back to normal, back to my 100% self since all this family stuff started happening. I don’t know what it was that finally clicked back into place, but whatever it was, I am glad it finally happened. Now I am full of energy, feeling like I am ten years younger than I am, very happy, almost like I am on a drug or something. The clouds have lifted. I’ve become a major groupie to Circus Contraption. My roommate Tara works for their show in the East Village, called “Circus Contraption’s Grand American Traveling Dime Museum”. I’ve seen their show 3 times now over the past month, and I’ve seen them perform as a band in Williamsburg twice as well. I just can’t get enough! I stuck around after their variety show the other night to attend the wedding of two of their people who are in love. I even developed a little crush on one of their tech boys, but he doesn’t seem to have any interest in me. Boo hoo! I want to quit my job, quit NYC all together, and go run away with their Circus! But I can’t- I just don’t have the talent. I can’t climb ropes, I can’t do flips or acrobatics, I can’t swallow swords, I can’t juggle… Either you’re born to be with the circus, or you’re not. Or, in my case, you’re born to follow them around everywhere and obsess over them. Circus Contraption’s website is www.circuscontraption.com. I’m going to see their last show on September 23rd, and then after that, when they go back to Seattle, I’m gonna be one very sad, sad little boy. Just four weeks left until my sister has her baby! I’ve been spending as much time up in New Hampshire as possible lately, to be with my dad while he battles his cancer, and to be with my sis while she gets bigger, bigger and bigger. I am so anxious and excited to become an uncle! I’m gonna spoil that baby like no other baby has ever been spoilt before!!! I just cannot wait!!! My friend Jason wants to take me on a trip for my birthday. He gave me three choices- Istanbul, Cairo or Paris. I said I’d prefer Paris. I don’t want him spending that kind of money for me on my birthday (he’ll make all my other friends look bad!), but he’s not letting me back down from this. So- we’ll see if it happens… just another thing to be looking forward to in a month or so! OK, my boss just walked through the door, time to get some work done. *** Thursday August 17, 2006 9:50pm Well, today is the first day in I don’t know how many weeks that I actually feel good and awake and energetic and content and not so dark and depressed. I actually feel like myself again. I don’t know what brought on the sudden change. Maybe it was my supportive friends. Maybe it was me finally subconsciously deciding to wake up. Maybe it was Time. Losing my grandfather was amazingly difficult. More so than I thought it would be. I brought out all the letters he’s written to me over the years and relived each and every one of them. I brought two letters to his memorial service, but there was no chance I would have been able to stand up there and read them in front of my family. I wouldn’t have been able to keep myself together. He always said more in letters than he ever did in person, so I am very lucky that I have these letters, these parts of him, for life. My dad starts his cancer treatments on Monday. I’ll be going up there in a couple weeks to visit him again, as well as my sister and my mom. My dad isn’t the first in this family to have dealings with cancer. And he won’t be the last. I think about my cousin Debbie a lot, and how strong she is; it was because of her perseverance that she overcame it, even though the odds were not exactly comfortable odds. I hope my dad can fight his with the intensity that she fought hers with. He’s overcome plenty in the past. I’m trying to think of this as simply another obstacle in his life that he will get over. I’ve been thinking so much about family during these last several months. Thinking also about new family members and old family members. The timing lately is provoking- my grandfather’s passing and my sister’s first newborn both occurring within a two month period of each other. It definitely puts a lot in perspective. Life will never stop to surprise me, I am in complete awe of the wonder and brilliance and magnificence of it all. Jason took me out for drinks last night, which totally cheered me up. We talked about all the stuff I’m writing about here because he’s had more than his share of it all- the family dealings with the death situations, the cancer situations, etc. etc. When I talk to him about it has a bit more weight because he’s not some random acquaintance who doesn’t really have a very good idea of what I’m going through. My family is my wealth. As it was my grandfather’s. My family is the most important thing I have. Always has been, always will be. There will be death, there will be birth. And everything in between. I can only imagine what the rest of my life will be like from here on out. *** Monday August 7, 2006 8:38pm My grandfather passed away last Tuesday evening. I spent this past weekend up in New Hampshire, with my parents and my sister. The memorial service will be this coming Saturday, out on Long Island. I am only looking forward to it because of closure. This has been a very long period of time for my grandfather, and I am sorry that he didn’t find his peace sooner than he did. Parkinson’s Disease took over his life, and claimed him. Now he can rest in a version of heaven that may very well be some sort of golden version of Walden Pond. I haven’t taken much time off from work since his passing. I find myself being snappy and quick-tempered around my coworkers, and I feel bad because of that. But in the heat of the moment, I just can’t help myself. I hope I’ll be better after this coming weekend is through. I want to write a lot about my grandfather, and why I will miss him so much, but I’ve been talking about him for so much over the past week or two that I honestly can’t do it here right now. Maybe in a day or two. Or next week sometime. Jason calls me almost daily from Saudi Arabia, which is a difficult thing for him to do, given the amount of time he spends at work every single day of the week. I can tell he is trying as hard as possible to be here for me from afar. I wish I had the strength to give him back what he deserves. I actually smile, and even occasionally laugh, when I lean back and think of how trying life is at the moment. I hung out with Eddie when I went up to New England a couple days ago. I haven’t seen him in a year or so, and he was exactly what I needed that day, up there in New Hampshire. Hard to believe I’ve known him now for four years, hard to believe certain feelings have never changed. He gave me the support I needed at the moment, to deal with certain immediate family circumstances, and regardless of whatever the future holds for him and I, I will forever be in debt for his support in times like these. I don’t know what to write right now. So I’m just gonna sign off. *** Saturday July 29, 2006 11:14pm You will always wind up alone. That is one of life’s lessons. Friends, they fade away. Lovers, they fade away. And yes, family, even they fade away. At the end of the road, when all else fades away, the only person you have is yourself. You are your own friend. You are your own lover. You are your own family. You are your own. That’s it. Can you live with yourself as a person? At the end of the day, the only one you will have will be yourself. No matter how many friends you have, no matter how many people say they love you. Do you love yourself? At the end of it all you will need to face the ultimate test all by yourself, and you will only survive it if you can hold yourself in your own arms and take yourself, without anyone else, to a whole new higher level. The strange thing about being aware of my own isolation is actually realizing also how much I am connected to everyone around me. Ironically, the things that set us all apart, our differences, are actually the very things that also link us all together. This is a very difficult thing to understand, but once you do understand it, even when you are aware of your isolation, this realization makes you more at ease. All you have is yourself, and yet at the same time you are connected to everyone around you. You ARE everyone around you. The people you like, and even the people you don’t like. You are them and they are you. Knowing that, is it now easier or harder to love yourself? I went to New Orleans back in 2000. I went to Jackson Square and had a palm reader take my hands in his and tell me what he could read. One of the many things he told me was that I would spend my whole life alone, because I am constantly seeking the truth, constantly seeking something new, constantly seeking that higher level, and that I would never be able to settle down or be with one companion forever. It’s drunken nights like this one that make me stop and think of him, and think of how right he was. And there are many other things he said to me on that day that I dare not write about here, but which I know to also be true. *** Saturday July 15th, 2006 4:39pm I guess one of the reasons why I stop writing a lot in this journal is because I just don't know how to put into words how I feel anymore. There's so much going on, life keeps getting more and more intense as I grow older, more and more weight is felt on my shoulders, and at times when I stop running around and think, and pause, I wonder how the heck I ever keep from breaking. Maybe my saving grace is the idea that this is my life, and I get just one, and so I must savor every aspect of it. I am alive. I am Kurt. And one day I will be no more. My grandfather has Parkinson's Disease, and is in a downward spiral. He's in and out of the hospital, and I visit him as often as I can. They are saying he doesn't remember anymore if you were there at all five minutes after you leave, but I still go anyway. Tomorrow I will go, and I am bringing a copy of "Walden" along, because I think it is one of his favorite books. He gave it to me as a child to read. We even took a trip to Walden Pond. He's the one who encouraged me to become the major book worm that I am today. So I will bring it along tomorrow and read it to him. Whether he's with it or not, I will read to him. Somewhere in his mind I am convinced he will hear me reading, and at that special little place in his mind he will once again be at Walden Pond. My mom has something as well that she is suffering from. A few things, actually. I am trying very hard to be there for her and to help her through it. As if all that isn't enough, I just found out two days ago that my dad has lung cancer. He's a trooper. He's keeping up a great attitude about the situation. But it's very hard to deal with. He told me two days ago, and during those two days I was fine. But this morning I broke down. I'm fine now, but this is just the beginning. It's going to be a very, very long road. I met an amazing guy six weeks ago. We hit it off instantly. He told me at day one that our time would be short because he had moving plans. The company that he works for here in NYC was relocating him to Saudi Arabia, at his request. So, I knew from the start he'd be moving. But it never felt real.... until Thursday night, when I took him to the airport and watched him board the plane and fly away into the sky. As misfortune would have it, he flew away the day right after I found out about my dad's cancer. Add to that, my dear friend Cynthia is also moving. She's going back to California next week. Two amazing people in my life- my spiritual and moral compasses, my confidantes, my friends, my supporters, are both moving away from me. Now, this is when I remind myself of all the wonderful friends I still have here in NYC! But I am sad, nonetheless, at these two departures. That on top of these family issues. I've had better summers, you could say. The bright beacon for my family right now is my pregnant sister. She's due in October, right around the same time as my dad's birthday. I look forward to that happy time! And how does Kurt cope with times like these? He drowns himself in literature. Since finishing "Les Miserables" I've been aching for another great heavy classic to dive into. So I went out and picked up a copy of "War and Peace". Jason comes back from Saudi Arabia in two months for a few days to get his working visa in order. I told him this book will keep me occupied until then... I hide in books. I become fictional characters. I live in different eras and in different times. I am a hero and I am a villain. I am immortal, I am reincarnated. I am born, and I die. And from book to book I keep on surviving. ***
	Wednesday May 10th, 2006 9:35pm Just uploaded a few nex photos to the "People" section of the Photography portion of this site. Go check them out. Tuesday May 2nd, 2006 8:55pm Jesus, it’s been ages since I’ve last written… Time’s flying like the pages of a really great book. But great books can either make you laugh or cry or happy or depressed, and right now I’m trying to figure out exactly which genre my life is fitting into best. The best news in my life right now is that my sister is pregnant! I’m going to be an uncle!! I’m so excited… and I think all my friends are getting tired of hearing it. Seriously though, I cannot wait. She’s due October 13th, and I’ve already set aside a week of vacation time so I can be there for it. What else is going on? We had a big party here Friday night to welcome my new roommate, Tara, and to say farewell to Cameron, who is finally moving out after living with my crazy self for two years. The party had a good turnout. We even had a fire going in the backyard, in my new fire bowl. I was totally ready for the neighbors to call the fire department on my ass, but amazingly to my surprise, no one did. So- “Thank you, Kind Neighbors!!” What else… hmm… I really want to take a blind stab at writing some music- my friend Jim even said he’d be willing to help me make a fool of myself, but I have yet to gain the courage to even go over to his house and just sit and pluck away on a guitar or a keyboard. Singing is very personal. I think I’d choose being naked in front of people over singing in front of people in a heart beat. But the part of me that has always written poetry has snapped the pen in two, and is sitting there like a stubborn child, saying, “Enough- I ain’t budging until you get me some music to glue my words to!” Whatever. I’m crazy. I’m unfocused. I’m always trying to become someone new. I am a Sagittarius. I am always a nomad that travels from personality to personality, from action to action. Forever hunting the one person I am supposed to be. I think it’s safe to say I’ve started dating someone, but I think he’s shying away from me. I am a Traditionalist when it comes to dating. I need to gain someone’s trust before putting out. But these days, everyone wants you to put out on the first one or two dates. And that just ain’t my style. I dunno. He’s a great guy, maybe above my league? I suck at this stuff. Many things I am good at, but dating etc. is not one of them [yet]. I still need more practice at that. Anyway, I like him a lot, and usually that’s the first sign that he’s not gonna stick around. I wish he would, though. I like to think I have a lot to offer. I finally caved in and read “The Da Vinci Code”. It seems to be all anyone is talking about these days, in the world of literature, so I won’t mention anything about it here, other than I fully understand WHY it is the topic of so many conversations today. Totally opened up my mind to a lot of possibilities that never really interested me before… it may even inspire me to venture back to church on Sundays???? Who knows. I’ve done shocking things before. *** Saturday March 18th, 2006 3:35pm The answer is: Talk about it. If the foundation beneath it all is love, then talk must happen, even if it hurts. Now it is just a question of when. Talk, talk, talk. Talking makes relationships between all people- lovers, friends, relatives- stronger. I just watched the entire first season of “Lost” on dvd. I have completely gotten myself… um… lost… (ha) in that show! It is nothing less than brilliant, the writing, the directing, the acting, the overall concept… Just completely brilliant. Now I must wait in agony and suspense for the next season to come out on dvd. I am looking forward to Easter, my favorite of all holidays. I’ll be heading up to New Hampshire again to be with my parents, and my sister and her husband. Whenever I am up there, I am secretly keeping my eyes moving from side to side scanning for any decrepit little farm houses that might be for sale. Just a dream… pulling on my pant leg like a child wanting some candy… Hah! Just a few more years… just a few more years… I’ll be up there quite often, looking for that worn out crippled old house, just sitting there in wait, quite patiently, wallowing in history, for me to come along and claim it and remake it into a palace, and grant it a fresh future. I want to grow old and live like Jean Valjean, hiding from the rusty jaws of society, up in that old farm house, prospering in its secret gardens, nurturing pure innocence, a girl named Cosette, who sits in wait for her lover Marius to come and grant her endless happiness. I just want to be strong- I want to live life as an artist and protect those I love. Is that too much to wish for? I don’t think so. *** Tuesday March 14th, 2006 10:41pm What do you do when you find out something about someone you love, something they don’t want you to know? Do you confront them about it? Do you respect their privacy and let it be? Wait for them to decide when the time is right to talk about it? And if that time never comes……? How can you help someone who doesn’t want to be helped? Even though the help they don’t want may be the only thing that brings them some happiness again? Do you put your relationship on the line by taking that risk? What if it all backfires and they never talk to you ever again? If it was your best friend? Your child? Your mother? If you found out one of their secrets? That they have cancer, or diabetes, or Parkinson’s disease? What do you do if you know that by confronting them about it, you run the risk of being shut out of their life forever, and by not confronting them about it, you run the risk of something far worse happening- an accident of some sort? Would you rather this secret find the light of day by the person in question telling you, or by some EMT or doctor telling you against their wishes? If they had known for years and years without telling you, what do you do?????? What would I do if it was me who had the secret? *** Sunday March 5th, 2006 12:34pm Sebastian, if you’re reading this, you will be very pleased to read that I am finally, after all these months, getting my heart tested. We know, you and I, that a murmur is nothing to be worried about. But the dentist needs to do work on my teeth, and he will not do anything until my doctor signs off a statement saying that my heart would be at no risk during the use of any drugs/medication in relation to dental work. I will go get my heart tested, nothing serious will turn up, and you can finally, after about a year or more of this concern, rest. I dreamt last night that I suddenly decided to go to London for the weekend. I’ve had this dream before. I simply pack a bag, hop on a plane, and go to London and show up on my friend Eric’s doorstep and surprise him and Stuart with another visit (the best part about this dream is that the flight takes absolutely no time at all). I miss London. I was supposed to fly to China for a week, with some coworkers, but because of certain issues the trip was cancelled. When at first they asked me if I could go, I was ecstatic about the idea of venturing to China, and since then I’ve been thinking about traveling a lot, and thus, of course, London pops into my mind again. I really need to go somewhere- anywhere- soon. Lisa is taking me on a road trip in a couple weeks to her hometown in Indiana. OK, so it ain’t Europe, (heck it ain’t even the west coast), but it’s something. It’s new territory. And I am a huge sucker for road trips! In fact, sometime over the next couple of years, I will take a month off from everything, rent or buy a crappy car or truck, and drive straight across the country, photographing factories along the way. Such an exciting idea… I’ve been photographing a lot of people lately, some nice stuff is coming out of it, and so I need to do a major revamp of the people section of this site very soon. Free time is a myth these days. Or rather, free time is a unicorn. It’s been so long since last time I had free time, I am starting to doubt my own belief in its existence. But I will lose sleep, I will skip social obligations, I will do what it takes to get some new material on this site. I bore easily, and I need to keep my own interest in myself by producing new art as often as I possibly can. When I don’t, I start to lose faith in myself. And that is a bad thing. But now I am rambling. There is a lot in my head right now, and sometimes the head is the best place to keep certain things. And so the journal starves… For the meantime. *** Wednesday February 15th, 2006 11:26am I think I am becoming more and more obsessed with performing artists because the world is becoming less and less human... Less humanly warm and more technologically cold. I am interested in the actual live muscles, tendons, and flesh of a ballet dancer. I am interested in the actual live emotional sound and texture of a rock singer’s voice. I go out of my way to find objects made by the human hand, as opposed to industrial products. I stay up at night thinking about how I can affect matter with thought. I am interested more in science and religion as well… when I say that, what I mean is I am interested in the one unnamed thing that is the combination of, the embodiment of the both of them. I am interested very much in the ideas discussed in “What The Bleep Do We Know!?”, ideas that talk about religion and science coming back together again, ideas about how mind and matter are one, that thoughts and emotions have actual substance, that what you think really does affect reality, that there is no difference in size between a mountain and a pebble… or between a galaxy and an atom… that the only way to save our world right now is to stop adding to the negative energy/matter, the only way to save our world (and ourselves) is to love, love, love, love, and love. Sounds hokey pokey to some people, but it ain’t. (As Gandhi said, "Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.") The one thing they say over and over again in “What The Bleep...” is, “You make your day.” You make your reality. You choose what to do. You choose what to feel. You choose what to think. You have complete control. We only become victims when we choose not to take responsibility for our own lives, when we choose to give up our control. The thing that is “God” is inside of your fiber. It’s an actual force that you control. It connects all of us together. If you hurt or hate someone else, you are also hating and hurting yourself. What you put out WILL come back to you. The only way for you to be loved is to love all around you. I normally read tons of fiction (presently I am still reading “Les Misérables”, my own bible which I live by, which I have been reading on and off for the past 3 years), but I will now switch to nonfiction books that discuss the thing that science and religion are all about. That unnamed thing… that has been broken up and fragmented between all our sciences and religions… that is my new focus right now. *** Saturday February 11th, 2006 1:03pm I need to whip my ass into shape for a swim meet at the end of March. I haven’t been swimming more than once or twice a week lately, because the ballet has sort of taken over as my primary form of exercise… but I want to do well in the meet, so I need to get a lot more wet between now and then. As the years go by I keep becoming more and more physical, and I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it has something to do with sitting at a desk eight hours a day… I’d much rather be jumping up and down and running all around than sitting in one place for hours and hours at a time. I see people around me neglecting their bodies, gaining weight, aging quickly, getting slower, and that observation just motivates me to push my body harder and harder to prevent that from happening to me. I’m getting older but I feel like I am getting younger, with swimming and running and ballet and cycling I become stronger and more flexible and more energetic now than I ever was as a kid. And maybe that’s how aging is really supposed to be? Tara’s gonna move in on the 20th, and sublet with us until Cam moves out on June 1st. It’s a good thing, as we all will save tons of money because of it. I was planning to go home to New Hampshire for that weekend, but since Tara asked to move in on the 20th I think I should stay here that weekend and get the place cleaned up, etc. so her move in can be as efficient as possible. I’m excited- and sad at the same time. Sad because Cam is such a great guy, a great roommate, a wonderful personality… and excited that he is being replaced by someone equally as dear to me. This should be my last year in a roommate situation. I think I’ve outgrown it, the living with friends scenario, the moving to a new apartment every 2 years scenario. I’m ready to stay in one place for a long time, and to live alone. After this year with Tara, it’ll be time to only share an apartment with someone I am also “sharing my bed with” (quoting my pal Nick there). We’re supposed to get hit with a blizzard tomorrow, so I may get stranded at the pool after swim practice in the morning… but honestly, I can’t think of a better place to get stranded at. There’s a hot tub, steamy showers, plenty of restaurants and cafes within walking distance… Lisa lives 5 minutes away, we could watch dvd’s all day long… I kinda hope we do get snowed in! *** Thursday January 26th, 2006 2:31pm I am thoroughly convinced that one of these days I will inevitably blow my head off. It's scary, but I think that's the way I'm going when I finally go. I'm just that kind of person. The thought is a funny thought though, I do not intend to be dramatic by declaring such a thought. I'm writing this with an internal chuckle. And it really does not matter; dying is dying, it doesn't matter how you die. The fact is, you die. Some people get hit by trucks, others slip off the subway platform. Me? I'm blowing my brains out. Not now. Not soon. But eventually. I just know. It'll be when I am convinced that my life has no more importance or relevance or influence at all whatsoever. I get these moments, these periods, these episodes, when I get so so low and depressed that I can't bear to get out of bed in the morning. It doesn't happen that frequently. The worst episodes I ever had, the ones during which I thought there would be no return, were 1) senior year of High School, 2) my final year of college, and 3) just a couple weeks ago. They all lasted a lengthy month or so. They are dark dark periods, and I actually just realized I don't want to go on describing them. It's ugly, and it's an ugly I don't want to give a face to here in my words. All I will say is I am well again now, I am very happy, and very intensely involved in life. I've decided that I will get a new roommate in June, when Cameron moves out. I need one more lease period of money-saving and bill-paying before I can handle the full rent on my own. I could do that this June, but it would really be a massive stretch. So- one more year with a roommate! The main idea is to keep my apartment, my home, for as long as I can, simply because I love living there. I felt a connection to that apartment the first moment I stepped foot in it. It was a destiny that I knew belonged to me, and I fought long and hard to get the lease (me and Cameron were up against a few others who also wanted the apartment as strongly as we did). That apartment is meant to have a history with me. I'm trying to get my hands on a church pew for the apartment. My upstairs neighbor has one, and it really looks and works great in her space. My friend Bill said he might be able to get me one from his church... so we'll see if it happens. I don't know why, but I am very drawn to religion lately. I've admittedly been reading a lot of fiction written by outspoken christians, and even the decor of my house (a numerous rosary collection, the intentional acquisition of church pews, etc.) and the recent discussions I am having with individuals who are practicing christians make this renewed fascination obvious to me. I even agreed to go to church with a coworker and his wife, who together live a creative/artistic life that is very much directly tied into catholicism. Where is all this taking me? And why is it happening now? *** Monday January 16th, 2006 12:12am It’s 16° out as I type this. I tried to go to bed but it didn’t work. For some unexplainable reason lately I can’t go to sleep quite as easily as I should. Insomnia. Sometimes it can be inspirational, but not tonight. Weeks I’ve been like this. I remember as a child some mornings I would wake up and look out the late morning window and I’d be blinded by the sun reflecting off a fresh virgin surface of white snow. It was always so silent, up in New Hampshire. And warm, here in my bed, still under the covers, still in my p.j.’s. I would smile at the thought of the eternal day ahead of me, a day of snow wet soaked clothes but happy kind of soaked like a well-earned soaked, the hours in the snow, concluded with the moments in the basement in front of a hot hot wood burning stove peeling of layers upon layers of wet wool and cotton, and then the putting on of fresh clean dry clothes and the running upstairs to all the milk and cookies in the world. Friends were a lot easier back then. You clicked just because you clicked. There wasn’t any sort of complicated game or ulterior motives. Just snow, the virgin white snow on a Sunday morning, just the sharing of that morning with someone else your age. Didn’t even matter if it was a boy or a girl with whom you shared it with. It was all about the subconscious desire to share and have fun. I remember the times as a child when I’d be so happy playing with my toys, and how as I would play with my toys, I would think about growing up and growing old, and how one day somehow someway I would inevitably become an adult, a grown person with responsibility, a person who would no longer play with toys. I couldn’t imagine, no matter how much I tried, what it would actually be like to not play with toys. I always thought, How boring that will be! To not play with toys, what would be the point to life?? How could it be to not use your imagination? How could it be to not live in made-up universes? But I still do it, secretly. I still live in all those made-up universes of my childhood. I still harbor my fantasies and I still harbor my dreams, regardless of how ridiculous I know them to be. There’s a part of that… Sunday morning waking up and seeing the blankets of snow out the window, seeing the beckoning untouched canvas of endless possibilities and adventures!… that I can’t let go of. We used to run laughing through those forests painted over white with snow; we used to run through them as though it was our own Narnia. The forests were all cut down. But they’re still alive and flourishing inside my head, covered in snow. I keep them alive inside myself. And that is why I am the way I am now, the way I was all those years ago waking up and looking out that bright bright Sunday morning window. I don’t dare let go of any of it. OK, I’m relaxed. I’m gonna see if I can sleep now. *** Friday January 13th, 2006 1:51pm Friday the 13th is upon us! Lisa and I are having a movie night tonight at my place. I thought of renting the “Friday The 13th” movies, but I’m not that cheesy. The countdown to June has begun… the month my roommate will move out of my place and move in with his boyfriend. I think I would like to try living alone for once in my life, but I crunched the numbers and it really doesn’t look like I can afford to do that yet. Actually, my ideal situation would be to be in a relationship with someone, and ask that person to move in when Cameron moves out. But I’m still single so I highly doubt that kind of scenario would arise between now and June. So I’ll be hunting for a new roommate in a couple months. I might sublet our spare room to someone now, so Cam and I can save some money before June. But I dunno. I gotta talk to Cam about it. We really only sublet to friends, and at the moment I am not sure if any of my friends are looking to sublet, small-term or long-term. And yes, I could move out in June too, but this apartment is very special to me. It’s more than an apartment. For the first time in my life I took an apartment and made it a home. It’s one-of-a-kind, and I wouldn’t be able to afford anything comparable to it anywhere else in New York. What else is going on? I’ve shot a few new people recently. So I think it’s time to revamp the “people” section on this site with a ton of new pictures. The new pictures I’ve taken are more impressive than the old ones on the site… So maybe I’ll get that done within a week or so, depending on when I get around to scanning all the new photos. My friend Annie gave me a birthday present the other night, a copy of Anne Rice’s “Christ The Lord: Out Of Egypt.” I was surprised to open it to the title page and read, “For Kurt, Happy Birthday, Anne Rice, 2005” written by Rice herself below the title. It made me smile! Such a thoughtful gift. I started reading it the night she gave it to me, and I honestly have to say that I cannot put it down. I’m only about 70 pages into it right now, but I want to say that it is her most daring novel since “Memnoch The Devil”. I am not by any means a religious person, not in the traditional sense of the term. I think I have more in common with atheists, even though I would never label myself one. Anyway, I was always curious to know why no one ever talked about what Jesus might have been like as a child, so I am glad to see someone like Rice exploring that. Yes, this is a book of fiction that she has written, but so is the Bible. Like the Bible, “Christ The Lord” will probably become a very useful tool for many people who are looking for spiritual guidance, etc. If anything, it makes a good read in bed at night… and on the subway… on the lunch break… in the airport waiting room… in the backyard… in any case it’s definitely worth making the time for. Cheers to Anne Rice for putting out another fabulous contribution for all our libraries! I went and saw “Memoirs of a Geisha” last weekend. I haven’t read the book yet but I really liked the movie a lot- So I have my next book on cue after I finish “Christ The Lord”. I have seen a lot of movies lately, actually (what else to do during the wintertime??). The best ones so far were “Memoirs of a Geisha”, “Brokeback Mountain”, “Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe”, and “Family Stone”. I think the next one I will see is “Mrs. Henderson Presents”. Ah, Judy Dench… Gotta love her! *** Tuesday January 10th, 2006 8:06pm Christmas was great. We all met up in Long Island to be together with my grandparents. One of my cousins got engaged on Christmas morning. Very romantic! New Years was also fun, from what I can remember. I went out with Lisa and two of her friends. Went to a few bars in the West Village and Chelsea, drank too much, laughed too much, and spent the following 5 days in bed with the flu. I’ve been back at work for a week now and for some reason it’s really taking me a while to get back into it. Usually I feel energized after a small break from it all, but this time it’s the exact opposite. I feel drained, fatigued, I count the minutes to 5:30pm every day. I can’t figure it out. My big resolution this year is to pay off all my debts so I can start saving money for a house. My dream is to buy an old farm house up north in New Hampshire somewhere, close to my family- so I can be there if/when my sister starts having kids. I’ll still live and work here in New York City… rent a small studio somewhere cheap… and buy an old beat-up pickup truck and head up to NH every couple of weeks or so to work on the farm house. I’m totally aiming to buy a ruin of a house, a project that would take me many years to fix up. Something I could possibly wind up retiring in. Put in new hardwood floors, roll out oriental carpets and cover them all with heavy antique furniture, refurbish all the interior walls with built-in bookshelves, reinforce the original stone foundations, strip and repaint the peeling wood clapboard siding, fix up the barn and turn it into an art studio, pave the dirt driveway, add a new wing on the side or the back, put in a pool, landscape the hell out of the yard, plant trees... basically turn a ruin into a small palace. And finally finish it all by the time my hair turns gray. That’s what I want to do. *** Friday December 23, 2005 9:27pm I’ve had the second half of this week off from work, and it is driving me nuts! I’m a workaholic. No deadlines, no meetings, no pressure, no stress???? I can’t cope!!! So I spent today house cleaning. My roommate’s parents and boyfriend are coming here to our apartment for Christmas weekend and New Year’s. So I had a lot of catching up to do, chore-wise. I’m not necessarily a dirty person. I am actually quite sanitary and neat. But I am also a spot duster. I throw blankets over stains. If I were painting walls, I’d only be painting as high as my arms could reach. Forget ladders. Too much work. But my roomie, on the other hand… it’s against his religion to clean. (just kidding Cam, love ya!) So here I sit. I finished cleaning, for the most part. All the rooms his parents will be in are done, I’ll put it that way. Just stay out of the bedroom! And my parents come tomorrow too. But just to pick me up. We’re all heading out to Long Island for the weekend. My travel plans changed as soon as my grandfather fell and broke his collar bone. Instead of going to New Hampshire, we’re going out to the good ol’ Island. Hey, easier for me. So my parents come and pick me up on their way… Saves me a train ticket! Woo hoo! Picked up Fiona Apple’s new cd today. Love it! I saw her play at the Nokia Theater on my birthday (thanks, Jim, for the best birthday present I got this year!) I was kinda in a down mood last night and today (understatement) but this awesome cd totally picked me up and turned me around. See, you really don’t need Prozac. You need good music. Feeling slow? Pick up Madonna’s new album. Feeling depressed? Pick up Fiona’s. You’ll be all set! No need for drugs! I might go to Rhode Island for new years. Haven’t decided yet. God I hate these holiday vacations… give Kurt a bunch of free time and nothing to do, and he’ll go insane in the membrane! Vacation time spent at home here is torture. Can’t wait to get back to work. ***
	The entries from 2005:
	Thursday December 22, 2005 11:19pm Remember when I said I’m out of the poetry phase? And why? Forget it, it’s coming back, it’s here, right now, breathing down my neck like a wild beast would… sitting next to me here in bed. Hello. I think I made an empty bottle in the kitchen. It’s like that guy when he comes back after the silence of a year or so, coming back to remind me that I did in fact actually love someone (him) for several years in a row… again and again, over and over, never learning my lesson (and to think I came THIS close to calling him last night) god, what was his name?? Eddie? Nah, can’t be. It’s just me. In the mirror. Mocking myself. Foolish me. This time is the first time it is different. This time he is not the one making the call first. Or the letter. Or the email. This time it is me, and I can’t even do it. I just had a birthday (the only one who came close enough to me for body contact was the dumb door man at a dumb bar escorting me out for being the only honest person in the sad, sad place) and Christmas and New Years are around the corner and the years come whipping by faster and faster now every single year. Friendships… friends… strangers… why call yourself a friend if you can’t even recognize my call for help? Names that start with an “M” (ok, hint: one name but either ends with a “c” or a “k” depending on the person, him or him, and that phase of my life or this one…). I can’t go there. I can’t. I can’t even talk to him. No, my lady, I am sorry, but I cannot call on him for that favor. I feel sorry for you for thinking I can. It’s kind of funny, amusing in a way, how well you think you know me. I am not even welcome in my own apartment. There’s a first. And I thought I had done it all already. Isn’t life just full of surprises. Everyone is selfish and no one ever tries to consider anyone else’s point of view. I can’t see yours and you can’t see mine. What else is there to say? If you want to find me a couple days from now, I’ll be crashing illegally at the pool. At the pool? Well, yes. I actually don’t have anywhere else to go. But only at night. I am sick of this journal. I am not your entertainment. One night, two beds, a stupid goddamn magazine (ok so I was the stupid thing in the room, I had you to point it out to me) and you can’t even call me. Yes I think I know crazy. Look, I just wrote it. All of the above. If I know anything I know crazy. Now would you please stop reading my journal? Thanks. I’m moving away from New York. I am moving away from the U.S. I am moving away from Earth. I am moving away from the Milky Way. Stop asking me, “Are you OK?” I am not writing this for you anymore, darling. From here on I only w