Inside

"But the love... was stronger than anything you can think of. The god damn regret. The god damn regret."
- Magnolia

The nights when you can't sleep. When you squeeze your eyes closed. And it isn't to hold the world out. It's to hold your demons in. Only you know all the evil you've done. All the bad you've unleashed. The things you did wrong. The things you fucked up.

The things, if you had to do all over again, would be done very differently.

Could LD be any more quotable?

Me - "I had that dream again last night."

LD - "The one where your having sex with the cast from Roswell?"

Me - "That's not a dream, it's a fantasy."

LD - "What's the difference?"

Me - "A dream is what your subconscious has when you're asleep. A fantasy is what you want, in your conscious mind."

LD - "You mean to tell me, Martin Luther King Jr. was unconscious when he said that??"

Me - "What? No. No, That's the 'I Had a Dream' speech. He was saying this is his dream, meaning that it is his vision.

LD - "I thought you said that means it's a fantasy."

Me - "Do you want to hear my dream or not."

LD - "The one where you're having sex with the cast from the TV show Roswell!"

Me - "No. That's my fantasy. Like, Martin Luther King's dream."

LD - "Oh my god, no way! You fantasize about having sex with Martin Luther King?"

Me - "No, you fucking freak!! I fantasize about having sex with Jason Behr and Brendan Fehr and Katherine Heigl!! I dreamt that I was trying to eat my own hand!"

Everyone in the bar is now staring at us.

LD, sipping her beer, after a long thoughtful pause - "You probably worked up an appetite after all that sex."

On End

She has little girl hands. She's 30 now. But no matter how mature she seems, she has these little girls hands, that always betray her innocence.
She might chop them off if she knew.

I'm sitting at the computer in her kitchen. I'm making figure 8's with the cursor. I'm watching quietly as she remembers him. Watching, quietly, as she places a photo next to me. A card. Remebrances. Tokens. In her little girl hands.

This will haunt her for the rest of her life.
I've been haunted.
In a way, I am jealous.

She shows me a little stuffed elephant. And Bronx Zoo ticket stubs. And then her little girl hands wipe at her eyes. And then she says, It's already 11:00. We should go if we're going.

We should go, if we're going. I nod. Yeah, that's a great line.

She looks at her computer screen, at my figure 8's.
Infinity, laying down.

And Again

Penny Lane: How old are you?
William: 18.
Penny Lane: Me too! How old are we really?
William: 17.
Penny Lane: Me too!
William: Actually, I'm 16.
Penny Lane: Me too!! Isn't it funny? The truth just sounds different.
William: I'm 15.
-Almost Famous

There's a huge difference between a drunken honest mistake, and a highjacking.

And there are things that bear repeating.

"When I break, I wish no one in my place."
-Love Spit Love

The road split. And the life that I did not choose keeps going and going.

"No matter where you go, you will always have a place.
Can't you see it in my face?"
-Badfinger

We don't own the Words. The Words own us.

"I know I got a bad reputation
and it isn't just talk, talk, talk.
If I could only give you everything
You know I haven't got.
I couldn't have one conversation
If it wasn't for the lies, lies, lies
And still I ought to tell you everything
'till I close my eyes."
-Freedy Johnston

Give me a chance to fix it. Tell me where it's broken. And I swear I will give you 3 things: my best, the truth, and apology.

"God, it's so painful.
Something that's so close
Is still so far out of reach."
-Tom Petty

You can only sin with your heart.

"You're already falling,
It's calling you back to face the music.
And the song that is coming through.
You're already falling.
The one that is calling
Is you."
-Moody Blues

The Last Word

Dish Network Sucks

"I'm the bad guy??"
-Michael Douglas, Falling Down

I spend another hour on the phone with the fuckheads at Dish Network. After they sold me the bundle-from-hell package, failed miserably at providing decent service, sent 4 techs on 4 different days to fix it (all of whom showed after 3 pm for their "between 8 am to noon" appointments), not to mention 2 no-show appointments, I still had shitty DSL and NO television, so I cancelled Dishnetwork. And then cancelled again. Today was the third time in 3 weeks I have called, only to find out they keep canceling my cancel. They are sending me bills. They are billing me for the equipment their dipshit techs have removed, and apparently stole. they are billing me for not cancelling, even though I have. They are billing me for the months where I had no television at all, and called and complained every god damn day. I almost want to think everyone there is a crooked liar, because the thought that all of the Dish people are really that level of stupid, is too scary. There is no one on the planet dumber than Dish Network customer service agents.

Another hour of my life sucked away by these incompetent dickwads and I am so angry I think my heart is going to explode in my chest. My throat is horse from screaming. I've dealt with incompetence before. I have a mortgage through Countrywide Homeloans, which proves I've had to deal with the stupidest fucking incompetent morons on the planet before. So you know I've been angry before. I've been pissed before, I've lost my temper like everyone else has. But not like this. This is a new level of mad for me. I don't get this angry. I don't get this twisted and filled with revenge fantasies. My hands are shaking.

And that's when it hits me. Right now, emotionally, I am someplace completely new.

I make coffee and I start writing.

I describe my father; same shit I've written before, but with a totally new emotional connection.

I invent a character. Before I'm finished profiling him, I start another one.
Then a story. I outline a plot quickly, then a scene. An understanding. I can hear him yelling. I can feel his anger.

I try to get another character off the ground, but he's too thin. I give him more meat by having him write a letter to another character. I do that when outlining a story; I have different characters write letters to each other, or diary entries. Sort of a behind-the-scenes research technique. They flesh out.

I write an essay.
I write another.

I compose a letter to this bitch that road raged on me a few years ago, just so I can be sure to get all the angles of what I am feeling into Words.

Two pots of coffee and 12 hours later, I have written thousands of Words. Thousands. And I am burnt and tired. And I am hungry, and I have to take my eyes back. I'm so twisted from being so angry all day that my stomach hurts and I feel empty and cracked. I rifle through the medicine cabinet. There has to be an emergency Valium in here somewhere. I don't know how people live like this.

The research was good.
But god damn.


"Anger is an energy."
-Johnny Rotten

The Secret Stars

There was a graveyard. I was 16. We would go there at night to drink beer and listen to music. We were harmless, just teenagers in a bumblefucked town looking for someplace to go. The seniors found it. They'd let us tag along. We'd hike up the side hill and walk to the very back part, where the police and security never came. We'd wrap up in flannel shirts and sleeping bags, build a fire, and drink Rolling Rock. We'd talk about what we wanted to be. We'd make out and fall asleep. Look at the stars. Leave without a trace.

There was an Italian restaurant. I was 18, 19 years old. It was a cute little restaurant in what was then a nice part of town. They had big wooden sturdy picnic tables in the back. They were closed on Sunday's and Monday's. It was such a great place to go on those nights, on dates. I discovered it. We'd climb over the fence and just hang out in private, safely and quietly on the picnic tables. Bring a bottle of wine and a J. Fuck on the tables. Look at the stars. Leave without a trace.

There was a school. I was 22, 23. I think it was an elementary school. Behind the buildings was the greatest playground. Swings, slides, monkey bars. Everything. We'd climb the chain link fence. It was a fun place to go, after the clubs closed, before we were ready for breakfast at the diners. A band I knew turned me on to it. We'd play on the swings and laugh and chase each other around. We'd talk about music, and clubs, and bands. Look at the stars. Leave without a trace.



"Standing in the sun with a popsicle
Everything is possible
With a lot of luck and a pretty face
And some time to waste
Leave without a trace."
-Soul Asylum

Influence

"So if you break these chains
You'll have to shake me
And if you break my heart
You'll have to take me."
-Drivin 'N' Cryin


It's 3 am and I am driving. This highway has always been some kind of friend. Bottle of Pepe Lopez between my thighs.

I'm thin skinned. Hyper sensitive. Paranoid. I'm insecure about my looks, my weight, my this my that. I can be shaken. Hurt. Broken.

I'm good at a couple things. I'm only really good at one thing.
And everything else is up for grabs. I'm far from strong. I'm far from OK.

8 days. I have 8 days until.

Sean Ellis??

Sean Ellis?? Dexter, the serial killer, uses the alias "Sean Ellis" when he goes to therapy? Are you fucking kidding me?

Patrick Bateman's little brother, and the writer's last name.
Jesus Christ.

Brett,
every day
in the deepest recesses of my cerebral cortex,
I suck your cock, man.
I suck your cock.

Abet

I walk up 75th Street. I could have gone a few different ways, but that's how I go. I always take 75th Street.

Losers abet Losers.

The office hasn't changed. He waves me in. To my surprise we're not alone. He has about a dozen people sitting, standing, leaning against the walls.

He begins speaking and I realize, these people are all writers. He tells us what the job is. And I feel myself salivating. I want this job. I can write this. I can do this.

We're all there, like a Hollywood cattle call. Everyone is listening. Everyone wants this assignment.

He will only pay for the one he uses. He will only buy one submission. The one he feels is the best. Email him your best shot. Deadline is Sunday. I am not as concerned about the pay as I am about the insult. Is it an insult? Am I hearing this right?

There's gray, and then there's gray.

The place in between. The place where you know better, but you can't help it. I look around at them. I can't listen anymore. I want a flare gun.

I'm on the edge of it. I'm walking around the fringe.
I don't want to be the thing that fades away.

I leave, but I don't take 75th Street. I take a new road. But I take the same road. It's all the same fucking road. Because this is my path now. Where ever I walk, it is my path. It doesn't matter where. I make it mine.

I hate the part of me that cared about him.

Sometimes when I finish writing a piece, I have to step back and look at it. I write the same thing, over and over. Different angles, different ways. Different paths. Shooting for the right Words. Immersed and lost. Like a heroine addict, or a surfer drowning. Trying to follow the bubbles, trying to find which way is up. And no matter what, they all land on my path. No matter how different, I've made them mine.
Psychosis abets psychosis.
I can't tell if this is my hand writing. I can't tell if this is what I meant. I can't tell which one is, which one...
But god damn, this is my signature.
I'd know it anywhere.
I signed this.
There is gray, and then there is gray.
And then,
there is
sharp
clear
mother fucking black and white.

Effective.

My path. My way.
He may have presented it his way, but I will make it mine.
Focus abets focus.

****

He hands me my check. I don't look at it, I slip it in my jeans. I look around his desk. I look at the papers, at the printer, at the Dell flat screen monitor.

"I didn't recognize your pen name, Veronica. When I responded to the email address, I was kinda surprised when it was you who called." He keeps looking where I'm looking.

"How did the cattle call go? Did you get a lot of good stuff?" I can't hide the annoyance in my voice. And he knows it.

He grins. "Yeah, actually. I got 5 submissions that would have worked. I had a hard time narrowing it down to yours." He thinks this will bother me.

"Who were they from?" I am biting my lip so hard I can taste the blood.

He shrugs. "Not sure. You know how ghost writers can be. All pen names and emails I didn't recognize."

"Charlie," I have to do it. I have to cross the line, and do it. "Do you remember the names of the characters in my novel?" The one I let you read. The one that isn't published.

Five characters from my unpublished novel submitted for this assignment. It took him until this second to figure it out.

There's gray, and then there's not so gray.

I abet only myself.

And the Words abet only the Words.

The Dark Place

It's not the kind of place you go to make friends and light conversation.

It is the kind of place where you sit at a table alone and drink quietly. And think. About your life. And what you've done. And what you haven't done. Where you think about the places you've been. But never about where you're going. There is no future in this place.

You go there to be alone with your thoughts. And your life. And your lonliness, and your regrets.

This is the kind of place where everyone is dirty and tired, and no one is a stranger exactly. Still, no one speaks. And no one looks at you. And that is what you want.

Just a really good place in time

Their names were Steve & Ira Saltzman. Adge and I met them around Wilkes Barre. 1982 or thereabouts. They were from Long Island, I think. I remember they had a cool car. I want to say a bronze Trans Am, but I honestly don't know. Maybe it was a Camaro, maybe it was orange. Whatever it was, it was something hot. They came to our kegger by the lake. They had good coc on a Grateful Dead mirror; the kind of black mirror you'd win at the Jersey Shore in the summer in 1981. Steve Saltzman was a great kisser. I remember Judas Priest playing. I remember laughing. I remember feeling so comfortable.

I don't remember worrying. I don't remember thinking about tomorrow, or money, or responsibilities. I don't remember a care in the world that night.

Nobody met their soul mate. Nobody struck it rich. Nobody discovered the cure for cancer, or wrote an opera, or found a passage to India.

But everybody belonged. Everybody was smiling. Everybody was somebody.

There will not be many places in time that you can describe with those three sentences.

The greatness of a moment can't be judged from the outside.

And that was a damn good night.

And then he was gone.

Don't blink.

We're all connected.
Some of us more so than others.

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night.
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to be free."
-The Beatles

For one moment,
As hard as I could.
For one night,
Forever.

The world keeps revolving.
The life I didn't chose keeps going and going.
The people you put your arms and you heart around like that,
keep remembering you.

And they call to you.
And then they are gone.

I have made some great choices. Some really good, smart decisions.
I have done some things completely correctly.
I have loved well.
My soul is warm.

This is the Earth.
This is the Earth breathing.
He's gone.
He's winged now.
He's home.

This is God.
Eternal connections between us all.
Seeing the best in a stranger, and doing the best you can with moments bigger than both of you.
No questions, no judgments. No regrets.
This is what it's all about.

This is me.
This me breathing.
And smiling.
And this is good. This is what good is all about.
This is the Earth of us.

Patrick Bateman??

Dr. Patrick Bateman?? Are they fucking serious?? That's the name they used?? The serial killer's alias for buying tranquilzers on Dexter, is fucking Doctor Patrick goddamn Bateman??

God, I am Jack's all consuming jealousy right now...

Imagine, your character's name referenced like that.
Imagine...
not even needing explanation.

Damn...

These are the best Words I've heard in a while...

PLACEBO - PURE MORNING

A friend in need's a friend indeed,
A friend with weed is better,
A friend with breasts and all the rest,
A friend who's dressed in leather,

A friend in need's a friend indeed,
A friend who'll tease is better,
Our thoughts compressed,
Which makes us blessed,
And makes for stormy weather,

A friend in need's a friend indeed,
My Japanese is better,
And when she's pressed she will undress,
And then she's boxing clever,

A friend in need's a friend indeed,
A friend who bleeds is better,
My friend confessed she passed the test,
And we will never sever,

Day's dawning, skin's crawling
Pure morning.

A friend in need's a friend indeed,
A friend who'll tease is better,
Our thoughts compressed,
Which makes us blessed,
And makes for stormy weather,

A friend in need's a friend indeed,
A friend who bleeds is better,
My friend confessed she passed the test,
And we will never sever,

Day's dawning, skins crawling
Pure morning

A friend in need's a friend indeed,
My Japanese is better,
And when she's pressed she will undress,
And then she's boxing clever,

A friend in need's a friend indeed,
A friend with weed is better,
A friend with breast and all the rest,
A friend who's dressed in leather

Coffee Break

Me - I'm going to hell.

Z - Would you give me a lift? I seem to be going that way.

Me - Anthony is a fucking idiot. And I can't stand to be around him anymore. I'm going to hell, aren't I.

Z - I don't believe in hell.

D - It's a metaphor, asswipe. You're the one going to hell for being an asswipe.

Me - Do all good asswipes go to hell?

D - Which Anthony, anyway? The tall gorgeous one?

Me - God no. Not gorgeous Anthony. DJ Anthony.

Z - I'd go to hell for gorgeous Anthony.

D - I thought you didn't believe in hell.

Me - No, he just doesn't believe in metaphors.

Quotes of the Day

"With love we sleep with doubt.
The vicious circle
turn and burns.
Without you I cannot live.
Forgive the yearning burning
I believe it's time,
Too real to feel,
So touch me now."

-Patti Smith (And Bruce Springsteen)



"And it's such a sad old feeling,
The fields are soft and green.
It's memories that I'm stealing,
But you're innocent when you dream, when you dream."

- Tom Waits



"If you're going to drink this much, you have to do a little more coc to keep straightening yourself out. If you're going to use this much coc, you have to drink more water. If you're going to drink anything, you might as well put vodka in it. If you're awake you might as well be drinking. Where was I going with this?"

- DB



"My dad is in this book club that gives you the 'classic' books. They're all gold trimmed and sturdy, not to be read in the bathtub."

- Desiree

The Underground

He finishes his Spoken Word at a very typical open mike night. It's twilight, and the ride is over.

The short applause stops before he makes it off the stage. There is no silence louder than footsteps in the stares of strangers. It's a million miles to the back of the room.

Once upon a time I haunted this place. I bow my head as I sit at the bar. I bow my head in the twilight. It's twilight, and the ride is over.

He sits down just a stool away. I'm taking notes, I'm writing. He is quiet as he looks around, he is quiet as he looks at me.

"So how bad was that?" He's ordering a Guiness. Same as me. He's trying.

"It wasn't bad at all. You were very thought provoking," I offer. "You held my attention."

He looks directly into me. "Really?"

"Really." There are moments that own us.

I go back to my writing. He doesn't stop looking. "This is the first time I have ever done this."

I remember my first time. I remember my second. "Why did you pick this place to pop your cherry?" I wonder if he knows. The crowd here can be tough. Artists. Writers. Unforgiving. Silent. Hard to move. Like the twilight. When the ride is over.

He's sipping his beer, he's glancing around. "This was always going to be the place." He squints toward the stage, out into the room.

"Why?" Of all the places that host open mikes in this city. Of all the places I've memorized.

He wipes his face and smiles just a little. A private smirk of some kind. "I used to come here to be inspired."

I nod. I can understand that. The ride is over. The ride is twilight.

He stares at me. "I used to live near here, and I would come here, and listen to Spoken Word performances. And after, I just couldn't wait to get home to write."

There is a gyro place one block up. Good souvlaki, Dr Pepper on tap. And there is a small bodega on the corner that always has the most beautiful flowers, and fresh coffee, even at 4 am when you're not fresh or beautiful. This was my place. Even when it wasn't.

He's good looking in that Christian Slater kind of way. But he's still staring. "Veronica used to read here. Have you ever heard of her?"

It's twilight and the ride is over.

I look down into my beer. I shake my head no.


"Outside I stand sorta cold
I used to know how to get warm
Sometimes you still let me in
But I'm not so welcome anymore.

Why don't you recognize me?"
-Allister