You and Me and a Man with a Gun

Last night I talked to an old friend from high school and found out a kid I've known since I was five shot himself last week*. I am struck by suicide; how stark it is. In this strange land of maybes it is, at the very least, a definitive yes or no. I cannot discern between what I feel and what is real. Real is real regardless of the whims and limits of my feeling. I feel hollow, but what of actuality? Is it a product of my place in life as an awkward 20-something, or is it indicative of something far more sinister?

A friend asked me which comes first, the hollow feeling or the self-obsession that spawns from it, like the more empty one feels the more time they spend staring at the space, wondering how it got there and how it grows. I get why people go over the edge--if only just to feel something. And it's not self-obsession about what we can do--what we might accomplish or achieve--it's a strange narcissim that says we should focus on us because we exist. Like that is enough. Has over stimulation caused us to be dead to it all? Has the science and rules of 'life' cause the very idea of intimacy and concrete relationships to be fearing and foreign? The MTV/Nintendo generation has grown up--an army of retailers and the retailed, the over-marketed, over-stimulated and underwhelmed, blankly staring and feeling nothing. Is that all we are? Do we have any hope, any ideas of the future or is that hollow as well? This hollow body syndrome truncates the outside--people, environments, causes, emotions, anything--it becomes an organism that is fixed on instincts and thinks not, unless it is of itself.
Like an ameoba and certain types of coral.
That is truth, that is sad.
It's beyond sad, it's devastating.
Are we the hollow generation, programmed to touch and buy and sell and kill without expression, zeal or dismay? What is our hope (and if you comment on this and say it is Jesus, I will hit you. I am beyond the canned answers now)?
Or to sum it up nicely: WTF, mate?
* After I published this post I found out there is some dispute whether his death was intentional or accidental. I pray it was accidental and my heart goes out to his family.

Land of Maybe

With a lethal combination of technology and thin skin, we've become cursed with maybe. Why is it so damn difficult to plan things? "Well I might come" or "Maybe I'd do that" like we are retarded to the idea of committing to the future in any regard. I realized how stricken I am with this syndrome last year while making plans with Jen Cash, possibly the last person in the lower 48 without a cell phone. It was strangely a relief to have such viscous plans. I wouldn't be so vociferous about it if it weren't so rampant today. Its like we have to poll public opinion before we make a move toward anything. So much so that it is almost refreshing when one acts spontaneously out of desire frustration or both and actually says or does something. My favorite kissed story is an example. I was working at Adventure Links and, when one lives in a tent village, one gets very close to ones neighbors and coworkers. I had a feeling Mario liked me, but little had been said and even less had actually been done. One night I was sitting on the floor of my platform tent, playing solitaire by lantern light (it's a tent village--there's not a lot of night life. don't judge me). Mario came in and sat in the chair in the corner like he always did and we chatted for a bit then he bid me good night, got up and walked out. Not two minutes later he came back in and squatted beside me. He looked me in the eye and said, "I've wanted to do this for a long time," and just kissed me. Needless to say, I was floored. Then he said, "Thank you. Goodnight," got up and walked out. WHOA! SPEECHLESS! It took another two minutes before my breathing was restored.
The man has got guts. I didn't want to date him but after that I'd totally consider it. To this day, mad props are given to Mario.
Thing is, there is something insatiably desirable about definitive action.
We live in a world where indecision and inaction are becoming norm.
I'd like to stop having to check with everyone before I commit, and I'd like to commit w/o fear that as soon as I do, something "better might come along" whatever the hell that means.

Grown Up

Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight? -E.St.V.M

Smug Little Blessed

I thought I was going to write about nuclear power plants, spent fuel rods, the pitchblende mining lobby, national security and Yucca Mountain but alas something else took my thoughts. Don't act so relieved.
On my way to work this morning I passed a tractor-trailer cab that said, "I'm Blessed!" in large block letters across its back. I was struck with how ostentatious he was with it, how joyous it sounded on the tongue.
I never say I'm blessed.
I am a born-again pessimist so I don't normally think that way, but I was convicted by this trucker's blatant statement. Thus the thoughts began as I sped between the rumble strips of I-90. Of course what cd should I be listening to but "I'm blessed as the poor/still I judge success by how I'm dressing..." I hate it when everything seems to fall together like that. Weird. I sat there in my 2001 Subaru, driving on cruise control with the stereo blasting, in my Gap jacket and J.Crew shoes--me the materialistic whore I've become. Damn comfort. I'm moving back into my tent and showering once a week. Life was more simple and I was happier.
But I am blessed.
I stress about money, and jobs, and futures, but I am blessed. I am secure. I have way more than the basics. I have food. I am going places (someday). I have a family that loves me in their own, dysfunctional way and friends in all four corners who are mysterious and fun and wise and intelligent and hilarious and learned and beautiful and loyal and kind. No one is trying to kill me. I am a smug little blessed American.
I need to say that more. "I am blessed."
But what part do limits play in the world of the blessed? Just because we have, is it our duty to use?
A G.K. Chesterton quote to sum it all up neatly in some skewed way:

"I felt it in my bones, first that this world does not explain itself...Second, I came to feel as if magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have some one to mean it. There was something personal in the world, as in a work of art...Third, I thought this purpose beautiful in its old design, in spite of its defects, such as dragons. Fourth, that the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them...And last, and strangest, there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin. Man had saved his good as Crusoe saved his goods: he had saved them from a wreck."

Put it on my TAB

The night before Easter and it's time for TAB pong (yes TAB, that disgusting diet cola circa 1984. And Fresca. Seriously). Here are Liz, Carey & I with "Short" Paul. He hates it when we all get together, b/c he's scared.... Check out Carey's "DO NOT ENTER" chastity belt.