νεῦρον

The more
i read about
the brain
the less
i feel
like using it
because if
it's all been mapped
out in advance
and nailed down to
hormones
receptors
spandrels,
and the like
it seems like its
doing enough work
on its own
without my stupidity
getting in the way


-J

Please Secure Your Own Mask Before Attempting To Help Children or Others

You learn a lot about people and human nature when you work on an airplane. When you get people operating at, what is for some, an extremely high stress level, you get to see all kinds of rude, nasty, and inappropriate behavior. I personally feel most of the negative behavior that happens is rooted pretty deeply in fear (as someone who never, ever had a fear of flying, it can be hard to be sympathetic, but its my job to be just that, so I try). I've seen grown women kick each other's seat backs, pour juice on each other's seats, and do everything associated with 5-year old children short of hair pulling. Sometimes it amusing, most of the time its annoying, and in rare instances its downright flabbergasting.

Anyway, I had intended to write a post for a long time about my observations on human nature in an oxygen deprived can 30,000 feet in the air, but something occurred to me the other day doing the safety demo that struck me as probably the biggest and most concise idea about humans I've been able to observe.

You know that part in every airplane safety demo that goes "In case of sudden loss of pressure, oxygen masks will deploy from a compartment above your head. Use the elastic strap to secure the mask around your mouth and nose. Please make sure to secure your own mask before attempting to help children or others."

'Please secure your own mask before attempting to help children or others.'

Which, basically says, 'Please, get your own shit together before attempting to even go near other people.'

You're no good to anyone if you've passed out while the plane is going down. If you don't take care of yourself, you'll never be able to take care of others.

Thanks, safety demo. I always knew there was philosophy hidden deep in you somewhere.

-J

Night Windows

This song will always be for you
The one I did not write
The one I did not sing
To you
This song will always be yours

These four lonely chords
With a bass descending,
Brings me deeper, and closer
To confronting the lonely truth
This song is yours
It will always be for you

And I only listen when
I want to imagine myself, there
On a once well-loved street,
3am, and we’re laughing
Where dry leaves now crunch
And circle around me,
Dust stinging my eyes,
As if the wind is telling me
I have no business being there

I push play, and there you are
I hum along, and you’re smiling
Looking at me from a softly-lit window
On a street where you no longer live
My feet trod where you no longer will be,
And they pound, and pound, and pound
In panic at pavement, in time with the song
I did not write for you,
As if more steps will bring me closer,
As if more time will bring you back

I’m singing your song,
The one I didn’t write for you
And I’m crying a little,
Although its very uncharacteristic
And not like me at all
But you were always doing that,
Making me human
Making me sing songs I would never write

-J

Either way, it matters not

Your eyes might be beautiful,
but I wait to find
if that makes much difference

Your eyes might be beautiful,
but there are no colors that reflect
from intertwined shadows;
I don't see you in the light.
I don't see you at all.

You eyes might be beautiful
like Grecian marble
or onyx,
or any other variety of pleasing descriptors
that surely you've heard
a hundred times over.
I would say,
but I do not know.

You eyes might be beautiful
but I do not dare to take one glance,
I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea.

Your eyes might be beautiful,
the most beautiful!
Of ship-launching variety,
capable of wrecking an ancient society,
but I do not look on them
and they do not look on me.

Your eyes might be beautiful,
or empty fruits, rotting
from the inside
still maintaining a pristine
shell of skin,
tricking some poor creature
into thinking them a viable crop.

Your eyes might be beautiful,
and they might not.
And many things
may be lots of other things-
but I've never been one to place my bets
in the palm
or, should I say,
they eye
of uncertainty.

-J

FYI

Everything you think you know is wrong.

More on that later.


-J

Sometimes I am surprised by the words that come out of my own mouth

I'm fairly certain no one reads this, so I'm going to go ahead an not care that I write about every new lover I take on.


'Just don't go falling in love or anything like that. That never really works.'

Me: 'No, don't worry. I don't wanna go through that again.'

You know what? It's absolutely true too. And I'm a fool every time I think I want different. My previous posts, written in whatever afterglow haze of a new and ignorant lover, may run contrary, but the truth really comes out at those times when you can't really stop the words from vomiting out of your mouth. Much like the ones above.

And its true. I don't want to go through all that again. And again. And again. I'm an optimistic person. I'm also quite an honest person, just not so much with myself. I don't know what love is and I don't think anyone really does either. Relationships and marriage, whatever, they have some sort of linkage with the whole idea of it but they are completely different creatures from it. Love I think is, at best, a spandrel - pretty, but not necessary - between the two neurons in our brain responsible for our sex drive and speech. Between our need to bone each other and then still have to talk to each other.

People I know in successful relationships aren't necessarily crazy in love. They just work really hard to make their partnerships work. Because that's what they want, and that's something thats important to them. I hate when people act like love is this uncontrollable force that is inflicted upon them, and then woe to you if you don't return that feeling, curse be you for existing as the object of someone else's affection that you don't return. Usually these people are the same people who are obsessed with this disgusting, archaic, media propagated version of romantic love but then when its comes to the difficult shit, they can't handle the fact that life isn't all beer and skittles. Relationships are a choice, and not that they don't have anything to do with love, but not love the way most people seem to understand it. So when I say I don't want you to send me flowers, that I think Valentine's day is stupid, or that the idea of ever, EVER planning a wedding sends me into a panic attack, its not because I'm a scrooge - it's because I get what's important in life, and should I ever decide to enter into a long term partnership with anyone, I'm going to be daydreaming about the person who will be cleaning up my puke when I'm sick, who'll leave me alone when I'm being a bitch and need to be a bitch, who's day I'll be inevitably interrupting when I get a flat tire or my car breaks down, and who will still be fucking my makeup-less, crusty-eyed, morning-breathed existence. To me, these are the highs. Bringing somebody roses doesn't say fuck about loyalty.

And, until that day comes that I decide I want that, if that day ever comes - until then, I'm going to continue meeting fascinating people and having more fun than anyone probably has any right to. Until it all blows up in my face and the shit hits the proverbial fan, and I'm back here writing about that and possibly/almost certainly contradicting myself, and trying to reconcile the blatant contradictions into things we like to call "lessons." Until then, faithful blog, until then.

-J

Upon the occasion of the zodiac shifting

Because tonight is like every other night,
I will remember these stars.

each one
each solitary unit that burns longer
than I shall ever hope to live
I will remember looking at the twinkling
(of what is really the past)
that shines in my eyes,
forgetting Orion's belt, the Dipper's handle,
forgetting Aquarius
and the shooters that fall in magnificence.

No,
I will only remember these faithful ones
these dazzling ordinaries
un-shifting guides
that decorate my darkness

Because tonight is like any other night
when the hand of the designer
gathers them in her fist
and hurls them in might, those sentinels,
and scatters them,
leaving the warrior swordless,
the ladle melted,
I will remember these stars.

-J