...she wrote with the slightest hint of pessimism.

Oh sure. It's exactly like true love.... if scaled by the hourly rate of some filthy back door motel room where paper-bagged harlots trade orgasms for cash and cash for candy that comes individually packaged in it's very own AIDS stained needle.

I'm dying to live in a world where everything doesn't feel the same as nothing.

Humanities ravenous appetite for indifference consumes most of us... with it's tendency to rape the truth and sincerity out of anyone who's not drowning in their own fear of reality. But not me. Oh no. I have the pathetic desire to see what's really in front of me... and the ignorant audacity to call it beautiful.

It's always been, and always will be about avoiding the curse of a monotonous excuse for existence.

the WRONG way

I've been watching way too much Californication. WAY too much. It has me wanting to write something worthy of Palahniuk, or Vonnegut or Selby. Of course, that's asking for the impossible...but I spent the better part of today coming up with something... anything that might shock or disturb humanity out of the straight-edged addiction to the same old story. Here's a little taste.

"I can’t help myself. The man’s got a target in his pants and I never miss a shot. Unaware of my intention to fuck his world inside out, he pretends to listen intently to Gucci Barbie’s champagne soaked tirade as she bounces her fake tits all over his wallet. He’s been watching the door all night, silently aching for someone better to come along. I wish I could say I fancied it a challenge but the black coffee truth is, no one surprises me. They all start by admitting they want a little bit more of that sweet cream in their cup, and finish with it dripping from the mouth of their next empty conquest. A circle of steaming shit stains, polished and scrubbed clean only to get pumped full of garbage again... and smile while simultaneously hating every second of it."

dominos.

So it starts. The unfolding of a story I've been dying to tell. A story about me that isn't about me at all. I have over 30 pages now, but I'll just share the beginning with you. Avid followers, please forgive the first little bit, for it is a repeat post.

Chapter One
“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” The flick of my adolescent life’s very first domino happened in ninth grade when my historically crumbling high school decided locker partners would be the simplest way to deal with the sudden surge in student enrollment. Assigned locker partners. “Shoji…you’re with Lindsey,” my teacher called out, and I summoned a rare moment of bravery, allowing myself one fleeting glance. The gorgeous creature that was Lindsey Swan swirled out of her chair and, although I had every intention of playing it cool, this particular girl had perfected the art of inherent seduction. I stared helplessly as she swung her perfect legs to one side of the desk, threw me a polite smile and in one majestic movement, swept up and plucked a lock from the cardboard box near the door. I was busy thanking God for both springtime and miniskirts when I realized she was looking at me. Oh ya… Shoji Katō. That was me. I paused for another moment to curse my overly proud Japanese father for not giving me a normal name, stumbled awkwardly out of my chair and then out the door. In the thirteen steps it took me to reach the locker, I coordinated the perfect thing to say, but it seems Lindsey beat me to it.

“I’ll go on top,” she proclaimed, completely oblivious to the statements affect on my hormone-plagued mind. She then turned around and promptly started filing her thick, shabby textbooks onto the upper shelf.

“Yeah… okay,” I replied, immediately struck with the overwhelming desire to bury my head in the floor. Two monosyllabic grunts had now begun the only real conversation I’d ever had, with the hottest, most sought after girl in school. So I filed my books below hers in silence, uncomfortably aware of our shoulders as they softly collided every so often. She smiled and made the tiniest of giggles every time it happened, seemingly just fine with having me that close to her. I couldn’t help the foolish grin that slid up my face as my ego inflated... and she caught me.

“What are you smiling so big about?”

I denied any such action, buying time to think up something clever and provoking more hand to arm contact when she nudged me playfully, purring her best persuasion techniques.

“I was just thinking… I always imagined you as the girl who would like it better on top.”

Her eyes widened as the joke set in and I swear I could feel the perception shift as she let out a musical laugh and nudged me a little more, this time with her hip pressed into mine.

“Oh you know what I meant.”

And I’m sure I must have, although at that moment, I hadn’t the slightest clue what was happening. Lindsey Swann had just talked to me, laughed at something I said, and invoked physical contact undeniably categorized as flirting. This was already the best year ever.

"I find it strange that in a city of 30 million people, I'm still reaching out for someone who isn't there."

trouble trove

In my youth I did some very morally questionable things. Needless and excessive amounts of drugs, vandalism, nudity, bribery, malicious lying, extreme drunkenness followed by extreme vomiting, promiscuity bordering somewhere near nymphomania and all other manners of sinfully deviant behaviour. But the miraculous fact remains to be… my age. I’m in constant awe of how much trouble I managed to fit into those few years of self-destruction; how many misfit mishaps I tossed around. A wild child just figuring out who she was, who she wanted to be later… and who she didn’t want to be ever again. I’ve been there. I’ve got the t-shirt. I’ve then trashed the t-shirt, doused it in butane, torched it, and threw it at someone. I got all the inner teenage angst out of my system… fast. I worked out my twisted abandonment issues with acid trips, corporate kleptomania, passionate sex games and a lot of tequila. A ferocious circle spilled its way into every little corner of my life. Until Adam came along. He was the front of house manager at my work, a long time friend, and crush of mine who understood the potential risks that came along with having me as a girlfriend. He took a chance anyway and we became an “item”. It didn’t take long for my life to completely switch gears as I separated myself from the drug-induced coma crowd and finally hopped off the lethargic treadmill I had confined myself to. We played poker a few times and he won rarely. Our first kiss was immediately followed by our first… everything and the more time I spent at his place, the more I became increasingly attracted to his roommate and less attracted to him. Turns out it didn’t matter since he dumped me later that same week; at two in the morning with a drunk phone call. Grapevine news spread like wildfire that he had hooked up with another girl a few hours later. I saw it coming, and moved on (although not without a few unexpected tears).

It could have been his plan all along, to nurture the broken girl back to societies moral standards and leave her in the dust once she had been successfully rehabilitated… but it didn’t work right away. I flitted and faltered a few times, running back to the familiarity I sought within chaos. I stole my next boyfriend from a two-year relationship and didn’t even blink an eye. I tried a few new drugs (see: Ketamine, GHB) and blamed everything on someone else. Eventually though, after a few more rock bottom falls, I remembered how it felt to be immersed in Adam’s world; I remembered the peace that wrapped around my mind and body; and I remembered waking up happy in my own bed, instead of some crack-house basement mattress, shivering. The memories alone were enough for me to grow some new wings and fly away again. Literally this time, as I headed to the Philippines and became the lonely stoner you know today. I’m still not sure if this is a happy story or not, but I smile when I think about it anyways. I’m 21… and I already have so much to write about. Kinda makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Don’t be afraid of the unknown.
It’s not that easy.
Sure it is.
Well what about you?
Me?
What are you scared of?

...Being ordinary.

iBITE my nails.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve bitten my nails. A few years ago my friend Amber (who worked at one of those nail salons and had some fancy name she called herself... re: aesthetician) decided I needed acrylic nails. Fucking. Really. Stupid. Decision. My life was fucked upside down from the minute I tried to push the salon door open. Keyword: tried. Over the next week, I realized a few very important elements of my life. First, I was a short order cook and used my hands for handling raw food, very hot objects and sharp shiny things at a pace that had amateurs in tears. Not to mention I did it all in style, with a black baseball cap on backwards and disgustingly grease-caked skate shoes. Try matching that to long plastic pink things expertly glued on your fingertips. Then, I was a chronic stoner, and held the crown for speed rolling, immediately lost the minute those damn nails showed up. Not to mention grinding weed, packing bowls, lighting bowls, cleaning bongs. Also, I was an independent, adult human being. Expected to be perfectly capable of doing up my own buttons and zippers, opening shampoo bottles, and holding a toothbrush. I was useless. Completely and utterly useless, temporarily driven to insanity by a ridiculous and superficial custom. Ladies who can pull it off, I applaud you, for it is much more difficult then it seems, and while you may be able to bear the everyday torture… I could not, and don’t believe I’ll ever try again. So yeah. I bite my nails. Because I have to.

HITLER WAS AN IDIOT

I hate people who try to rationalize evil and claim Hitler, or Stalin, or any other manic tyrant to be brilliantly intelligent. Sure, they were infatuated with power, and at some point all managed to fuck up the whole world. But if they were smart, truly smart in my definition of the word, they would have realized that their motives were fuckin crazy from day one… and no amount of blood overflowing the streets would make any of it any better. Smart people avoid death, destruction and chaos, because they don’t need it to accomplish their rise to power. It’s the weak and heartless that fall back to the fear mongering, the epitome of controlling the masses, the cowards excuse to murder rape and pillage in the name of their cause. Of course, that means we as a world race… must be REALLY fucking stupid, because we fall for it, over and over again. Learning nothing from history. Re-writing the same malicious stories with different coloured inks. Justifying our own apathetic attitudes and blindly following the leader without question.

people always leave

Online friendships of any level are fleeting. They come and go and come and stay and go as fast as they started all over again. Circling the bridge between all things genuine, and all things temporary. Expectations flutter and fall in silence, no one voicing their inner longing for the people who have vanished to different things. Better things maybe. But it doesn’t make the pain any less. It just makes it easier to pretend it was inevitable and in all probability, doomed from the first e-mail, or comment, or skype meeting. Of course, it happens in the offline world too, but seems to me that the consequences are more meaningful. That the loss of a friendship hurts a little more, and matters a little more. That even if you know its simply because you’re busy with changing priorities or moved on to a different lifestyle altogether, it still creeps under your skin, and you take a minute to realize the impact that individual had on your life, even if it was only for a week or two. Even if it was only for a minute. But here, with the easy typing and convenient access, there is no remorse. There is no appreciation. Just as fast as they came, just as fast as you care about them… they don’t care anymore, and leave. So you convince yourself to let it go. You convince yourself that’s how it always happens, and concede to an online world without that person in it. I find it strange how I hide behind the tense of “you” or “person” when the subject matter is innately personal. When what I mean to say is… “I care about them.” Gone now, for whatever reason, I want those people (if they ever stumble across this entry) to know who they are, and know that however fleeting, you all still matter to me and always will, even if I’ve been tossed aside and forgotten. I’m here, a real person on the other side of this screen… and I’ll remember enough for the both of us.