and thus it began, his birthday, pondering and pondering... no music, no doors, just roll the tape and let me rant. is it all just a dream? is that what we say about things we want to forget? isn't it how we describe things so good we never want to forget? take me by the hand and make me understand.

No eternal reward will forgive us now
For wasting the dawn.

I've written so much about taking advantage of the time we have. The fleeting time we have. now my birthday has arrived yet again. i've arrived to my birthday once again, hat in hand, taken by the hand, trying to understand. searching for perspective. times are overwhelming. i feel myself becoming a different person. but who? him? you? the asshole? the pretentious snob? the workaholic? hopeless romantic? never. close your eyes.

she dances in a ring of fire
and throws off the challenge with a shrug

i am in a sensuous panic, wondering if i'll ever touch her thighs again. But that's too passive. isn't more in my control? can't i do what i want? shouldn't i? i'm most alive when i see truth. maybe that's why I'm bored so often. people are too simple. be a little tough, aloof, throw in some humor, show something impressive and then leave. too easy. boring. boring. boring. but not my love. lets make the myths. fuck or fight. just don't sleep. don't think. cleanse the doors of perception. infinity. worst case scenario - our love becomes a funeral pyre.

Even the band must face the music. I think a lot about Anne, my friend who passed away without my knowing... until it was too late. Of my entire adult life that day remains the day I cried the most. It is almost exactly one year since that day. I lie when I say I'm not afraid. i'm afraid and i'm smashed.

embracing the will to be weird. no joke is good unless its taken beyond the limits. commitment to the joke, to the point, to the lasting impression, to the other side. why am I so entranced by insane girls? why am I only attracted to vampires? they're the only people i can make the myths with. don't leave. not tonight. we don't know what will happen. nothingness. simplicity. do a show with just bare walls. don't fear the emptiness we all have inside. don't cover it up. don't bury it and don't fill it with pretense. its ok that you don't know what to say to god. none of us do. he's probably stuck in traffic anyway.

and that's why, at midnight, my birthday, the perfect thing happened. i had a half-hour conversation with a complete stranger on the other side of the world. how is it that she knew me better than anyone else? how is it that after that talk I felt my birthday would be ok, I'll be ok, it'll be an ok year. she was in bed with back problems, I was splayed out on my couch with whiskey seeping out of my pours. and we connected. that's all i need. she was my conduit to god and i'll never even meet her.

believe in excess. attain the unknown. our only friend.