The Last Night

Hi.

This is a love-letter to a staircase.

I think the word "ache" is entirely insufficient to describe just how sore my body is at the moment. It is 4:40 AM, and I'm lying on Scott's couch in my apartment, my eyes surveying a living room that, just 12 hours before, was filled to the brim with boxes, lamps, and bags. My stuff. All of it. I spent two days packing it all up, prancing around (yes, I prance - deal with it) with my Swiffer duster singing a song to myself:

Throw it away, Martin,
Throw it away.
Throw it away, Martin,
Don't you let it stay!
We don't need it,
Must concede it,
throw it away, Martin,
throw it away.

Goddamn Mary Poppins was right.

The best part about these past two days was finding that, A) There exists enough cardboard in the world to contain all of my stuff and, B)I don't need half of the stuff I own. I realized that the vast majority of my things could spontaneously combust and, while I would be disappointed, I wouldn't shatter. I wouldn't crumble. Looking at my piles of boxes, my computers, my bed, I realized that the things I value are flesh and blood, people and their transient creations- thoughts, feelings, dreams. That is what is precious. Irreplaceable. Unique. I know how much we loved the Hoenig green apple plates, but Honey, it was time.

So, apparently this couch has quite a history. It was in Mark and Scott's apartment long before it journeyed up the steps to 5725. Legend tells of all the dirty sex that has been had upon it: men with men, women with women, men with men with women. I think this apartment is the last ceiling this old couch is going to have over it. I don't think there's enough Febreeze in the world to defunkify this couch and its sagging face. I've never slept on it, myself. That pleasure was reserved for guests, at which point I had the good sense to lay down sheets and pillows. Six-sense told me that direct contact with these cushions could lead to something sinister.

This is my last night at 5725 Phillips. Well, last night as a tenant anyways. I leave for Texas on Friday afternoon, and I've got all of Thursday to clean up, put away the fest remaining things, say my goodbye to my front steps.

To say that this year was anything less than revelatory would be to short-change it. I can say without reservation that this was the best year of my life. The reasons are multitudinous. I know. I know. Just enjoy the word. But in all those syllables are a thousand good conversations with Mat, a thousand surprises from Jess, a thousand laughs with Scott and Bryan and Dave and Nate. Porous as I remain, I have never felt so thoroughly congealed. There is solid footing here. I can feel it under my toes, like summer grass, and I like it. I like it a lot.

I would be lying if I said that any part of me is anxious to leave. The opposite is true. Well, okay, I do not love my bathroom or kitchen. They are sort of gross. But, people-wise, it is out of love and loyalty only that I leave right when things are getting interesting. Luke wandered in tonight and, seeing the apartment in its current state, said, "Seems like you were just getting settled in." And I was. By God, I was getting settled in. I was getting comfortable. And now, as I sit on this stained and defiled sofa, I feel like I've just watched a fantastic trailer for a movie that I'll never get to see. It is very easy to write sad words about leaving this place. There is a lot to leave.

And yet, a new, fantastic adventure awaits just around the corner. Jess and I are looking to move to Washington, D.C., at the end of August. Together. As in, sharing the same space in the same state for more than seven days. About this I am very excited. We've been together 6 years. I feel like we've earned the right to buy a couch together, make our own dirty, dirty history upon it, you know? Doesn't seem right to be sad when I have so many nice people around.

So, I've decided that instead of being sad, I am going to work hard at keeping what was built here strong and beautiful. And I will come back to climb the steps, no doubt. I will sit upon them and watch the tomatoes grow, the cats wander, the cars park. And part of me will always be at home here, happily young.

yours,
Martin

Things I'm Excited About

1. Piano lesson with Brian Holland
2. Seeing Emily and Jeffrey
3. Going tubing
4. Not having to say goodbye to Jessie ever again
5. The new laptop
6. The new Spitzfire.com
7. Golf
8. Mark coming home
9. Massive party at the end of the summer
10. Unstoppable Dodgeball season
11. Vegetable garden outside my apt.
12. Making the ragtime CD with Bryan Wright
13. Invading YouTube

Mwahahahaha....

Dammit

Why can't things ever just be, you know, good?

In my more patient moments, I understand that the dichotomy of the universe extends to all things, and that lightness and darkness constitute two sides of the same mortal coin.

In this particular moment, however, I am just annoyed.

Now, my life is not as bad as some. My friend Bill comes to mind, who listed off about three or four mega-depressing things that hit him in the span of a couple days: a memory slip at a big audition in front of his old piano teacher, marital crap, a $165 parking ticket, rejection, plague, pestilence, etc... But when bad things happen to you, you being you and only capable of being you, measure those bad things against the other things you experience, so regardless of how many bad things you've been through you're only ever really relating them to the good things that are going on in your life.

I've begun to question my competence as a relationship partner. Jessie and I seem to be on two different levels of existence, both saying the same things but the wet goo that is air and distance and time garbles the words so we end up shouting just to get a message across. It's like trying to talk underwater sometimes, and its only when we can put our arms around one another that we get any real sense of connection, can feel the real and palpable love that is between us.

This polio project, which is exciting and challenging and time-consuming, presents a difficult question. My job now is to assemble a trailer that will knock the socks off of potential donors and champions. If we get funding (six figures worth), then not only does my compensation go up significantly but I'm a shoe-in for staying on the project until its completion. That would also mean, however, that I would have a strong tie to Pittsburgh for another year, and so it would be difficult to make the move that Jessie and I are planning to Chicago or Washington, D.C.

Why not stay in Pittsburgh, you ask? Lemmetellyahsomething.

I love Pittsburgh. It is a great city. The best thing about the polio story is that it showcases my awesome city. I love its rivers. I love its skyline. I love its people and its roadways. I love its story and its problems. I love my steps outside my apartment. I especially love my friends, dodgeball, my family. But, that's the problem with Pittsburgh. When you're born here, they implant little teeny tiny tractor beams that keep you connected to this place no matter where you go. It's like the Shire and its little rivers. And if you don't leave, if you never leave, then you will NEVER leave. You might as well start that family, add that new garage door, and pick your plot, 'cause you is gonna die here.

Now. That is not bad. This is a great place to live. Seriously great. Lot of character. Way too many stories that need to be told and not enough people to tell them.

But Jessie and I have only ever really lived here, and if we stay, we're under the influence of her parents, of my parents, of our friends and our old habits. What we've never really had, not in six years, was a chance to share a space, share the sunrise and sunset, share the mundane things like dishes or laundry or shopping for towels. And even when we did live in the same place, Jess lived at her parents and I lived at my mom's. It wasn't exactly a verdant paradise of relationship bliss, let me tell you, especially when you're trying to not get arrested for making out in the back of a car.

So now I'm presented with this very interesting set of waves that my little Life's boat has to navigate. Somehow I have to make all these oblong puzzle pieces which are dearer to me than anything fit together. They don't have to make a pretty picture, they just have to hold together if the cat walks on the puzzle. It's asking a lot, but everything depends on my being able to do it.

You see, once you get to know me (and you do quite a bit, if you read this thing), you realize that my laissez-faire approach to things is actually a calculated, deliberate defense mechanism against the very stress I'm feeling right now. I can't make everybody happy all the time, but at the end of my life I have to answer to two people, one of whom is incorporeal and the other one is God.

I don't want to look back and go, "If only..."

m

...On The Wall

Damn it has gotten cold at night in Pittsburgh. I'm buried under my comforter (well, okay, a comforter that is itself buried inside a very manly (very) denim duvet (pronounced "doo-vay" and not "dove-it"), trying to stay warm. We've closed all the windows, turned off all the faucets, fired up the potbelly. They say the toes are the first to go.

Anyways. Where was I.

Ah! First, let me point out that this is the only time in CB's history that I've ever actually provided a continuation of a previous post in which I promised a continuation. Every time the words "Part I" appeared, thou knewest that thee would never see Parteth II... eth. But now, that's all about to change.

Get ready for...

PART II

Actually, in re-reading my last post, there isn't much to continue on about. I'm spending the majority of the next two weeks working on the second draft of the trailer, stopping only briefly over the weekend for a trip to Rochester to visit my mentor and friend, Tony Caramia. Most everything I am as a pianist I owe to him - there are pre-Tony recordings and post-Tony recordings, and it's *amazing* how much better the latter are - and his recordings of Billy Mayerl, whom I love, have shaped my soundscape for nearly 10 years. Do your ears a favor and listen to his recording of "Get Happy" on his Eastman page. You will not regret it. The highest compliment someone ever paid me was that my playing sounded like his, and I would have written it off except it was his wife that said it! Haha. They are great friends, and they love me and my parents. I think they're as excited to see my mom as they are me, which is frankly how it should be. I hope I have enough music prepared.

Actually, this month is CRAZY when it comes to ragtime. The next three weekends are chock-full of ragtime goodness. Memorial Day weekend I'm competing with some friends in the World Old Time Piano Playing Championship at the Hotel Pere-Marquette in Peoria, Illinois, and then I'm off to the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, MO. I got the hugest buzz the other day when I checked the Joplin Festival site and saw my name and picture in the list of featured performers. I consider it a real honor to be featured amongst the other people there - these people are HUGELY talented and I rock out to their CDs all the time. Check it out here (scroll down to Spitznagel to see me!).

I admit I'm actually really nervous for all these gigs. I set the bar pretty high for myself this year, and I'm working hard to try and learn new material for this year's festival. I've got another Billy Mayerl or two, a Latin piece by Hal Isbitz, and I'm trying to get "Space Shuffle" in shape in time, a ridiculously hard piece that is amazing.

So, that's going to be fun. Jessie has offered to lend me her laptop so I can keep track of, you know, the world when I'm traveling all over creation. I'm going to take my camera and my camcorder - maybe I can do a Captain's (travel)Log(ue).

Gots to get up early. Take care.

m

Mirror Mirror

Damn it has gotten warm at night in Pittsburgh. I just lie sprawled out, no heavy comforter keeping away the cold, no chill air to cool the blood. Now it's just balls-out allergies and heat, wipe the snot somewhere, take a Benadryl, and sweat. Well okay, maybe not all at one time, but there are moments, damn you. Moments.

Aside from the transforming world, I am doing the best I've been doing since I started doing anything at all.

I am now officially a professional Avid editor. The polio movie brought me onto the project, and my task for the next three weeks is to deliver a trailer so sparkling that no one with change in their pocket will be able to watch it and not throw money at us. Aside from the creative challenge, the miracle is that I'm getting paid, generously so, which is unbelievably satisfying because I earned this opportunity. I worked my tail off in class, and I delivered on my promise of a development trailer.

A little backstory to make the mountain peak seem higher:

When I was a freshman at Pitt back in, lord help us, 2003, I took a screenwriting class. It was a graduate-level course, and looking back now, and on how poorly I did, I understand just how out of my league I actually was. That said, I found the class amazing. My professor, Carl Kurlander, seemed like some kind of demi-god, having come from the land of Hollywood and with real credits under his belt. He dissected stories and pitches for stories like a chef flays carrots, and he had people in tears, myself included, in the war of ideas that was the class.

He encouraged us above all to tell personal stories. I remember proposing a biography of Scott Joplin. Surely, I thought, Joplin's life would make for good drama: chance encounters, lost loves, tortured genius. Carl obliterated the idea, saying it was much too difficult for a first screenplay and that I needed to find a more personal angle. I agonized over what to do - then, as now, I had a lot of trouble with conflict, with raising the stakes. I am, by nature, a peacemaker, and in writing I find myself in the uncomfortable position of having to do bad things to good characters. A lot of my stories, without outside expectations, would be like oil paintings, detailing out all the colors and shapes of a singular moment, unconcerned with the stirring clouds to the east. As a person I avoid conflict, and as a writer I do, too. That's why, when I went to shit a couple months ago, I was actually delighted to have so much conflict to write about (and, frankly, the blog has been missing some antagonism, don't you think?). It made for much better, easier writing. The conflict drew out and supported the language.

After agonizing over it for some time, I developed an idea about a young boy who, estranged from his divorced parents and picked on at school, finds a haven in his love of Scott Joplin's music. It was called "Solace," named after one of Joplin's best pieces, and I wrote the first ten pages of it for Carl. He told me it had real promise - that if I didn't write it, he would, and he'd make a lot of money.

I realized, though, that I couldn't write it; that it was actually my story, and I wasn't mature enough to talk about that yet. It's impossible to write fiction when you haven't figured out the truth yet, if that makes any sense. Until you know what something is in your own heart, it's hard, if not impossible, to take it to the page. Fiction requires distance and detachment just as much as it requires connection, and I wasn't mature enough to do it.

So, instead of turning in 30 pages of "Solace" and getting an 'A,' I turned in the first script for "Hunt for the Holocron."

I got a C-minus.

Fascinated, I signed up for another class with Carl. Here was someone who didn't like my writing, who didn't like me or the things that I created, and it was precisely because of this that I felt compelled to be around him, compelled to subject more and more of my creative self to him. The second class I took was introductory Fiction writing. I finally wrote something there that had real, genuine pathos, the only problem being that the conflict, at the end, was haphazard, even kind of disturbing and out-of-place. I did a little better in the class.

B-minus.

So imagine Carl's surprise, as we sat in the offices of WQED the other day, to be offering me, Martin, a job working on an important documentary. It was the greatest comeback in life's history as far as I'm concerned, and it only happened because I made a promise and kept it. I worked my tail off for free to show Carl that I was serious, that I was competent, that I was dedicated. It's one of those things for which you'd find a cliche like "If I had a nickel for every time..." or the like, you would use it here.

(to be continued...)

Little Rivers

Hi.

Not much to say tonight. I'm sitting in the dark, listening to the night sounds outside my bedroom window. Cricket. Cricket. Freight train. Cricket. Scott is chatting with his girl in the next room. I can't make out any of the words through the wall - you know the "Sims" game and how they speak in like a weird, muffled, syllabic language? Sorta sounds like that, interspersed with laughter. I can tell her laugh is from New York. He seems happy.

I've only got another three months here. I can't believe nine months has gone by so fast. For awhile I was letting myself get overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the changes, sinking rather than swimming. I think I just wanted to know where the bottom of the pool was, you know? Now I'm floating, if not swimming, though it seems like those pesky personal projects keep after you until you resolve them. I know I've got a couple loose ends still. I've been sick for nearly three weeks, coughing and the like. I haven't quite gotten up the will to go to the doctor (always an expensive, annoying proposition) but if it keeps up I will have to. At the very least its been a great excuse not to smoke. My pack of Marlboro sits half-smoked on my piano, and has been that way for six weeks. I was amazed that after only two weeks of doing it, I would find myself thinking about smoking, wishing I had one in my mouth. Two weeks. Imagine the people who keep it up.

Things have been good. I am at WQED nearly every day now, working on something or another. Soon I will get paid for the work (or will have to stop doing it). Right now its gratis as I ingratiate myself with the people there. I got this amazing tour today of an Avid Unity system, and it was rather mind-blowing - 16 500GB hard drives networked over fiber-optic cables, delivering 1080i HD to the Avid system. It was beautiful. And surprisingly comprehensible, I might add. I knew what everything was, even the fancy stuff, and I could look at the timeline and know what was going on. I even picked up a couple tricks which I can't wait to try out on my own. HFTH can only benefit from the experience.

I'm working at Apple from 1-7 tomorrow. In the morning Mat and I are working with our dodgeball teammate Julie on planting a garden on Mt. Washington. I don't really do volunteer work like, well, ever, and now I'm plotting to wake up in 5.5 hours to plant flowers to which I am allergic instead of the sweet, tender embrace of sleep which I yearn for like the gods seek virgins. Not that I'm bitter or anything! What can I say, I am selfish about my sleep. I'm sure it'll go great. It will be good to have my hands in the earth.

Does my life sound incredibly boring? I can't decide whether it's at its most exciting or whether it is the caboose on someone else's streamliner. But the things I have, I enjoy - the people I have, I enjoy more. I'm glad it works out like that. I look around at all my stuff (of which I have a LOT) and go, Wow, this is no way cheers me up when I'm bummed out. I've even avoided buying much stuff at the Apple Store, which is hard because man those iPods are slick and I could always use another computer... Money is tight, and after a bit of a panic the other week, I leveled out and got serious about finding work. Not that I'm exactly ready to cut out my soul and leave it on the doorstep of some corporation, nor will I ever be, but I definitely feel motivated to find another job that's going to add some money!

A big shout out to the Doubleshot peeps, who compete for honor and eternal glory in San Francisco!!

Take care. Tend to your little rivers.

Martin

Walking in Circles

Holy God I've graduated from the University of Pittsburgh.

What are you standing there for? Jesus, get me a drink or something!

Wrote my last paper ever tonight. I would offer you choice phrases from it but that would be ridiculous. Suffice it to say the topic was post-modernism, and if that isn't enough to turn you off from wanting to read it you should go into academia where self-negating theoretical approaches to things are bandied about like acorns amongst drunken squirrels.

That said, I think I had some pretty brilliant things to say, but that comes as no surprise to you, dear Reader, does it?

Ahh. I've been so motivated to write on the blog recently. It's certainly not because I've had more time to write. I find that the more time I have to do things, the fewer things get done. My productivity is inversely proportional to the amount of time I have to be productive. Mum says that the things we do expand to the time allotted them, and so if you're doing nothing, well, nothing is all that you'll do all the time. I should make a list of wise things people tell me. It would be long and worthy, and worth rereading.

So does quoting my mom change your perception of me? Does calling her "mum" instead of "Mom" make any difference? I bet you it did. I bet you you just read that and said, "Why is he quoting his mom? He must live at home and play with himself all the time."

How have you been? I heard about the thing. I'm sorry, I... I didn't know. They'll be able to sew it back on. I'm sure of it. You did the right thing.

So in addition to walking around in circles, wondering where the heck I am supposed to go next, I've been working on a couple of projects. I've got a couple of really neat things in the works (I know, I know, "checks in the mail," but things are actually happening). I'm the lead editor on "The Pittsburgh Polio Story," currently working on the development trailer. My dear friend Dr. Sheahan out at Mother of Sorrows School has me doing something akin to a development trailer for her school, and that will air on local cable here in June. It'll be the first project that I'll have shot, edited, and scored myself. I'm proud of how it's turning out so far. The polio thing should be done within the year, and we're hoping for national distribution. At the very least it'll air on WQED here in Pittsburgh, though I think the story is worthy of everyone.

Still working at Apple. I would write more about it but, um, they fire you if you talk about your job, especially on the internet. Actually I might get fired just for telling you they fire people.

And of course, work continues on HFTH. Mark is coming home in a few weeks and we're gonna bust out some more ADR. It's time consuming but awesome, and he's great at it. Just need to finish out Dan and Jenn and we're good to go on that front. I'm slowly getting a second-wind here, about to besiege the internet with requests for effects help.

I don't feel very pithy tonight. I know how you like it pithy. Like I said, I'm walking around in circles. I picked a bad time to quit sniffing glue. Mm... sweet glue clarity.


Martin

Buying the War

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491

Just watched Bill Moyers' latest, which you can watch by clicking here. It's a great watch, well-made, and it's got me really thinking about just how fragile our nation is.

The video examines how the Washington press-corps, in the lead-up to the Iraq war, failed in their most important responsibility: finding, and communicating, the truth. It wasn't clear to me just how absolutely critical the press is in maintaining our freedom, in enabling us to make informed decisions. Imagine if it were like China or Russia or another one of these fucked up places, and all our news was state-run. How could you ever make an informed decision? You only have the word of these people to go on. If they fail, democracy fails.

It seems almost quaint now to hear Bush and his people make the case for the war, almost embarrassing to see how they made constant connections to 9/11. It's like making a video of yourself at age 16 in which you declare all the things you take as absolutes about life and love and then watching it twenty years later, realizing the stunning amount of ignorance in which you lived. It would be comical if people weren't still dying for it, weren't still giving their lives towards the effort.

I remember once, in the lead-up to the war, I posted something on a forum in defense of Michael Moore. Moore had just delivered his "fictitious war" speech at the Oscars, something for which history will remember him, in my opinion, as a minor hero of free-speech, and within minutes someone posted about how I was a "typical liberal" who would rather have Saddam Hussein in power and how much I hated America. It's funny, I still kinda get pissed just thinking about it, and I think it is because, even then, I knew I was being policed, being branded a minor-traitor just because I called people on their blatant character-assassination. It scared me how powerful this person's vitriol was, how palpable his anger was, and it's little comfort knowing just how wrong he was, just how embarrassed I would be if I were him, to have put my heart into some knowledge only to be shown repeatedly by the last four years just how wrong I was, and how tragic my certainty had proven.

Now, am I sad that Hussein is out of power? Nope. Dude was a douchebag, a whorehound of Hell, and he deserved a dog's death. He deserved death long before we gave it to him.

But we were lied to. I was lied to. My mom was lied to. I know some of you might still have some faith left in Bush, even some faith in this war, and I guess it's hard for me to communicate how much I wanted to like Bush, how much I wanted to believe that it was a righteous war. Is it bad to confess how exciting it was to see the green footage of Baghdad in those early days, the way our bombs lit up the night sky, to feel the might of America throb and pulse and pound, a beating heart spilling blood and destruction in the name of justice?

But you were lied to. The fear that we all had after 9/11, the righteous anger, the trembling fury that shook in our fists as we saw the buildings collapse, all of that was taken, twisted, manipulated and deformed into a misguided fervor. Like an abused child, we all thought we were doing the right thing, that what we were doing wasn't hurting anyone, and now I just feel dirty. Tainted. I'm mad that my generation inherits a world that went from "Tout les Americains" to "Freedom Fries" in the span of a year. I'm mad that our credibility in the world is shot. (I'm also mad at people like Richard Gere, who astound me by being horrible, horrible ambassadors... I mean really, Dick, what the fuck. This kind of thing would make us uncomfortable in America, let alone freaking India).

Anyways. I haven't gotten political on this blog for one reason only, and that is that politics divide people. My whole point here is to connect, to brighten your day, to share my stories in the hope that you find the strength to share your own. I am just so sad about this whole Iraq situation. I don't know how long it will take to undo the damage done. I remember reading once in an editorial that perhaps the only way to win in Iraq was to lose (or feign-death, for the WoW peeps who read this). You know, take a fall and let the little guy feel like he's won. America leaving could be great motivation for Iraqis to feel good about themselves.

Anti-American? Nope. I want to win, goddammit, and if winning the freedom of these frigging people halfway across the globe means sucking up some of our pride, consolidating our armies, refortifying, and strengthening up for the next battle, then so be it (how awesome is Risk? seriously, people, sometimes you have to let the Middle East go in order to pwn Africa).

I hope you're well. Watch the Moyers thing. Some guy on YouTube called him an "aging Marxist," and I've found that the people who get labeled are usually the ones with something interesting to say. Also, the internet makes me fear for the future of humanity, YouTube comments in particular. Sheesh.

always,
m

Whatever You Are Doing

Stop.

Look at this.



I have been staring at this image for 10 minutes, and now I know why. It looks like a woman. No, I am not crazy, look at the pale pinks, the vibrant reds, the bluish veins. Look at that little swirl to the left. It's a woman. This could just as easily be a well-lit close-up of you. Millions of light years away, an image 50 light years across, just one tiny corner of one tiny corner, is a womb as pink and perfect, giving birth to new stars brighter than our own Sun.

It's from Hubble. The Carina nebula. Meant to celebrate the telescope's 17th year.

Does anyone else take incredible comfort in the fact that we are made of star stuff? Looking at this picture it makes perfect sense to me why women are soft, supple, swirling. The picture is pretty, sure, but it is depicting horrific violence, an incredible maelstrom of creation and destruction, bits and pieces of existence hurling into one another, creating new starlight. Birth isn't painful or chaotic as a punishment. It's just what creation is, two faces of the creative force, light and dark each perfectly balanced. Stars grow, live, nova, die, implode unto dust, and out of that dust swirls new stars. Mix some of that same dust together, add a little water, and you get a new you. Is it possible to look at this picture and not be overtaken by your inner philosopher? Can a human being look at this and not see himself in the collisions, not see his woman in the pink and blue tendrils?

Okay the answer is probably yes, so resist the urge to be a smart ass and comment as such. I'm just saying. Stop and look. You are not puny in comparison to this image. You are enormous. You are as big as the sky.


-m

Sex, Drugs, and Ragtime

Omg this is the sexiest blog title I've had in months.

Hi! It's been awhile. I can honestly say I've been busy, putting on a ragtime concert with Bryan, working on the polio documentary, finishing up school forever and ever amen, working for Apple... I've been off Paxil for well over a month, having quit cold-turkey after realizing that crap was one of the reasons I was smoking and drinking like a fiend, and so now the only drugs I'm on are for a nasty cold that I caught. I am definitely a medicine-head at the moment, however, so if my prose seems kind of flighty you'll know why.

How have you been? God, we never get to talk anymore. I always feel like there's more to say than I've said. Where to begin.

Sex

Yes, sex. It's been good. I have a great sex life and I'm delighted by it.

Drugs

Already covered. Off of them. I think I smoked half a cigarette three weeks ago and was horribly disappointed with how gross it was.

Ragtime

Ah-HA! Yes! My ragtime life has sprung awake with the lilies. On April 13, Bryan and I put on a ragtime concert at the First Unitarian Church. I wish I had some of the footage to show you - I think I'm going to YouTube some of it, but suffice it to say that we got not one but TWO standing ovations, and it was a delightful return to performing for me. I was so nervous to start out that I completely forgot the first notes of Joplin's "Elite Syncopations" - I had spent the whole day nervous about that evening, and I think screwing up, and surviving, was the best thing I could have done for my confidence. Because after that, I mean, what can happen? You've already screwed up. Worst fear realized, and the audience is still sitting there. Time to move on.

So, I've been good. Playing a lot of piano, working a lot in Avid. My inner life has been interesting recently. As I wander deeper into myself, I'm constantly surprised by the variety of things in my inner-forest: twisted vines, great scars covered by flowers in bloom, strip mines with baby grass peeking through pebbles, streams, smooth stones, lilacs. Jessie's grandfather gave me a beautiful analogy once. He is 90, and so most of his friends have passed on, and he was describing the sadness of it as though they were "great trees who had grown skyward and then suddenly collapsed." I've been thinking a lot about death recently, especially considering the events at Virginia Tech (more on that in a minute), and I'm reminded of when I was in Houston and Emily read my palm. She ran her finger along my life line and said, "Well, mine is longer than yours. Yours is pretty short, actually." And I've wondered, not idly, if she's right, if my life is indeed going to be short. I don't know. I look at the faces of the slain VA Tech students and they look a lot like my classmates, a lot like me. I bet they had the same question when they looked at their palms, wondering how long their life was going to be, what dreams were yet to come. Are the lives of others on our palms as well?

Regarding the Virginia Tech thing, I just don't know what to do with it. I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose your child like that, at that point in life, when you're just getting to enjoy them as a person, a real person. That's how my mom talks about my Uncle Mark, who was killed in a car crash 30 years ago at the age of 21. The sadness was that he was just becoming interesting, you know? Just finding his own two feet. And I don't know if it's tasteless or not, but I think of Lord of the Rings every time I hear of seemingly random violence, think of Theoden donning his mantle of war and all the while wondering, "What can men do against such reckless hate?" The question rings out in my head, wholly unsatisfied with Aragorn's answer, and I feel like it is the question for our times how we as good people respond to those who perform vicious, evil acts.

My first question after I heard the news was, "Where is your God?" The second question was, "How is it right for one person to have the capability of ending thirty lives?" And then I realized that the two questions were connected, both dealing with responsibility, with cause, with reason, and I knew in that instant what I know about my own darkness, and that is it comes from a place beyond reason, beyond motive and purpose and cause. Every person has a well inside of them, a well that, at its bottom, is sludgy and dank, and if its dug too deep or there's not enough water, evil, dangerous things can seep through and bubble upwards.

Friends are the water. Love is the water. And if you aren't filled up, then you can draw some crazy things from the bottom of yourself.

Anyways, I'm waxing. But it does have me thinking about life and about death, about what I'm leaving to the world and whether I'm in danger of dying with my music still inside me. I wish I could spend less time being afraid of not accomplishing enough and more time actually accomplishing, but that seems a silly wish seeing as I'm the only one who can grant it (Disney moment!).

Alright, I'm heading to bed. So little to say, so much time. Wait. Scratch that. Reverse it.

yours
Martin

Serve You Glory On A Silver Platter

I am nervous about tomorrow.

Well, technically, I am nervous about today. I'm waking up in a paltry four hours, donning a very convincing tablecloth, and portraying Dregr Jarrat again for the first time in two years.

I wish it was the performance alone that I worried about. But it's really the incredible time-crunch we're under to finish what we began, where we began it.

Three-and-a-half years ago, at the soundstage at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, we filmed the Dregr scenes for "Star Wars: Hunt for the Holocron." It was our first shoot. We we so excited we did 12 takes of the first shot, a medium-shot that started with me in the background, walking to the foreground, and cutting Luke into two pieces with my lightsaber. Tomorrow, as we build the set and rehearse the lines, we are preparing to film completely new Dregr scenes to replaces those old ones, new scenes written with all the knowledge about the movie and myself gathered since. And even still, they pose an incredible challenge. They are nexus points, exposition scenes with ties to all the other characters, and as such are very delicate. Add to that the fact that we have only 6 hours with the actress playing opposite of me, and you have a very intense, high-stakes situation.

Jeffrey is here, and I am delighted. He flew up from Houston after work, and he flies back early in the evening on Sunday. We watched the rough-cut, the rough assembly of scenes from the movie, and it was an amazingly revealing experience. I learned a couple of things. They may seem simple, or obvious, but they are genuine surprises to me:

1) The movie will mostly make sense. Nothing insanely random happens.
2) The movie is much, much smaller than I thought it was. It really is just the story of a couple of characters and what happens to them over the course of two days.
3) We actually do need to hear, from Dregr, why he wants the holocron, and why E'Din fights him for it.
4) Despite a couple rough patches, including but not limited to pacing and writing, there are some genuinely exciting moments that feel like Star Wars.

After watching the rough-cut I turned to Jeffrey and asked, "Is it worth finishing?"

He looked at me for a moment and then, choosing his words carefully, said, "Yes. Absolutely. That's not the question at all."

And I felt a little better. He had never watched the whole thing end-to-end, and for him, it was a sign of hope, a sign that maybe there was a movie at the end of all this, a movie worth making and worth watching. It seems a little silly to me now, all this hullabaloo over a little Star Wars tale, like I've picked up a painting I did as a child and traced its lines with my fingers, remembering old strokes and the earnestness with which I made them. Sure, the movie won't be perfect. It might not even be good. But it will be complete, and I will have steered it through, and people will enjoy watching it.

If I can do that, make one person's life better for an hour, then I will have accomplished something truly Good.

Here's hoping.

M

Erect in Defiance of God's Will

Current time: 3:17 AM. Estimated time until iRooster crows: 5 hours, 43 minutes. Wake-up Track for iRooster: Theme from "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan." Number of hours scheduled for work tomorrow: 5.

Planning to party all night with friends getting while getting crunked off your ass?

Priceless.

/cliche

How've you been? Good, good. How's that thing that you were stressing over? See, I told you it would all work out.

Life is bigger than a lot of this little crap we get stuck in. I know that. In my mind I know that. I know it like I know an equation, like I know a date. I don't, however, know it like I know a piano. Like I know an image. I can talk about it but I can't feel it, explain it but can't explore it. The phrase "forest for the trees" is so beautiful and I wish I had made it up because I would use it all the time. It's as though, because we only have eyes on one side of our head, we are both spiritually and biologically incapable of seeing all sides of reality, all sides of a situation.

How is it that in the span of five minutes you can go from exalted to excrement? I seriously have been all over the place the past, well, okay fine the past two months but I'm mostly thinking about the past two weeks. On the one hand I haven't felt this creatively virile since 2003. On the other hand I feel like an absolute shmuck who can't even wake up early enough to shave his face before work. Both are true, and yet they seem contradictory. How can you be productive at some things and a total lame-o (wow I wish I had a thesaurus) at other things? "Sure I'll write that beautiful independent short film about two 20-somethings at a crossroads in their relationship, storyboard it and shoot it in black and white and submit it to a film festival," versus, "Jesus, fuck, what time is it ohgodi'mlateagain." It is like some neurotic Odd Couple occupies the same studio apartment that is my brain and fight over the toilet seat being left up. Sure they love each other, but you can't possibly sustain such anarchy, such utter dichotomy in one individual.

I've been thinking a lot about this idea of a non-dual transcendent, a place beyond up and down, right and left, i.e. zooming out the camera far enough to see that east is in fact west and vice versa. If it exists, it is where God is. I wonder why the human brain creates the illusion of separation, of division from oneself, if created by He that is both hard and soft. Why the game? Why can't we see this place for what it is?

I wonder precisely because I feel a division inside myself, a distance from myself. Mark came home for the past couple of days, in from NY to attend a number of business meetings, and he invited me to come hear a motivational speaker. The speaker was an ex-NFL player whose nickname had been "Meat," and the fact that I remember most of what the guy said is a testament to the simple, straightforward wisdom this clod mustered for an hour and a half. He said, "Everyone has a little devil on his shoulder, a doubting Mini-Me who sits there and, cranky as hell, constantly tells you bad news about yourself. To fight 'im, you have got feed your inner giant, feed your inner dreamer. You have got to find that part of yourself that knows you deserve better."

Now, I mean, this is great advice. I love it. Simple, straightforward, correct (the original concept of "the satan" was as adversary. Satan, in Judaic texts, used to work for God, testing the resolve of his followers, and was only later associated with a force apart from God). But the part about "inner dreamer" was what really hit me the hardest, because I am a dreamer. "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams," to quote Willy Wonka. That is me. To a fault. Or was me before I came up against my limitations, my handicaps, my vulnerabilities, all of the which the real world is elucidating faster than I can make excuses. My inner Slugworth is delighted watch the gumdrops crash, watch as I flail and flutter and try to make sense out of the jumble, watch and snicker as I wake up late, accomplish little, and then think about how much I am not doing and how fast my life is going.

It is a pity party, people. Hope you brought sad streamers and wet firecrackers.

Anyways, it's between that voice, the one that kicks the oompa-loompa in the gnads when it gets angry, and the dreamer, the music maker, the guy with the boat and the creepy chicken beheadings playing behind him, that I dwell. And Wonka destroys as much as he creates, corrupts as much as he consoles. He's a whirlwind, a force of nature, loved and feared, loving and fearful. Man I love words. And that is how I feel. Disappointing. Anointing. Disillusioning. Envisioning.

Okay, point being is that I'm struggling to feel like a consistent person and it's driving me nuts. Moving on.

Happy St. Patrick's Day. I think it's pretty cool that being "Irish" can belong to everyone, at least a little bit. Drink some green beer! I'll talk to you.

Your
Martin

The Beating Heart of God

Jessie's favorite saying is "your mom." It's the swiss-army knife of her vocabulary, applicable in, well, just about every situation, and it is lodged in my brain.

"How was your day?"
"Your mom."

"What are you up to?"
"Your mom."

"The house is on fire!"
"Your mom."

I'm sitting next to her now, her body warm against mine, her breath rhythmic in sleep. She is a such a pretty girl. I like going to sleep after her, because seeing her plaintive, peaceful visage nearly ensures me happy dreams.

It's my spring break, and between shifts at Apple I decided to loop down to Berkeley Springs on my way to and from Philadelphia. It's a short trip, but I wanted to see Dave and Steph, both to finalize some movie business as well as just hang out. Apparently they live pretty close to one another now, so I'm hoping that ensures that I'll see them both. It's hard for me to keep asking people for help with the movie - sometimes I feel like a wholly incompetent leader, and so when I feel like people have lost their faith in me, it's a blow, not completely unexpected, but still a disappointment. I have an amazing, patient crew, and I think we're at the end of the time where I can realistically expect them to stick around. We have one more shoot coming up though, on the weekend of March 24, and this will be the last one, the last push, the last time. Old faces and new will be there, and I think we will be partying like hell when it's over. I'm to the point where I want to be able to watch and enjoy the movie. It deserves that chance.

I listened to something that changed my life today. Julia Sweeney (remember her from SNL?) has a one-woman show called "Letting Go of God," and it was so bittersweet, so honest, so forthright and thought-out and tragically funny, that it's easily one of my new favorite vessels of ideas. I hope everyone gets a chance to pick up the CD and take a listen. I will certainly be picking up a couple copies and giving them away.

Years ago, Mat and I had a conversation at an Eat'n Park where, for twenty minutes, the beauty and wonder of the universe was glimpsed over grilled stickies. It was right in that time when we were just rekindling our friendship over long talks about writing and the screenplay for the movie, and inevitably we always seemed to, in the course of talking about stories, end up talking about things like the meaning of life and its purpose.

Anyways, for these twenty minutes the muses smiled, and like a cool wind peace and wonder fell upon our table and we became genuinely, truly alright with the great big question marks. The Big Why. The Big Why Not. We realized that whether or not there is a God, this place, this existence is equally miraculous either way. If I am merely an assemblage of carbon atoms, then the fact that carbon atoms can combine to form consciousness is an amazing, mind-blowing instantiation, regardless of whether it evolved or was designed. What is the real difference between God existing and not existing? He is one way of talking about the things that happen to us, but maybe he's not the only way.

The fact that anything exists seems intensely peculiar to me. Why something and not nothing? What created the elemental forces like gravity and magnetism? Who or what lit the wick for the Big Bang? Whether some deity dreamed it up or... or... I don't know, I don't even have the language to try and describe the alternative, the fact that it and we and this are all here is truly, truly stunning. Special. Unique. Gorgeous. You should SEE the stars in Berkeley Springs. For the first time tonight, I could see that the Pleaides are really the beating heart of Taurus, the thicket of starts at which Orion is aiming. Those stars might not be connected at all, might have no idea they are related in the minds of the little Earth people, and yet there they are, existing, shining regardless (I want to type "irregardless" because it is a much better word but, alas, it's not actually a word), and like the beating heart of God they are timeless in their ever-changing states.

Anyways, I'm getting philosophical. I'm sorry. The warmth of Jessie's body gets me all confident, like I could look up at the night sky and feel at home amidst the constellations, the great dragons and warriors and lobsters and virgins, big as half the sky and still infinitely small in the whole of the universe.

Find some stars and look and listen. Let me know what you hear.

Your
Martin

God Broke My Finger With A Dodgeball

Yup. A dodgeball, people, thrown with a nasty locked-curve. My pinky, too. Poor little guy. He has five weeks to heal, or else I will be giving the world's first one-handed ragtime concert on April 13.

And regardless of what the Blogger spell-check thingy says, dodgeball is one word, one sport, one dream. Ye have not lived lest ye has dodgeballed. I could break ten fingers and I would still play every week. I'd wear oven mitts and catch like a seal catches penguins: with extreme prejudice.

Hi!

I've been good. Very good, actually, which is why I haven't been getting drunk and writing to you about how mean the moon is. Manic-depressive Martin is good fun for about a week, and then it just gets really, really old. It was scary for a time, though; I felt like I couldn't write anything good unless I was drunk. This post may be proving me right, but I'd rather have less to talk about and a thinner waistline than more to say and be Chubs Magee for the rest of my life. My little foray into self-destruction actually gained me six pounds. Leave it to me to find a way to take up smoking and GAIN weight.

So, I stopped smoking. And drinking. Mostly. The rule of thumb has been: Doing one makes you do another, so cut it out, shmuck. Which has worked pretty well, though the sea is unpredictable and storms brew quickly. So far, so good.

I had to realize that there was nothing interesting about being self-destructive. I think a lot of people, myself heartily included, confuse "tortured but brilliant" with "lonely and overcompensating." It's easy to be fascinated by conflicted people; they're like going to see a movie about mobsters. It's a relatively safe way to experience something dangerous. Because, really, we are all capable of picking up a gun and firing it, but those that actually kill people? Wow, man. What kinds of other crazy shit are they capable of? What are they going to do next?

Anyways, so I've been good. Working at Apple. Trying to get a movie shoot together for the weekend of March 24. I started a new screenplay. I'm developing a documentary on young Pittsburghers. Making a CD. Preparing for the concert. Finishing applications to grad school.
Jessie said to me tonight, "Wow. You're actually busy," which was very liberating to hear. Busy is progress. Busy is good.

I hope you're well. Haven't heard from you in awhile. Hope you're staying busy, too.

your
martin

Chautauqua

I’m sitting on a comfy blue couch, looking up at one of the prettiest ceilings I’ve ever seen. It’s a light, red wood that changes color with the time of day, and it towers over me two stories up. I’m in the Great Room of the “Chautauqua House,” Mat’s family’s getaway in the snow-covered hills that surround Chautauqua Lake in lower New York State, and I am in love.

Looking out the eight great windows, I see a snow-covered Eden; three-feet-thick in perfect white, mottled only by the snowmobile tracks we made this morning. In the distance is the lake, looking like an untilled snowfield, and earlier we saw a plane take off from its frozen surface.

In the center of the Great Room is a stone fireplace that stretches the height of the house. The whole house seems built around this pillar of stone, beautiful symmetry on either side. It’s is a bright, cheery house, unpretentious, with wooden accents and unassuming splendor, the kind of place where, if the walls could talk, you would hear the laughter of happy people.

Like I said. I’m in love.

Nate, Dave, Mat, and I are up here with Mat’s dad for the weekend, enjoying the late days of winter. I had to work last night so I ended up driving myself, and it got a little dicey at the end when I was heading down a one-lane road with snow banks on either side and no outlet, no light, and only the stars to light the way. I made it after some Dukes of Hazzard motions with the car, and after a game of ”Scene It: Sports Edition,” which is the equivalent of me in a ballet class, we headed to our rooms and zonked out.

I awoke to fresh donuts, bananas, and juice. Apparently a pipe had burst over the course of the night and Mat and his dad had been up early trying to clear the frozen water out of it. We sat in the sunroom around a little pot-bellied stove and watched Mat’s dad trail the snow with a snowmobile. It’s a rather dangerous affair if you don’t know where you’re going, seeing as, well, just about anything could be under all that snow and you need to have a sense of what’s around you before the snow falls. We suited up and headed out to “the barn,” which is where the trailer and the snowmobiles are kept. We got a crash course (and I choose this name carefully) on snowmobiling, and then proceeded to have the best four hours I’ve had in months.

I can’t really put into words how much fun snowmobiling is. You’re on a jet-powered pair of skis and you’re screaming across fields and over jumps at sixty-plus miles per hour. No joke. My first run I was nervous – I didn’t know how to balance my weight right, and as such I hold the honor of “First to Fall Off His Snowmobile.” [Granted, I was going literally two miles an hour and it was the equivalent of that scene in “Austin Powers” when that guy gets run over by the forklift.] Nate and Dave followed with much more spectacular crashes, and since the snow was so deep it was like falling into, as Dave called it, a “pillow.”

I recovered quickly, glad to have gotten that out of the way, and proceeded to kick ass the rest of the day, taking jumps at ludicrous speeds and nearly flying off many times. It was a natural thing by the end, like I’d been doing it forever. So. Much. Fun.

We followed that with a game of “King of the Hill,” where we proceeded to throw each other off a six-foot-high snow mound in front of the house until we were so exhausted we couldn’t breathe.

After a short nap, the four of us got in the car and headed to Peek’n Peak. This was my second time there, and I still have no idea what the name means. My first time there is a long, hilarious story about trying to teach Jessie how to ski, which I shall not utter here for fear of embarrassing the poor girl. Suffice it to say, we were not on speaking terms until the next day. [I told you to ride the chairlift with me!] Tonight, however, was pitch-perfect, and I had a blissful three hours of skiing down the mountainside.

I’m not a fast skier. I am a large mammal with incredible Newtonian physics governing the massive momentum I gather falling down a hill on toothpicks, and were I to simply unleash, simply let go, I fear for what consequences would befall the world. Therefore, I ski under control. Ski casual, even. Mat accused me of looking bored, but really I was just enjoying a leisurely stroll down the hill. That is, until we went down a black-diamond, my first, and I kicked tail and roared down the mountain just to know that I could in case I had to save someone in a movie someday. Not that the velocity was entirely by choice, seeing as said hill was nigh a 40-degree-angle, but I didn’t fall, not once. Kept it under the hat. Good form, Peter, good form.

We caught a late dinner at Texas Roadhouse in Erie, where I ordered a 24oz steak I am still digesting, and then headed home, watched TV until we couldn’t, and fell fast asleep, sore and elated.

I awoke this morning to Nate’s voice outside the bedroom door. “Hey Martin?”
“Yeah,” I groggily replied.
“If you want to go snowmobiling, you have to be ready in 10 minutes.”

Ten minutes later I was roaring down the slope, my eyes still crusted over, the wind blowing them open. Dave and I flew around for half an hour, hitting 70mph on the cornfields, and I said goodbye to Chautauqua in a roar of sound and snowflakes.

We caught a huge breakfast at Bemus Point, and then made the three-hour ride home, trying to figure out when we could return. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.

Like I said. I’m in love. Hope you find your Chautauqua someday.

-m

I Am Hitting On You

Yep. Definitely hitting on you right now.

I figure if you're seeing me like this, the seduction is pretty much over. I've wined you. I've dined you. Said interesting things and asked perceptive questions. We've talked about old loves and forgiven each other for past sins. We've walked outside and put our hands in coat pockets and realized how great it would be to just bypass the question marks, just say "You have me" and move on. I have you. You have me. Now we can enjoy the moonlight without worrying about the sunrise. You're here. I'm here. We're in black-and-white.

What do you say? Let's wake the neighbors.

-m

Makes You Want an Amstel Light

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Okay, so I've been thinking about the fact that women don't have hair on their feet. Now, normally, I don't mind the biological differences between men and women. We don't have to have to squeeze a watermelon out of a quarter, don't have to bleed every month for 25 years, don't have to put on make-up or bind our feet in pointy shoes. And yet, tonight, as I was pulling off my socks, I realized that women do not have hair on their feet.

Now, I have hair on my feet. I am a man. I have hair in places God put hair, including my feet and my back (not too much, but enough to be gross). If you're still reading, you'll see that my point is about to be: Feet hair hurts like a mofo if you leave socks on too long. Am I the only man to experience this? The pain of socks left on too long, and the weird discomfort that comes along from hair redirected too long in the wrong direction? And it's not like you can shave this hair. Oh no. Because, on a man, any shaved hair only gets angry and grows back blacker and more angry, vengeful even, until you are a wildebeast with straggly black fur all over your once soft body.

Is there any part of growing up that doesn't involve losing "soft"?

Anyways, now that we've gotten aquainted, I feel like I can tell you about my day, because it was damn good.

I awoke at the crack of 2 PM, the sun dimly misting through my curtains. I checked my phone and found 20 missed calls, all from Jessie and to the effect of, "Why the hell aren't you awake, you were supposed to come down to the South Side and have fun with me." I rolled out of bed, brushed my teeth, and hopped in the car to catch the last our of the Soup Festival on the South Side, one of Pittsburgh's "cultural districts," i.e. where all the magic and pawn shops are. They have lots of tasty restaurants, including a Primanti's, and we had fun with her 'rents wandering the streets and getting free soup. I had a mushroom soup with truffle oil that was absolutely delicious, and only later did I try to imagine how one squeezes oil out of a fungus. Yick.

Jessie and I headed back to my place and I got cleaned up, showered and shaved my face. I wish there was some applause track I could carry around in my pocket, because every time I shave I feel like I should be congratulated, fussed over. I don't know if its because I feel like, by applying the foamy stuff, I'm getting dressed up, but afterwards I'm always disappointed if no one's around to feel my face and go, "Ooh, so smooth!"

We went to the store, bought some wine, bought some veggies. Tonight, Tooch and Jeep hosted a fab "W(h)ine and Cheese Party," with delish fondue and wine, and Jess and I ate about a half-pound of cheese each. Yum! It was gruyere and swiss, according to Tooch, and it was scrumptious on bread, apples, and anything else we could stir around in that pot. We drank whine, played a dirty game of "What the F*ck," and drank more whine. I'm still drinking, dammit, as evidenced by the above sketchy picture. I'm at Mom's house, tucked in the single bed, typing on her laptop like a little kid. She was sleeping on the couch when I came home, tuckered out after a hard day of work on the budget for her friend's business. I was very glad to see her.

Before we went to the party, Jess and I headed to Mt. Washington, which is the hill that overlooks Pittsburgh. It's got the best views of the city, the restaurants that line it aptly named the "Grandview Restaurants," and we rode the Incline down the hill and up and stood on the observation deck. We were standing in the snow, overlooking the foggy, snowy city, and Jessie surprised me with hot grilled cheese sandwiches, brownies, and hot cocoa. She looked so beautiful in the night, snowflakes in her soft, brown hair. She asked me to marry her. Started crying, and I held her, said "Yes," and we cried and laughed together in the snowflakes. I don't deserve her. She is amazing and beautiful and we've shared so much together it will take the rest of my life to try and write it down. I love this girl!!!

She loves her ring, btw. It's so sparkly it glows in the dark.

Anyways, a lot is changing for me. A lot is in motion. As the "Dude" would say, it's a very complicated case, a lot of layers. I've decided for the time being, I'm only going to focus on the ones that I can feel, that I can affect, and leave the rest to the Universe, to the Amorphous Deity who organizes things. What else can we do but trust to our heart, trust to our feelings?

I hope you're well. I miss you.

Yours always,
m

Freezing Rain

So dark.

That’s how the sky is, even with the snow. It’s raining outside – freezing rain. The trees are glistening and this is how the world would look if a sorcerer froze it, cast a spell. It would glisten like it’s glistening, sit motionless like it sits motionless. I heard the wind blow outside and the trees groaned and trembled with the effort of moving, cracked and bent under the weight of the ice like old men bemoaning the weather. The snow, all five inches of it, is hard, crackles under my feet as I walk. I wonder how it would be to take my sled out right now in the dark and hurtle towards the bottom of Frick Park. I wonder if I would even see the tree before I hit it, even perceive the solid mass at the end of the white funeral. I think it is precisely because sled-riding is ridiculously dangerous that it is so damn fun.

I know that, recently, I’ve seemed rather cryptic. And it’s because the blog has been a reflection of how I’ve felt in the past couple of weeks. I know its hard for the people who love me to read how much I’m struggling, how damaged the words ring out, even if they are pretty. I’ve been feeling pretty shattered recently, been feeling rather lost and insufficient, using the people who love me to confirm myself, to feel better. This blog post is another effort at reaching out, I guess, though I know full well that it won’t matter to what I connect, won’t matter who replies. The sky will still be dark; will still be frightening.

I am on the wrong meds. I know this for a fact. When I’m off of them, I feel no desire to drink or smoke. When I’m on them, I feel exactly the opposite. I don’t know how a pill that is supposed to make you feel better can so completely ruin you; so completely dismantle the things you hold dear in the world. I tried going off of it over the weekend, and I couldn’t stop shaking, wanted to blow up the Chik-Fil-A that Jessie and I ate at, wanted to drive the car into the Chuck E Cheese and hope that I put the tire in the “100” slot of the Ski Ball machines. Seratonin withdrawal. But I felt really no desire to drink or smoke. It was like the old me, the old Martin. The ice outside has taken out the internet, and I’m typing this to you, sans connection, on the desk I gave to Mat for a dinner and a dodgeball season. Mat and his roommates are sitting in the next room watching “Terminator 3” and are simultaneously enraptured and amused. The ending of that movie was such a disappointment, as though the previous three hours had been all for naught. Arnold dies (again). And this time, he accomplishes nothing. Achieves nothing. Is remembered for nothing. At least it was cool when the truck ran into that building. I hope I never make a movie where the audience leaves and goes, “Eh.” Where the audience leaves unchanged, maybe slightly annoyed that they wasted their time in my world. And that is saying a lot, considering how people spend their time nowadays, whittling away hours on the Internet reading the ravings of people like me, feeling sorry for others and at the same time better about themselves.

I have some good news. Apple has hired me to be a part-time employee! I am no longer seasonal. I can go to the “Young Professionals” luncheon with nothing to be ashamed of, because I, too, have a job. I, too, am contributing something, am helping someone better their own life with technology, with computers. It’s a small thing, but I DO feel better when I go, do feel better when I work.

Helzberg hasn’t called me yet to let me know the ring is ready. I know its bothering Jessie, and frankly it’s bothering me, too. I wish I knew when it was coming, when it would be ready. It is really such a pretty thing. And this time, I know she loves it, know she’ll be delighted when she receives it. I can’t wait to make her happy. I will be happy on that day, too, happy to know that she’ll be in my life forever, at my side forever. Woo!!!

I wish you were here to rub my back, to scratch my head. I got my hair cut and I am damn sexy right now. Whenever my stomach hurts and someone rubs my back, I feel better, like my stomach is hurting for attention. Biological codependency. I miss the old me, the one who didn’t feel sadness so acutely. I miss the me before Paxil. Before drugs. I could handle sadness, could recognize anxiety. Nowadays I feel like a victim, act like a victim, want to be perceived as a victim and taken care of, looked after like a child, nursed and swaddled and loved to sleep. If you are looking for reasons to not take this drug, consider this blog your first stop. The next question is: What am I going to do about it?

I’m taking advantage of the fact that I don’t live alone. I asked Mat to throw away my cigarettes tonight, which he did with great excitement. Jessie sent me chocolate-covered strawberries from Edible Arrangements, and they are AMAZING. If you haven’t sampled these, you have not lived. I don’t deserve her, her amazing, scalding love. We had such a nice weekend together. I don’t want to cheapen it with words. I just loved waking up next to her, feeling her heart beat next to mine. It made everything in the world seem lighter.

I hope you’re well. I need to go see a movie, do something that takes me outside of myself for a little while. A trip, perhaps. Or a retreat, a Catholic retreat where I could go and talk to God for a little while, see what’s been up with him, see if he has any more clue about what he sent me here to do.

Until then I remain, always,

Your
m

Dearth

Okay. Short post tonight. I'm trying to get some Z's before the GRE tomorrow - I was up late tonight sucking out on analogies (CREDENCE:GULLIBLE::WHAT THE:FUCK IS THE ANSWER I DON'T EVEN SEE A QUESTION HERE), and now I've resigned myself to obscurity in the hopes that, by setting expectations low, anything will be a supreme, utter delight.

Have you noticed I like the word "utter"? I like words that communicate the depths of things, words that sit on the boundaries between sense and non-sense, capture the bigness of ideas.

The title of tonight's mini-post is in reference to a word I thought I knew and put on my grad school statement of purpose, i.e. "The dearth of experienced faculty members," and it turns out it does not mean what I thought it meant. "Dearth," to me, sounds like abundance. A dearth of corn. A dearth of money. No. No sir. "Dearth" means the absence of said thing, i.e. the ABSENCE of experience faculty. I wish Word had an "Idiot" check in addition to their Spell Check (though, since it's made by Microsoft, it would be setting itself off all the time and trying to correct itself interminably).

So. If anything, the GRE saved me some embarrassment, so long as it doesn't prove an embarrassment in and of itself!

I had an amazing weekend with Jessie. I awoke each morning to a made breakfast, sun shining through the windows in the brightly-lit living room of her Berkeley Springs apartment, and each day was spent doing fun things and gathering more stories to tell each other. I promise details - a big long post after my test. I haven't been smoking or drinking - not out of some idealistic, motivated effort to stop but out of fear of getting fat and dying of cancer. I'll take it. If the DeLorean can run on whiskey, man, then fill her up.

But now, I sleep. And wake. And test. And wonder.

Wish me luck.

-m