Three months of days and ways

Since Halloween, it has been over 30 kg
and that seems bloody fantastic.

I keep working on German
and have even started teaching people
     who can now say hallo.

Things sound idyllic
but I still want to go away.

Is it crazy to want to give up staring at a computer screen for at least 40 hours a day, doing the same work all the time, yet a secure job, to want to struggle to find a job in another country?

Am I wrong?

I am lost or close to getting lost.

Terrified of being rejected before I apply to a program, and terrified to get accepted.

Maybe there is something wrong with me.

Another year past

Two months I was 17.7 kg lighter.
It is nice, but i have not put myself in torment
      throughout the holidays
pay a third of my weekly paycheck for daily substance
    half of the normal amount

to loose .6 kg.

Then to be told how bloody fantastic it is.
No. Fuck that.


I just want it to be June. The wedding, to stand behind a friend.

And hopefully an end to this in sight.


Hopefully certified and with prospects.

Tis the season for food

Food has gotten easier to be removed from my life.
I see results and I guess that matters.
But food and dining is such a social and cultural thing.
Going to see a friend in Indianapolis, he had planned to go out, dine on homemade soup in handmade bowls. But I cannot.
And all the meetings.
How do you feel this week?
Have you wanted to eat food?
Have you been good on your diet?
Can I just go? This is infuriating.
Yes, I want to eat.
I want to eat real food daily.
I want to go out with friends and commune over Chipotle, or meet an out of town friend for German beer.
Enjoy the holiday, warmed by the food in our bellies, a fire, and community.
Nothing sounds better.


And I know, these bitchings are one of luck.
When people know of war, starvation, incurable illness. Fresh water is a luxury. Each time I want to break, I donate. Help someone build a well, or send money to children dying.

Something I never have to worry about.

Either way, it is Christmas season at work. There are two trays of candies and cookies. Honey baked ham has been served.

I keep eating diet pudding.
They make me hate food.

Another beginning

The insurance agency says I have one chance to do this. Get a new start on life. 

In the weight department.

So two weeks into it, I thought to write 

a whatever this is. 

I gave up food

and realized how addictive food is. 

But also, how much time we invest in food.

I have read more in these past two weeks, listened to more (of the same) music. Wrote.

Listened to people (usually while watching them eat).

I get addiction now. To have a setting to catch up, when a friend comes in from out of town involves food and drink. Celebrating successes and offering sympathy involves food. To live socially involves food.

All television, wither commercial or within the story, involves food. Scenes in books have feasting or a dinner. It is omnipresent. 

15 pounds in fourteen days is a feat, and should be easy to overcome these temptations. 

But like the night creeping upon a candle in a Halloween movie, I keep watching people eat, wanting to taste, consume. 

It is getting darker earlier, colder

exercising isn't an option in the raining ice pellets 

and holidays loom closer with the colorful side dishes and succulent proteins

I must a stone witch immune to temptation and wickedly alone. 

My home

This morning when I woke up early, my algorithmic music player started to play West Side Story's dance driven tune "America" and I realized half way through, I have only one other song about my country on my laptop. It seemed fitting to play Rammstein's beat driven "Amerika" following the dog barking and clapping.

I suppose I should be writing about my Germany travels or getting a job but this seems fitting in today's world.

It's apparent after listening to these two songs how much of a shift and disconnection there is about America in the world.

West Side Story, set in the 1950s, everyone is out of WWII, life is back to booming as America is growing like a child in school.      

West Side Story is also written by Americans.

Rammstein is contemporary. East German men playing badass music and putting on a show of more than women dancing around. This song isn't a love song, as stated abruptly and in English.

It has to be plainly stated. And it needs to be said. American music isn't great at understanding nuances or metaphors, really.

From what we perceive as a great melting pot that is our culture (which is a lie), I feel like it is now a boot crushing cultures. When an iPod sign shines down from a building onto Marienplatz, larger than the Mary the square is named for, we destroy places.

We destroy facts, teaching wrong ones to children. We feed sloppy lies to the masses like overprotective parents stuffing the baby full.

               There was a show about the 80s, and the National Geographic Chanel would have you believe Reagan went to Berlin to tear the wall down, when it wasn't him at all other then adding tension.

               And all of Germany isn't Bavaria. And David Hasselhoff isn't German. Looking at you, Great American Ballpark.

               It's all up to the New York Times to tell you why Scotland should remain tethered to England.

               And why we have to play the hero.

Just long enough to see ourselves as the villain.

Hell, everyone I met in Germany could speak English, even if it was just enough to help a lost traveller get to the nearest Bahnhof.

Why is it so hard to get people here to be bilingual?

To be fair, many people here want and choose to learn Spanish. That's awesome. I would have hated to be forced to learn it.

German was my choice of language. It was that or Latin, which after two years, I was more than willing to drop.

But it's the point of the matter. So many countless people travel from America and venture forth without knowing a bit of the language. We just expect everyone to speak English. Even more than that, we expect them to know everything about America.

I'm sorry.

As an American, I'm sorry.

When the world was heating up, causing a deadly storm in the North Rhine-Westphalia, I apologized. It hurt to see so many solar panels knowing back home, we were aiding in destroying the world while Germany tries to save it.

It's hard to try and get an experience, wanting to work on German more than "name the colors!" and listening to music and movies. (Which is great that I know Zwitter, but not very practical.) Everyone from the people in hostels to waiters and a nice lady from Berlin wants to work on their English. As my pleasant train companion from Dresden to Berlin stated, "It's more helpful for us that you are here. Very better that you know some German."

Great. Glad to help. But I need to know if this is the train I board. Then we can work on English names of zoo animals. It was a great five hour trip. We talked about zoos and chocolate, trees and the loud teenagers. Language is interesting. It is isolating, if you don't speak the native language. So many times on trains and streets just soaking up where you are. It is the best way to feel "other" than you would at home.

It's liberating too. Hours filled with silence. Not one moment of awkward tension.

But between trying to figure out differences between languages for snails and slugs, quiet apathy and understanding of yesteryear can be shared with an exhausted eye twinkle.

               And that's connection.

I guess, I struggle with nationalism. I don't hate America. It's home. Flying back into Cincinnati, after a month in Germany and then three years ago, my month in Scotland, is coming home, knowing my parents are there and we're going to go commune together, talking about adventures, cultures, and life.

These stories aren't about where I was for the most part, but what I did and who I am now. Not saying where isn't important, because like Frodo and Sam find out, you have to go somewhere to have a story.

I cried after Sachesnhausen, became a hermit on the floor of a Hauptbahnhof while all trains were cancelled, felt wind on my face near the Alps, and met some fascinating people along the way.

I'm still struggling with nationalism, as I watched my team, Der Mannschaft, win the world cup, flying a German flag with every win. Shuttering when I hear children mindlessly recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Children don't know what they are saying. I didn't when I was five.

But I still say things like "It's 2014, and we're in America, why is the internet so slow?" or things of that nature. Like I expect things to be better because of my country.

Flags and languages divide us, separate us from each other. Make everyone other and ourselves prideful of us.

But like the shared exasperation of teenagers, these divisions don't have to be.

And once we as an American public realize this, things will get better for travelers.

And hopefully, at home. In the world, who knows. Shit's crazy out there. Did you know not everyone speaks English?

               

Two weeks left

I wish for longer but it isn't easy to find a job here, much less there.

But my bucket list will be complete.

So, the end?

A Day of Being Human

Or life and death.

Overcast during an old friend's funeral. Less than half the class showed, but more than expected.
Two wakes.
Carpool with a great friend.
A baby shower.
Then a celebration of aforementioned friend's birth.

I've been up for 20 hours.
Too tired for tortured metaphors

Update to mundane life

Still working, but with friends gone to lives afar and changed, it seems useless to be productive.

So, escaping to a land of fairy tales and industry, richer with history than my hills, in less than a month. I devoured a series of medieval fantasy. Wishing for seer dragons and a life of adventure.

Dreading the day of a classmate's memorial service, and a friend's (?) baby shower

That is a dreadful question mark.

Necessary.

And I keep hearing times are changing. I must be the old man wishing for a king to rise.

If only there was magic

I have studied the books about dragons, heard the stories about trolls, and remember the monsters from the cautionary tales. Yet some part of me still craves the magic that runs alongside these stories, the wonder that imbues their world. It is one of the things that keep people coming back to these fantastical tales.

This magic wouldn't be for myself, but to gift to the wonderful people in my life. Magic is said to have a price, that's why we're not supposed to really actually want it, but I would pay it so my friends and family would have a fighting chance against the wicked selfish women and evil corrupt men that reality and fantasy have in common.

These fairy tales and stories aren't real, and that's okay. But the villains shouldn't be either if that's the case. And there are too many damn good people in the world fighting against these demons, these dragons with treasure, these vampires out for our blood.

Now I know why we never read fantasy in school. It gives us too much hope. Enjoy your Greek tragedies and love Big Brother.  I'll keep hoping for the best for good people.

The world today

Upon hearing
that's just how it in
in the world today, I crave reasons
to remain
to not be one of the ten thousand
to not play a game of life

and end up dying anyway

there are no thrones 

and other people are living my dream

and it makes me wonder

why did I draw the short stick

having to roam the home with the killer

attached to my back

and all it would take is a little

push

because everyone needs a good fall

Dreams--slightly out of reach

Keep thinking of a well played game
worn out
tired from running
    and following rules
putting yourself on the line


The innominate "they" said things would be better
once we played the game
and won.
Ice cream or something.

Now there are scraps
and scrapes from learning it would have been better
watching from the sidelines.

I didn't even get a trophy.


All metaphors for life and games
and making it into someone else's entertainment
aside

Being a master means
to hope to one day
soon
be a manager
of a shift
at a store
in Kentucky
making food
for people who sat out
formed callouses instead of learning sentence structure

Maybe they were the smart ones

I was just duped

My friends were too. Embittered at 23. 

That's the new life. 

Schlips

After years of gender deferential dress codes
and fixing the turned up collars of my classmates
        while trying to wear my own well
a few stuck around
hanging


some ties were looser
floating in and out on the breeze
but when on fire
burning bright


the tightest one
is starting to choke me
and part of me wants to cut it

but it's so aged
and comfortable
when it doesn't strangle me

and that pre-made and tied one
feels better around my throat.

Crash and burn

The moment one realizes any plans for the future--
teach
travel
write something
anything worthwhile
fails.

What I worked hard to do
tried to be good
and do well
try
anything
fails.

Failing is life
at least for me
for now?
ever?
Gah.

And it doesn't really matter
probably not even to you,
because what's a recluse
depressed maniac
(sub)human
to you. Really.

A new friend said
what may be something true
although I have to say the terminology
asexual is wrong

more like non
but is non human
because we're biologically inclined to want that
for humanity.

Gross.
Just no. No longer.
Das ende.

Being a character

"If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story."-- Terry Pratchett

 Would it really be a bad thing? To live

in someone's else's tale for even a year.

We all like to see characters come

and go, aid

the protagonist. To foil and fade

and be worthwhile

in that capacity. 

Gehst mir unter die Haut

Sunday was crazy.

Deny excitement, because, honestly
I'll be disappointed
in seeing someone my mother decided was right
who is far too brilliant
(and nice)
to really talk to me.
                      And I cannot stress brilliant enough
(also, creative)

It wasn't just me either,
but the general class.

Even though each message
or like
made me happy (for a while), I denied any real attachment.

[Don't be that girl, with feelings and thinking you're above your place.]

So everything was chill
       be cool and logical
           try to seem smarter than reality.

Until the big reveal of things beyond control,
see him go down, loose self for time.
Hold his head, because strange men had to put him on his side and then couldn't be bothered.
Try not to feel awkward
and out of place.
                                   You haven't touched someone's head in over three years.
Wish for time travel so you could remember what to do
and hope you do it right
and why couldn't you just be better
at being a person, and just want time to speed up
him to wake up
be okay
please be okay

Time stops as EMT men arrive
                          stop thinking of the last time you were here
                          your big reveal, the ambulance for a T-bone
                          "is there a doctor here?" and blue eyes catching yours with laughter at trite
                                        and concern

The who are you to the lucid and barely there
when his eyes couldn't find a name for anyone
to see him taken away, not knowing.

It was easy to follow, at least.

Call family, and just worry
like it is really your place                                                                               [/sarcasm]

The thank yous and history lesson
from a mom just concerned
and so logical

The apologies for biology
and thanks for being there
                       like disappearing was an option
until families reunite and become no one again


It would be better
save face to be a ragged claw
lessen the uncontrollable embarrassment
and [my] social one
               of liking someone

Or we could kill them

Let me make this sane
even though I am freaking out.



I met my idol today.
A man of magic.
Neil Gaiman.

From senior year Catholic school,
the sixteen year old atheist tried to find something to hold to
and nothing was working.
Until my friend (turned best friend)  threw me a book,
told me to read it, and thank him later.

Eschewing school work for a day, I devoured American Gods
and found solace in words again. It was sorely missed after the isolation because of a high reading level in middle school.

I read all I could of his work and then other fantasy works
and then literary works when not preached setting for the fifteenth time.

Hello English major.

Then a poem, "Instructions"
showed me how universal stories are
that help everyone on their journey.

Hello MFA
writing
my life.

So I journeyed with my best friend--post a commune and an hour sweating
in summer's sunny glare,
we ran to the front like a rock concert.
Sat front row, nearly on top of each other
with my sister and other friend in tow.
Talk and drink for a few hours in blessed AC
with other people touched by words.

Applause, introduction of a personal nature,
a story of how stories are made
birthed into creation and sold on the market.

Then, a band starts next door. We could ignore them
or we could kill them.

We choose ignore, but there was an undertone of rage--swept away in story.

A Q&A about doors, writing, and creativity.
A story of fatherhood and a story for fathers.

Stand around, and try to let all of the words sink in
realize this is not the highlight of his life, except for the staring of stories.
Stories and stories en masse cannot be fun, how rough it must be to make a personal connection--
to be the face of magic for everyone, yet drain away days that could be meant for creating.

Yet, with a broken pen, we spoke for a few minutes of dragon's blood and stories.

A delight for my July and for 2013.

And my friend watched,
as he always has, from afar
while I let emotion and words carry me
knowing he'll never have to pick up as many shattered pieces
and disjointed crazy like in high school
even though my deathlist is shorter.

And as always, ticking off miles in conversation and silence
towards home.

July

With heat
childhood jealousy issues (really mean nothing
now)
and hospital visits of years' past summers
ending, always, in coffins,
makes my Julys a game of tolerance.

But this year, something to look forward to
(less or more than a country across the sea)
of meeting my hero
art-master
magic-maker.

Seriously, one brief encounter to cause so much hope
                 (will end in disappointment)
but still better than remembering the rain and cobblestone,
stoop of people,
feeling infinite
staring out into the north sea.
Streets of disinterested yet pleasant people,
cafes older than my whole world until that point.
I lived in antiquity
enjoying the 44,600 minutes spent in Scotland,


oh too willing to throw a future away in waves.
Though, I never crossed that barbed wire.


I'll never get that moment back,
yet the 11th will still be magical

& then

there are nights with life
long friends

work on a project
to watch a movie

reflect on high school
and keep going
for one more week

Making it easy

I shouldn't have to defend not wanting [to be with] someone.

Same that people don't have to defend wanting [craving?] a relationship

or even someone for a night. 

                  How is that so hard for people to understand?

Like a playground,

kids frolicking with balls and objectives,

    enjoying their game

and interaction. 

Note the girl in the shade,

near the building and hidden from windows, 

reading

and loving that adventure

with no one around. 

                                                                 Hopefully that's better

and okay. 

Who knows? Maybe it is all just detachment

[from being human] to engaging with strangers. 

"Books are better than other people anyway."

Huzzah for childhood fantasy memories and books of magic. 

Neverland

Degree came--
call me master
as I throw pizzas into an oven
and ask you to give me your location
                       so I can feed you
                       [after you pay]

Cross that off the life affirming/ death list

and then
meeting my artistic idol in less than a month
cross that off
                                 [note to self: be charismatic that day]

I did not mean for this to be about ends,
but somewhere in the middle,
wandering around without a full moon to see by
or moss to guide you.

I just hope I don't trip
or if I do, learning and more than just hurt and blood.

But for now, I'll pretend to be someone else
and play with dice
like a child, never wanting to grow up
though I desperately do,
yet trapped by magic and stubborn wishes.