My Head Hurts

     Growing up people always ask you, what do you want to be when you grow up? As a little kid the answer is easy, a cop, a farmer, a teacher, a this, a that, but now in my youth (almost a child, just with more complex emotions) I just cant seem to figure it out. The answer given cant be so simple, it has to be more just this, then die, and the end.
     My chameleon is dieing and I can’t help but feel at fault. The only problem is I thought I had it all right. Its aquarium is amazing with great scenery, places to hide, lots of water, crickets galore (I even fed the damn crickets). Then why is it dieing, unable to even open its eyes to the cruel world around him, and why does his upcoming fate make my hands tremble so?
     I see the connection with him and myself. We have it all good, the place, food, environment and even some buddies to keep us company, but then what ails us. In his attire the chameleon looks tough, ready for any upcoming cricket that might spring to his side, but his eyes lack the hunger. I comprehend his dilemma as much as I can comprehend mine. Is this what it means to be a parent, to blame yourself for the outcome a being you decided to take care of? His life (more like her life since she is a female) seems too dull and uninspiring yet at the same time so amazing to just be alive, doing what she does, survive. Is that enough with her or is that what is dragging her to eternal rest.
     Before life was so simple, back and white. Now as I venture on I can see that the road curves, combines, and eventually fades. I try to be the person I once was but I no longer know that guy, although his being still inside me and I am that man. It seems like tiring to preserve a part of me that wants to fade.
     Lately everything I write I hate and that which I don’t hate later I don’t understand. Am I tiring to look to deep to answers that are just unanswerable or have more than one answer? Faith, here is a good question. To have faith in anything or anybody can be devastating, finding out later that it was a sham would condemn all that you worked for. Then again Faith is powerful, it drives men to be better, to be honest, to believe and to try again. So would it be a waist to have faith and turn out you were complete wrong even though the outcome of it was good?
     Sex before was good at anytime or place and still my instincts drive me to lust and want. Then again having sex without any intimacy has always rendered me with a half satisfaction. My instincts are suffice but my mind thinks there should be more. Sex is just sex but nothing in life (to my knew understanding) is just what it is. Boo is just a dog, and at first glimpse a terrifying one, and to some people he will always be terrifying, but coming to understand him is to see his want for attention, passiveness, but like anybody he has his bitchy days.
Death, another big question and recently brought up by Woody Allen in his movie Annie Hall, which yes I did enjoy last night. Can the universe run such a complicated cores and bring so much pain, affliction, love, and happiness for it just to be over so simple. Maybe that is the reason why people cling so much to their hope, faith, in religion, seeming almost more logical, with its complexities, than just “The End”. Maybe my mind can’t come to understand nothing, being that I have never seen it, felt it, or even heard of it.
     In a world where nothing is what is seems and you think one way one day and change completely the next, how do you make what is what? I hated broccoli as a child now I love it, or you see that movie that you loved when you were a child and now it seems so dull and stupid. I guess the question in my head is, what the fuck? I know there is no right answer but that’s the question I am struggling to answer about life in general, what the fuck?

I Change My Underwear.

     Question: Are you very random? Answer: I’m a writer. Yes? She is my friend and her answer, although almost questionable whether she is being sarcastic or funny, is actually in my thought a very serious answer. While taking English classes in OCC and trying to improve not only my vocabulary but also my method in writing (not sure how well I'm doing) I have come across a very desirable teacher, a woman, unlike most I have ever met. She seems to inspires most of her students to become what she glorifies, writers.
     When analyzing the answer that my friend animates, I have come to a conclusion that Glynis, my teacher, has implanted a narcissistic view of writers in us, becoming the thing to be if you want a beauty like her, or be one.
     To best describe what a “writer”, or as Glynis discreetly imposes “highly educated” should be I have come across a film which Glynis is so fond of, Manhattan. Woody Allen is the star and the “writer” in the film, and although it was not as horrible as I first thought it was going to be, finding Woody Allen’s manner of speech irritating after the first five seconds, but it was pleasant and at times funny. AHA! See the brain washing has begun, before he was not even considered watch able and now I seem to relate!
     How cliché it is to say that all writers see the other side to life like artist when painting an abstract form of a simple object. Full Moon In Paris, again the writer, Louis’s friend finds himself at the top of society, educated and ultimately much more understanding to life and the mechanics behind it. His talks about going to café’s with an abundance of different people, becoming a is a necessity for writers, considering that the same old people would dull his life and his writing, tying my friend’s answer with his.
     It seems to me that I have none of those characteristics, and maybe neither did Kafka. Don’t misplace my intentions; writers do add the spring to our lives and those great writers, which turn societies mind into blinking light bulbs, do deserve their right of passage and their crown of glory. But to say that they are all random and separate themselves form the rest of human life, just would not work. How would they appeal and describe the normality’s of life if they themselves have not first experienced it.
     I guess you are asking, why am I writing this down trotted review of writers, what dose it have to do with anything? It must be the raging writer in me, when coming across something that I see so fake and also surreal. Then again I am doing what any writer would do, arguing against the rest and lending all to my view, the right view (It has to be it makes perfect sense to me). So are writers random? I don’t know, but damn that Woody Allen is funny!

Music, Sea, Work, Understanding

     Where has my voice gone? Submissively I have disregarded my mind and fingers and only recently have I decided my laziness is constructing a life I don’t desire and almost quite clearly despise. I must admit that at my age I do have a comfortable job, a nice condo to live in, and stable friends that I can trust, but again my restlessness eats me alive. The action of work and living has become a routine, and now my mind needs a new thrill, a motivation, a wanting, but my laziness creeps up and the thought of frustrating myself or not gaining much destroys such thoughts. I have started to teach myself the violin (like four months ago) but my poor interpretation of Mary had a little lamb seems a waist compared to violin masters and their concertos. My drive to learn to sail has been almost shot down by the fear of becoming sea sick or not being sea worthy to tame the wild sea. My enthusiasm of being the Butcher for the Orange County Sheriffs has been under minded by the lack of “props” or respect that I so rightfully deserve, being responsible for the food supply of three jails: I’m an ant in a ant hill.
     Baby steps, that is my problem. Baby steps, when being the “baby” of the family all your life that’s the last thing you want to do, instead I want to accomplish, show those I love that I can, and although the youngest (and still considered the baby) I can pull my weight. Thanks to my hard work and dedication to work and worship to money I was able to reach where I am now, but now I want the next step. The problem is I don’t know what that step is. School was one way to advance, coming closer to a “rewarding” career, but after getting off work the last thing in my mind is studying or doing homework.
     But baby steps is what I have to learn. While writing this blogg I have come to this realization. I am tiring to run when I still haven’t learned to walk. I need to stop dreaming of reaching those little goals that would enrich my life and start taking those steps to improve. Damn those games, damn those women, obstacles that obstruct my mind and continue plaguing my time. My voice is here, always has been, I just need to speak.

Opaque

     Head thumping, Boo sleeping on the white contrasting floor, becoming almost one with the surrounding night, sound of silence and keyboard keys echoing in my ears, light streaming form the screen to my heavy eyes, tired with thought and confusion, here I sit. The darkness of my house has engulfed me and given me almost a peaceful reminder of the trivialness of sound and motion. As I sit here typing this blogg, the only thing real is my mind and my body (a connection that lasts too little). It’s been several weeks since I’ve had the patience to sit and think, dedicating myself in the motion in life and not in its reason.
     Darkness, hiding the unknown and revealing ones fears, is at this moment blissful. As a child (even now) it has frightened me, revealing an evil side to all inanimate objects, concealing what in the day is familiar, and now, at this very moment, consumed by it, I have made my peace with it.
     Silence, brimming in solitude and emphasizing sound, is consoling my mind from thought. There’s nothing that reminds me more of being alone than silence, quiet, death, and most days I cannot stand for it, turning on the TV for a reminder of the world or the radio to communicate me with it: Alone with the world. Now in silence I am alone, completely, and it is comforting.
     Why is it that tonight all that seems depressing is soothing and calming? So much that the sound of my own breathing has become, in this brief moment, hypnotic with simplicity and congeniality. It is a brief stop, like a marathon runner as he takes a short breath, only to continue in the hardships of his goal, making it as far and fast as he can. My mind has been racing too, driven to find the answer to everything and call myself happy, but there isn’t sun all the time. Silence, darkness, and even solitude is needed once in while to take a breather, away from others thoughts to replenish myself, me, in darkness, silence, and understanding.

Hoover Hornets!

     It’s been too long since I have had some time to sit here and reflect over the components of what is, was, and will be my life. It seem the business of work, school, friends (even though some are now gone) and keeping up with my own self-entertainment had subdued me into an arid streak of writing. To be honest I have had lots to say but little will to say it, forgetting the trill of a well-written thought.
Recently a good friend has gone to the military, finding himself in a world of guns and ammo and I can only pray for his safe return (and hope he doesn’t change too much). Thinking about him sent me reminiscing about other old friends that’s I have lost, due to moving to new school, altering my way of living and mostly because that’s how life works. Although I must say that I don’t really miss them at all but instead feel that gratifying pang when a congenial memory intoxicates my mind.
One memory has troubled me recently, revealing the innocents that I had once lost as a child but never came to thought until recently, a bruise found in the mist of many hits…
The days were long and hot, revealing that summer was coming, and all the kids where out blissfully enjoying the simplicities that children always enjoy, a game of tag, dodge ball on the black top, and the cool running of wind hitting your body as you fly into the sky, holding on only onto two heavy welded chains, the swings. Although everything seemed to be running smoothly, the glares of the fifth graders crossed into the familiar territory of the fourth graders (in which I myself was in at the time).
The school was divided easily both by the administration and by the students themselves. The biggest separation was the Fifth and Fourth graders, acting almost like small gangs that, in any instant, would strike without warning at each other, either by a the usual circling of a forth grader and taunting him until he/she cried (it worked vise versa too) or by sometimes a kick in the shin or a punch in the face. The most complicated separation was that of the “Cycles” as the teachers called it. It was actually vary simple, Cycle A students where all English speaking students (usually all the white kids), then came Cycle B students, those who knew some English but could barely speak it, Cycle C students where only Spanish speaking students (the majority of the school) and finally there was Cycle D or as we called them in school, the retards.
School went on with lessons of how great it is to read, even though I must admit the works we were reading where horrible, and learning something I saw as torture, math. It seemed that the bell would never ring when we were inside the “class rooms”- the only things dividing a class room was a short wall that didn’t even reach all the way to the top of the ceiling, so often the appealing sound of another lesson would float into the room, drifting your attention away.
Finally the bell rings and we all went running out into the-at that time was-huge grassy field, our kingdom, sanctuary to the brain racking works of teachers, freedom from the embarrassing miss pronunciations of words which we were forced to learn but never taught why. Unfortunately even in our own kingdom there were spies, lurking waiting to give those foul blue tickets (too many of those and you were taken from your class and put on solitary confinement, working on problems and work right by the principal, being stared at for hours by secretaries and adults, seen as trash or a trouble maker.
Just when the games were getting fiery and beef with the fifth graders was boiling into some action, the bell would ring. I don’t know what happed in other peoples school but the rules were firm in Hoover, the bell, being pretty much our master, ruled our actions. In any moment if the bell rings (when outside or not in direct supervision) we were forced to duck down immidietly and put out hands on top of our heads, no questions asked. Anybody caught either moving towards the lines or not ducking, like an inmate in prison, and was seen by one of the spy ladies was picked up and dragged into a box on the concrete, in which the principal or some scary person would come and scream at you, later ending his/her speech with a Blue Ticket. Finally once the crowed of children were all sitting ducks, afraid to make any move or sound, the spy ladies would blow the whistle, designating us to slowly get up and walk to the lines in which, by class and cycles, we would line up, and our teachers would pick us up.
I don’t know if this was an action of hate towards a, mostly dominant Hispanic school, or if all school had drills like those, in which the actions seem more like that of a prison than a school. I would like to think not, but remembering those terrifying moments that came everyday made me wonder. I would almost like to hear people tell me that It was like that in every school, that there was no discrimination, that Hoover, in which I had so many great memories and so many terrible was the norm for all children. There is a fine line between teaching and manipulating and in my innocence I believe I was manipulated.

She loves me, She loves me not, She loves me!

     English, English, English, English, its surrounds me and has again captured me with its untamable rhythm. Once again the semester has started and once again I sit and stare at the exquisite woman, Glenis Hoffman. I don’t know why I have fallen so deeply in love with her, considering she is nothing more than an average looking woman, but don’t let looks get in the way. Her hair has becomes a soft black with age and her smile, aaaaaaaa her smile, delightfully twisted by God herself.
   & I sat quietly on the first day of school, waiting for Glenis to make her first entrance, and once her high-spirited soul passed through the door my heart was lifted with an assurance of great lessons. She, without hesitation, began the lesson immediate after a couple of minutes of role call. Wile in the lesson, she, while looking right at me, smiled and began to break me down, making almost a mockery of what I have become. In her own words she said I was that “smoking, coffee drinking, philosopher.” At first I was put into almost a shock, thinking that she must have been spying on me and knew what I have been up to, but I soon knew that she said that out of her own experience. I started to laugh.
   & It’s true my writings have been all philosophical and “deep” trying to find the meaning behind my thoughts and other peoples actions and reasons. I believe that’s why I love her so much, considering her understanding to be almost too ambiguous to be true. At the same times she is so vulnerable, and she makes me think twice about her dynamic assumptions about life when she falls to simple weaknesses such as acceptance by her own students. Through the first semester I was able to inductively come to terms that she, as a teacher, was one of the best I had ever had, considering she was able to break that barrier of understanding of English that no other teacher was able to succeed in: A muse at work.
   & Today she sent me spiraling again to the inner reaches of my mind, instructing the class in critical thinking and pulling meanings from simple passages that would, to any inexperienced reader, seem meaningless and cheap. And then it hit me. I was taking the whole “writing thing” the wrong way, trying to write works so that everybody would understand, but it should not be so. I need to write so that the true readers will enjoy an artful creation, and again my love for Glenis strikes, considering that a life with a woman liker her, intent in learning and growing in education and wisdom, would be an epic lifetime. I respect, adore, and hold Glenis in awe, and hope that this semester brings as much new awakenings as the last.

Three Cigarettes and Some Coffee

    Its January 25, 2007, my day off, and I am sitting here on my dining room table, finishing my Irish cream coffee after a breakfast of eggs, enjoying my first cigarette of the day (always the best), and contemplating over what I will do today. Louie Armstrong and Duck Ellington are playing in the back ground, conjuring a suitable atmosphere for a blogg and a relaxing morning. My brother is still sleeping away the morning after a night of watching movies late at night and drinking pulque (an Aztec beer like drink made from agave juice, taste horrible, but I love my brother and I try to give him some sataisfaction by drinking it.).
     Sitting here I cant imagine what lies in the future for me, considering that life moves on and that one day I might leave, or my brother might leave, or maybe my sister sell the place. The truth is that the future no longer bothers me so much anymore. If making it means being rich and powerful, well then my future looks dim, but I think there so much more. Looking around I see that these four walls are (for now) my home. When I was living with my sister this place was really just hers, and I was living in her home. I felt a little homeless, only with a place to sleep and have fun on the weekends when she wasn’t home. Now it seems more my pad, ignoring the rules set by my old roommate and now having my own rules to follow.
     Thinking back, I would have never imagined myself renting a place with my brother, actually I never thought him being around after he got married, but it’s nice. It’s always nice to have someone around to just chill with and have a mutual goal (ours being to make our pad up to date with technology and spending large amounts of money on it). Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if my brother and I get married and have kids but decide to live together or close to one another, considering that I have the closest relationship with him than any other in my family. Honestly, I cant imagine not having contact with any of my siblings and although sometimes I want to go to the ends of the world and see everything and meet everyone, loosing any contact with my brother or sister would ail me.
     My coffee is done and I have smoked three cigarettes in the time it took me to write this blogg and its time for me to get up and do something. I’m considering just jumping back into bed and reading some more of Lady Chatterley’s Lover or some of Jonathan Swift’s satiric proposals (both have me intrigued). The only problem is that Louie, with his trumpet, has me hypnotized into my chair, and my lust in writing glues me to my keyboard but Boo also needs a walk and dinner needs to be cooked (both are also very enjoyable), so I think I will start with his walk and work myself up, but first I need a cigarette to get me in the mood.