I have a Southern Lady inside of me. She’s a contrarian. That’s like being a white witch of sorts. Not in the Narnia sense so much as as the tribal medicine woman way. Urban white Memphians understand tribal culture more than most. It’s similar to what feeling like a minority is. Looking for a place to belong when we can’t get comfortable. Skin color is the only difference when you grow up in North Memphis. While the rest of the world tells you it isn’t. Continue reading Ready for Action
I love the fact that every person disregarding me today will regret it tomorrow. I make love to that fact every goddamn night. It’s not bitterness or sorrow, just acknowledgement of the waste. Resources better used toward getting laid is funneled into drunken, post-midnight angst. People in-between great love affairs want to believe their drama is interesting. Truth is, that territory belongs squarely to the itinerant loners. Those of us dealing with perpetual rejection and apathy. We only know the love of cold, distant mothers. Continue reading Musings 2.7
I’m not trained for trauma. My first reaction is sadness, quickly followed by utter despair. The essence of grief is being swallowed whole. The world falls away and one throbbing pain fills all of reality. I feel other people’s grief acutely. It reaches out like a feather bed that wants to suffocate me. Tender hands choking off any cheer, a gentle reminder that death will always be there. Sometimes I think the entire human condition is a struggle to understand pieces we lose along the way. A full understanding of loss is rarely achieved willingly.
The worst traumas are what we don’t see coming. A chance to prepare for the end of something affords minimal comfort in an impossible situation. If nothing else, impending doom forces you to care a lot less about what other people think. A blessing in any form. Happiness involves living at full volume unapologetically. Figuring out how to do it without burning out is the real challenge. Anyone can live loudly once a year or so. Most call it their birthday. It’s a much steeper challenge when you are true to yourself every day. Exhaustion alone takes down most idealists.
I haven’t learned to do anything better than anyone else but I’m pretty good at living. Assured of my own existence I’ve moved on to finding other real people in my vicinity. It’s slow going in a city where I started out alone. Many times I’ve questioned my standards and whether quality is even worth waiting for. So many people are willing to fake friendships after they find out what you have to offer them. My approach is to be patient, wait for true friends to reveal themselves. There are other good people out there, they just might not be ready to make friends yet. I wasn’t for a very long time.
I am not always the hero in my story. That’s why I’m a writer. Wearing cliches as if the world’s a masquerade, I hide in plain sight most places I go. When ever in doubt, I carry a camera. The opening lines to everyone’s story start the same. I was a person in a place at a certain time. The more interesting you try to make it the less flexibility you have with details. Stick to the truth and there’s an endless supply of embellishments. Honesty means you have to tell the bad parts with the good. And believe me, the stories you don’t want to be honest about are the best ones to tell. Continue reading Real-Time Draft
Alone for the holidays is a comfortable place to be. Energy spent on showing interest in the lives of strangers is a tedious tradition. The few blood relatives I actually enjoy talking to are just as disinterested in forced socialization and wear the same type of mask I have on at family pow-wows. The only person I ever connected with outside of my immediate family was my cousin from Florida. She was older than me and possessed an unapologetically big personality, just like her dad. In an extended family where I always felt out of place, Katie showed me a different approach to growing up. Continue reading Cousin Katie
After less than a year living in Seattle I’ve accumulated more legit friends than I’ve ever had at one time. My lone wolfish quality makes it hard to keep more than one friend at a time. Especially since most of my friends are from such radically different areas of my life. My birthday parties usually involve half a dozen people that look more like a jury than a party. Fortunately my friends tend to be more open-minded and accepting than average humans. The best part about me is the people I know. Continue reading Hot Hot Hot
I should stop being nice and just listen to my gut when it tells me not to go on a date. It’s a different feeling than just not wanting to go out. Part of being introverted involves feeling like your home is the only safe place on earth. Those days happen perpetually and can’t be predicted. Part of getting to know myself is discovering the line between anxiety and introversion. We all have layers of stress affecting our psyche in a myriad of ways. The only universal truth is that too much of it is bad. Continue reading Worst Date
It’s not complacency, accepting the truth. Knowing what reality looks like is a sound business strategy. It means accepting the good with the bad. You can’t have everything so measure what you need. There are truths that will change during your lifetime. If you really want the unceasing flow of change to move in your direction, fight realities that aren’t solid yet. Don’t lament the unchangeable. Even that will change eventually, just not at a pace you can work with. Continue reading Liquid Truth
No reason. At least not that I thought. A tidbit on a strand of time lingering in the air. Auras as tangible as music. Reality is what we make it. The lives we live are constructs, some more durable than others. I only ask that you are honest with me, is that too much? Excavating feelings from the half spoken thoughts of uptight individuals. Extrapolating meaning from the scraps of conversation I’m fed after everyone’s finished noshing. Searching for a small purpose in the greater scheme of stupidity surrounding us. Am I the idiot for wanting a more open mind. The scars make me look like Frankenstein’s monster. Makes me feel like a failed experiment.