10 Ways to Kiss

I was browsing through my inbox looking for something, anything of importance... perhaps a job offer, or a letter telling me that for no reason at all i would be receiving a check for a thousand dollars (and not one of those fraudulent ones from England or Africa by some "Embasssador" fleeing for his life) or a free trip to Prague at the time of my choosing.
No such luck.

I did however, come across a spam email from Sephora, damn me and my wreckless mailing list signups. The subject line read "10 Ways to Kiss," a phrase more befitting a Marie Claire or Cosmopolitan article. (Then again, Urban Outfitters also likes to be clever in the subject box).

Curiosity taking precedence over my desire not to have my precious time wasted, I open the box. I open it to find that it is an advertisement for 10 different brand of lipgloss. Lipgloss! pink and red shimmery, glittery ones! Because every self respecting guy I know loves kissing a girl with sticky lips, only to end up with his mouth covered in sticky pink sparkles, and no matter how often he wipes his mouth, will have that one piece of glitter that sticks to the chin and lingers for days.

Introspection

Walking home in the dark with my best friend
in my yellow coat and 5 inch heels
and new hair cut he says makes me look
older- more sophisticated
True- we are grown now
It doesn't feel quite like old times
when we were young and free
and had adventures

he told me
he admires that I am proactive (when it comes to my art)
that I always stay true to my heart
which struck me as funny
I wasn't even sure
that I still had a heart
I feel I've done things
recently
to hurt others
but I feel
myself
impervious to pain

Yet maybe I do still have a heart
maybe it's hidden
in there
somewhere.
I can't find it.
maybe that's what friends are for
to help you search for
what you lost
what you can't find.
it's hidden
in there
somewhere.

Hair Today... New Persona Tomorrow?

I've come across a problem whilst filling out my application for a passport: haircolor.
Haircolor? Oh shit. Do I write my natural hair color (blond), which I haven't seen in over six years, or the color that my hair tends to be the majority of the time (red)? Maybe I should just put "multi" or "various" or perhaps just "?!" in the first two boxes.

It brings to mind the notion that hair is so much of our identity. Watch America's Next Top Model, for example. You tell a conservative model would-be she's going to have to be nude in a shoot, you see hesitation and maybe some tears. You tell any model she's getting her long hair chopped off, and chances are she's on the floor sobbing like a baby.

I've never quite understood the tears in that situation. Then again, my hair grows uber quickly.
It's been long enough to sit on, short and spiky, bright orange, magenta, various shades of red, brown and blond, even blue-streaked. I've dyed it myself and even lopped off my own bangs a few times with varying success. If hair is a big part of our identities, I wonder what this says about me?

Love and Lust... and Pineapple?

The more I mingle as a single, and keenly observe other's relationships with this insatiable curiosity, the more incredibly attuned I become to the divergent paths between love and lust. It seems very few people find both. I feel that these two L's must at some point come together at a crossroad, and it's only by burying your soul in the dirt of that sacred or cursed ground that two souls come together to form the ideal situation.

Now is not the Time to Panic

Oh, the times, they are a-changin.'
Businesses are going under, banks are closing, once rational people are speaking pre-apocalyptical fears. Or not speaking them. But when any fear, real or imagined is brought to light or implied, I see waves of panic flash into even the most typically optimistic person's eyes.

Now, I'm a funny creature. I tend to think the worst, I tend to feel the panic beating in my chest, like a thousand bats trapped in a cave-in, but maintaining a thin smile nonetheless. And this is during the "good times." But when worst comes to worst, I become a huge optimist, when things look most bleak, all I see is possibility. It's as though my house has blown down and I'm standing over it with nothing but a hammer and a pocket full of nails. And I smile because the new house will be made by me and need look nothing like the old one.

So I too, may wonder- may speak of impending apocalypse from time to time, in passing. But I don't mean to instill fear or inspire others to withdraw their life's savings and hide it under the mattress. I say live it up. Maybe I'm a secret hedonist, but the truth is our days are numbered. And they always have been, even in good times. Not one of us will live forever, so shouldn't we all strive to do something great every moment we have a chance?

Maybe, in this tough time, we should all learn to start living more simply. But that doesn't mean to stop living. I'm not ready to roll over and die, I'm ready to start having fun. And couldn't a simpler life still be grand? maybe we'll learn to appreciate the small things again, the little miracles that are usually lost in the din of our great advancements in technology and so forth.
Now is not the time to panic. Now is the time to look our reflections in the eye and realize our immense potential for creative genius.

Dear Mr. Almost Was,

I'm sorry we didn't work out. It was probably my fault, as I tend to psyche myself out, and assume that you must be so much more serious about us than I am or want to be, when I know that is just a projection of my own fear. You never suffocated me, I pulled the plastic over my own freedom. I never should have confessed my feelings if I wasn't prepared to deal with reciprocation, and I may have hurt you- I most definitely confused you quite enough- and for that I am truly sorry. I'm glad that we are still on speaking terms, even if we are distanced by our busy lives. Maybe neither of us was prepared to take the time, and maybe it wasn't meant to be because we are too much alike. Regardless, I like think we are both on the path to our own fortunes, whatever that might mean, and I wish you nothing but the best in life.
Sincerely,
Lepisma Saccharina

Hiroshi and the Sphinx

Came across some old pictures from San Fransisco I took a couple years back. I'd forgotten I'd taken them till I shot off a half a roll on my holga at my friends outer-space themed party a few monthsago, and finally processed it about a week ago.
These just feel kind of mystical to me.
Outside the Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibit:
Sugimoto-san
Sphinx sans Sugimoto-san

Girl Hero

Why is it that the girl is only the hero
when she says no?

Anxious Night

Every night, I return home late.
My ears buzzing with the humdrum of the everyday drudgery
I've just experienced.
The hive of apartments is
almost completely canvassed
by a network of large, intricate orb webs
eerily illuminated in tungsten orange
and the blue light of the full moon.

The night music washes away my sleepiness
The disgruntled growl of the old refridgerator
like an aging crooner with emphysema,
restless rodents in the ceiling, like a top hat
the whir of the box fan
a far off siren
the bass drum beat of the neighbors fucking
against my right hand wall
and I can't sleep.

The silence in my heart
disturbs me more
than all of the noise
night could ever bring

Avon Calling!

Or Mary Kay, rather... Mary Kay lady saves the day!
Is it always the door-to-door makeup ladies who step in for the lonely and misunderstood?
Straight out of a Tim Burton classic.

Secondhand Muses

So, you meet her. She fascinates you. You must draw/paint/photograph/write a song/story/poem about her. she allows you too, and this moves you, inspires you. The work is magnificent. You are further drawn to her. Time goes on, be it quickly or slowly, and through the cracks in her pedestal, you begin to see that she is human. Mundane humanity is so much less inspiring than the ethereal, and you must move on to other inspiration. What becomes of the muse?
Is she discovered by onther seeker of inspiration? Does her magic fade a little more each time, or is the well bottomless?

What does it mean to be a muse?
Is she the untouchable objet des art? A sort of madonna archetype?
On a pedestal, for certain.
What then happens when she becomes tactile... human?
Will you think less of her then, grow bored of her, or even resent her?
Resent her for her imperfections: a slip, a trip, a sin.
Resent her aspirations: that she would dare struggle and pursue and risk and fail even.
Resent her for walking on two feet, that touch the dirty ground, same as yours.

Art is Potential Life is Kinetic

Pardon me for a moment of trite, if not pretentious philosophy.

The age old question: "Does life reflect art, or does art reflect life?"
I am one who believes they are one and the same. Perhaps that is a bit fluxus? Or not. But at the very least, art and life exist simultaneously on a parallel so close that they are nearly impossible to discern from one another. If the tiniest movement: the near twitch of a smile forming, the smoothing of a stray lock of hair, if captured and pinned down on canvas or emulsion like a preserved butterfly, becomes art, who is to say that every nanosecond uncaptured by lens or brush is not? Simply put, all life is the kinetic form of art, and art is potential life.

Here's to those who eat, sleep, dream, fuck, love, drink, breath art in all it's glorious forms.

Heaviness

This suit of armor is becoming terribly heavy. I want to tear it off and cast myself naked into the sea, to be unafraid, vulnerable, and at the mercy of the elements.

I grow weary of being an island unto myself. I want to be a peninsula- to hold hands with a larger continent while remaining a separate little piece of land. Is that too much to ask?

My Great Depression

(origionally written July 29th)

a microcausm of our economic and emotional downfall.

an emptiness in my belly
an emptiness in my bank account
a rock of tobacco-hardened alveoli in the bottom of my lungs
and a growing personal trend verging on either a great Oscar Wilde style amorality or complete moral bankruptsy.


I become my fears, my hatred.

all those jaded girls I used to envy, with all their worldly wisdom, and cool, untouchable gazes.

Now looking upon the doe-eyed ingenues with a mixture of distainful snobbery and admiration. So innocent and full of hope. I can't go back to that, I don't know how to rekindle the belief in magic and miracles.


I check my online banking and sadly settle on a parliament and a glass of 2 buck chuck for dinner. It's 2 am and I sit on my porch half hoping the boys next door don't emerge to wonder why I'm perched amid a pile of furniture in only an oversized t-shirt I keep having to tuck under my ass... half not caring at all.


Part of me contemplates a trek to Del Taco, but hell, I'm to lazy to put on pants after moving furniture half the night, and I don't want to lose my primo parking spot. so I watch the glow of the butt ashes attract moths and contemplate a leafhopper that has landed on my t-shirt. Feast or famine. Mostly famine.

Less and Less

this is how often I will be seen
this is how often I can be there for anyone
I am going to implode
in on the night sky
and inward on myself
like a black hole
and become anti-matter
losing mass
gaining density
so heavy, so heavy
this non-existence
this lack of substance.

my heart is a vacuum
my mind is a dead star
still emitting light
from it's past glory.
my soul is a lost astronaut
my body a moon
riddled with craters from
kamikaze comets and
careless collisions
caught in the pull
of lifeless celestial bodies

becoming antimatter

Owl Pellets

Dear Mr You-Know-Who,
Your self indulgent pouting, and me -against-all-the-mean,mean-girls-of-the-world attitude is getting you nowhere with me. If all girls suck, maybe the problem lies within yourself, and you need to take a deep, introspective look, and question "what could I be doing wrong here?" and "How could I change my approach to be more appealing?" I'm not asking that you not "be yourself" by all means be who you are. But if who you are is a needy, insecure little boy, then you cannot fault me for maintaining a healthy distance. The only thing you can blame me for is being too hopeful in the beginning, that you would work out for me. But it's not right, so for that, I am sorry I was wrong.
Sincerely,
me


I'm not trying to be a user, or to lead anybody on. I'm subtly searching for someone with quality attributes. Not even searching really. Just investigating any promising lead that falls in my lap as I go along, trying to live and enjoy life. I suppose I approach dating somewhat like a child scientist excavating a pile of little owl pellets. (big former science club nerd? guilty.) I am picking them up one by one, digging through them trying to pick apart the stuff I want from the stuff I don't want... the regurgitated fur and whiny attitudes. What I want is the pellet with the delicate little rodent skull, complete with incisors and buggy little eyesockets, not the lame pellet full of barbie tic-tac toe bones like and a femur like a plastic toothpick. Odd analogy, yes. But, to myself at least, it makes sense.

Smiling at Spirits, Dancing with Ghosts

Everybody knows a dead person. That is, I mean to say, I'm certain everyone must know someone who has "passed on." I always find it odd, when I add up my collection of ghosts, few of whom I was ever very close to. Maybe that's what provides me such a curious, objective point of view on these phantoms that once were. Memories of people I sort of knew, or maybe should have known, scattered about my mind like a dusty box of fading photographs in the attic.

It just hit me today, that a young man who went missing earlier this year and whose body was found under mysterious circumstances was one of those people I sort of knew. I apparently hung out/went out a couple times with a good friend of his a few years back. I remember reading his name on a missing persons bulletin, and thinking, "Sounds familiar." But somehow it just hit me. You meet people, and time goes on. Sometimes you think about the people you've met casually and briefly, and maybe you wonder what's become of them, maybe you don't.

It seems like the only time I ever hear follow up on these random aquaintances, is when they've become deceased. But maybe that's not correct. Maybe death is the only thing jarring enough to burn these chance meetings into my memory for life. This wasn't the first time.

I'll always remember the smile of the janitor who worked at my elementary school, and the photo in the book I was reading when I heard that he'd killed himself will always appear in my head when I hear his name. And I remember a shy, cheerful man I met only once at a coffee shop in long beach, whose beautiful light was extinguished by a hit and run driver in Vegas. But I'm a "what if" person, so I often think on those that I should have known or barely knew, who I will now never know. The point of these memories is not to kick one's self, but be thankful they once touched your soul- if only for an instant- and to appreciate other such people. Life is a delicate mix of wonderful, not so wonderful and interesting characters who weave themselves in and out of the plot of your life. You in turn weave yourself in and out of others' stories. What sort of character will you be? What sort of image will you leave behind when it's your time to be a ghost?

Elephant Dust

My grandpa once won this ridiculous bottle of glitter labeled "pixy dust" in a raffle. I was very small, and he told me it was elephant dust, which he sprinkled in the front yard to keep the elephants from trampling in the flower beds. I said, "But Grandpa, I haven't seen any elephants out there," to which he replied, "Great, then it's working!"

It's gotten me to thinking. Nobody ever talks about the elephant in the room, which I'd always found to be indicative of denial, or an inability to cope with the truth. Through much observation, consideration, and experience, I've done quite a bit of accidental soul searching and found I no longer feel this way. Perhaps the elephants in the room go unspoken of because their presence is known, and does not need to be acknowledged. Perhaps they are ignored for the necessity of keeping the peace.To not acknowledge the elephant can be an act of pure empathy, a display of prudence and tact. Acknowledging then may at times only exacerbate a situation, and the elephant, as any adult person knows, cannot be brought to extinction through non-discussion. Still, sometimes the child in me likes to make believe that elephants can be held at bay by just a little sprinkling of elephant dust.