(Blog) Necessary Natural Deficits and Renewed Personality Defects

Show a part of your nature that you feel you've lost. Can you get it back? Would it be worth it? 


A part of my nature that I've lost is my morose, depressed, dare I say gothic, side to my personality. I think it's a good thing to have lost that. Maybe I haven't totally lost it, because my poetry can be a little angst-ridden still. I tend to write about things that upset me at one time, or I write for therapy maybe. It's in writing that I've lost the sense that everything is so life changing.

To be honest, I am probably much more cynical than I try to portray myself as being. I like to be a positive person, or maybe appear as a positive person? I don't know if that's deceptive, but maybe I feel that if I fake it long enough I will be like that. I'm not trying to say that I don't see the best in things, because I think I tend towards that. I'm just saying that sometimes, I feel like complaining more than I do. It's exhausting being positive sometimes, and there are days I just want to admit that life sucks, 'cause it can sometimes.

I'm certainly lucky to have lead a charmed life, but there are days when I just want to move to Mars (or another side of the planet at least). I want to say goodbye to everyone I know, sell everything I own, and start a new life free from the encumbrances of material and emotional baggage that I've created in a lifetime of accumulating. I want to stop collecting and polishing my possessions; I want to not do my homework; I want to slack off a little, disconnect, unplug; eliminate distractions; burn bridges; cut ties; basically, I want to start over.

Sometimes I feel like that anyway. What if I'm doing it wrong? I certainly haven't been doing it all right. There are things I get right, but I can't say that I haven't been on the mark a bit. I've been on the mark some. I like being happy, though; it works for me. It looks good on me, dare I say. So really, at the end of the day, that's what I want: to be happy. There is still a small part of me that likes to just stew in the emotion of melancholy. It feels comfortable. But in another larger sense, that's not me anymore. It's a skin I slip into, but not one that I wear all the time. It's worth it for art's sake, but as far as life goes, I'd rather be blissfully peaceful.

This post is part of The Scintilla Project.

Out of Room (Blog)

Talk about your childhood bedroom.  
My childhood bedroom was a place where I went to be alone. I had friends, but as a young child, I remember preferring to be alone, or at least that's what I told myself. I can remember a lot of time, whole summers in fact, of being depressed and just spending time in my room. When I write about my childhood, I sometimes give the idea that is was a miserable one, and in a way it was. I had all of the modern conveniences, though, and my parents were relatively good parents, even great parents. I don't mean to say the were bad in any way; I just think that maybe they were not ready.

My room was a place that I could be me. It was a place I could sing and dance and read, and no one would judge me. I eventually realized that these things could be true outside of my room, too, but for a long time, my only true friends that I opened up to, for real, were my journals, poems, and books.

I remember meeting one young lady who called me out on my reclusive tendencies. She asked me why I was at home on a Friday night and not out doing something. I know someone had probably said this to me before, but I remember this time specifically, because I can remember defending my position. "But I like being by myself. I like reading and organizing my comic book collection." This is definitely one of those "if I could go back in time and knock myself upside the head I would" moments . "If a girl wants to hang out with you, young Jeremy, drop the comic book and go out."

I've gone through times in my life that I wanted to drop everything nerdy about me and start over, because I regretted how much of my life I had wasted on it. In a way, my life started late, and it wasn't until someone pointed it out to me like she did that I realized I wasn't really living. I'm not saying that nerdy stuff doesn't have its place, and I've embraced that side of me, but I have realized that these things shouldn't consume your life.

There is a psychological process that "late bloomers" go through, and it definitely happened to me. I knew I had to move forward, but I was resentful that I had wasted so much time. Life is a continual process and I still have things I'm working on to this day. But I did get out, I did start talking to people, I did start making friends, and I did make things better. There are still times when I feel like the most socially awkward person in the entire universe. But I realize now that it's okay to feel awkward as long as I'm trying.

The end of the story with the girl is that I did hang out with her a little bit. It wasn't easy for me, though, and I resisted the process still tooth and claw. I felt so safe being the way I was that I didn't want to let it go. Even though I had my moments with her (I kissed a girl and I definitely liked it), it also definitely did not work out. But it was the start of being a real person for me, a social person, and not someone who just spent his entire life alone in a room.

This post is part of The Scintilla Project.

Lyrical Triggers (Blog)

Talk about a memory triggered by a particular song. 


I have too many of these to list it feels like. Alicia Keys "No One" comes to mind. I remember hearing that song when I was going through a hard time with a woman I liked several years back. I had done something really stupid that I've written poetry about because it affected me. I was just really stupid. I had been sad about it, but there wasn't much more I could do. Around this time, I was at work and that song comes on and I started to get sad. Like really sad. But then I started talking to myself and I said there wasn't anything else I could do. There wasn't much more to say or much more to do. I made a deal with myself that I would be completely sad as long as the song was on and then I would move on. I would feel being sad as long as the length of the song. And I was sad. And then I stopped when it was over.

I'm not sure it worked, but that was the start of feeling better. It still took me a long time to feel good again, like as happy as I had been before. In some ways, I am just now getting happy again, and that feels stupid, but it's true. I just messed up really bad and it hurt.

I should also mention my friend Terri for this. She is a very dear friend of mine and I've seen her life go through a lot of changes and she is happily married with a kid now. There are many songs I think of her when I hear them, but I will pick Jordan Sparks "Battlefield." I'm not sure why this song resonated with us (besides the fact that it's just a good song), but I remember discovering that we both liked it. Now every time I hear it I think of her. She lives in another state now, but every time I hear this song, I feel like I saw five minutes ago.

I've listened to these songs as I am writing this, and now I'm crying a little bit, for different reasons for each song. Actually, I didn't start crying for Alicia Keys, but "Battlefield" got me. I think that no matter how stupid you are or how much you feel alone in the world, you can always go back to the fact that you have good friends. Friends for me are my living proof. I don't mind saying that I'm a good friend and I think that will be my eternal legacy. I can't say I always am, but I always try to be and I think I succeed more often than I don't.  

A small list of songs that trigger memories for me:
"Bohemia Rhapsody" by Queen; my mom
"Little Sister" by Elvis; karaoke friends and my dad
"She Talks to Angels" Black Crowes; junior high
"You Give Love A Bad Name" Bon Jovi; karaoke and junior high again
"My Prerogative" Bobby Brown; karaoke and junior high also
"Jeremy" Pearl Jam; karaoke and high school
"If You Wanna Be My Lover" Spice Girls; an ex
"Oh, Sherrie" Steve Perry; one of the few guys friends I've had for a while haha
"More: Remix" Usher; a lifetime love of NBA basketball
"Sweet Transvestite" Rocky Horror Picture Show; nearly all of the above
"Sweet Caroline" Neil Diamond; Terri again and too many friends to name
A few more:
"Hot in Herre" Nelly
"Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd
"Stronger" Kayne West
"Poker Face" Lady Gaga
"L.O.V.E." Ashlee Simpson
Did I say small list? I digress.

This post is for The Scintilla Project.

(Fiction) The Third Planet of the Gothic Constellation of Thanatos Part 3

This is part 3 of some fiction I'm writing. I had a title, but I'm not sure I want to use it anymore. This story is formatted a little differently since I've copied it from my word processor and not typed it in directly.

I look around for knobs or levers to start the shower, but the only handle I see is the door handle. I turn it to close the door and hear a click. Water and soap suddenly spray me from above and below; the soap is washed off almost as quickly as it’s sprayed on. After this quick process, the water and soap stops and I’m about to get out and look for a towel when I hear a snapping sound like a puff of smoke. I can’t see for the powder, but once it settles, I’m almost completely dry.

I go to get my robe back, but it’s not there. I look outside and there are some clothes laid out for me, including a dress with long sleeves. I look around to make sure the room is empty and get dressed quickly. As I sit down at the table again, I see a book open. I’m looking through it, when the old man comes in again. I like to read, but I can barely concentrate with all the stress I’m going through at the moment, so I look up from the book.

“That is one of your favorite books, if you remember.” He’s trying to hide his disappointment, but I can tell he’s sad that it looks like I barely recognize the book. “I think if you spend some time at it, you will find that you will enjoy the adventures of that particular heroine.” I look through the book again and notice some illustrations. In one of the drawings, an athletic woman with a toned body is holding off a monster of some sort with a blade of steel. “Her name is Vanessa. . . just like yours.” I’m so tired and confused that I accept this information as trivial.

“Okay,” I mutter.

“Hah ha! She speaks!” He still seems afraid, if slightly relieved. I am afraid now too when I hear my own voice. The voice is a soft whisper of a girl’s voice, a young woman’s voice, a young woman barely past puberty. I look at the book again, but I can still barely concentrate. I close it almost angrily, because I don’t know how to handle all of these developments.

My father notices my demeanor. “There will be time enough to catch up on the adventures of Miss Vanessa when you have recovered more.” He looks like he’s concentrating for a second, and then he puts his hand on his chin and frowns. “Well, let’s retreat to our modest exam room, such as it is, and recheck some of your vitals once more. I don’t want to overexert your fist day back.”

We go back to the room I woke up in, and he checks my temperature with a thermometer and takes my pulse. “You seem to be recovering very well, dear. How do you feel?”

“I’m fine,” I manage to say. “A little disoriented maybe,” I admit. My new voice would take some getting used to.

“Yes, well that is another reason I brought you back here. He walks over to a cabinet by the bed and pulls a switch. The cabinet flips over and a small desk and monitor appear. “I know your memory is somewhat jumbled at this point, so I thought a few lesson might ease you back into the scheme of things.” He opens a compartment above the desk and takes out a helmet with goggles on it. “You can go slowly at first until you start remembering things. You can return to earlier lessons if you feel a lesson is too advanced for you. Or if you feel a lesson is something you have mastered already, you can skip it.” I couldn’t see myself skipping too many lessons.

“Don’t be afraid,” he tells me. “It’s really very user friendly. A girl as sharp as you will recover in no time.” He pulls up a chair and then helps me put on the helmet and goggles. When the goggles are on, I see a screen of information. As I move my eyes, the screen scrolls and I can focus on a piece of data to see it closer or to get more details. It’s just a computer without a mouse, really.

The lesson it starts with is a little odd. The questions are strange to me and I have no idea how to answer them. I don’t remember any of the history lessons, and the astrology seems foreign to me. The only thing I can make any sense of is the math. I start going back to earlier lessons, but it takes me a while to make any sense of anything. At least I’m feeling a little better about reading. I’m reading what seems like a children’s story about a little boy and his lost dog, when the screen goes blank.

“Well, it looks like you’re moving along quite nicely. Yes, I’m quite satisfied by your progress.” I can tell he’s lying. I know he’s disappointed, but there’s no point in trying to move faster than I can through the lessons. I was still learning how to use the machine, really. “Well, it’s time for bed now. Let me show you to your room.”

The room is down a hallway from the kitchen. I barely have time to notice anything about the room because I’m so tired. I fall asleep as soon as I lie down on the bed.

Growing into Mellowness (blog)

When did you realize you were a grown up?


I think I realized this when I lived on my own for the first time. I joke with my father about this, but I remember running out of shampoo, as an example, and realizing that I would be the one to go buy it. This seems like a small thing, but taking care of myself made me realize that I was grown up now.


Also, I would say learning to mellow out about things in general was something I needed to do to grow up. Sometimes, I will lapse back to this, but I used to take things so seriously and everything seemed like it was the end of the world. I'm not saying I don't get upset now, but it's much easier to recover from crises now. It's just not worth it to get too worked up over things.


This may seem slightly off topic, but I'll mention it, because it has some relevance. I have read the first Twilight book (stay with me), and something about it bothered me, specifically the character of Bella. She didn't have the strength of character that I liked in my fictional heroes. The book was enjoyable enough, but I was still bothered by it. She lost all sense of herself and drifted through life after Edward left her and it bothered me. Recently it struck me why that was: she reminded me of myself at that age.


It's not my intention to write a defense of Twilight, but this was a little bit of an eye opener for me to realize that something in it resonated for me. I had times when I felt so depressed that I was suicidal. I was the teenager that thought my world was crashing down. Clearly, things would never get better. Looking back now, of course it doesn't seem that serious of a problem, but at the time it was. My feelings were for a variety of reasons, but a girl that I liked was involved. I still think that maybe it's not a good idea for teens to read about a couple who pledge to kill themselves if the other dies, but maybe I was being hard on young Bella. Maybe, just maybe, Bella's experience has verisimilitude because of its resemblance to the experience of a real teenager, specifically my own.

My life did get better, of course, and I've had such great experiences since then. If I had followed through on my thoughts, I would never have met all the wonderful people I have or had all of the experiences I've had. Maybe growing up means managing your problems, but that process is in continual refinement, so maybe we are continually growing up.

This post is part of The Scintilla Project.

Scintillating beginning (blog)

Who are you?
This is not an easy question for me to answer. I'm a student right now, and that role makes more sense to me than anything else ever has in my life. I like to think I'm intelligent, but honestly school is one of the few things I've ever managed to figure out. The rest of my life could stand to be improved.

I am usually a very kind person, oftentimes to my own detriment. I'm not saying it's bad to be nice, but in romantic situations I usually fall deep into that category of the nice guy that you want to tell everything to but not actually ever date. Maybe I'm being hard on myself, but it seems like I'm always someone's second choice or just their friend.

Don't get me wrong, I like having friends. I would just like to have someone who at least thinks I'm pretty cool in a "hey you're hot" way again. It's happened before, and I know that I'm not like this bad-looking guy that I used to think I was (though I still have moments of doubt), but sometimes I get tired of seeing everyone else in these happy relationships.

This is starting to sound like I'm not happy, and I don't want to give that impression. I am happy, I just want a little more out of my life. I don't actively seek out romance usually, but I do meet women that I'm interested in. Also, I feel like I probably have these ridiculously high standards which I should mention maybe.

I've joked about my high standards before, saying "I want someone gorgeous, kind, brilliant, and a little bit crazy." I am not a Yankee, a Laker, a millionaire, Hollywood actor, or someone else who can pick and choose who they want to date, but I do have standards. It's not exactly the way I joke about, though; it's more like I am particular about who I get serious about, if that makes any sense. I never wanted to get married just because I was lonely, though I am sometimes. I felt like I had to figure me out before I could get serious with someone. I would prefer someone who reads books, laughs easily, laughs at my jokes, challenges my mind, and thinks I am a little cooler than I think I am. (Now this is a personal ad.)

If it's not obvious from this post already, I adore women. I learned from my mother that women can be very special people. I talked earlier about having friends, and I much prefer having women as friends to men. I'm not saying I can't be friends with men, but women are so much easier to talk to about life in general than men for me. I love having women as friends, so maybe I tend to jump there quickly before I consider them as something more than a friend.

That's another thing I want to address before I close. I don't like the phrase just friends. Obviously, sometimes that does mean "I don't like you like that." For me, though, if you are my friend, truly my friend, there is something about you that I like, or even love. I've been writing about not finding romance, but maybe my romances are my friends. I take something from every friend I've ever had, whether it's a phrase, a joke, a style, a story you told me, a book you recommended, a movie we saw together, that trip we went on, or a new way of seeing the world that I was too stupid to see. (That's another thing I like about women: they're really good at letting you know how stupid you are.)

This post is part of The Scintilla Project.

Platonic Valentine (poem)

A lot of things went right with you

The things that didn't were all me.

That's what I want to tell you

That it's all me. It's not your fault.

You were so kind to me

When you could have laughed

You listened to me, even when I didn't make sense.

You listened to me after, when it wasn't you and me.

I didn't realize how good a person you were, until it wasn't you and me.

I may think I'm smart, but you knew how smart I wasn't.

At least in the ways that you were;

Your world view and acceptance of the complex problem that is me never ceased to amaze me.

I saw you get hurt after me, but I knew I had never hurt you like that and that I never could.

I thought I was so smart and that I could explain everything to you;

I thought the world was full of logical problems that could be solved.

How little I knew and how much I've learned.

I still see things you would have liked and almost buy them for you,

but then remember we're not together anymore.

Make no mistake, I do not pine for you

I know it worked out for the better, the best even

I know you are happy and this makes me so too

The incredible occurrence of meeting you was not the innocent coincidence it seemed at first.

This is my platonic valentine to the miracle of your friendship and a heartfelt dedication to your kindness.