Frozen

There will be points in life when it is impossible to see the good in anything.



The falling snow -- once a symbol of playtime, beauty and innocence -- will mean cracked radiators, middle fingers and two hour commutes.




There will be buckets of rain for every beautiful sunset, a dozen tears for every smile and newspaper headlines that ache to the core.



There will be times -- entire seasons -- where every phone call will end in a sigh.




Times when you will plead for news to be untold.




There will be times when it becomes impossible to love or live as you should



times when the fear of everything prevents you from doing anything.




Oh, yes, there will be times.




Times like today when you think of everyone who has passed in this, the most deplorable of winters.




And you will think, hanging up the phone, of the terrifying news to come.



You will swallow, and swallow, the lump in your throat gathering into a whimper.




You will limp to your car in the morning, slave away the day and spend your nights wondering where the day -- where the time, where this life -- has gone.




You will obsess over what you cannot control. You will give into the meaninglessness of everything, marveling as the world seemingly drowns in alternating currents of vitriol and apathy.





You will see all that remains to be done -- everything you have failed to accomplish -- and you (like Buridan's ass) will do none of it.



You will starve. And you will wither.



You will sit painfully and idly by, immobilized by the future remembrance 0f inevitable loss.




And you will forget, as so many people do, that life goes on.



Whether or not you truly live it is up to you.


But the question remains: how do you focus on the now...




on the moment...




when in the end



there is so much to lose.

Of Fog & Perspective

It is overcast here today. Rainy, high of 42 with a nearly constant drizzle appearing out of a fog that seems rather at home, drifting along busy city streets.


It was like that this weekend, when I was served by a waiter named Jesus (employee number: 42) before returning to the cool morning air.


It's cold and wet — certainly not beach weather — but never once does it occur to me that it's awful.

And yet those were among the first words I heard this morning, working my way through a labyrinth of desks in search of my own.


It's so ugly out, they said. What an awful day.

And I have to admit — having spent yesterday with my glasses constantly coated in rainwater — that this weather has its cons.


But ugly? Or awful?


You're looking at it all wrong.

Entertainment at the Leap Year Colony

This kiosk normally reads "free."

According to the Shedd Aquarium, this is one of three things lizards ever bother to communicate. See? They're not all that different from humans. Well... at least the second part of that expression.

My Caucasian readers might also enjoy this website.

The Order of Things

I have spent the last several days trying to put these images to words only to fail, time and again.

I have framed them from the context of insomnia


of beauty


Of decay and fatigue.


I have tried talking about ideals


by comparing them to reality


Never satisfied with the final product but ever-plagued by a single thought:

I am finished.


I have been putting square pegs into round holes, forcing words onto images when pictures alone would suffice.


But the thing is: I want you to know. Want you to know about the insomnia and the decay. The living and the dying.


The saved and the condemned


The beautiful and the superficial


The perception and reality


And so every time I write, I am split into a thousand directions — all of them diverging, and all of them as discursive as the next.

But this is life, I tell myself.


This series of unending dualities. This polarity and inequality.


This is nothing new, I say to myself, pulling the covers to my chin and praying, dear God, to awaken some morning and know precisely


where I belong.

Like That. Like That.

You can't touch this

Can't touch this

Break it down!

(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)

(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)

***A special thank you to M.C. Hammer for grooves that defy space and time, local businesses with their wacky signs, and a random hooligan for the unifying theme.

Storyboards for the Living

Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself

is also the worst.

(and vice versa)


Like going to places you should


(or shouldn't)


opening and closing old wounds until there ceases to be a difference between your biggest ache and your sole comfort.


The trick, I think, is to have a moment simply be. To have the best be the best,


and the worst the worst.


But the question remains: when it happens, will you know it? Will you recognize it for what it is?


Or will you let it pass you by.


I dread to think that all life long, we busy ourselves with the latter.


All the while forgetting that we haven't, really, the time.