Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Love is a Book

I don't 'believe' in love and I have only sporadically enjoyed sex without finding it obnoxious.

Am I against love?  No.  Happiness in others does warm me, somewhat.  I simply don't experience happiness as inherently linked to interaction whether in the form of sex or pub quiz.

Am I against monogamy?  No.  I've felt sexual jealousy myself and have even had a live-in girlfriend. She said she loved me and I loved her too maybe, though on reflection I think it was more the ego boost of being gushed over by someone on my part, plus I needed a roommate for economies of scale and such.   We had a neighbor who sold weed and crank and she fucked him too as I guessed she probably would.  Understand though that this was no dramatic trauma for me.  I wasn't wholly unbothered it was just... well I was mainly just tired see.  We were both really lousy on drugs and I'd rather not get into it more than I already have. 

Am I against marriage?  sort of.  i have a loathing for ritual and tradition that  I confess to be somewhat kneejerk.  The idea of such a thing as one ultimate measure of united love is a fucking illusion maan.  Though again the happiness of others does warm me somewhat. 

What I'm mainly against see is evangelical monogamisoism.

There is nothing to settle down to maaan!

There is no human nature maaan!

There is no authentic self maaan!

There is no intimate core for anyone to touch through any means whatsoever maaan!

There are no touchstones of common experience or desire for anyone to bond over maaan!

I have broken off nascent relationships just to defy people who remarked on how happy I looked now that I had a girlfriend.  This is no joke; and aside from the live-in on no romantic breakup has ever saddened me at any level.

Aside from the live-in one I have never taken a girlfriend home to meet the folks over holidays.  This irks them and they've asked if this is because I'm ashamed of my family.  No.  The fact is that I took no enjoyment in these' women's presence and holidays gave me an excuse to be free of their presence.  Just as adult life gives me an excuse to be free of my family's presence.

Some years ago I had a condom break with a woman I was seeing and she went to a doctor for a pregnancy test.  It was negative and she was maybe being overdramatic but still my mother inquired about this incident for a time, for a long time.  Over Thanksgiving she let slip that she had been 'looking forward' to being an accidental grandmother.  My sister is a confirmed bachelor to and my mother has described herself as heartbroken about not having grandkids.  I do not want to hurt my mother.  I've considered 'coming out' to her on this matter but I don't know myself if I'm actually so confirmed as that and anyway; it's monstrous after her devotion to me through both our lives to say she centers her life on family too much but damnit she does. She centers her life on family too much and presumes that of course everyone must so center their lives too much.  And this has been a tyranny to her and to us kids as well. 

My happiest time in Chicago was when I was between pseudo-relationships, wondering alone.  I did my laundry at a random mat in Rogers Park off the Red Line and then wondered to a black church with a choir and that vital church music.  I felt myself connected to the whole of America in a way I never thought I would, North South East and a little West, Urban and modern yet still smelling of the summer trees of country home the smell of grass and garden our longing and bodacious people timeless from the dawn of the machine age. 

After this event I got drunk and had sex with a stranger after we had broken into someone's car for this purpose.  I liked the church better.  That was the moment in life that I felt most in love and this is the love that shall tangibly survive myself.  Our people will endure; our cities, our travelers, our bohemians, layabouts, neighborhood beauties, our talentless buskers, our American summers, the breeze carrying the scent of entire metropolis and entire hinterland.  I was here too.  And now you know.   

Monday, December 8, 2014

You Can't Spell Ham Sandwich Without; Well You Know

I've been thinking about the seemingly inexplicable refusal to indict in recent high-profile police killings.  This article in today's' NYT does well to explain the structural problems at work here and that is part of it surely.  But of course personal racism is at play is well and does raise questions of how racism can remain so strong decades after the loud, overt belief in white supremacy has been banished from the realm of the respectable

It's true that murder, rape and robbery are things that do happen in the world; and also true that blaming the first black man available for such crimes is also something that happens far too often; yet we still do need the police who commit such outrages all the same.  It may be that normally fair-minded jurors are actually becoming more racist when faced with this problem, that they may embrace old myths of the Black Brute in order to deny this quandry or deny its very depressing existence.

It's also true that nothing can lead people to embrace bullshit faster than reminders that life is not fair.  There are some who pride themselves on being tough enough to tell you life isn't fair but in reality neither they me or any of us can truly accept it.  Perfectly smart people will embrace willfully irrational or even magical thinking for the sake of feeling that life is fair.  More to the point it is of course painful for we whites to accept that we enjoy unearned comforts secured by foul means.  Accepting that our society has some injustice at its root, at least party by intentional design, cast pallor and suspicion over everything; our endeavors, our accomplishments, our prestige, even our deepest personal relationships.  We should accept "civilization" not because ours is innately glorious but because it makes life a little bit better maybe.  We should submit ourselves to the rule of governments ruled by people no greater or smarter than ourselves, obey the laws made by people no greater or smarter than ourselves, and accept the need for police no more or less innately noble than ourselves and no more or less inclined to be good or bad than ourselves because maybe it all makes life a little softer and easier by some unknowable degree. 

Accepting all this is easier said than done to say the least of it.  While on the other hand the pleasures of being more righteously pro-police/law than your neighbors are visceral and immediate while protesting the social order so that maybe it shows slight noticeable improvement before your own death is rather less so.   It's bleak work to do the right thing and there's no such thing as anyone winning.  Still there is never any good cause for despair; as the eighty year-old bothers to see the doctor because they love themselves so must we love the world.

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FC Top 10

1. Real Madrid
2. Bayern Munich
3. Chelsea
4. Barcelona
5. Paris St. Germain
6. Juventus
7. Atletico Madrid
8. Cruziero
9.Manchester City
10. Porto

 

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

the Day of The Sp ce Yard

I remember that the day felt warmer than it actually was.  I was hungover and I wanted salt, brine, pickles olives or something except I walked.  I walked and there are no groceries footnear to Rachel & Eric's so I went to a Shopko on Hwy 2 that had no olives.  They did have potato chips which would sate what I wanted partially so I brought potato chips to the party; chives & cheddar.

I already felt better just by being there.  Something about the neighborhood brings a cooling effect.  It might be the trees or the nearby grade school which always reminds me of the cool season.  Zachary Schomburg was there and we exchanged words such as 'excuse me' and 'were you in line  ahead of me?  No well alright."  Bandito gave me a hit of acid and I drank more beer than wine though I think intended the opposite maybe.  There were visitors from the coast who were amazed to learn that peas can be eaten straight off the vine and it pleased my patriotic vanity to have known this before.  The garden in general was beautiful with life and there was this olive-pickle relish thing at the party after all.  You put it on hot dogs with hot mustard and potato chips and every breed of sour and salt and it was fucking beautiful.  The twilight was glorious silk as summer twilights everywhere always are.  The desert twilights where one can see the mountains glow are different but not better.  The prairie twilights with crickets and the smell of life at peak fury are different but not better.

It rained maybe.  I think it rained lightly for a little while or moderately hard for briefer still or maybe not at all.  I said things which I'm told were quite brilliant or amazing and since what I've been told I've said does fit with what I know to be my cadence than alright I said them.  I'm confident that there is no conspiracy to slander my person and it's a lame one if it is so never mind.  Women friends of mine performed a communal poem that mentioned Bachman-Turner Overdrive who I abhor.  I could ascribe their ubiquity on the radio to Baby Boomer privilege except I have never heard any member of my parents generation proclaim any love or even strong like for Bachman-Turner Overdrive.  Nobody wants B.T.O on the radio so it is therefore clear that this Bachman, whoever he is, some uppity little snowback as I recall, is forcing corperate stations to play his shit through some terrible dark power.

In any case there was a moon that I worshipped with the womenfolk for a time and ice cream as well.  I think it was ice cream with chocolate cake or chocolate pie I mean it wasn't just ice cream or was it?  It was a terrible and sublime thing to thaw the ice cream and then separate it from itself into individual bowls.  I realize now that it has always been a terrible and sublime thing to unfreeze ice cream; ever since the time of my grandfather's ice cream and the ice cream of his fathers down through time primordial ice cream is fucking tragic.

There was ice cream and a teacher educated at Ball State who I am now able to recognize only by how she grins at me when she sees me downtown.  After this a carried to the afterparty.  It was a shatteringly existential car ride and I now know this to be the case with all car rides throughout time as with all ice cream.  We went to Hell House where Mikey made Nazi jokes and talked too loud and sang Bob Dylan too loud and drank too loud because Mikey though we love him.  There were  creatures on the couch. The people who lived there along with guests and others too; humanoid worm things with sunless skin stolen from someone but fuck them they are not important.  This ended at some point and in the morning some wank-off of a movie about the power of rock & roll on Netflix.  It was made by someone involved with 'The Sopranos' and nothing happens.  Outside it was hot and nothing ever happens.