when i was in high school and much more social than i am now, i worked as a waiter. i know. that sounds amazingly different than anything anyone would expect from me now. my entire wage was dependent upon sucking up to strangers. i was good at it though, at convincing them that i cared in the slightest whether their steak was cooked to their specifications. all i cared about was how much they would be willing to tip me if i was willing to pretend i liked them for half an hour or so. i pretended well. they tipped well. it was a good combination.

but even a good actor gets bogged down when there are too many shows to perform at one time. everyone knows that. so we had a code, me and the people at the restaurant. whenever you were in over your head you just yelled "i'm in the weeds." anyone who heard that phrase knew that, for whoever uttered the tragic phrase, the world was falling apart. not falling apart and drifting away into nothingness, but falling apart and collapsing in on itself like a supermassive black hole. nothing escapes. it all condenses into infinitely compact nothingness.

i remember those days, when the weeds seemed like such a tragic place to find yourself. straining to see the world above the green masses that flowed with the wind in front of you.

it's funny to hear myself say this, but the weeds seem boring. i'm in the jungle now. not the "i'm on safari and trying to pretend to be a man" jungle. i'm in the f---ing jungle. like, "i'm being mauled by tigers" jungle. and it's not like i just stumbled into the outskirts of the jungle either. i live in it. in the rainforest of all places. there's no sunlight. no outside world. there's only the black dampness of the jungle.

it sounds cliche to say (what doesn't these days), but i think you get use to it. eventually life in the light, in the fields of weeds, or, god forbid, the grassy hills, feels boring. you don't know what to do with yourself. so much light. so much wind. so much...

silence.


in the jungle i'm on my toes at all times, ready to spring into, something. in my first days in the jungle i was springing into a run from whatever ridiculously odd noise came too close to my ear. usually an innocuous insect. occasionally a hungry tiger trying to rip me apart and snack on my lower intestines. these days i'm springing at the noise. strike first. worry about the consequences later. i've become amazingly adept at wrestling with tigers.

i'm an adrenaline junky. it's one of my many addictions. i don't get enough chances to put my life in danger now. so instead i put my sanity in danger from too much thinking and far too little sleep. some days i thrive. some days i go insane. i'm not sure which today is.

i've lost track of what day it is.

all i know is what i see. orange and black stripes in the darkness. moving through the day that is night that is day.

i am in the jungle, laughing. i am the jungle. and it's time to start hunting.

i should be in bed considering the fact that i'll be in the air in six hours. but that wouldn't be me.

it's fall, and, as usual, i'm restless. i think i've come to the conclusion that i'm the opposite of a bear. i hibernate during the summer (bears hibernate in winter for any readers below seventh grade comprehension levels) and start to come alive in the fall and winter. dying to find somewhere to go. i'm also the opposite of a bear because i'm not seven feet tall, 500 lbs, and eating random campers that happen to cross my path (plus i like to think that i can pull off a black fedora a bit better).

so here i am. it's getting cold. and i'm getting out. back to the city (to a real city - no offense nashville. it's me, not you. i really do like you. you're...quaint). it's not prague. but it will do.

for now.

it's 1 am, sunday morning, and i'm lying on a couch. in a bus. typing on my computer and getting ready to start a movie. by all natural accounts i should be sleeping or at least trying to. especially since i won't be finding my bed until well after four. but what can i say? i've chased sleep away for so long that now it's afraid to come anywhere near me. chrystal is convinced that i have a problem with my adrenal gland, and who knows, maybe she's right. maybe i had one to many bangups and now it's jammed in the on position. that would explain my insomniac wanderings in hyperreality. on the bright side though, i get lots of work done and read an ungodly number of books. i've already finished the books i brought with me on the trip (michael chabon is a brilliant writer by the way). so now i'm left with peanut m&m's, a strawberry/banana smoothie-in-a-bottle, and "no country for old me" to keep me company for the next few hours.

on the bright side, it could be worse. much worse. they could be plain m&m's.

when i was young,
love wore green eyes and a crooked smile,
but it faded,
before i could even convince myself it was there.

now i hold love in my arms,
while it's sandy blonde hair falls into my eyes,
staring,
wondering...
on nights like this i can't help but wonder...

am i enough?
will i ever be enough?


or when i'm old, will i look back and say
"when i was young, love's sandy blonde hair
kept falling into my eyes.
and to this day,
i still can't see beyond it."

they are those -
that go each way,
umbrella up (grip it tighter)
running past the deepest
steps
afraid of the water pools collecting
in the middle of their walkway.


                                        i am these -
                                        that puddle jump
                                                            (splash)
                                        rain soaked and waiting
                                        for the water to wash my life

                                        away.




wash it all away.
please.

::wash it all. away::

somewhere off to my right there is a madness
lurking and waiting.
a skulking wretch that eyes me with an eeire grin
as he drifts between the shadow and the light.

and i'm just standing here,
with my necktie noose coiled tightly around my throat,
screaming myself into a sullen stupor,
"the insanity of it all!"

                but no one even stops.
they just move on,
almost mechanically, in their prefab tracks,
apathetic to the complacency that is their life.

so i stand here, as they pass me by.
i stand here and think-
"i've seen the 'more'. i've felt the 'all'.
i've held the 'need' (i am the need)."
a classic street-corner sermon to people
that have no desire to listen. they
just want to finish their day.
and i'm left to fill the role of the
(wrecklessly young) minister
preaching to rows and rows of empty pews.

empty.

all except for the last seat in the far right corner,
where he sits,
that lanky creature of dysphoria.
he's still watching.

always
                watching.
waiting for his time.

I always imagined myself the hero of the tale. The knight that slew the dragon and saved the day. It was such a vivid thought that I was amazed when I actually found a dragon recently. I was going for a short walk outside a coffee shop in the village, and I just sort of stumbled across him in a small clearing.

Brilliant. Massive. Arching high and crashing low. There were faces chiseled into his multi-colored scales - the ones that didn't make it, now nothing more than memories and warnings. I was supposed to be afraid, I knew that. But I wasn't. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it was his obvious age that set me more at ease. His color was a bit dull from time and weather. There were scales missing here and there from some brave knight's errant sword. A tooth was chipped to the point of being broken, no doubt the product of too many meals encased in steel armor.

No, on second thought it wasn't any of that that kept my heart from skipping 20 or so beats. It was the fact that he was partially buried. Such an odd thing. I can't imagine that having happened while he had been a young dragon, strong and full of fire. But I guess with age came stiffness and inevitably slowness which allowed some prankish villagers to sneak up on him in his sleep and start the premature burial services. Apparently he must have woken up and scared them off before they could finish. Maybe he had slowly started to wiggle free over time, as much as dragons can wiggle that is. Or maybe he'd never even tried, I don't know. But there he was, still partially buried.

Now as much as I would have loved to seize the moment and play the hero, I couldn't very well kill a helpless dragon. Where's the honor and valor in that.
So I sat and waited. Waited on him to free himself. It wasn't a bad place to wait either. It was quiet, except for the occasional sounds of movement just beneath the ground. There was a light breeze every few minutes that seemed to come from nowhere, and not a human in sight. It was almost, peaceful.
After a while I started talking to him, the dragon. To pass the time. Maybe encourage him a bit (or piss him off, whichever might make him dig faster). He made progress. Very little, but it was progress.

I left later that night when it became obvious that he wouldn't be free any time soon, but determined to go back and check on him periodically, to see when my prized fight might take place.


It's been months now, since that first day. I still visit as often as I can. He hasn't made any progress. To tell you the truth, I don't think he's even trying. I don't think he wants to be free any more. I don't think I want him to be free either. I wouldn't know what to do if he were. The life of a potential dragonslayer use to be a pretty clear one, but after all this time, it's gotten harder and harder to tell the dragons from the humans. Now, I think I much prefer my quiet walks in the clearing, leaving the noise of the village behind.

And on nights like this, I lie down and stretch out on his back, staring into the flickering lights scattered in the dark above, and imagine myself the hero of this tale. The fearless knight that lived amongst the dragons.