As all guilty men do, You will rewrite your History

I've got to assume that since literally 99% of you watch me work and never interact that you aren't looking to be heard, but are here to see what I have to offer. In that sense I feel better because I always felt bad for not including your vision here, but at the same time am sad because I have to admit I'm not entirely sure I can hold the audience. No matter I'm going to keep doing what I've always done. So here goes.

I went to lunch with a classmate of mine last week. Something I honestly wish I could have done more of in the past but that wasn't my journey so I don't stress it. The days post tense have left me thinking only one thing...I think I was a bit too comfortable in my own skin around her? I hear the way to handle these things is to just be yourself but when you're me that can be both a good and bad thing. It's a bit whimsical because there are obviously many interactions and so for me to assume that it was my openness that caused any glitch in the Matrix is a tad presumptuous but not completely unfounded. Lets hope this weekend brings improved results. I love my girl Ariana by the way, who once I informed her a cock block had appeared in our class out of nowhere, told me I was going to give up rather than increase my effort. From her, and only from her is that more a statement of fact than a putdown. I don't know how she got to know me so well but no of course I have to prove her wrong because as right as she may be I'm still competitive.

My idea for the sleeve tat' is basically at a standstill. I know I want it and I know where I want it. But the final two choices are much harder. Where to get them and whether to get them are pretty much road blocking the process. I have plans to meet up with a friend back in Long Beach in a few weeks and hopefully she can help shed light on all this and Melissa should be back from her honeymoon by then so I'm sure I can get an earful of sense from her too. Though...now that I think of it, she's had some "work done" so maybe she won't be as down on this idea as I expect. I have this weird urge to implode sometimes and I think it might manifest itself in a post soon. I mean True Hollywood Story type, tell all post about myself that may needlessly put things into the public forum that don't need to be there. I dunno why it is those things intrigue me in the least but..if I were like everyone else then I suppose I wouldn't be writing this would I?

P.S. - SEE YOU THERE!!!!!!

Walking on A dream

I just saw 21 grams and it made me miss my nurses. I didn't have it nearly as good as this guy but I suppose at least I didn't come out with a chemical dependency either so fair is fair. The movie is scarily reminiscent of my experience in that Sean Penn's character is in a weird position with his lady friend. The circumstances bring them together and the director did a great job of portraying an accurate depiction of what things are like for such a couple. The movie overall disturbed me largely because the characters take a mental and emotional spiral that is merely there to facilitate the rest of the movie. I don't know what I would do if I met the widow of my donor and she was smokin' hot but the wall of emotion would be substantial to say the least.

But whatever, Benicio Del Toro did his thing, the sex scene actually was pretty good, and the movie was super interesting and well done. Kudo's. I wish I was as good at ANYTHING as those people are at acting. Each of the 3 main characters each had a scene where they blew me away with their skill. I can't say enough good things so I will just move on.

The nurses are what is important. I have so much love for the women (and men) that helped keep me up and running that I ache not having seen them. I need them and they need me. It is outrageous that we've been apart so long. Jennifer and her new baby, My "personal PICC nurse" and the two son's she will never let out of her sight, and of course my BFF Forever, Nanoor with baby Henry, are all back home loving life I am sure just as I am, but what we had was special and I miss it. I guess I can tell you now since I already told my dad, but it should come as no surprise that I am considering doing something dumb. I want to switch my care back to UCLA medical. The nurses, the techs, and most importantly my surgeon are all still there and of course the people whose job it is to keep me from needing to see them are somewhere else. So I am very seriously thinking of FIRING my current staff. I find it hilarious I have doctors that work for me and that I could fire someone so much smarter and more qualified than I. BUT I'M GONNA! Especially if shit ain't on Point when I come home in a few weeks.

How about this for news while I'm at it. I want to do a full sleeve on my right arm now. As in Tinta para el brazo! I'm trying to gather ideas for a tatoo that will go from shoulder to wrist so if you have any good ones please find a way to get them to me. It's not a for sure thing and would wait until I could get to a good artist anyway so no rush. And if you're anti this idea then don't worry there is still plenty of time for me to lose my arm in a bear trap so you're covered too.

This summer is going to be very important for me because as I see it, this could be the last time I go to any shows for a long time. MIA, NERD, and Empire of the Sun will all be in L.A. and I just don't know what I can see that will top those guys in the near future so I might as well retire right? Empire of the Sun for the uninitiated, are a band from Australia and they sound a lot like MGMT. I'm most excited about MIA, but Empire of the Sun is special because I've not shared them with anyone yet. I saw NERD with Ex#3 so the memory of them is kinda tainted until I can see them again and the same goes for Gnarls Barkley, Chester French, and anything involving Josh Homme strangely. So I need to see Empire because it will be a pure experience. The Black Keys, Gorillaz, basically the core of who I am musically was all shown and now I don't have a single headliner band I really love that isn't tainted with her stink. Dramatic I know but it's really simple. Imagine the most perfect meal possible and now imagine a fly just to the side of that plate. Not touching your food, and quite dead. That meal is hot and ready (or cold if it's sushi) but you are going to eat it with less zeal now for just that one small reason. So as you can see, I am very weird about music and when I start to talk about a band with you, It's like sharing a part of me. Nevertheless it just makes me all the more excited to see a big time act like them live. The sound is unique, but the look even more so. Lots of intricate costumes and makeup go into everything they do and it makes me wonder what life would be like if I ever experimented with psychedelics. Speaking of which...

It is time now for yet another unsolicited story about my time in the hospital:

So the movie 21 grams reminded me of another movie, Across the Universe. And one funny thing about this movie is that there is a dance scene revolving around the use of morphine and the dreams it gives you. Let me go ahead and tell you that me and my good friend Fentanyl went through some hellacious dreams together but I am not sure I'd change things if I could. And my dreams definitely didn't involve half a dozen Salma Hayeks in my room so this guy was getting a great deal on his physcadelics I would say. One such dream is really beyond description it was a horror themed dream but only in the sense that it was dark and there was fear in the air. But so was I.

I was in some sort of M.C. Escher type room where the stairs ran up the walls and I just kind of floated to the top of each flight instead of walking. I felt like I was underwater but everything was lit with torches. I had the same dream each time I went to bed while on this drug which is what made things so weird. Instead of a random part of my subconscious leaking out, instead I was seeing something almost scripted? The details are kind of irrelevant only because there are so many. Not only did I see everthing clear as day while asleep, I retained the images when I woke up and can even now pretty much tell you what was happening and what things looked like. This never happens with natural dreams and I think that's a good thing. Point is..lets all say a prayer of thanks that I am not addicted to this wonder drug, because I will be honest. Fentanyl is a helluva drug.

-----------------------------------------------

Now for some women whom I do NOT love.

Listen to your Heart

In case you missed it, you may wanna check this out first: The Prelude

Never bad when I can work in a bad heart related pun to open up a post. I found a letter I wrote a few years ago. I’ve been sitting on a Valentines day post for quite sometime. But I’d rather use this because it’s much happier than what I’d previously written and as I promised, this will be mostly "nice"? However, love, the idea of loving unconditionally and being happy forever with another human being are deep and troublesome topics to write about. Out of respect for my readers who have found their soul mates, and those who think they’ll never find their soul mates, or even have one to begin with, I’ll shy away from talking about the institution of love, because I have many many thoughts, though none are concise enough for this entry. Rather I will just describe how Love should look as far as I’m concerned, and show you something it made me do one time.

Valentines day and any ritual centered around gift giving on the basis of love seems flawed to me. Love should make us want to do things without being asked to. If you can circle the date on the calendar in which you expect to receive some gift from a loved one and it’s not your birthday then my natural inclination is to try and trick you. In the past this has led to my week before deliveries, and also to my outright refusal to participate. You can imagine which of those days went over better than the other.

The other thing about Valentines day that disturbs me is that I think it unfairly emphasizes one time displays of affection over sustained acts of love and appreciation. One thing my ex could never understand was that by asking me to kiss her, or saying she wanted me to tell her I loved her, I inherently felt like I should wait but then make note to make sure I did or said those things more going forward. I understand people like the simple binary of asking and then immediately receiving. But for me it was more complicated when it came to love. I want to permeate the totality of someone’s experience with me with positive memories and good times. I can’t do that if I’m just giving of myself just when expected. Case in point, I have a complex about giving when you see it coming, it feels false, it feels fake, and I don’t like it. I'd sooner lie to you just so I can surprise you, than tell you the truth and give you what you expect. All that aside, in the future I’ll definitely work to go back to being more spontaneous with my love, and try not to be as predictable, I’m sure it was easy for you to deduce that outside of Valentines day I must have been getting requests for a reason.

Back to this letter of mine. It was unformatted when I saw it, I don’t think it was ever meant to be. All I said was…

I love you, the way you are, when we’re not together.

I think it’s why friends can feel stress when they live together for the first time.

You’re so nice to me, when you only see me sometimes.

It’s like you’re fighting to make the space between now and the next time you see me Shorter.

You are more beautiful than I think even I knew. I’ve known you longer than we’ve been dating. But sometimes I swear I’m seeing you with new eyes.

Hanging out, you and I both, is some sort of vacation. What we say and what we do is hardly planned, but when we don’t it feels like we have to make up for lost time.

I laugh at you constantly, You amaze me constantly.

I don’t underestimate your ability, you’ve proven time and again you have no other plans but us.

I like the sound of that, the same way the drums in The Seed 2.0 sound right just as soon as you hear them. Matt Tong, ?uestlove, Dave Grohl Type drums. Soul shaking certainty.

You drive me crazy and I love it.

I honestly don’t know when I wrote this, it was probably during the summer of 2007. During this class I took on Love and Sex. Psych 399 I think it was? I was single at that time ironically enough, headed into what would be the most tumultuous summer I’ve ever witnessed, followed by the single worst Valentines day ever. I cannot imagine a more horrible set of circumstances but lets just say my date tried to change her flight back home within 2 hours of seeing me, and then at some point I threatened to make her sleep outside once I found out she actually HAD moved her flight up to 6 am the next day. Oh and then she changed it back again and we ended up spending the next 3 or 4 nights together. A very different 4 night stand than the initial one we had. WHOAH, I’m getting flustered just thinking about that. Yes for those of you counting at home, that's one trip home from the airport, 2 calls to the ticket office to change flights, $100 dollars in fee's to end up leaving the same day you originally planned to, and the true recipe for disaster. I was just weeks from my 22nd birthday then as well. I swear, my whole kingdom to the person who can send me back in time to fix that day, though I’d go back much further than that if I could. Goodness. I haven’t even begun to describe how bad it was, because as entertaining as it may be, it was fairly traumatic for us both, and I don’t think we came away unscathed. Even now I think just the nature of that day and all that happened, makes me wish it hadn’t. That relationship saw many bouts but that one was…wow, almost unspeakable. And I LIKE fighting. This blog is specifically here for me to air out my arguments. So yes it seems alien that these words and that relationship all came from one place.

Neither of them had any bearing on valentines day for me though. Love strong enough to make me that sappy, and hate deep enough to send a girl to sleep in an alley didn’t make me love or hate this holiday any more or any less. I find it just as flawed when I’m single (like today) as I do when I’m not single. Plain and simple. Love should be good on it's own, no holiday can help or hurt that. It's a bit addicting, Love is. Like Drake said, "I want this shit forever mayne." Pat Benatar said love was a battlefield though. Hmm?

I’ll leave you all with this message, don’t ever leave your love unattended. It’s not like an accomplishment you can attain and then sit back and marvel at. I’d liken it more to that scene in Avatar, when Neytiri is describing to Jake how he will know when he’s found the Ikran meant for him. “How will I know if it’s chosen me?” and her only answer is “He will try to kill you.” Maybe there’s something wrong with me but I think that is exactly how love should be.

Maybe I should stop doing this?

She's wearing her morning face loud and proud

This wouldn't make a horrible idea for a new Tatoo

These girls witnessed 2/14/08