How I know

Were it not for fleeting moments of sustained peace, childlike carefreeness, and a mystical awareness that a smile is on my face, though I'm not sure how long it's been there-- were it not for these things, I would have no standard by which to compare the less desirable moments in which I have effectively silenced my gut, ignored intuition, and wandered into a dark place of confusion and insecurity.

Read this one. Don't read the last few. They're crap. This one's alright.

The first thing I thought of when I woke up this morning (five minutes ago) was that it's time to atone for all this Dr. Phil Dawson's Creek introspective bullshit and write something more substantial than lines and lines of "why didn't my mom hug me more as a child."

By the way, I am humbly paying the price for channeling Nicholas Sparks and taking an over-romanticized 5 mile trek in the dark the other night when I should've been doing nothing more than sitting on my floor (that's right, I've got a floor) in my bathrobe eating popcorn and watching Youtube videos as I've got the left ankle of an over-inflated sex doll (and by that I only mean that it's big and swollen... just incase there are any strange ankle fetishes out there that I'm unaware of). Apparently Jesus must've done his stretches beforehand or something; that or he refused to settle for $3 Old Navy sandals. Regardless, the next time I do something completely moronic I will at least try to remember to lace up a pair of high-tops first.

I fear that if I were to continue down the blogging path I had embarked on a few days ago, I would have to change the title of my blog from the Latin translation of "I talk too much" to something like "The Spilled Milk Chronicles." The only reason I haven't deleted some of those dreadful posts is I hope to be able to look back some day when somebody calls me a whiny, insecure head-case and point to those blogs and say, "No, sir. Today I'm just cranky because I don't like the way these pants fit. THAT THERE is the manifestation of this whiny, insecure head-case business you speak of. Good day, sir."

Because everything happens for a reason... right? At least that's what everybody's been telling me. Even yesterday-- two people, one was a customer. And I didn't even fish for it, they just offered it. "Here's your receipt, sir." "Thanks, Alex. Everything happens for a reason."

I can't help but argue with that. Last week I walked into a natural foods store and bought a bottle of hibiscus tea and an apple. I went to check out and instead ended up walking around the store looking at rice cakes for the next ten minutes because my landlady was in line in front of me and I'd rather stall pretending I'm interested in yogurt made from raccoon milk than risk a potentially awkward exchange.

So anyways I got out to my car, took a bite out of the apple and tried to wash it down with some hibiscus tea. Let me first tell you about the hibiscus tea so those of you who have not had this wretched concoction can at least try to sympathize with what was going through my mind. It's a bright pretty red color, comes in a tiny plastic bottle, and the ingredients contain honey and lemon juice. Red+tiny+honey+lemon juice=me, happy. Usually. Well the thing ends up tasting like a mixture of salty tomatoes and sinus, and so that which did not reappear as a mist on my steering wheel and windshield drizzled downhill on Commercial St.

Now, back to my main point. Everything happens for a reason. Everything? Even that stupid little illustration? The fact that it happened a week ago and I still remember it is not evidence that the event were of any great significance, because at the same time I can't remember names or faces or when my Earth Science midterm was (last Tuesday, turns out). See, if I could remember things that actually mattered, then I could accept the whole "everything happens for a reason thing." The reason Jonny happened to remember when the utilities were due is because Jonny's giveadamn still works, unlike Alex, who bought his giveadamn on eBay because he's a cheap skate trying to save a buck or two, and when the goddamn giveadamn arrived it turned out to be nothing more than a toaster with some paper machet and glitter glued on the sides.

This blog has blown so far off course that I wish to cut my losses immediately and just end the bitch, but I feel that I first must disclose what I originally sat down to writhe about (yes I meant "writhe," not "write") was my first listening of the new Green Day album and my subsequent disappointments. Perhaps due to a few misfirings of the synapsis and an impish desire to rebel against even my own paper-thin insiginificant early-morning blogging agenda, I ended up going down this goofy-balls rabbit hole where I simultaneously say everything and nothing.

But it's all cool because it all happened for a reason. At least I think I'm starting to get my writing balls back.

I remember what it felt like

Recently my whining/sniveling/anxieties/fears have been called out and exposed. At Mayra's graduation ceremony the other day, the guest speaker said success lies hidden underneath the spot where our fears lie. And a week ago, Saul Williams wrote the following:

"Can you clearly articulate the vision of the self you wish to become, the dream you wish accomplish, the community or relationship you wish to belong? To be present & in the moment is essential, but if the future is now, then mind is a time machine and your vision can project you into a brighter now. If your vision/dream hasn't come true yet, maybe you haven't come true yet. How do your actions or beliefs lead to or contradict your journey?"

I've finally become broken and pulled back to Earth. You would think that by the time I bought the plane tickets, the aforementioned events would have already taken place. But still I cannot specifically articulate anything right now. I've just got these impulses and notions, leadings and nudgings. But that's as far as I can take them.

The other night I tried praying again. At first I thought it would be selfish to pray for something specific. And I suppose that by human standards it would be impolite to ignore a relative for so long and then show up asking for money or food. But of course we are then reminded of the story of the prodigal son. And then we realize what a great act of humility is required before one can lean toward the ear of God and ask for something specific.

And I couldn't do it. And I still can't. I can tell you where I want to go, or the company I wish to keep. I can give you vague generalities that would seem to hint toward something, one way or another. But I cannot step out vocally and enumerate just what it is I want.

When I was twelve my dad wanted to help me become a better basketball player. I wanted to be better too, but he wanted to make sure it was what I wanted, rather than merely imposing his will on me. So he told me that he would help me train when I wrote down exactly what I wanted to achieve. I couldn't do it. And I never could. And at some point I quit playing basketball.

I don't know what it is. I don't know if I feel I don't deserve it. I don't know if it is that I question my competence. I don't know if it's fear of failure. But I am absolutely paralyzed. This has plagued me all my life, and resurfaces at every possible opportunity. And it's even harder now that my first dream to come true is destroyed.

This is typically when the hero gets it together, does a gut-check, and pulls out a renewed, realized man. And now that the honeymoon phase of newfound freedom is over and everything runs together and begins to resemble a small, flatlining vibration, I find that my only immediate desire is to insulate myself from everything. Every feeling, every breathe of air, the sting of misplaced trust.

The funny thing is tomorrow I could wake up on top of the world, ready to go. This has been me seventy-five percent of the time lately. But a month ago it was me ninety percent of the time, and before that, a hundred. And so I must decide whether my dwindling enthusiasm is fear, doubt, and deception sinking in, or whether its reality slowing but steadily making itself known.

But then I remember this: "Remember the heights from which you have fallen. Repent and do the things that you did at first."

And then I think of my first instinct, my most pure impulse. The rhythm of my heartbeat that was set in motion in a sacred time and place. Captured by dangerous wonder I was the truest I had ever been. I remember what it felt like.

Tonight

This evening after I got home I took the garbage to the curb with earbuds in my ears. Leaving the trash on the curb I kept walking and did not return home until two hours and five miles later. The night was warm and mystical and at times I was joined by a Siamese kitten who would either run ahead or lag behind, except for the quarter mile I carried her.

I was sustained by endorphins but distracted by my emotions, which played through my mind like a film reel-- the entire spectrum: love and fear, loneliness and laughter, pain and passion, regret.

I came home and expected to collapse on my makeshift bed and drift into sleep, exhausted and fulfilled. Instead I am apprehended by an irrational anxiety over nothing in particular. It clings to my shoulders with talons and whispers, "everything in your life is a waste." It has lingered in my house for a while now, hanging low like smoke, and always appearing after periods of clarity and peace.

Today I heard someone say, "do that which frightens you most, and there you will find your victory." Earlier today this was inspiring and motivating, but now I realize the hidden guarantee that there will be pain along the way.

"I am weary, and I forlorn.
Lead thou me to the land
Of the angels, the angels.

"If only thou, O God of life,
Be at peace with me, my support,
Be to me as a star, be to me as a helm,
From my lying down in peace,
To my rising a new."

-Ralph M. Johnson (b. 1955)

That's right, I've got a floor

I know I've got a sweet tooth for nostalgia. That's already been established in blogs past. So hopefully we can move forward without the reader thinking, "Oh Alex, you're just being nostalgic." No I'm not. This is different. I swear.

Ever since I started college for the first time in '02 I would frequently remark, and still do to this day, that the last time I truly felt myself was Freshman year in high school. During this time I was heavily into the album "Punk in Drublic" by NoFX-- the album which begins, as with any NoFX live set, with the song "Linoleum."

The other day I caught myself reciting the lyrics in my head without even meaning to, and I realized that they actually do have some content, some merit. As a freshman I thought they were just silly middle-finger punk lyrics that only served the purpose of melding with the fury of the drums and guitars, but even at that time of limited scope there was something so appealing about the first verse:

Possessions never meant anything to me
I'm not crazy
Well that's not true I've got a bed and a guitar
And a dog named dog that pisses on my floor
that's right, I've got a floor
So what? So what? So waht?
And I've got pockets full of kleenex and lint and holes
Where everything important to me
Just seems to fall right down my leg
And onto the floor
My closest friend, linoleum.
Linoleum supports my head,
Gives me something to believe.

As a freshman, tagging along with Mike Burbank and his big brother Jon, a senior who was gracious enough to take us Freshmen under his wing and into the world of small club shows (Jon also taught me to play the guitar, and if that never happened, then neither would this trip I'm on), I thought that some day I would be living this punk rock life. Of course I ended up transferring schools, focussing on other things and eventually getting married-- settling quickly into the life of ordinary adulthood where the next steps were children and a mortgage.

I've been debating lately over whether or not I believe in fate or destiny. As a Freshman, if you told me that ten years later I would be crashing on my buddy's kitchen floor in Chinatown, sandwiched between Downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood, I wouldn't have batted an eye.

And miraculously, that is exactly where I am at this moment. I'm laying on linoleum with a bottle of vodka and my laptop. And I'm not surprised. And I'm not displeased. In fact I'm thrilled. I'm so fucking happy right now. I got here, wherever here may be. Probably more of a state of mind than anything.

But the path I took to get here is what's so damned weird. I'd written this new reality off as all but an impossibility. Ten years ago, of course I would end up here one day. Ten weeks ago, no way in hell. Everything was in place then. Everything was in line.

I don't know how I ended up here. I don't know if it's by accident. I don't know if it's fate. Maybe subconsciously I wanted it so badly that it all just sort of manifested itself as a product of my psyche. I still don't know if i believe in fate or destiny, and I may never make my mind up. But as cheesy as this sounds, especially at the end of a blog where it's cute to do a clever throwback to an earlier item, especially a song lyric, this linoleum that my head rests on gives me something to believe.

That's me on the street with a violin under my chin, playing with a grin, singing gibberish.

-"Linoleum," NoFX. 1994.

reflections on a conversation

It is a rare and delightful treat to begin a blog with the following line:

The sun was setting over West Hollywood while in an art gallery off Santa Monica Boulevard, I mingled and sipped a caipirinha.

Damn, that felt nice.

Anyways, yesterday/gallery/West Hollywood/caipirinha. I was talking to an intern at the gallery who was in his early- to mid-thirties and was at first taken aback by his openness and eagerness to bullshit with a complete stranger. I've been around the trendy artsy types before and typically don't get the time of day from them, at least not in Salem. But this guy was pouring out his life story to me just mere moments after he walked up and said, "How's it going, man?"

Dig this: He moved to Hollywood to be with his girlfriend who, at the time, was attending UCLA's school of design. He got into real estate and had a fair amount of success. But around the time he moved past the 30-year mark he started to feel that his life was unfulfilled and that he had this crushing urgency to validate his existence by immersing himself in the artistic community, even if it meant interning at an art gallery, helping sand and repaint the floor and walls in between ingoing and outgoing exhibits. And he was so happy. It was oozing from him.

I asked him what the hardest part of the transition was for him, in an attempt to try and relate with some of what I've been feeling lately. His answer was interesting. It had nothing to do with the material, practical things. He said, "Knowing who I am."

He went on to explain how a lot of people move here with overinflated egos and underdeveloped abilities, and are surprised when Opportunity simply neglects to fall out of the sky into their laps. Transversely, he explained how a lot of people move here with the intentions of following their dream but lack confidence to pursue their path and instead get caught up in a steady job, making the monthly payments, and just "getting by" and they end up in the same place they were in before they moved to LA, only in a more expensive and arguably intimidating environment.

I shared with him that one of my biggest difficulties in any aspect of my life, musically or otherwise, is that I am constantly battling between two inaccurate views of myself: the Alex who can do really well at anything he wants to, and the Alex who can't seem to do a damn thing right. On an intellectual level, I know that both of these are inaccurate. What's absolutely nuts about this is that a lot of the time I will find myself ping-ponging between these two poles at such a high frequency that it feels like they're happening simultaneously.

I think a lot of this has to do with the principle that says, "We become who we think everyone else thinks we are." I am constantly falling into and climbing out of this trap. One of the things that drives me crazy about myself is this chameleon-like persona that I assume in certain crowds. I can usually tell right away based on group dynamics if I need to be the funny-guy, the smart-guy, philosophical-guy, or the serious-guy.

When I'm with a group of people who I don't know that well, I will usually lock onto a persona and be stuck with it all night. Worst of all is when I simply don't know who I am within the context of a certain group, and I end up defaulting to nothing-guy. This persona retreats to the wall at a party or slumps into a recessed corner of a booth at a restaurant. My face becomes expressionless which unfortunately causes me to look like I'm upset or unhappy, and because I'm usually not upset or unhappy, this confusion only adds to the downward momentum of my mini-identity crisis.

This causes me to realize the value in the friendships I keep. I would rather be very close to a handful of friends than to be on casual terms with a couple dozen. I keep this handful close because I know who I am with them. I am not compelled to put on an act. I find peace and rest in the fact that neither my achievements nor my shortcomings will increase or decrease the respect or love that they have for me. In the same way, I find that there is nothing more fulfilling than being in a friendship where I can be that for someone else. To be a constant support, a safe refuge, where the other person knows that they do not have to earn my friendship nor do they have to fear losing it if/when they fuck up.

This has been one of the greatest realizations I've had over the last two months since everything came apart. I have been humbled and moved at the response of friends, some of whom I've known all my life, others only a short while, who were all kind enough to just be near me and let me near them. These friends are not overly concerned with talking about my failed marriage-- they don't want to know how it happened or what I need to do to fix it. They aren't preoccupied with getting me "back on the market" or hooking me up with a friend-of-a-friend if only for a one-night stand. The friends who have emerged lately are saints in that they are happy to just hang out. To just "be." Sometimes this is just sharing a meal, other times going to a concert. Currently I am enjoying the graciousness of Kent and Irene who opened the doors to their one-bedroom Los Angeles apartment by letting me sleep on their living room floor for a couple nights.

The hardest part of being down here on this exploratory trip is not worrying about where I will live or where I will work, whether I will have enough money or anything logistical. It's picturing me cut-and-pasted onto this strange, busy canvas, severed from the beautiful mosaic-- my support system, my community back home. If I were to leave everything and move down here tomorrow, it would be bearable; difficult but attainable. It would hurt when I tear the bandage off but at least the healing could begin. But the reality is it will take probably two years before I can make the transition, and by then I fear that my ties back home will be all the more inseparable.

Joo Mollre and the Mystery of the Missing Pants

It's been over a month and I still haven't got my pants back. Plus I think I might've given my credit card number to a complete stranger.

Here's the transcript of the conversation, originally published on my other blog in March.

---------

Operator: Thank you for calling the MGM Grand. Please select from the following options. For English--

Me: (typing) 1

Operator: For room reservations, press 1. For dining reservations, press 2. For show tickets, press 3. For business reservations, press 4. If you would like to hear these options again, press 9.

Me: (typing) 0

-silence-

Me: (typing) (cont'd) 0 0 0 0

Operator: For room reservations, pre-

Me: (typing) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Human: MGM Grand, how may I direct your call?

Me: Hi, I left my pants in Vegas and I need to get them back.

Human: Mmhmm. One moment.

..

L&F Aylah, loss in fow.

Me: Hi, I left my pants in my room. Nothing weird or anything, just folded them up and put them in the closet, then forgot they were there.

L&F Day you lee them in ah kah-see-no?

Me: Err, no. In my closet, in my room. 14-313.

L&F: I goin nee your roo namba.

Me: 14-313.

L&F: Juan Momayng.

Me: Who? No, I'm Alex Moore.

L&F: I say escuse me for juan momayng. Okay I hava one Old Navy blue jean an one lay-thar belt.

Me: (trying to make a joke) That's funny, I think I have the same exact pair!

-silence-

Me: (continued) Ooookay so can I arrange to have them mailed to me?

L&F: Jessir we can shit they to you.

Me: (stifling laughter): Oh, you can? Huh-huh-huh, okay, I would like to arrange, huhhuhhuh, to have them, uh, shit to my house.

L&F: Okay I need your full nay and ah-dray.

Me: Joel Moore. 1147 Pol-

L&F: Thas spell J-O-E M-O-L-L-R-E?

Me: No, two 'O's.

L&F: J-O-O M-O

Me: No no no no, J-O-E-L M-O-O-R-E.

L&F: Ohhh so sorry. Ha ha. An adray?

Me: 1147 Pollyanne Ave SE. Salem, OR 97306.

L&F: Okay I hava 147 Tollan Elen Oregon. An what was the zeet code agay?

Me: Well the zip code was 97306, but let me give you the whole thing again. 1147 P-O-L-L-Y-A-N-N-E Avenue Salem Oregon 97306.

L&F: Ohh ha ha Pollyanna.

Me: No, Pollyanne. An "E" at the end.

L&F: Ohh ha ha Pollyanneeee.

Me: No, just Pollyanne. Silent E.

L&F: Okay and is Elen Oregon spelled E-L-E-N?

Me: No, it's S-A-L-E-M. "S" as in Sarsaparilla. Actually, "S" as in Steven.

L&F Ohhh yah I know Salem. Ooookay so we send Juan Cheen and Juan Lay-thar belt to Joo Mollre 1147 Tollan Habanu Elen Orygaw Ny-Sayba-Tree-Zeero-Seez. Thanyu for cally N-CHI-N and haba nayng day.

Potpourri. Casserole. Party Mix.

Here are a list of thoughts that have been going through my head that are not each worth their own blog but need to be said anyway.

- At first I thought it was merely a park bench, but I must've unwittingly sat at a head game table, because I've just been overwhelmed with contestants lately and I didn't even know I was supposed to be playing along.

- The last two months have been a blur and I don't feel totally convinced that any of this is happening. The fact that I'm going to visit the Musicians Institute in Hollywood on Tuesday as a prospective student doesn't make any of this feel more real.

- I am doing okay, and I am not lonely. Some people cannot seem to accept that.

- Sometimes at night when I really get into an album I'm listening to, I get the delusion that it understands me.

- I am not lonely, but I am more alone than ever before.

- There are only two things in life that I want. This messes everything up because I only planned on one thing right now. Fortunately they are not mutually exclusive, but at the same time I have a feeling that it will be nearly impossible to make both happen. I've been here before. This time I think I will have to go with what's behind door number one instead.

- I have never been stronger, but I have never been more fragile either.

- I have gained a fluency through my instrument that I've never had before. Finally ideas are no longer destined solely to take the form of words.

- "There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come." -Saul Williams

- Sometimes I wonder: When I look back at this time in my life, will things seem as clear as they do right now? Am I delusional or just paranoid?

- I need a hug.

- I keep bouncing between two poles: Not believing in destiny, and being deathly afraid of it.

- At some point I hope to break the cycle and climb high without the inevitable fall.

- All the Sunday School sermons about valleys and mountain tops could have never prepared me for this.

- I do not know how, but I feel that all my life has prepared me for this.

- Does the definition of substance abuse vary person to person?

- I simultaneously want to feel everything but also become numbed to everything.

- I would choose freedom over money any day. But I am rarely faced with the choice. It's usually freedom vs. nothing, and when I slip into old habits I end up picking nothing. So maybe there's a reason why I haven't been allowed to graduate to the freedom vs. money test yet.

- I still remember my best friend's phone number from grade school. I have not even begun to try to forgive myself for how I treated him Freshman year of high school. He seems to be doing really well now. I don't know if he would be doing so good if we had remained friends.

- Confession is good for the soul.

Bought a ticket

"It's all a matter of how bad you want it," my dad always said. I can name every place I was when he told me this: Standing under the basketball hoop on an August afternoon; riding home in the truck after a game; learning how to prune cherry trees in the orchard; sitting on my bed with my guitar across my lap.

When I was seven we were driving North on Highway 221 heading toward our house near Dayton, Oregon, when my dad said he would buy me any guitar in the world if I could learn to play the solo on "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits. He had already bought me my first guitar two years earlier at a garage sale when I was 5, but I wouldn't know it until I found the old Yamaha acoustic a coat closet when I was thirteen. Who knows if I would've bothered to pick it up if it had been given directly to me as a gift.

In May of 1999, at the end of my freshman year at Dayton, my guidance counselor asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and when I told her, she replied, "...Is there, um, anything more practical that you want to do?" "No," I answered.

Today I bought a plane ticket to Hollywood on the 10-year anniversary of my conversation with the guidance counselor. Immediately doubt and fear began to set in. Were I standing alone, the pressure might be enough for me to collapse.

Sometimes I feel that doing it for me is not a good enough reason, no matter how bad I want it. But if "myself" isn't enough of a reason to go, I can do it for my mom, dad, and sister who never told me to turn it down. These are the people who pulled me out of the pit two months ago when everything came undone.

"And they worked to give faith hands and feet
And somehow gave it wings"

-Rich Mullins

Still bleeding: The second half of something I wrote a year ago.

I take issue with the phrase, "live life with no regrets." My life is full of regrets and I cling tightly to them refusing to give them up, because I know that they are what keeps me from becoming content; a predicament I fear more than anything. This is the tree from a seed planted by Mrs. Remy in pre-Algebra, 1997, who warned a class full of seventh graders from ever becoming content-- something that contradicted every sermon of self-actualization preached to us by the Hug-Yourself cult.

It's 8:30am on a Saturday morning and I'm peering at my laptop out of one bloodshot eye. I'm laying on the floor (I don't have a bed yet) and I've got to leave for work soon and process financial transactions after three hours of sleep. I'm going through the delicate, painful demise of a seven year relationship, five of which were married years. And while I cannot quite explain it, I find myself in three places: (1) Happier than ever before, (2) More joyful than ever before (joy and happiness are not the same) and (3) less content than ever before.

Please understand I am not a sadist, nor am I glad that my marriage failed. If it were my choice, none of this would be happening. I would not be watching movies sitting in a lawn chair in my empty bedroom while framed photos documenting the last 7 years lean against the wall in the corner like folded-up chairs after a party. So when I say that I'm happy, do not be so simple to draw relation between this and my wife leaving on Friday the 13th of March.

Finally I have learned the difference between what we can regret and what we can't. I've got a long list of shortcomings, misgivings and screw-ups that I carry with me as a way of challenging myself to do better next time. But there's this other category of things. Things that just happened, things that are out of my hands, things that I cannot fix. These are the things that I do not, and cannot regret.

Anyone who refuses to regret certain things is robbing themselves of an opportunity for improvement. But for the other things-- the things out of our hands-- lies a rare liberating freedom to those who are willing to embrace the present bleeding pain and call it what it is: It Is.

This is: I'm sleeping on the floor, but I am getting a bed soon. I'm hung over but I am recovering. I'm broken but I am healing. I cannot block myself from the reality of the pain I'm enduring because the pain is reality, and I value reality more than I value temporary pseudo-peace. If pain is what is real at the moment, I want what is real more than I want to be shielded from suffering.

And this is why I'm happy.

Last year, March 25, 2008, I wrote, "...I felt everything. With every passing second reality exhaled, and I could feel its breath on the back of my neck. I realized that this morning I woke up not on the wrong side of the bed but in the raw consciousness of reality. It throbbed like a fresh wound, and I could not get enough of it. "