Superstition

Baby, if the writing's on the wall I'm going to take you apart brick by brick.

The Key Word Is "Remember".

For my writing class we've been asked to write a piece about Remembrance Day. Not having ever known anyone in any war it's difficult to get nostalgic about the subject. I don't agree with nearly every aspect of war, but unfortunately there are certain parts about it I understand. I understand it as a facet of humanity that will probably remain a perpetual reality until man ceases to exist.

For this piece I wanted to create a juxtaposition. In it we see man as a soft, terrified creature at the mercy of a beast. Platoons are turned into formless black aberrations, bombers become terrifying wraiths up above and every sound is given shape.

I am the Earth.
I am the mud and rain.
Limbs of flesh and steel, blood and grease.
Above me the sky flashes with man-made lightning
as great winged dragons spew fire and copper earthbound.
My men, the war machine that moves as one.
Thinks as one.
Survives as one.
Each day we see the sunrise is a day more than we thought we’d get.
From my foxhole I can hear the scream of bullets and men.
My gun, my heart.
Pump action.
There is no tomorrow,
there is no later.
There is now.
The carbon air suffocates the beast,
makes it gag and reel as it lumbers forth,
pressing the attack.
I am no hero.
I am not the Hollywood gunslinger.
I am 18.
I am terrified.
The space between me and my troops is 15 metres.
It is a mile.
The crack of gunfire and the hiss of grenades are the flex and pomp of this giant. Posturing and stamping the earth like a bull readying the charge.
I’d hope if it were not hopeless.
My foxhole.
A pauper’s grave.
I will not pray for there is no space for God between the tanks and trenches.
Remember me. Oh please, someone remember me.
Do not let this black-powder-conversation end with me as a footnote.
I will not be around to remind you.

In Summation.

I've done it. 100 entries. I didn't think I'd make this many, but here we are. I think it'd be important to take a look back now and reflect upon the things I've said, and the feelings I've felt.

There was originally a purpose to this blog, and that was to give myself a place to keep track of and document the ideas I had from a purely creative standpoint. As I grew more comfortable with the medium I started to branch out making social commentaries as well as comments about my personal and social life. As I read back on my posts several things are very clear to me. It's evident I'm angry. Angry at a life I don't feel entirely in control of. I know I've hidden behind sarcasm and stubbornness in order to regain control of my feelings. I thought that if I spent enough time convincing myself that there weren't things I needed in my life that I would eventually stop needing them.

First of all is a acceptance. When it comes to my physical appearance I'm intensely self-conscious. I am constantly aware of how I look even when I have good days. It changes the way I walk, move and talk. It affects me day in and day out, and I just feel so overwhelmed by it. It's affecting my romantic life. I've told myself I don't want a relationship because I know if I wanted one right now I couldn't have one. I really couldn't, and I don't think that until you've had that kind of a freedom yanked out from under you do you begin to understand how I feel. I can't love because it won't be reciprocated. It feels fairly crushing some days, and it makes me feel very alone. I feel angry and jealous when I see my friends in relationships and making plans for the rest of their lives. It makes me want to just get up and leave the conversation I'm having with them.

Part of that is also my relationship with Steph. I don't know why it affects me so much, but it still does. It's such a feeling of being used and misguided, of never being loved despite being in love. It's the part of me I haven't fully healed yet, and I don't know when I will. It's made me terrified of love and being in a relationship. Coupled with the fact that I don't feel as though I'm attractive or desirable it makes for a potent depressant. I've had to take control of these feelings and say I want to be alone, and I don't want or need anyone. All lies, but lies I comfort myself with as I go another year single. I hate her for the way I feel today and I can't see myself forgiving her or myself anytime soon. So much of what went on in that relationship is my own doing as well, so I have very few people to blame for it.

Also there's the intelligence. I'm not a dumb person, I know that. I also know that I use my intelligence to gain superiority over other people, and that can make them feel bad. I don't have much to support myself up with in social settings, so I compensate with charisma and wit. Both of which feel somehow tinged by the poison I lend them. I want to be the best person I can be, but until I agree to myself that I need to turn it down a few notches I don't think I'll be anything more than a brain. It's nice to feel smart, but it's very lonely at times.

I think about my friends, both new and old that I hang out with. I am subject to so much information and personality that I feel somehow lost amongst all of it. I am not the centre of attention, as much as I'd like to be. Other people are going through situations much more momentous than I am, and as a result my own issues seem to get lost in the mix.

I don't intend for this post to sound self-deprecating. Instead I want to illustrate to my readers (however few or many that is) that I'm still human. I still have the same feelings and flaws as anyone else. Despite my best efforts to be more than human, to be constantly funny, or constantly successful I am still intensely flawed and complex. Like all people I have things about myself that I know I need to work on, I just don't know if I have the strength of will to do so.

As I read my comments about science or history I feel like my life will never be long enough to learn and know all the things I want to know. In one of my earlier posts about the comic book I wanted to write about the man who knew everything it was made clear to me that his was truly an enviable situation. To know everything, and to be mere mortal seems like the ultimate life. I'm caught somewhere in the middle between a fear of death and a general malaise towards the subject. I don't want to die, but I do know that once I do it's really a moot point. Death is scary until you die. There's things I want to accomplish with my life before I die. I want to fall in love, earnestly and true. I want to travel, to witness as much of this world as I can; land, air and ocean. I want to create art and let my words and message carry on for all humanity. I don't know how much of this I will accomplish, and it is the prospect that I may not accomplish any of it that scares me, not death so much.

I love my friends, but I love myself more. I want to spend enough time with them so as to be part of their life, but not a key player. I'm afraid of commitment like that, of any kind for that matter. I don't want to be the focus of someone's life because that makes it so hard to slip away unnoticed when you need to. It's another reason I fear relationships.

I would love to go through this entire blog, edit it for grammar and spelling and publish it as a small book to hand to my friends. I know not everyone in my life reads this blog, and it honestly saddens me. I am baring my soul, my being onto these pages and I am giving people an extensive insight into what makes me John. I would relish the opportunity to have all my friends write blogs so that I could learn more about them. I don't want to have to pry and question the facts out of them. I'd like them offered up free of charge. The words I've written down in this blog are important to me. This blog is my canvas and each word a stroke of the brush. By not recognizing my blog you are not recognizing a piece of myself.

I wish I wasn't as angry as I am about so many things, and conversely I wish I was more proactive about things I should be energetic about. Is this the flaw of humanity, to be caught at polar opposites?

All I want is to be John French; son, brother, friend, lover and artist and to be the best I possibly can be at each of them.

The Things We (Don't) Want To Hear.

I'm an honest person, but I understand tact. I do, however have a trigger for throwing tact out the window and it is as follows, "Tell me what you really think." If someone says that to me then they had better be prepared for me to tell them what I think. It isn't always pretty.

Oh who am I kidding it's never pretty. People only want to hear the honest truth about things they don't want to hear the truth about. It's the masochistic nature of humans to get hurt in this regard so they can develop negative opinions about the "truth speaker". I've seen it happen a lot, and I've done it to. The kicker is when the person tells you that you're wrong. I'm not sure how I can be wrong in an opinion. I can be uneducated or perhaps misguided, but my opinion remains just that, my opinion. It is the yardstick I use to measure the world. It tells me what things are good and bad and what people are worth talking to and who isn't. It's a slippery slope, perhaps, but I can't be faulted for being dishonest.

Women have a tendency to be more demanding in this request. They will ask for a man's "honest opinion", but they want that honest opinion to match what they're already thinking. Sure sometimes the two line up, but more often than not they won't. Men don't think the same way. As a fairly intelligent guy I can assure you I don't think the same way about certain matters as other people I've dealt with in life. When they ask me for my honest opinion it's going to be a well thought out critique.

I was presented this situation earlier tonight when a colleague from work asked me what I meant by a statement. I clarified saying it was a miscue and that my comment wasn't worth pursuing. When she pushed further I explained what it was that I was thinking and I'm fairly certain I insulted her. I'm not too concerned about any fallout from this, but I do find it frustrating when people bite my head off over matters they wanted to know.

It serves to have a bit of emotional detachment at these times. Often people don't like hearing the truth and aren't getting mad because they think you're a liar. Instead they get upset because you've hit a nerve. This may be conscious or unconscious, but I think this is more often the case. I'm a perceptive guy, and I can read someone fairly quickly. I'm not always right, but I do get the general picture pretty clearly.

All I'm saying is don't ask me for the truth if you can't handle the most cutting things I have to say. I keep my tongue sheathed most of the times because I am well too aware of the wounds I can open with it.

For That Which I Will Not Sacrifice.

So there I am, watching House when an interesting - albeit obvious - line was uttered.

"For relationships to work you have to make sacrifices."

It's something I've heard for years, and TV does a good job of regurgitating this idea. An idea, I must confess that is full of crap. And no, I don't mean to say that relationships requiring sacrifice is crap I just think that making sacrifices to be with anyone is crap. Call me proud, but I don't feel like there's anything I'd be willing to give up (time, money, position of power) in order to be with someone. It may sound selfish and perhaps even chauvinistic, but if I'm going to be in a relationship I won't be the one giving anything up. I've already had to give up so much in order to get to where I am. Of the things I've had taken from me the one irreparable gap is that of time. I don't get my two years back. I'd be more than happy to be in some manner of relationship, but honestly I'd want it to work around me more than anything.

Ultimately that idea is flawed, and I recognize this. It's why I won't be in a relationship in the near future. I don't want to, nor do I feel like I should sacrifice anything. There are a lot of women out there who are perhaps worth giving up certain freedoms, but I'm not in a position where I feel like that's enough. College has presented me with an entire campus of women and while I may find some of them interesting, it's a tainted interested. Tainted by a resentment I feel towards having to make collective decisions, having to be half of the whole. I want to be whole and complete with or without someone in my life. I'd want them to be complete without me as well. If I happened to meet someone I'd rather we were close friends, but individuals all the same. Relationships demand that your decisions must be run through an intermediary before they become final. While this can vary in its extremes, there's always going to be those questions you have to ask your partner if you want the relationship to work.

I don't know if that's a maturity thing, or what. I just don't feel it. There's women I've met since starting school who I think are legitimately interesting people, but there's this giant brick wall in my mind that I cannot (and choose not) to overcome. On this brick wall in large yellow letters are the words, "You are all you'll ever need." I can't argue with such a bold statement, especially one painted on stone and mortar.

That's really all I had to say tonight, and perhaps one day I will look back on this post in utter disbelief that I was once so pessimistic.

Royale With Cheese.

While sitting in the car this afternoon listening to the radio, I decided to embark upon an exercise in writing. The task was to make a cheeseburger sound sexy.

With the slightest provocation she is coaxed from her paper-thin dressing. Warm to the touch she invites me closer with an intoxicating aroma. She is done up to the nines; colorful, fresh and bejeweled in green and red. As I wrap my hands around her body I feel her squirm and shift. A part of her is trying to escape my clutches. Bringing her closer to my lips I can already taste her salty kiss. Pressing her against my open mouth she kisses me on each cheek affectionately, playfully. Putting her back down after our first embrace I am saddened to learn she has come undone in my rough hands. She is no longer whole, missing a piece of herself stolen by my brutish nature. I sigh sadly knowing that too soon will our liaison come to an end. Not wanting to draw out the inevitable any further I dive in and ravage her voraciously. Amidst the slops and slaps you can make out the slight ruffling of the now filthy wrapping she came to me in. Sitting back in contentment I revel in my carnivorous ways.

And there you go.

To Cheapen One's Experiences.

A friend of mine from college was recently delivered some bad news. On Friday her husband was riding his bicycle and was hit by a car. He broke his leg below the knee and took a good knock to the head and shoulder.

I couldn't help but be reminded of my own experience in this field and given the timing - his occurring just before Thanksgiving and mine occurring just after - it did serve to strengthen that reminder. What I found peculiar though was this. He ended up in the same hospital, but was released the next day after they got him into surgery and fixed his leg. By comparison I was in the hospital for nearly a week. This caused me to question the severity of my own experience. Never having been in a car accident before or knowing anyone directly who had, I had no reference point for what was considered "severe". Sure, people can tell you, "you were in a severe accident", but without a frame of reference those are just words. It's not until you encounter someone who was hit by a car while riding on a two wheeled vehicle that you can begin to fill in the blanks. I'm realizing my accident was fairly severe and that things could have very, very easily gone south fast.

I don't think I mention my accident in social settings too much, but I feel like sometimes people have heard about it enough and really don't want to anymore. I can understand that feeling. It seems like I'm fishing for pity and perhaps in some regard I am. What I feel like I'm doing though is trying to illustrate to people how eventful this was for me. A lot of people who survive accidents will say things like, "I saw God" or "life is so much more beautiful now". That never really happened for me. The air was not sweeter, colours were not brighter. Things just "were", and that's all there was to it. I think in more recent months as I've come to learn the lasting effects having your leg shattered leave you with it's dawned upon me that I'm built of pretty solid stuff. Not physically, but emotionally. My leg hurts to varying degrees on a daily basis. Sometimes it's no more than a dull ache, but can ramp up to a full blown limp given the weather. If I live to be 80, that means for the next 56 years my leg will progressively get worse as I age. It's a life I didn't have before me until the accident. Do I want pity? No, but recognition would be appreciated.

When I was younger I used to think to myself, "How would I handle tragedy? Would I rise to the occasion like a Hollywood action hero, or be consumed by it." I honestly thought these things, and when life handed me not one but two tragedies in a row how did I respond? Initially I was defeated by them, utterly crushed by an auto immune disorder that I thought would govern the rest of my life. As I found coping mechanisms and strength (denial?) I tried to move on with my life. Not a month and a half into my new apartment I was confronted with another tragedy. How did I fare? Again, I was thrown to the ground by a set of circumstances that made me feel as though life and the Universe were out to get me. For months I withdrew from the world and I was filled with so much anger and sadness. I was forced to grow up rapidly or be consumed by my grief. As my body was aged by illness and incident my heart and mind became weathered as well. I joke with Dan, a friend from school that while I may be twenty four I feel as though I'm forty some days.

So does making reference to these events in my life while they are still fresh in my mind, and evident on my body, cheapen them? Have I become "that person" who I've repeatedly commented I never wish to be? The toxic friend, the one wallowing in self pity? I hope not, and I'd hope my friends would be forward enough to let me know if I'm drifting out to sea in a boat composed of my own misery. I try to stay positive, and for the most part I can. It's easier these days with the distraction of work and school, that's for sure. I just hope that when my PRP disappears and I find myself willing and able to re-enter the dating scene I won't chase away prospective partners by depressing them with my tales.

I wrote a short piece the other day that really sums up the past few years.

When you get hurt
and
you will get hurt
whether it's against the car bumper
or
at the end of a lovers sentence,
you lose a piece of your immortality.
That immortality we forge in our youth
and temper in our teen years.
Bruise by bruise we become
worn
flawed
mortal.

Again With The Dreams.

I've written a lot about dreams lately, but that's only because I'm in a stage of high dream production, and I feel it's interesting to write them down for later review.

I often dream when I take naps in the middle of the day. I'm capable of slipping into REM sleep fairly quickly, and even within a 15 minute nap I can experience an entire dream narrative. Well, at least I think I do. With the way my brain works I'm sure I experience a portion of my dream while asleep and in the milliseconds from when I officially wake up to the moment I open my eyes I have a feeling my brain adds context and meaning to what I just experienced. As a result the bulk of my dreams are created the second I wake up. Not unlike being handed a box of puzzle pieces, unconnected and random. Even if there's a few pieces missing I can put the picture together in my head instantly.

The latest dream I had actually occurred this afternoon. I was taking a nap after school. The dream started off in a city I've dreamed of before. It's an amalgamated image of any metropolis, and specific to no one in particular. I'm on a double date and I'm walking across a parking lot with my date. It's dark and only the occasional lighting from parking lot lamps light the way. We're heading over towards a large warehouse building. There's a patch of lawn in front of us, and a long stretch of road heading back behind the building. The road has a boulevard with trees and lamps taking turns dotting the strip of land.

While walking with my date with the other two behind us my date grows amorous and we call back to the other two saying we'll meet them at the restaurant. In an effort to keep this PG we'll just leave it at that for the moment. Afterwards we head towards the restaurant which consists of a large building that looks like a series of houses stacked and jammed into one another. Imagine a stack of Jenga blocks, about 6 high with some of them sticking out at different lengths. The restaurant houses several different restaurants ranging from a downstairs tavern all the way to a ballroom-centered restaurant at the top. The building is blue and made of wood and brick and looks somehow ancient. There are ramps and staircases all over the building, leading to the different establishments. We meet up with the other couple who are waiting in line at one of the entrances. At this point I wake up.

What was really interesting is I knew the girl I was on the date with, but I don't know who she is. She was a chimera of several of the women in my life right now. Women who I find to be stimulating if not romantically inclined. I don't know what that says about my state as it is right now. I'm trying to stay focused on school, and I know I don't have the resources at my disposal right now to even allow myself to be interested in a woman. I'm okay with the fact that I don't look 100% these days. Maybe 85%, and that's much higher than I could say a few months ago. Regardless I don't really consist of "dating material".

It's somewhat uncomfortable to be confronted with these dreams because they seek to rebel against my station in life. I've often joked with myself that I'd be very successful at a vow of celibacy.

I'm off to bed, and hopefully whatever dreams I compose will remain vague and uneventful. I'd even settle for a nightmare just to mix things up a bit. I can handle horror, it's love that freaks me out.