I don’t claim to know the intricacies of your life.

I know that for every shallow detail there is a small ocean full of mysteries only you can hope to know. Not for any other reason than that you- are human. You, like all other humans, possess a story only you can know. And were you to be of those lucky enough- no- gifted enough to be able to share it with the strength and depth that it deserves, then you may choose to tell it yourself.

And in this, you will undoubtedly weave the stories of others…

And so, one day, as you passively muse over the details of a particular story that you do not own, you’ll find yourself staring into the wild, pretty eyes of the human who does- and you’ll realize that you- you can’t claim to know the intricacies of her life… But you’ll tell it just the same.

Such is the gift of the writer.

Such is the villainy of the writer.

Music by: Brad Sucks »

She just wants to freeze time and be a teenager again. Just for a moment. Isolated in its occurrence, harmless in its irresponsibility. Just a fantasy, a hope, a dream, and an indulgence.

That doesn’t exist.

Nor did it ever exist.

Her life doesn’t belong just to her. It belongs to the parents who gave it to her. It belongs to her children who she’ll have to answer about it to some day. It belongs to the people around her whose motives and lives she influences with how she lives hers.

Does her life add value to this earth or is she just a symbiont? A barnacle attached to the big blue and green pebble.

The products of her life need to be worthy of the sheer miracle that she even has a life.

Earn your place in the big show.

Music under Creative Commons by: David Byrne »

There’s a sensation when the spirit feels just right. It doesn’t quite have a name, this feeling, but it’s in there. Packed away.

We hide it. Maybe we’re afraid of it. Maybe it doesn’t quite make sense to our ideas of logic and reason, maybe it doesn’t quite fit our concept of the palpable and the tangible. It’s the unknown space filled with blood and plasma and chemistry and electricity, the area we don’t explore, the blathering soul.

A man sits down at a piano. He’s not particularly adept at playing the piano. In fact, he probably doesn’t even know how to read a single note. Just look at him. He stares and stares and stares at the keys, afraid to hit the wrong one. His elbows are locked in place, like a string fed behind his back ties them together. Fingers twitching. A tune in the skull. A song in the mind. A hot kettle waiting to whistle but the burner is on just a little too low.

Just snap the string, dammit. Press something.

And when he does. If he does. If he lets it happen. If he trusts that thing he’s not supposed to trust. Shake it off. Shake off the voices, the bubble bursters, the bleating of the self-appointed Houyhnhnm. One note. Just one note. And another. And then, another.

Wait for it. Let those notes softly brush away the voices, and wait for it. Don’t give up. Just wait for it.

And after a while… do you hear that? Here they come. The others. The others just like you but nothing like you but just like you. Another instrument, another dream, another song, supporting, intertwining, lifting. You’re playing in a symphony only heard by those who play along with you.

Open your ears, dammit, they’re playing all around you.

Music by: Brad Sucks »

Timing.

It’s always all about timing, isn’t it? The object of our affection is always just a day too late or a minute too far or a second past the perfect time to meet, greet, love and practice making babies.

A relationship just ended. For some, so comes new exploration. Intrigue. Finding the best of what each new interest has and hopping from arm to arm loving what each mind brings. And somewhere out of that mix- is maybe a- one.

The old one had been there too long. This one’s too hot. That one’s too cold. And that one’s too soft and sweet. And the last? Goldilocks, he might be just right.

Or at least, just right now.

Music by: Brad Sucks »

She seemed capable only of polite, shallow and happy conversation. A joke, a gag, a little something to laugh about sideways.

Kryptonite to that guy who wants to be on the other side of that wall. Nothing good comes easy he’s been told. Didn’t someone have to be the first to try something as uninviting as a coconut? He had the scent.

But those who did rappel over that wall, gingerly set their feet down and shuffled atop a floor that immediately gave way to a pit. A pit with plenty of company. There, on the edge, down into the darkness, to them she would yell her incessant complaints about the shortcomings of everyone and everything around her. Unhappy, she was.

She lived in a world encased in disappointment and lack of fulfillment, and herself thoroughly unequipped to steer to a better place. Maybe someone had cracked her shell a long time ago, the milk long since spilled out. Maybe she fell from a poorly tended branch. Or maybe she was just- heartbreakingly- normal.

The hope for something new was dashed; she was just like all the rest.

Only with a prettier smile.

Music by: Brad Sucks »

Airplane travel never ceases to amaze. Not so much when doing the traveling, but more so when leaving someone at the airport.

It starts innocently enough – you do your good friendly deed and swing by, stuff the trunk, speed off to the nearest port and hug them goodbye as you’re shooed away by that security stiff giving you the eyeball. And then you go home quietly, tamping down the secret wanderlust this whole episode inspired.

Two hours later they’re texting you telling you they’ve landed somewhere a thousand miles away and you’re still sitting there in your pajamas sipping a cup of soup, having not moved an inch.

The relativity of motion is awe inspiring. In an instant someone’s life has changed – they’re breathing, eating, drinking, feeling in a place that still seems like Earth but is so strangely, obviously different.

And you. You barely made it through the second part of the LOST finale.

Gods of steel and wind we are.

But only when we feel like it.

A Special Note

Hopefully you’ve noticed… the dialog in this episode is a collage of old TV show theme song lyrics. Can you name them all?

The moon orbits the earth which orbits the sun which orbits other heavenly bodies inside a galaxy that orbits other galaxies as they all make their way to some destination that is probably just an outward breath in a pulse of time.

Somewhere within that we orbit each other, attracted by some, repulsed by others, but still hopelessly intertwined and tangled up in each other’s gravitational force. We are part of what we love and part of what we hate. There is no us and them, you or me.

Only we.

Music by: Brad Sucks »

Tick, tick, tick.

Hmm.

Tick, tick, tick.

Ah, it’s quitting time, time to go home.

So let’s get this straight. There are 24 hours in a day. 7 are spent sleeping- or trying to sleep- leaving us with 17. An hour getting ready for work, an hour winding down. Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones with a small commute. We’re down to 15.

8 slave hours plus a lunch hour, that’s 9. We’re down to 6 hours.

6 hours.

6. Hours.

6 hours of life a day, that you squeeze into the time in-between. Into the shared space already occupied by your exhaustion from a long day, by your sore and languid eyes, by your need to lay helplessly on a couch, plate on belly, clicker in hand.

Click, click, click.

Hmm.

Click, click, click.

This.

This is not your life. By the power vested in you by the heart that feeds your mind, this is not your life.

Music by: Brad Sucks »

We are the moon.

It was birthed from our earth in a cataclysmic event no different than ours was when those sterile latex hands pulled us from the safety of a hot bloody ocean we are hard-wired to forget so quickly.

The moon, as it passes, beckons our oceans to swell towards it. And as we spin and tumble towards, away, around the sun, we are locked together in an embrace so encompassing, so fundamental, so obvious, that we never, ever notice it.

We are tied to it. Gravitationally. Geographically. Chemically.

Our waters desperately reach towards it. Our mothers, sisters and daughters live by its rhythm. Our animals cry in it’s very presence. We, us, our whole beautiful earth yearns for it with every fabric of its being, like a mother to child.

We are the moon.

Carbon and water coagulated by dust from a star in someone else’s sky.

Music by: Brad Sucks »

Orwell. Father of the 80’s. He wouldn’t think it, perhaps, but he was an elitist. And what’s wrong with that exactly?

If everyone was a populist, who would be exceptional? More importantly, who would be able to recognize the exceptional? It’s a healthy dose of self-important elitism that drives us to produce those most moving works of art, science, literature and film- that we actually have the gall to think are worthy of or capable of changing the world.

1984 wasn’t written by a committee, a board or a department. It was written by George F*%#ing Orwell, and he thought he knew better. An elitist fighting authority.

So the question is…

Would George Orwell still have written 1984 if he’d known Like a Virgin by Madonna was to be the top song that year? Would he have felt somehow responsible?

Perhaps he may have felt better about Footloose.

Populism is great, but we need some elitists in the mix. Otherwise, just who the hell else is going to steer this ship?

Music by: Brad Sucks »

What closes doors better than anger? Like sheet rock dropped in front of your eyes, you seal up that door like it never existed. Like you never spent time in there, comfortably wrapped around the heart of someone’s meaning. How do you describe that feeling, to be outside the door of that room?

One of the hardest things to face in life is becoming an outsider to someone else’s life.

You betray your own jigsaw pattern you worked so hard to cut and mold and tamp down to fit next to theirs. You turn away from the folded corners you had wedged into place all the while convincing yourself it was a perfect fit.

There’s that feeling. That feeling you might have felt before. That dull ache you might not call pain, but damn if it doesn’t hurt.

Together you seal the doors and lock in memories you don’t want to bleed out and taint the happiness of your future. It’s the last decision you make together. Love’s last call. You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.

But there’s still that dull ache. What do you call that? Part fear, part anger, part sadness, part loneliness, part relief.

Relief. Focus on the relief. Because the only other option is anger.

Music by: Brad Sucks »

Ding.

That’s one.

Ding. Another one.

He walked past seat after seat, row after row, calling for the rebellion.

Ding. Ding-ding-ding.

One by one, every flight attendant light turned on. Every last one.

After two hours of abuse, rudeness, artificial smiles, passive aggressive torture, stubbed feet… everyone had enough, and he was the self-appointed Che. Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands. As she glared at him, overdone, plastic makeup and starched shirt reflecting the only light in their night flight- the yellow glow from the galley- the  other passengers cheered him on. The ones who were awake that is.

The rest woke up moments later and watched incredulously as he got Tasered to the dirty, well-traveled floor.

Thus ended his revolution.

Music by: Gold Leader »

We talked. She talked, I talked, we talked. She was refreshing. Witty, intelligent, strange.  A terribly disarming combination. I don’t know if it was the traveling, the sleep-deprivation or the overindulgent yawning, but she was just thrilling. In my circle it’s much harder to find a woman who can debate about pretentious things like new wave cinema or string theory, than a woman who’s decided if Tom is right for Katie.

It’s lovely when you do.

Eventually she wanted my number. I told her I was more than just a number and that we should just meet at the downtown library the next day. She thought that was weird, but agreed. In fact, it’s precisely because she thought it was weird, that she agreed.

Women.

Music by: Brad Sucks »

He once told a woman with bad taste, how he felt about her taste.

She told him he was a judgmental jerk.

He told her yes, he does tend to be very judgmental towards bad taste.

And then he let her know that he was an elitist, and that he didn’t have to answer to her.

Music by: Brad Sucks »

“You’re dangerous to me,” he said.

“Why?” she said.

“Because,” he said, “you’re the kind of person I’d break all my rules for.”

“Is that bad? she said, “After all, rules are meant to be broken.”

“Sometimes.” he said. “But most of the time you just end up in some kind of prison.”

Music by: Brad Sucks »

“I’m attractive, smart and hard working,” she said. “There’s no reason for you not to be with with this girl.”

“Well, you’re at least one of those three,” he replied.

“What? Which one?”

“That’s… a good question. Which would you prefer I think about you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, decide. And then let me know.”

“Well… I’m not dumb… so that’s one thing. But could I be considered smart? I guess not really. Am I hard working? I’m not lazy… Hmm, this is tough. Well I’m definitely not unattractive, am I? Oh God, I’m unattractive to you? No, that’s not it… That’s the one thing, isn’t it? You find me attractive.”

“That’s your final answer?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Interesting.”

“Interesting? That’s it?”

“It’s just interesting.”

“Seriously. What does it tell you about me? Don’t give me the funny, give me the real.”

“It tells me it only takes 3 words to make you destroy yourself.”

Music by: Brad Sucks »

Had the timing been better he’d be a hero. Saying exactly what should be said, cracking all the right jokes, touching in all the right ways, smelling just the way he should, and teasing with all the right… excitement.

Instead, his timing was off.  Drilling for oil in an arctic tundra sitting on a thick quarter mile of glacier.

Same guy. Same girl. Wrong day.

Timing.

It’s a lesson in the fair but whimsical temperament of a lady. Of perhaps all ladies. And there are plenty of things a woman does a man will never understand.

Like why she always goes through the greeting card aisle even when it’s nobody’s birthday.

Perhaps men can sympathize, or empathize, but they just can’t realize. Instead it makes him feel better to say, “Ruthless woman. She has a heart like a diamond, tougher than the coal that bore it.”

He’s just a little hurt. Give him a little time, a little space, and he’ll rejoin the living. A little time.

Time.

Music by: Brad Sucks »

He loved how untidy she was.  She’d unzip her boots right there in the kitchen as she heated up the pasta, stepping just to the right of them, her round heels lifted and turned to the side, just enough to let him know this is a moment he’d think about years later.

The house was no different. Her messiness went in phases, but different parts of the house were always in a different phase. The new moon brought a messy kitchen. The quarter moon left the bed undone. Half moon meant the bathroom could use a shine. Three quarters moon and her clothes just didn’t fit, and her closet suffered for it.

She seemed tied right into that lunacy of it all, somehow, but she never stopped to notice.

But that quarter moon – there was a reason it was the way that it was.

We will leave you to guess why. It’s better that way.

Music by: Brad Sucks »