3 a.m. -- Vampires -- Favorite Music of 2010

Cement stairwell, smoking a menthol, the cat came bounding down the steps and I found myself kind of hoping it wasn't the cat at all but rather a shape-shifting vampire come to convert me--my lifelong secret-diary type fantasy scenario of roaming the streets of a city in search of my next meal finally on the verge of coming true, the immortality breakthrough, then...nothing. Just the cat. I am not a future serial killer, so be not afraid, it's just that I read Interview With the Vampire when I was 10 and have never truly conceded that it's not going to happen.

Walking to the MAX downtown tonight--iPod on shuffle--"Waterfalls" by TLC came on (yeah, it's on my iPod--so what? Don't judge me) and I am here to tell you--that song is still AMAZING after all these years.

It's been a long year.  It's been a hard year. It's been a bouncy-flouncy-happy-sappy-sad-and-cry-then-get-past-it year. I am trying, really, it's just that wintertime is never easy for me. I swear I'll be happier when springtime comes--really.

I have been trying to track down Danielle. Danielle, Danielle, Danielle--all I can think about.

Uninspired.

Back to vampires--something that really bothers me about the whole Twilight thing--Bella is in high school in the first one, right? And then she meets Mr. Glitter-pants...in high school...right? Okay. Why in the hell, if you were a vampire and had achieved immortality, would you spend even one moment in effing HIGH SCHOOL?! Mother of God, man, that's the best thing you can find to do with ETERNITY?!

That was bothering me. For the record, I have never read any of the Twilight books. The only reason I've seen the movies is because Rifftrax (the MST3K guys -- http://www.rifftrax.com) mocked them--and the sheer hilarity of those guys tearing the movies to shreds makes seeing them (almost) worth it.

I'm pretty much going on about nothing.

My favorite albums of 2010 (as if anyone asked)--

1. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
2. Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky
3. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
4. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
5. Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
6. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today
7. The National - High Violet
8. Xiu Xiu - Dear God, I Hate Myself
9. Matthew Dear - Black City
10. Sleigh Bells - Treats
11. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast
12. Spoon - Transference
13. Pantha Du Prince - Black Noise
14. Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
15. I feel like I should put the latest Hold Steady here--since they're pretty much my favorite--but it really doesn't deserve to be acknowledged alongside these other much more deserving picks. Bit of a letdown.

Those aren't necessarily in perfect order, but you get the idea. The top 5...that's pretty much in the right order.

I've babbled enough.

Rosswell

Poem: "Seasonal Blues, Rebirth Blues"

Seasonal Blues, Rebirth Blues

"My past is sliding down the drain;
I soon will be myself again."
Theodore Roethke

Each moment, as a hatchling,
Altricial--then there's light.
Blinking bowed before some God
To mind's eye feeling's sight.

Capitulation cast aside,
I'll try--is that enough?
I shiver, shook from head to foot,
That's life--its flesh is tough.

So D3 capsules, sun lamp, smiles,
Forcing my way through.
It takes more than a bit of faith
to get from winter black to blue,

So bruised, foreseen or not, you see
it aches to be this ghost.
My former self was due to die,
The new I's time is close.

12/14/2010
1:59 a.m.

A new poem, some blabber-blah

Hoping light remains beyond this

In Japan the color of mourning is white.
The blinding flash of strangled brain
Festooned above the funeral route,
All the crepe-stream blank of pigment,
Blank the mind once dying's done.
Maybe find a bit of hope there, thought
Of light beyond alive, not
The blackness promised by
A firm belief in nothing.
12/7/10

Regardless of catharsis
thus-far crying's done no good
it seems the sap can leak all
trite and flood surround with
sighs but I
I'll still be penitent for naught for all
the wrongest sins, to own up must
say "vanity's what needs my focus"
I--a deal so goddamn big
no other face can crowd the mirror
of my mind's eye, I all I see, see

No one looms quite large enough
to crowd me from my view.

(also 12/7)