Jumping ship

Because this is so much easier.

www.tatebreed.tumblr.com

With arms outstretched...

Hi, everything's fine.

gangster's paradise and 13th floor elevators

so I am in the twilight of my youth...

(not that I'm going to remember)

I have to make the best of the remaining time I have, and everyday it's more apparent how much everything is going to change in September. Until them I am fueling the jukebox with the same songs every week (because all the wine is all for me). There is nothing on Earth like summer in Los Angeles (or maybe all summers are the same everywhere). There's a strange quiet in the dirty downtown air and I'm in love with the way we walk the streets without fear. I did so much growing up in this city I don't even know where to begin to explain. I've done all of my growing up in Southern California, so it's bizarre to think I'm going to replant my roots elsewhere for this next installment of life. I don't know how deeply my roots there will grow, or if there's a chance we will eventually take chances elsewhere, maybe even back here. I'm ecstatic for this to be my next chapter. It's a breath of fresh (read: unpolluted) air.

Seeing 500 Days of Summer made me aware of the changes within myself in the last few years. I used to resonate so well with that character, the girl who never wanted anything particularly serious. And then, one day, you wake up, and everything changes, permanently. Sometimes life takes you in directions you weren't expecting to go, but if you listen to your heart (and maybe believe in fate a little) you'll end up exactly where you need to be.

A small gesture

To escape a week of frantic ramblings from attorneys and paralegals (and the monotony of eating a salad everyday for lunch) I've decided to dine alone every Friday as a mini retreat from the office and a nice gesture to myself. I stroll into the almost deserted diner around 2p.m., the same staff there every Friday to greet me. Since I order the exact same thing (garden burger and an iced tea) the guy behind the counter doesn't even bother handing me a menu. Some Fridays I tell him, "I'm feeling wild today. I'd like a diet Coke," to which he typically responds "don't get too crazy." I've always had a great love of diners, and this is clear proof of a dying breed of nostalgic Americana suffocating in the belly of the financial district. I realize there are other diners (albeit several blocks away) but this one seems to thrive in the middle of the lion's den.

If the world has got you down...

Anytime you want to throw a pity part for one just tell yourself it could always be worse. Zombies could be running rampant and attacking the Earth. I don't know about you, but that would really fuck up my day for sure. By comparison regular life woes would seem fairly trivial, right?

Mmmmm Brains.

marshmallows.

Religion, what gives?

My coworker who is a non-practicing Jew was explaining the tradition of Passover to me. Him and one other coworker have to leave work early to eat dinner by sundown because of this tradition, so I of course poke and prod at the subject. I am relatively clueless in the Hasidic followings and have mere general working knowledge of Christianity, but this is the deal:

Apparently Moses told God to not kill the first born sons of the Jews during the 10 Plagues. Egyptians = fuck those whiny brats. So, the Angel of Death was cruising the hood and knew not to kill those who had a line of blood marking their doorstep. Um, what? If God is so all knowing, couldn't he at least properly train his assistants to do their job decently? Sounds like this Angel of Death needs a job at fucking McDonalds since he needs visual clues to do anything right. What's with the line of blood marking the doorstep? How does he know it's blood and not Smuckers jam? God forbid if this guy was a PA, he'd fuck up everyone's coffee orders for sure. I personally don't think it's cool to like dudes that instruct people to kill kids let alone worship them, but you know, I'm a bad person for not being religious. And what gives with the peer pressure God? It's like you forced unemployed and mentally unstable Angel of Death to do your dirty work? Lame.

I really really don't understand what makes this silly fable any different than Cinderella or Snow White, which people swear aren't real, but the Bible, of course it's real! Again, um, what? What gives religion? Does this mean I can write down some fake story and two thousand years from now people will restrict what and when they eat because of things that didn't actually happen? I'm just trying to follow the logic of some people, but give me a break. This shit just sounds plain cray-cray no matter how you try to tell it.

Forfeit/Fortune

Crooked Fingers featuring Neko Case, "Your Control"
Everyone should download this song immediately because it's phenomenal.

rebel's got no mind to forfeit
fortune teller - tell me how it won't be changing
bit by bit arms started shaking
spinning around the kids wanna make it
piece by piece cold time erasing
what we want and what we'll be taking
what we want and what we'll be taking
it's no choice if it's just another reaction
we can skip the details and be done
and I won't go back- no I won't go back
then it comes I get a funny feeling sometimes
I don't know why- no, I don't know why.

No news is good news.

In Los Angeles I've come to realize what may be described as "living a boring life" really just means retaining your sanity, and that's ok. In fact, it's more than ok, it feels fucking wonderful.

It's almost sad the way in which we all frequently use these as a means of complaint; venting hurt feelings, frustrations and dissapointments. I am certainly guilty of this charge, and have thus made resolute to report on the good things in life. So in these last few months where there has been no news- rest assured means it's been nothing but good news, written else where on tangible paper for personal record keeping.

Sometimes we fail to realize nothing can replace direct human contact, or resolve things better than simple human converstaion (preferrably over coffee, noodles or sushi). There is no greater sound than the laughter of the people you love most, wherever they may be. No meal is as fulfilling as a home cooked one, and a good hurt should equal laughing to the point of tears at a drunken Elmo, or muscles strained from a boxing instructor repeatedly yelling "high knees."

Why bother with the broken TV remote when there's a stack of books consistently beckoning, or discoveries to be made on foot right in your own neighborhood (pictures to follow). Winter may be my new favorite season.

Sun in an empty room.

I sit in the same room where the sun hits my skin soft and still. I'm well aware of where I am, what the weather is typically like and how it actually is. It's a relieving cool wind, although the comforts of home make me feel warm inside. An old box stashed in my trunk reveals photos I was not ready to come across from a day I'm still trying to deal with, almost four years after the fact. It brings to mind a day where every year I fall safely into my net of friends, wrapped in a blanket of love. And I remember that day last year, how you of all people completely abandoned me and then held me at fault for it, and how fucking ridiculous that is now and how angry I am for it still. I didn't want to be reminded of this or how horrible that made me feel, and how utterly unacceptable it is to treat any human being that way, but after I dealt with all the sadness I was brought to realizing how cold and cruel of you that was, and why now it is entirely too late for us. There are just some things I will never be able to forgive. Sometimes it's better to just hold onto your hate.

Sleep all summer. Oh wait, it's over.

We take our empty hearts and fill them up with broken things
To hang on humming wire like cheap lamps down a dead end street
Close your weary eyes until the wintertime
And every time we turn away it hits me like a tidal wave
I would change for you but, babe, that doesn't mean I'm gonna be a better man
Give the ocean what I took from you so one day you could find it in the sand
And hold it in your hands again

Cold ways kill cool lovers
Strange ways we used each other
Why won't you fall back in love with me?
There ain't no way we're gonna find another
The way we sleep all summer
So why won't you fall back in love with me?

Trying to find a balance.

Life generally doesn't give you an equilibrium all at once. Generally it's up or down. Currently I'm half up & half down. Work is going well, my friends are back in balance, and I'm excited for the potential in my career path to follow. To say the least about my personal life-well, it all comes back around in the end. Everyone has to lay in the bed they make.
At any rate, this is the only thing that makes sense to me right now.

I thought this wouldn't hurt a lot, I guess not.

came together so hard
we broke both our hearts
now i'm whistling dixie,
spittin' teeth
i can't shed this skin she's underneath
i was thinkin' to myself
it was always you
got to burn back the weeds
so i burn back the weeds and cry
she says 'why'i'm just not a very nice guy
can't seem to say good-bye
god knows i try

(love that girl like she was mine ...)

beer tastes like blood, and my mouth is numb.

And I can't make, the words I need to say.

I'm thankful for my web of friends, because this is certainly not an easy thing for me to do or any easy transition for me to make. Still, I've realized they were all right, and now I believe what they knew all along- what is truly best for me. I can't tell if everything is coming together or falling apart. Maybe it's just finally falling into place, like it should have all along.

I was blind - didn't see
What was here in me
I was lost - insecure
I felt like the road was way too long
Cause love is noise, love is pain.

Will those feet in modern times
Forgive me all my sins
Love is noise
Come on
-The Verve, "Love is Noise"

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