Sentiment: A letter

My friend Maurice said to me the other day that there is one thing that he is really jealous of me about, the fact that I have so many good friends.  He said that he was never able to keep many good friends because an ex wife of his drove them away or something.  I've been really thinking a lot about this lately.  I really do have a ton of people that I consider good friends.  And to think, there was a time when I thought the only way to keep good friends was to be in a gang.

Yes a gang.  Most people I tell this can never picture me in a gang.  I can hardly picture it myself.  Sometimes I wonder if it ever really happened and how I wound up normal and most of them are drug addicts or stuck in dead end jobs or in jail.  Okay, I admit, it wasn't like I was in the bloods or the crypts.  The gang was actually a joke.  I realized this one day when I heard the story about a fight that happened during a football game.  I was playing in the game and would like to think that the events would have transpired differently but who knows. 

The story goes, that this kid showed up at the football game that we were playing at home to see some girl that he was dating from my hometown.  A friend of mine that was in the gang had some, what I would have called at that time, beef with this kid and approached him.  The kid hit my friend and knocked him out.  A "gang" of us surrounded him and one kid stepped out and also approached the kid only to also get knocked out.  One last kid stepped out there to get knocked out and the crowd backed away from him.  I realized that day that this "gang" I was in was a joke.

I guess I had my reasons at that time to join a gang.  They provided me with the male friendships that I needed in my life at the time, a sort of male family member that I didn't feel I had in my life.  They showed love for me and stuck up for me when the shit hit the fan and I appreciated them for it. 

Nowadays I don't have to have people beat the shit out of me to make friends.  I've made the majority of my current friends in the past two years with the uniform ass kicking that we've all taken from drill sergeants. I made friends at the Rock uniting in rebellion against the corporation that gave us our drinking money.  I've made friends at my old university by having a similar plight or outlook in life.  And I've kept the few friends that I still have from home by being as real as possible.

I think some of you wonder why I continue to write these emails when many of you  don't write back and may not even care to read long drawn out details of my life.  I guess it's because I love you all in some way.  You've all created a positive impact in my life in one way or another, and I miss you all.  I swear I haven't been drinking.  I talked to a friend of mine that is going to Iraq yesterday and I realized how scared I am for him and then I started to think about another friend of mine that's going, and another and then I started thinking about all of the people that I know that are going and then all of my friends that I have not seen in forever and how many people I miss and then I started to realize just how lucky I am to have so many people in this life that I love.  I feel like there is this big water balloon filled with love inside me sometimes and it's seeping out all over the place and some people are stepping all over it but a lot of people are following me around with these bottles and all this stuff that seeps out, I still have a feeling in this stuff it's like these little pieces of me are scattered all over the place and every time something happens to the person carrying it I feel it.  There's so much of this stuff that it overwhelms me sometimes and makes life hard to handle.  A lot of it goes to waste but I guess it's better to have an overabundance of it than be lacking
in it. 

I've been trying to think of a name for this stuff but for some reason I keep coming back to love juice which I don't think is a very good title giving it's sexual implications.  I guess a better name for it would be sentiment.

Nights Not Drunken

Free beers!  Three hundred and sixty five of them to be exact.  That's the number of free beers that some of my buddies here in Denver won at a place called Jackson's hole, whose name has been the butt of many jokes lately.  No pun intended.  They won this glorious prize on Halloween dressing up as Ghostbusters using the same outfits that they once donned in a film that they made entitled "Freddy vs.
Ghostbusters, which can be found at Braztanfilm.com.  There's my plug.  365!  Not to be drunk , drank, drunken in one but over a period of time.  We decided to cash in on this reward on a night when the majority of us were broke.

The place is a hole in the wall sports bar that is close to the stadium where the Colorado Rockies play and many yuppies call home, with a club that is connected to it for the dancing types who dance to dance and not to meet women because there aren't any to be met.  This is fine with me; The beers are free, the chicken wings suck ass but there are Televisions in the floors that that play sports games all night.  I drank and I drank and I drank some more.  I drank until my stomach could not expand any further then I drank another, yet I did not get drunk.

I think I've developed an immunity to Coor's light.  Or maybe I'm just an alcoholic.  Whatever it is, I felt no tipsiness.  Free-beer-coupon-holder-Hank threw a handful of these coupons to us before leaving the bar and we decided to venture upstairs double fisted to not dance.  I kept my eye on a cute Asian girl with a body builder boyfriend and we all decided to go to Church soon after.  On the way there I almost got into a fight with some kid mumbling something about spaceships without realizing.  My friend got in his face, matters were settled and we continued forward.

The ATM at the Church was temporarily out of service so my red headed compadre paid my way. There is something inherently wrong about drinking in a building that was once a real church that I love.  But this was not a particularly happening night.  Inside there dancers were scattered on the main dance floor as we made our way to the basement where they were playing hip hop.  At the bottom of the steps I found a cute young thing that resembled an ex of mine from years ago.  We made eyes but said no words.  I continued on to the bar and stood with the red headed giant criticizing people's dancing and the overall desolation that had engulfed the club before switching rooms and finding my latin princess.

There she danced in a world all her own bouncing from one guy to another, sliding away from each and leaving fragrant imprints that enraptured each poor soul that she encountered, including mine.  Vibrant and seductive, she stole the floor and my heart for those brief moments that brought her near to me.  Before I could recover enough leave the floor and sit off to the side with some dignity she bounced off arm in arm with her girlfriend.  I wasn't the only one left gazing as pranced away.  The ex-look-alike came into the room but I had already moved on.  Later, I wished
I hadn't.

Before getting into my friends car I urinated in a corner close to someone's window.  I imagined the inhabitants looking out to see the fluids emanating from my member.  I pictured the mortification they'd have on their faces and the devilish laugh that I would reply with.  But no one looked out.  I kind of wished they had.

We drove off in my friend's girlfriend's car and the fire head found some diet pills she had left in the back seat.  After embarassing her he smushed his face against the window and napped.  I peered out and took in the night.

These nights not drunken have a peculiar effect on me. Hopes and excitements not quite reached leave me wishing I never wished in the first place.

Go Get 'em!

All of my friends have been going to Iraq lately.  And in a way I'm jealous.  In a way I'm not.  But in a way I'm jealous that they are going to this place where they will have stories to last a lifetime.  When I go out places and people thank me for being in the Army I feel ghoulish.  i feel like a liar, a cheat, a fiend.  Here I am in an Army at war and I'm in Colorado working on computers.  It's like being in the Army during World War II or Vietnam and spending your whole time in Florida drinking with your buddies. 

We complain about the snow that falls on the ground and the cold weather and the unfair treatment at the chow hall and the fact that they make us do things we don't like on our days off here because that is what we have to complain about.  I'm sure it's better than doing physical training at four in the morning in Kuwait but it still sucks.  It sucks that I'm only allowed to take three beverages at a time and only two of them can be water.  It sucks that they won't let me get triple orders of steaks and they want me to go to do training at least twice a week at 3:30 in the afternoon.  It sucks that they don't offer high-speed internet in the dorms and that I have to live in them in the first place.  But worst of all It sucks when talk to my friends and I hear that they are going to fight this war and knowing that I will never get sent there.

When 9-11 happened, I wished I was in the city and not safe in my house in Long Island suffered.  I felt like someone in my family had died and it should have been me.  I almost quit school and enlisted because I knew that the Army was where the action would be.  I guess wanted revenge of some sort, for my dead brother.  But, I waited until I graduated to enlist.  By this time the fire in my eyes had burned out a bit.  I enlisted because I needed more time to figure out what the hell I wanted to do with my life.  I took the cushy job instead of the parachute rigger. I decided to take back my application for airborne school instead taking the cushy assignment with the cushy chairs in the cushy Air Force Base.  And now here I am, comfortable, enjoying life and a little jealous of all of my miserable friends on their way to, or already in, Iraq.


I guess I have always wanted to be where the action was.  When I was in high school I never wanted to miss a party.  I involved myself in as many things as possible because I was scared I'd miss out on something valuable.  I wished I was in California when they had their huge earthquake, and in Florida recently when they had their tornadoes.  I went to Woodstock and burnt myself to a crisp and almost died of dehydration drinking alcohol in that 100 degree weather with no shower and my friend and his girlfriend moaning like dogs right next to me just to say that I was there.  Just to experience it.

It's my belief that every experience, bad or good, is something that you can grow from and take with you everywhere you go.  It's been my experience that the tough moments in life are the ones that are most memorable and worthwhile and offer the most learning from.  Sometimes it's hard to remember that when life hits you like a brick wall and you're forced to deal with the gunshots in your direction and the mortar attacks but when they cease and you lay down at the end of the day is when you realize, it's when you realize...

I know I have it good and I wouldn't take back my choices for anything but I can't help but be a little jealous of my friends chasing the action and I can't help but complain about the small things that I have to endure here.  If I didn't complain about anything then I'd be completely happy.  And if I was completely happy then I'd be miserable because I'd have nothing to complain about. 

All you Iraq-bound are in my thoughts every day.  Go out there and make it happen and make sure you make it back so that we can drink some pitchers of beer together someplace warm.

They're Watching...

I miss those nights of deliriousness where everything and nothing made sense.  I miss the burning sensation in my eyelids and the queasy feeling that welled up into a ball in my stomach and almost lifted vomit up through the space in between my two front teeth and on to the lap that I had my elbows resting because I was on the toilet trying to get some sleep.  Always, always just before the sun came up is when this feeling would arise. 

I miss going out into the cold morning feeling tired and wide awake because of the sickness in my stomach and the burning in my eyes to get into my car and drive home and lay in my bed watching the ceiling and wishing that all ov the werds in the werld were rittin just as thay sownd.  Wondering why the only times in the day with titles are noon and midnight and wondering if that damed poster hanging at the edge of my bed is really lopsided or is it just my head.

I still don't know.  When I look at it when I'm standing it looks fine not tilted at all but when I lay in bed those long psychologically frantic nights and stare at "The Score" movie poster that lay above my feet I start measuring each side in relation to the edge of the wall and the other posters that it is supposed to be even with.  I see Robert DeNiros face laughing at me with mocking, scornful eyes because he knows.  He knows that no matter how many times I take it down and put it back up it will never be even and I will probably end up ripping the edges and crumpling it into a ball and throwing it out the window.  And it probably isn't even lopsided.

I have a lot of movie posters up in my room and I have to admit that I have not seen any of the movies that the movie posters are advertising, except one.  Casino.  No I haven't seen the "crossing Guard" who protects my door while I sleep.  I haven't seen "Batman and Robin" who inhabit the room next door.  That "Father of the Bride II" who lives in my closet is foreign to me.  Apparently Dunston checked in just under him but I wouldn't know because I haven't seen the movie.  The door to my room would tell you that it is a "Biodome" just as the sign above my bed would tell you that I "Score".  Neither is true.  I feel like I'm living a lie surrounded by these people that I don't know who stare at me in the night and plot the overtaking of my room.  They're jealous of the iron I use every day to alleviate old wrinkles and make new ones on my shirts and pants on my dirty floor every morning.  They're jealous of my books, which almost all have been drenched in pineapple vodka.  They want the battery operated toothbrush with dead batteries that I use every morning the brush my teeth,.  I see it in their eyes.  They're plotting against me. 

It's only a matter of time.

Dorkus

I haven't really had much to write about lately because I've been happy.  Well mostly happy.  There is this girl over here that I've had a crush on for a little while and I went to her door today to see if she wanted to hang out.  I'm pretty sure there was some dude inside her room who wasn't too thrilled by the fact that a guy was at her door asking her for her number so that he could chill with her later.  She didn't give it to me.  She said "I have your number, I'll give you a call."  I'm not stupid.  I know what that means.

What's worse is that I've even been getting turned down on my video games.  I've been playing Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and there is this girl in the game that I made my girlfriend but when I took her out she was upset that I didn't get her to eat food in time.  Then, I took her out a second time and we ate and things were great but then I went back the next day and she wasn't there.  So I decided to stalk her but she never showed.  So went off and started a gang war came back and she wasn't there still.  I started to get jealous, like why is she never home?  Does she have another boyfriend?  Is she fucking one of my homies?  I say homies because that's what they would say in the game. 

I swear it's like I've lost my touch and it's only been a month or so.  About one month ago I was talking to six or seven different girls and now I can't find
one.  At least not one that's here.  I think I've become a dork.  I'm the huge dorkus patty with melted cheese and anchovies that no one is hungry for. Where
are all their appetites?

More Growing Pains

Today I wrote a poem for my sisters yearbook that will be included with a picture of the three of us together:

We've been a team, through the good times and the bad,
Growing up with a marine mom and dad
You burned the pancakes and I burned the rice.
Alyssa ate it all just to be nice.
As you grow up and move on with your life,
Remember our team and the times without strife.

Now I know it's kind of cheesy with the rhyming and everything but every time I read this back to myself I kept help but get extremely sentimental and want to give them both a huge hug.  My babies are growing up.  I can remember chasing them around the house back when I had a high voice and rat-tail.  I remember sliding down the stairs on a box and dressing them up in my clothes and taking them out looking like thugs.  All those cold winter nights spent watching movie after movie after movie, which we rented free from the library.  I remember helping my sister dispose of the beers in her closet and watching her interact with my parents while hungover the next morning.  I remember the games that we played at all of those restaurants and my father's irritation with our "immature behavior".

I distinctly remember thinking when I was younger, like 12, that I can't wait to see how turn out when they got older.  I couldn't wait to see them driving cars and playing sports and becoming people.  I'm so much older than them that I feel like I had a part in raising them.  I was the one watching them on all of those Saturday nights that my parents wanted to get out of the house and building forts with the couches and the pillows and not being able to touch the living room carpet floor because it was lava.  I was the driving them around everywhere when I was able to drive.  I gave them their first taste of alcohol and took them to the movies that my parents wouldn't let them see. 

And now look at them.  My youngest sister is already talking about getting her license next summer and what colleges she wants to go to and my other sister is already driving and will head off to school next fall. They're becoming real people.  They're past that awkward stage and are starting to enter the real world.  I feel like the band is dismembering and we're all starting solo careers.  Will our music be just as good without the other members?  How weird is that house going to be without us in it?  When does the old people smell start to set in?

I guess when I was younger I skipped all of these thoughts.  I pictured them older but I pictured us all under the same roof forever.  I never pictured us leaving and living in different states and starting families.  I never even pictured them dating for that matter.  I just pictured them older.

Now I try to picture what we'll all be like when we're even older than we are.  I try to see us as 40 years olds.  i try to picture our families and the gray hairs and house and the husbands and wives but I really don't see anything.  It's just a blur.  I can only see forward in 5 year increments.  I can picture them in college and in California and what It'll be like at that point but beyond that I've realized is too vague and distant to get any type of clear possibility imagined.

I will have grey hair one day, I know that.  One day, without even realizing I will become old and start doing old people things.  All of my friends will be old and we'll throw old people parties at my house which don't even seem like parties but are more of gatherings.  there won't be any drunken debauchery and wrestling or thrown beer bottles.  I'll be playing punk and rap songs which annoy the kids and singing karaoke in the basement with my beer belly hanging out of my small t-shirt and outdated trousers.  I might start collecting football cards and buy a Porsche at some point and wearing sunglasses and spiking the little hair that i have left.  Or maybe I won't and I'll go "the road less traveled" like I hope to God I do.

I wish I could just skip that phase and go straight to the old folks home where I can harass the young nurses and play poker and dominoes with my boys. Just like I used to wish I could skip over high school and go straight to being able to drive and drink and have my own house. I hate the thought of being boring and normal yet I strive for it at the same time. 

Why are my twenties just as confusing as my teens?

Sublime

I'm declaring a new religion.  I know I once declared that hedonism was my religion but that was because I just discovered what hedonism was.  I used to think it was a religion, sounds like one.  And then one day I looked it up and I thought that it was funny that I thought it was a religion all of those years.  But this is a new bonafide religion.  We have a martyr.  We have the word.  We have a book.  Well The book is not actually a book but we could always put one together study from.  I think that there are already millions of people across the Unites States who practice this religion on a daily basis and don't even realize it.  The religion is called Sublime or Sublimation.  I haven't decided yet which it will be called.

I don't know what it is but every time winter comes around Sublime enters my regular rotation of CDs.  Mainly the CDs 40 ounce to Freedom and the self titled CD but every once in awhile Robin the Hood gets in there too.  But I don't listen to the CDs like a normal person, no.  I listen to Them for weeks at a time without ever changing them.  I listen and I try to decipher everything that They are talking about.  I listen to Their stories like they are parables.  I sing Their songs like they are psalms.  I try to apply Their words of wisdom to my every day life.

But I don't do it with just Sublime.  Sublime is just one of the major sources.  I do it with movies that I watch, with books that I read, with other songs by other groups that I listen to, television shows, conversations that I have, newspaper articles, magazine articles, everything.  It's like the world is my bible and I'm a very religious person.  I like to study every facet of it.  It is a continual process with no definable end point.  And the answers are always changing as the world that I live in changes and I change along with it.  Sublime is an inquisition and appreciation of life and lives passed and shared.  It is a broad, open-minded approach to self actualization.  A rejoicing of everything worthwhile.  It is the reason you get up in the morning and go to bed at night.  It's life.  And I'm trying to get back in touch with it.

What a Wonderful World

All of these people and all of these surroundings and all of these days that are nights and nights that are days and I don't think anyone realizes that deep down I am just heartbroken.  It's like I've been walking around with this secret and I will probably continue to as long as people are the way they are and I hate talking the way that I do.

I'm completely, and utterly heartbroken and believe it or not I kind of love it sometimes.  I don't really know how to explain it.  I kind of missed the heartache all these years.  It's like now I feel like I'm a living breathing human being again and not the beast I was starting to believe that I was.  It started with one heartbreak but then that led to another and to another and to another and now I am heartbroken by the little things like the fact that I have jelly and no peanut butter or cereal and no milk. The smallest things can devastate me for a moment and send me into fits of incomprehensible rage and fury which I keep inside and let ooze out slowly through the course of the day when the happiness comes through a song or through writing or through a movie or through punching the cement floor with my bare fist and screaming in agony.

It's like this whole new glorious world of hatred for everything has opened me up and let me prosper more as a human being, let me really appreciate the good moments in life which seem so few and far between lately.  For instance yesterday, when I was excited about cleaning the four inches of snow on my car with no gloves.  That doesn't sound all that great but before that all I had been doing was jabbing my eye with my sharp pointer finger nail.  I knew that once I got out there my fingers would numb to the point of sharp, somehow hot, pain and that the snow off of my hood would drift into my nostrils and my ears  would swell and become discolored to a dark shade of purple, I knew that through all of this pain that I would be able to vaguely hear some of the cds that were playing in my car.  And that was enough to send an ecstatic surge of energy through my veins, once again reminding me that I can be happy through this whole heartbroken phase that has recently afflicted me.

I can't wait until that next moment of happydom arrives and lifts me to new plateaus.  Until then, just ignore the torturous cries that echo in hallways. That's just me enjoying my state anguish.