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)

It's 11:30 a.m. -- do you know where your motivation is?

It's an ongoing battle, this search for motivation, inspiration, the will to even leave my bed. I guess you could say my S.A.D. has picked up for the winter. Somehow it doesn't come as a huge surprise, what with the fact that every winter is a marathon trudge through grim and grey.

Belly all pocked with life's henpecks, feeling balky at the gates of paradise so rushed out and found a down cafe for coffee, cake, and understanding. Capitulating to despair? Hope not. Dream a little dream, I say a little prayer for you, "I just want to be me" (The Smashing Pumpkins are playing beside me, talk about a blast from the past oh yes indeed) and no there is no sunshine but you learn to cope with grim and cloudy Yes there is now five at least more months to go of drizzle-drop holy Hell I hafta homeward
Just for court what fun is that?

I am using homeward as a verb from here on out.

Ross, taking up valuable webspace for no good reason

It's 12:30 a.m. & I'm bored.

"You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in any other direction. Junk wins by default." William S. Burroughs

Was that the case for me? Is it really as simple as I-didn't-have-a-strong-enough-urge-to-do-something-else-with-myself?

I guess it's really not even worth pontificating on that particular subject for too long. The important question isn't "Why did I do this to myself" but rather "What else would I rather do with my time?" Sometimes I feel like other people must have an easier time determining what they want to do with their lives, but that's probably not really the case. Figuring out one's direction in life is not the easiest thing.

All of this would be inconsequential if not for the fact that I genuinely want to do something meaningful with my existence.

I have to go back to Montana for court this week. The thought of being back in Missoula fills me with dread, but I'm sure I'll survive it just fine. And so on.

I give thanks.

I give thanks.

I give thanks, I have faith
that the year to come comes on like
honey and bourbon

That is to say that life's day-to-day way
It intoxicates, opens gates, and
Do not need spirits  Cuz I
I can drift smiling 
Sleep of supplication to the yen of faith

Oh and yes that broke the rhythm,
Lord don't castigate, Don't lacerate my
Words my rhymes (seems overly obvious to
Use "time"; Use it to my advantage
       if not in verse, then,

As was saying Oh oh Oh Lord please
Don't suppurate the wound of writer's
Block before my mind's sweet eye
Oh, time, oh Lord my imploration:

Let this year, then, truly be
As sweet as yams in late November.

Amen.

Rosswell
11/25/10

This poem is a failure, but I'm not.

On Perfectionism, Cluttered Mind

Looked in the lint trash
What, a bucket of spiders?
But that's just my smarm, I mean
Charm, yes so charming, I

Feel I should tell
You: See, I am the kind
Of a man whose particles of rage all blend blisters into macrame
What? That's to say I only craft with vengeance, Art is Hell.

I'm not really sure, see, it seems I
have so many words inside and yet
No order, no syntax, no form, no norm.

Can't spin A.D.D. into gold, No,

I can't tremble, blink, then in that
Blink! Distill a miracle
Of words whose sentience, er,
Sentence myself to the chair,

The chair at the computer where,
Confounded,
I shiver and sigh, sob, eye.


Rosswell