I write, therefore I am.

There is an author I really like. And that author is ME. Yup, I said it. I like my
writing. And i like it because it is simple and never subject to criticism. Not because I'm that good at writing. Quite contrary to that actually. No, my writing is never subject to criticism because, no one reads it. So I can write whatever I want (thank you 1st ammendment) - fact, fiction , or otherwise - and I gotta
tell you, it's a pretty good feeling. It's not often that something interests me enough to want to write about it. Although as I get older I find that "things" seem to interest me less and less. I'm really unimpressed with "things" these days.
Even though I realize that I have digressed from my writing skills to my dislike of "things" without a hint of coherent transition, I'm going to keep on going. Why ? Simply put, because I can. Which coincidentally happens to be my perspective of the
United States - the reason for which anything happens in this country is simply because it can. Yes, yes, I know, my seemingly casual remarks about different
things have been, mildly-entertaining at most, so far. But it is perfectly ok to suck this bad when you are writing only for yourself. My real purpose (or at
least why I started typing) got lost somewhere in between......... aah heck ! It just got lost. Oh yeah ! I remember now (btw, frequent use of an exclamation point is
pretty good indication of sucky prose).
People have been telling me I'm weird/calling me a wierdo ever since I knew what weirdo meant. Actually it might have been the reason I looked up the meaning of the word in the first place. Hmmm...Looking up colloquial slang in a dictionary just because you are too embarrassed to ask your tormentor what it means ? Is that weird ? One sympathizes. Not to make anyone feel any less special (because there was
nothing NOT special about the beatings that were handed out with hearty helpings by the same people who called me weird), but I think we are all a little weird. And life itself is a little weird. And life without love is just life with meth, and lets face it, who wants that ? SIDE NOTE: I solemnly promise that I wasn't under the influence
of meth when i wrote this. And true love happens when you meet someone whose weirdness is compatible with your's. Then together you can join hands in front of friends, relatives, and free loaders to say "We enjoy each other's weirdness and the only chance we have of being normal is being with each other." THAT is the foundation of a long lasting marriage. Love also happens when both of you have had plenty to drink and in the words of Stephen Colbert, have engaged in ".. the sexy dance ". This
is not true love and the only thing it'll result in, is embarrasing hickeys and increased spending on concealer. How then can you be sure ? I'm glad I asked. Why ? Not just because I can, but because I've felt it. You can be sure that you've found your one true weird compatible partner if you feel like the whole world is empty without her in it. When you close your eyes, her presence surrounds you, and the smell of her hair hangs in the air like a gentle summer breeze, you can be sure. When
you jump out of your shower to pick up because you know it's her, you can be sure. If you find yourself picking your nose while thinking of her, while waiting at the bus stop, you can be sure, but only of the fact that she'll leave you. Stop it, it's not sexy. If you look at her and all you can think about is how bad you want to hug her and pick her up, you can be sure. Even though you hate singing, lyrics just pour out by themselves, when you are on the phone with her; you can be sure. You can be sure when your priorities that don't include her don't matter. You can be sure when you are ready to quote Paul Overstreet and say "...you are the calm at the center of my storm, you are , my one, my only , my everything". You can be sure, if all that matters is her smile. All through this passage I've jumped around from one topic to another, and ended up talking about the one thing that makes sense in my storm. So last but not least, I'm sure because no matter what path I take, it always leads me
back to her. My one, my only, my brown eyes.

"Very little "

The burden of the average man is that he has very little to call his
own. After his assets - that were bought on high interest loans-
are subtracted from his savings, very little is left. That very little
is called family and friends. Unfortunately, those are possessions
that have very little value in a world where individualistic
achievement and financial muscle have much more meaning. And perhaps,
calling family and friends possessions is another mistake on my part;
because the only thing that is to hold in this world and the next
is the satisfaction that while you were here people wanted you here.
But I digress. The problem however is this: when you have very little,
you tend to grip it really tight. Although I don't see this as a problem
the world we live in, sees it as being needy. Tsk..how disillusioned
is this place ?

The Night

sometimes the phone rings when you least expect it. Then again,
if it had to ring when I was sleeping, i guess it couldn't have
happened on a more opportune night. Thousands of dead end
scenarios, what ifs, and to dos kept running through my mind as I
tossed and turned in a meaningless frenzy of positions. Usually, my phone, the bedside lamp, and my computer have one thing in common before I hit the bed - they are all off. As any other creature of habit, I turned off the computer, turned off the lamp, and the phone...why didn't I turn off the phone ? It was as though the universe had aligned itself in a rear pattern of coincidences; almost too rear. The clock read 2:32 a.m. and by god it certainly felt like it. I was tired; but somehow my body could not convince my brain that putting in anymore overtime would cause a serious burnout. Thoughts run faster than the speed at which we can express them. I picked up the phone and flipped it over to check the caller id - coincidences just got sinister. It was a name that hadn't popped up under "Incoming Calls" for a long time now. Almost long enough for the wound to have healed. One last ring and it goes to voicemail; they leave a message and I become the caller. Cannot let that happen, so I picked up. I said hello and all i could hear was breathing. Maybe my eyes saw what my brain wanted to see and the caller id didn't really say what I thought it said. So I said hello again. A sigh and then her voice. Her voice after two years. Her voice that felt like a 100 lashes at the same time made all the old wounds fresh. It was as though someone had pulled the gauge out with pieces of flesh still sticking to it and the crimson red started pouring out in bouts. Her voice that had once meant everything. And now after two years, her voice that was shot through the universe of chance only to be received by me on the other end at 2:32 a.m. Sometimes you have so many things to say that it comes out as "uhhh..hi" Real smooth I thought to myself. "How have you been? ", she said ,and everything that was bothering me, everything that was bad in my life became background noise. Only the sweetness of those words
hung in the moment. "Busy ", I replied. "And you ? Where have you been? ". "Some places far, some places near, some places friendly, some places not so friendly, places where I lost myself, places where i found myself. But you know what they say - there is no place like home. And now I'm back in town for good. Although...no matter what place it was it was always missing you. And so here I am calling you at 2:33 a.m on a monday night. I know that this isn't the best of times but do you think you can meet me tomorrow ?" I had imagined this moment - hoped against hope is more like it - many times and every time it ended exactly the same. "Sure, I get off work at 6:00. Where ...", she interrupted me as I was trying to decide on a venue and said, "where else ?" Where else indeed, I thought to myself. We agreed to meet there at 6:30 and almost immidiately after hung up.

Chapter Two: That Girl

There is a point at which logic, reason, rationality , and pretty much anything that the left side of the brain has to offer, is rejected. It happens in a moment characterized by confusion, excitement, and either immense happiness or pain. Funny thing for men, the cause of this quintessential moment - whether they lose all reason because they are happy or they are angry - is often one and the same. It is what i've come to call, That Girl.
The importance of That Girl has a lot to do with her lack of availability. In other words That Girl is so important, because she is so rare. And she is rare because she got to us. One look at her, and we kept on walking into that light post - till we hit it and yet we couldn't stop looking . Such is the intensity of her enchantment. And such is her power over us. There is not one thing that we don't like about her, there is not one opportunity that we'd pass up to be with her, and there is no limit to the stupid stuff we'd do just to make her laugh. Everything that we said we wouldn't do for a girl, we do, for That Girl. Why ? (Primarily because we still haven't figured out what women want but lets not go there ) I guess its because , simply put, That Girl makes us happy. Luther met her once.
It was about three years ago and he was headed home after classes when he saw a girl kneeled over the sidewalk, trying to gather up the papers that the wind tried to steal. Luther did what any other guy would do and tried to help her. After having quickly gathered all the lose sheets back into her brown folder, both of them tried standing up simultaneously and that is when luther saw her face for the first time. The pale skin, the kind eyes, the soft brows, he felt like he was looking at an icon. She looked nothing like the girls Luther and his friends would chase after, under normal circumstances - spring break or a friday night prowl - and yet she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She was That Girl. Totally unprepared for this rendezvous, all Luther could come up with is , "Wow ! " ; to which the girl smiled and said " Thank you...." Her voice had the exact same kindness as the rest of her. She was late for class and he was at a loss of words; so the meeting was brief but not conclusive. They began running into each other quite regularly - partly because Luther went looking for her and partly because she wanted Luther to find her. They would find time to run into each other between classes, on weekends, off evenings ,and whenever one felt the need to see the other. They would meet up and talk about whatever, whenever. And the more they talked the more they wanted to talk to each other. It was beautiful - attraction without expectation, respect without boundaries, and love without lust. It was a pure fairy tale affair. But then again, if everything remained fine and dandy as in a fairy tale, then I wouldn't be using the past tense to describe their relationship, would I ?
Even though I'd like to tell you some dramatic story about how things happened that should not have happened caused a rift in their relationship which eventually lead to its demise, I can't. Truthfully, because nothing of the sort occurred. So what happened ? How did this harmony of love and understanding collapse ? It was simple; too simple and perhaps thats why it was easily condoned. In their eagerness to soak up all the interaction they could handle with each other they forgot one little detail - future. College had brought them together but the decision to stay together was one that they needed to make themselves. Mandated by their independent nature, both of them managed their career goals on a very individual and exclusive basis. In other words, they took themselves for granted. I'm here and you're here and both of us like it that way. The fact that graduation or any other event, might some day force That Girl to be away from him never occurred to Luther and vice versa.
As the last of the crowd was leaving the gym after the graduation ceremony, they ran into each other again beneath the red EXIT sign. "I thought i'd never get out of here ", said Luther as both of them shared the congratulations hug. "Me neither, but hey look ! here we are ", she exclaimed with a playful smile. And there locked in the most pleasant embrace of satisfaction and happiness was the first time they realized this was goodbye. Both of them had taken up jobs in different cities . In their quest to be autonomously complete, they underestimated the significance of their symbiotic give and take. Even after realizing this, Luther held in his tears as a guy and refused to admit his vulnerability for That Girl. And she did the same. One gesture of need from either side could've stopped this calamity. Ironically enough, the pride and self confidence that attracted them towards each other refrained them from being together. The same breeze that brought them together three years ago started flowing again and as she turned away from Luther to get into her car, he said, "You look nice today ". That girl giggled and replied, "I know".

Documenting language

Sometimes people say awesome stuff. For example,

"Thats not why i was ummm-ing "

- Melita -

Chapter One : Stage Presence

Different people want different things. Some want wealth, some want power, some want both. Some want peace, some want war, some claim you can't have one without the other. Some want love, some are done with love, and some can't make up their minds. Some want to live forever, and some think one lifetime is one too many. It is the combination of these wants that make up the story of their life. I too have a story ; but it's not my story. My story is not complicated enough to be interesting. Instead I'll tell you the story of HoHo Stevens.
Stevens was chosen. From the day he was born, everyone knew he was a special kid (not the retarded kind of special. The kind of special that makes you wish you were never born). No, he didn't have an awesome throwing arm or a hyper active pitutary gland that would give him a height advantage or off charts the IQ. He was special because....maybe this is not a good place to begin the story. Maybe the story of someone so blessed and lucky should begin with the most unlucky day in his life - well relatively speaking. Maybe the story should begin with how Howard Stevens became HoHo.
The Stevens family moved to the town of SearchLight when Howard was 3 years old. Being that the town had less than 400 people, and Stevens were the "big city folks" that had just moved in, their popularity was instantaneous. Mrs. Stevens was a good cook and Mr. Stevens was a gracious host to many a people who dropped by often. By the first snowfall, the Stevens had become so popular that little Howard earned a part in the town's annual Christmas play - Klaus and I. And it is on that stage, in front of 300 some people, that Howard became HoHo. When the curtains opened, Klaus (or Old man Islebaum as the whole town called him ) was supposed to be sitting on a rocking chair with Howard on his lap. According to script, he would then get up and walk closer to the audience with Howard in his arms for his monolouge. The curtains pulled back, and a min passed but Islebaum didn't get up, or move for that matter. Another minute passed by and the audience were totally content in seeing Howard sitting on the old guy's chest pulling at his fake white beard. What the audience or the stage crew didn't realize was that the production had changed from 'Klaus and I ' to 'The Death of a Fatman'. Old man Islebaum had died from a massive heart attack before curtains up and Howard sat there entertaining himself with his beard. Before anyone could get to him, Howard climbed down from Klaus' lap (which was now wet because cheap diapers are ... well , cheap) and proceeded to run around the stage reciting the only line he had memorized, "Ho Ho Ho ..."

Remember

How many degrees seperate right from wrong ?

My answer : 45

Does anyone know what I'm talking about ?