The Open Matt Project: June 2005 Archives

June 27, 2005

Maybe Love Does Die

There is a man on the porch of an old wood house far in the desert. All around, crickets tick while lizards skitter through the rocks. Sitting, hearing the creak of his chair and the whisper of the wind he looks out between the sky and the land and past the horizon sees another man.

This man lives in an apartment in the city, with comforts and conveniences and a view of the park, surrounded by an endless echo of humanity. He stands on the terrace and looks out at the city smelling the concrete and dust while rattling ice in a tumbler of scotch and he sees a man on a porch in the desert.

There is a sound that is harmony between the whispering wind and the rattling ice, a sound like a sigh that sings of lost things and fine memories. As close to their breath as the air they both breathe this single sound between them, love and death drawing forever.

Posted by Matt at 04:09 PM | Comments (1)

June 22, 2005

Her Books

Summer began yesterday, or so I'm told. There was something about a full moon in there, but my memory is fickle and yesterday is unusually far away so who can say?

My expectations of people and from life are often pretty high, and as is typical of my life, recently that fact has been called to my attention. In at least one case, painfully.

It is possible this is the flightiest of preambles for an angry rant I've ever written. In some ways that fact could summarize what is to come, and I would be saved the inevitable backlash of writing it.

When I was growing up, my father and many others would occasion to lay that flaccid chestnut "life isn't fair" on me. I was young, and so initially it stumped me with its sheer obvious truth. Ornery as I've always been, I quickly came up with a retort which has stayed with me to this day. "Although that is true, there is no need to make it more so!" was the fruit of my simple mind, and still is.

It would be many years, and innumerable mistakes, later that I would come to see that much of life's unfairness came from individual efforts to simply live. God only knows how many platitudes I could regurgitate here to describe what is generally known without them - life is one wily, miserable bitch.

There was an interview with Burt Renoylds I saw a while back where the interviewer asked him about his changing financial fortunes, in particular how he felt about being rich and poor. His response was, "well, I've been rich, and I've been poor." Pause. "I prefer being rich." There is a spark of primal morality there.

Each of us go through life with changing desires, changing perspectives, changing environments. We each make decisions constantly about which what to what and how. The why of it tends to only intrude when the whichs, whats, and hows refuse to play nice. Still, it's the times that the why takes the lead that we are given an opportunity to take stock of our lives and make powerful, meaningful decisions about its direction.

In my late teens, aided by any number of psychotropic drugs and a shameful library of overly cerebral books, I spent a few years doing nothing but soaking myself in the why. Why am I so angry? Why do people around me suffer? Why is McDonalds so popular? Why bother living? Why is the mundane both insufferable and intimate? Why? Why? Why?

When I want to seem particularly sage, after telling people about that period of my life wherein why rode in each breath, I ask them if they want to know the answer. Everyone says yes, even if they are only humoring me, and I tell them. "Because." Before you scoff, and most do, consider that it was the fruit of at least four years of grueling introspection and examination that yielded that answer.

Still, it was not enough. Obviously. It became more and more clear to me over time that the decisions I made both came from somewhere and went somewhere. It was a process, not a construction, and the actions I took were both conclusion and origin - if those terms were even necessary. I was hurt and I hurt in turn. I was wronged and I wronged as well. I pleasured and was pleasured. It all happened because of what had happened, and what would happen after it would be the same.

Enough metaphysics. That shit is so boring.

My expectations are high because I have managed to see flaws in myself and exert as much effort as possible to correct them. I have managed to change myself from a very angry, very destructive young man into a moody and somewhat flamboyantly foolish man. It is my hope that I can manage to continue making myself better for as long as I live. It is less my intention to make myself better as it is my disgust with my failings that drives me.

Things like truth, honor, integrity, justice, compassion have real meaning for me. They aren't something abstract, they are exactly the mechanisms which make life that much less unfair. It's by spending the time that I do focused on not being unfair, unpleasant, untrue, and so on that gives me my sense of indignation when I see the opposite in others.

To clarify, it is not the failing to be a good person that angers me. It's knowing that one could and choosing not to that I find insufferable. It is hard to do the right thing. It is hard to even know what the right thing is. I know this because I live it. I fail constantly. But I cannot see any other way of being without accepting and, by accepting, perpetuating the endless unfairness of life.

And so, my rant.

Don't fucking patronize me. Don't compound the error of compassionately lying to me by playing the martyr. Embrace your strength - give me the finger, make a decision, force me to act, or just ignore me. Don't mistake an apology for absolution. We are not done yet.

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Posted by Matt at 06:52 PM | Comments (4)

June 16, 2005

Someone

Someone left a bag in the recycling. Someone sent me junk mail. Someone has to do something. Someone will definitely take that down. Someone saw me. Someone came by and didn't think anyone would notice when they. Someone must have done that before. Someone took the last one.

Someone knows. Someone is going to have to deal with that. Someone is responsible for this. Someone had to go and fuck it up for the rest of us. Someone decided it was a good idea. Someone said once. Someone must have told him. Someone has a big mouth. Someone needs to care. Someone will see us. Someone will come.

Someone made this. Someone wrecked it. Someone was here. Someone took it from me. Someone else, not me. Someone decided it was best. Someone is out there for me. Someone laughed. Someone threw the first punch. Someone made this for us. Someone, someday. Someone will think of a solution.

Someone.

Posted by Matt at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)

June 12, 2005

Shruggery

In the last month or so I've found myself cultivating a new reflex - the shrug. It's not as sexy as a lean, but obviously superior to its near cousin the cringe. The shrug is quickly becoming a physical manifestation of my embracing reality, however it comes. It's my feeling of "yeah, ok, sure." It's noncommital only in the sense that I'm restricting my commitment soley to the acceptance of what is at the moment and not neccessarily anything past that. I recognize it, I embrace it, I let it go - and like a piss shiver I find myself shrugging. So it goes.

I miss Denali. I wonder what she's doing, and more often how she's doing. It bothers me that she could be in trouble or worse and I'd never know. I'm simultaneously certain she will be back in my life and terrified of her being back in my life. So far, I have given absolutely no thought to the possibility she might be gone forever.

*shrug*

I met this new girl, Lily, a few months ago. She's ... well, she's still here and it's been a few months. We dance around those words pretty often, and I find that I'm usually so happy and comfortable with her that the words for it seem like overly familiar and uninvited guests. She makes me happy, and often, and moreover-

*shrug*

The contract I've been working on the past few months is almost over. In the next two months I'll be looking for work again. I'm hoping it will end while there are still fine summer days available to enjoy, even if I will likely spend many of them indoors playing World of Warcraft. Is there ever enough money to serve as a barrier against the future?

*shrug*

I miss Cody. The phone-call girl, as she's been dubbed on occasion, had resurfaced and we'd taken a couple stabs at connection, but it is not meant to be. Ultimately, the nature of our intimacy was utterly cauterized by what happened. I'm left with happy memories and few regrets.

*shrug*

Rose met a new guy, and I recently met him at a BBQ they had. He seems alright. Basically the sense that he wasn't significantly worse than I am combined with her general good track record of character judgement makes me accept that it's very likely that this motherfucker is going to steal her from me forever. This comes with a smirk, but you already knew that.

*shrug*

Liz hurt me again. Wait, no. I hurt her again. Hold on, one more time. Liz and I are

*shrug*

It looks likely that Ian will be moving to LA soon. Naturally this is a California-soaked soon, which would make it something between a New York minute and hell freezing over. His move there may end up being the primary motivating factor for my finally leaving the SF Bay Area. Moving to LA? Yeah, maybe.

*shrug*

Do you see the pattern? There is plenty going on in my life, plenty of people and projects and plans and problems and pain. (I couldn't help myself.) For no clear reason, I'm ok with it. Things hurt and I'm ok with it. Things are great and I'm ok with it. Things change and I'm ok with it, and sometimes I'm not, but I'm ok with that instead.

Posted by Matt at 11:30 PM | Comments (6)