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I have found a name for my pain and it is job hunting. I've have learned that in all the years I've spent working I still haven't gained enough experience...fuck it. Tonight I work a show at the Beat Kitchen and it's a good one. Dead Science, Home Recording Project, and Shoemaker Levy. I plan on grabbing a bite to eat their before work and trying my hardest to refrain from summoning any distilled spirits.

On Halloween I turn 27, that's right, I'll be 27. My age is a question I have often avoided from people I don't know well...not sure why exactly...but I did and I'll do it again. Thoughts of sitting on the beach in Florida over 11 years ago after Kurt Cobain killed himself come to mind and I remember thinking that I'll never live past 27. I was 15 naive and selfish. Not a lot has changed but I am changing...it's a process. So maybe it will be the last year of my life expectancy after all but not all deaths are physical and not all of them are bad. I've had growing up to do but it's scary because I'm so much older. At least I have Halloween and friends to share it with...and Jason will be right there with me...the good twin.

6 years ago when I turned 21...Jason, my brother, and I all went to see Thrill Kill Kult at the Metro to celebrate our new found adult hood. Nothing like a night of Satan and dancing girls in tight spandex to make you feel all grown up.

Anyway I won't go all into it yet since I still have over a week to go...but I can't help but feel happy this year. For the first time in a while I'm looking forward to being another year older. Just wish the Lombards were coming down to help celebrate.

Its the same its the same in the whole wide world.

I'm awake, flood.

I’m awake while you wipe the blood away
Not entirely sure where I am
Sleep has never been my friend
Always threatening to take me away

She sets off small suicide bombers in my head
My kisses bruise her heart
Licking her wounds
I want to heal
Her sighs

Reflection cries in the background
Its not the last time I hurt you
So forget what I said
I don’t know what I’m saying

While I speak to her in tongues
She understands perfectly
How much I need
To hear
And she says, “yes.”

You’re not an ordinary face
So what else can I do?
But let you slip by
A time or two

I breathe deeply
She takes me in
And life is made clear
When lost in her
Flood

I applaud your mistake
In forgetting who I am
And we all find ourselves
Lonely in the end

If you find the door locked do you learn to hate all doors

Cue REM, I will try not to breathe. Everyone Breathes right? I forget to sometimes and my body in response pulls in a lung full of air and it comes out as a sigh. The volume of the sigh is so loud that it peaks and distorts my train of thought. It's not my train of thought I was waiting on though, it was the Red Line to the Blue Line to the place where I keep my stuff. It's not a home because I don't feel comfortable there. It's just a point on the map that when in need I have a place where I can shut a door and be alone. And that is important at times. I no longer repeat the mantra of "wink wink nudge nudge," but I instead wish everyone happiness and safety as I drift off with legs crossed to find a center somewhere...a place where I don't forget the keys. As I repeat the mantra my body tingles as if in confirmation that I have had a genuine feeling. I still haven't learned though and I leave myself wide open most of the time. I do have some things that are mine and mine alone and as I float through thought I see that I'm on another couch.

:excerpt from a bit of writing I did at 2am this morning:

My bladder is constantly full and I fear for the safety of my erections. I’m not sure why my mind works in the way that it does but I feel confident that it is a reaction exclusive to me and that most people do not experience life in quite the same way that I do. In fact I’m sure the average person doesn’t even look in the mirror the same way I do. My mind plays tricks and it affects me over and over with the same people or places that my mind originally fucked me up with. I can handle it after a time but still my lack of self-control or ability to handle the most mundane of highs in this location is startling and dumbfounding. I’ve stared at a little fake dog named Mr. Coolie and felt an unusual longing to be a father. I left thinking for sure that I just unlocked the door but instead I find it locked on my return. Not so sure why I took all my stuff with me. I guess that would have been convenient. I needed a drink and a cool Gatorade was the ticket. I lay back on a strange bed in the cover of darkness and sleep pretends to not exist. As if it wasn’t something that I was required to do only a suggested daily supplement. As I lay in the darkness I think about my life and little flashes come and go of memory. Playing war on the school ground. My big orange cat Tom who was just that. I’ve lost my train of thought on this one I think I can let it go now. . I think I have forgotten how to communicate verbally. In the darkness there is always light reflecting off something but I’m not always sure of where it’s coming from. The VCR blinks the time signature while the DVD illuminates its own face. I can see another Mac sleeping in the darkness.

:end:

I'm making schemes and chasing new dreams and I only hope that I can focus long enough to make it a reality. It's a goal though and it's a good change. Not just the goal but my train of thought. And the song has changed and it's playing over the speakers in this little cafe where no one speaks my language, Cue U2, With or Without You.

So it goes

You were framed in a picture perfect sidewalk landscape
Riding an invisible horse
The train cuts across the sky, faces pressed against the glass
See you hobbling in a cowboy hat
I pass you by on turbines of youth
You never notice the picture I steal of your silhouette
To store in vast catalogs of memory
Where I can change and rearrange the moment
To fit any story

And so on

Last night was the end of the Bottom Lounge. It was stinky and dirty but I loved it. I keep remembering fragments of things that happened last night like John benetti standing in the doorway around 2am with nothing but his boxers on and his nutsack hanging out holding the posters he made to sell for the last night. Seeing the saddest sound guy upstairs alone sitting in the dark smoking a cigarette. Bill the security guy changing costumes frequently. Minnie Lance Vance doing More Human than Human with Rory Lake. Me drunkenly taking money while my boss asks me how it feels to be the only sober one there. Luke and I getting our picture taken for the chicago tribune while we sang motown classics together in perfect harmony. I'm sure more will come back to me later...and it's scary thinking of all the pics that were taken...the shame. Oh yeah...another great moment...John Benetti excitedly showing me the picture he just took of the methadones and the bomb guitarist Pete taking a shit...fun stuff.

Looking forward to seeing everyone again in Feb. but I'll still be working the shows but it won't be quite the same as the Bottom Lounge.

Oh yeah...Frank the sound guy played the Final Countdown all night long when the bands were done playing. It was so fitting it hurt.

so it goes...