"Sisyphean"
Baby, you're a rock alright.
(2007)
"Logorrhea"
Blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah. Blah, blah blah blah... blah. BLAH! Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....
(2007)
"Optimism"
Across from me she sat, photographing. Secretly I loathed it. I am not photogenic. Everything around me could smack of aesthetic beauty and I would still feel unappealing. It's not her fault. Blame it on poor self esteem. I skimmed through the songs on her iPod. Eclectic. Tunes ranged from Modest Mouse to Converge (Two Day Romance is a great song) to Psyopus. She laughed at the faces I made with each run of the thumb. I began to wonder how many pictures she'd taken. I asked.
She said, "plenty, but I'm ready for a smoke now."
Outside the sun was bright. I told her that I was sad and she asked me why.
"Because the sun is not my friend."
"You are pale," she admitted.
"I don't mean that. It's just... I don't like these bright days. They reveal too much."
"The sun makes me happy," She said.
"Have you ever spent a night under the stars with a guy, just to be completely disappointed by the way he looked in sunlight?"
"Um, ha... no."
"She was horrible," I said.
"What are you listening to?"
"Some 80's sounding shit. But seriously, she had terrible acne around her lips. I think it was acne. I didn't feel it when she was kissing me in the dark."
"You're strange," She said. "I know a girl who had an STD once. On her face. Around her lips."
"STD?"
"Yeah, how do you know it was acne?" She asked, smiling. She threw down her cigarette, grabbed the iPod, and found the cover of "My Sharona" by The Number Twelve Looks Like You.
"Just for you."
I laughed, "You found it."
"Remember when we met at that party and you were trying to speak Spanish?"
I stepped back. "Yeah, I do."
"Are you talking about that girl that was slapping you all night?"
"Ha, yeah."
"STD."
"What?"
"STD. My friend Jonas said that she put out that night. And Jonas... he's a cool guy, but he's like a fuckin' carrier monkey."
"What does that have to do with me speaking Spanish?"
"I don't know. I thought it was cute. Yo soy Cubano. Haha!"
I sat on the concrete against the wall of the edifice. She sat next to me. She apologized.
"I can't afford treatment," I sighed.
"Maybe you don't have anything."
"Maybe."
"It's probably nothing."
"Probably."
She looked me directly in the eyes, the camera now in her clutches. "You're in love," She said quietly. She snapped another picture.
"Not with her," I said. "With someone else."
"If you say me, I'll kill you. Promise."
I grabbed her hand and licked it. She pulled away and said gross, wiping the spit off on my pantleg.
"Give me a cigarette."
"You don't smoke."
"Normally I don't, but right now..."
"I only have menthols."
"I can smell them. Gimmie."
She gives me a cigarette. I tear off the filter. She lights me. The fumes hit my lungs hard, causing me to choke.
"No one told you to tear the fuckin' filter off, idiot."
"No one told you to tear the fuckin' filter off, idiot."
"That's like death!"
"You're crazy. Tell me about the girl."
I pause, look to the sun, look at her and say, "She's a woman."
"Does she have a name? How long have you known her?"
"Dream girl. A year. Roundabouts."
"I give up," She says. She picks herself up, holds her hand out for the iPod, I give it to her, and she leaves. I sit alone with a smile.
Ooh, ooh... dreamweaver...
(2007)
"Myspace Ads"
One thing I didn't miss in my brief respite from this beloved social networking site is the ads. Oh yes. The fucking ads. Whenever you log in or check your messages or read bulletins. Some are annoying (the ones that make NOISES or ask you to play games to win shit-- though beating the shit out of "W" can be rather therapeutically cathartic), and some are relatively innocuous; usually pertaining to sites you visit on a regular basis or coincide with things you've listed as favorites on your page. You don't bother them and they don't bother you.
However, their ubiquity lends to the notion that pop culture can't get enough of ramming itself down our throats. I am a single straight male, so naturally I always get ads for meeting new women on Match.com or some other shitty site where the only people you ever talk to seem to be those so drastically different, you might as well be sitting in Santa's lap, asking him for the things you'll never get (and believe me, none of the chicks you find on that site are as hot as the ones in the ads. The rare exception being my friend Jess. Hi Jess). Fuck Santa, and fuck Match.com. Hell, might as well throw eHarmony and all those other "matching social misfits: two at a time" sites into that fuckbin.
I love the ones that address me for the sad, pathetic loser I am. My myspace page is so perceptive that I think it might be becoming self-aware. It knows when I'm sad and depressed, and it knows that, aside from a cruel joke or two, my status has never been off "single" for longer than a couple of weeks.
I have never met anyone who had any luck with ads on Myspace. Not one person. Seriously. Now, http://www.foreignhookermailorderbrideworld.com/*, I hear, yields much better results in at least finding the love you desire; even if brief and marked by miscommunication. There's a reason the dating sites advertise like crazy. Because they aren't selling what people are eager to buy: emotionally distant sexual encounter. Seriously... let the internet serve its purpose, myspace. Advertise to the lowest common denominator. Accentuate the shallowness of humanity. Stop trying to guilt us into commitment.
That being said, I am not a cynic. When I see the ad that says, "Sweet, beautiful, bookish girls await you," admittedly, I click.
(2008)
"Shit"
Shit. I have too much shit. I'm burdened with it. My apartment is filled with it. Stacked to the hilt with shit; those things that I (no one) have no real need for. Shit just exists. Sometimes I'm not quite so sure I can deal. Shit bores me. Shit angers me. Shit confuses and flusters, frustrates and blusters. It keeps me from sleep. Shit and the enormity of its existence defines my existential woe. Shit makes me sick, it forces me to sleep in (the Bartesque paradox rears its yellow head). Shit keeps me from living the dream. I blame shit for everything.
(2008)
"Untitled"
Her: If I said that I love you, would you react honestly?
Me: I wouldn't.
Her: Because you think you'll hurt me?
Me: Because I am not an honest person.
Her: Well, I'm done with attachments. I'm free.
Me: I'm not.
Her: So you do love someone?
Me: I'm not free.
...
Me: I love myself. I think.
Her: I used to think that I loved you.
Me: I used to think that you thought you loved me.
Her: I used to think that maybe you thought that I thought I loved you.
Me: I thought that perhaps you thought that I was thinking that you thought you loved me.
...
Me: I never thought once of hurting you.
Her: Things like that just happen.
Me: Sometimes.
Her: Yeah, there was that one guy...
Me: There's always that one...
Her: But there never is a one.
Me: What?
Her: A one. A person that owns you completely.
Me: Lamentably so.
Her: Ha, lamentably. Never. No one should own anyone.
Me: 'Cause then it'd be slavery.
Her: No, because it'd be senseless.
Me: Everything is senseless. Absurd.
Her: Hence my reasoning for telling you to shut up last night.
Me: I was drunk.
Her: Drunk with passion.
Me: For what?
Her: For me. Always for me. You told me you love me.
Me: No I didn't.
Her: You did!
...
Me: I am not an honest person.
Her: Neither am I.
Me: I love you.
(2007)
"The Quiet and Other Silences"
The quiet pisses me off,
I hate libraries, barren waiting rooms,
I hate awkward silences, your quiet lips,
the rooms in which finnicky children sleep,
I hate the solitude, the desperation of contact,
the hoplessness of hands, the quiet, the study,
steady,
I hate the quiet.
The still.
What you call serene,
such nature,
and love,
I will digress,
to stress,
and I feel,
quietude.
Your lips.
I love your lips.
Quiet when they speak.
(2008)
"Ends."
Gregory used to watch the stars from the bench outside his apartment. On a cloudless night he could see everything, and if he knew anything about astronomy, he'd be able to distinguish the formation of stars into constellations. This lack of astronomical knowledge gave him pause when he'd consider inviting the pretty girl across the courtyard out to gaze.
She smoked cigarettes in quick succession, which he abhorred.
He tried keeping a journal, but found that he had very little to say, and what he did say made no sense. At all. Politics bored him. Sports was incomprehensible. Why would grown men dedicate their lives to rhetoric or playing games? The money? The infidelity? He knew for certain that the latter wasn't true.
Christina would call off and on, sometimes sending him dirty text messages in an effort to get him over to her side of town. She claimed that she was in love with him. He didn't love her back, though he insisted he did whenever she made an issue of it. When he'd arrive at her place, she'd usually answer the door naked. He came to expect this. In fact, sometimes he couldn't remember what she looked like fully clothed. Couldn't even imagine it. Didn't.
She never liked changing positions. It was pretty much the standard missionary. He hated the fact that she never opened her eyes. Sometimes he'd thrust into her harder, thinking to himself, "open your eyes you silly bitch." Then he'd laugh aloud, triggering her self-consciousness. This lead to a minimum of twenty minutes of assorted hysterics, usually accompanied by flowing tears. Instead of trying to talk her back into sex, he'd leave.
He took classes at university, but never settled into any kind of major. He'd think to himself, "Gregory Olender is good at nothing." Perhaps there was a fear of settling. A fear of success. A fear of failure. Simply trying seemed a frightening prospect.
Gregory took to a young woman in a sociology class. She was bookish and young with pale skin and large breasts. He liked to tell himself that enormous breasts are disgusting, but with lust came curiosity.
(2007)
"Lovers" **
"We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards." -- Jean-Paul Sartre Existentialism is a Humanism
I have a beautiful view of the palm trees. With my cigarette and my wine. And strangely enough, my girlfriend resides in the downstairs apartment diagonally to mine. But wait, honest narration requires of me that I explain to you that she's not really my girlfriend-- but a guy can dream. Anyway, sometimes I drunkenly sing songs to her door in hopes that she'll come out.
If I'm really drunk, she'll poke out her head, smile that smile, and tell me politely to shut up. It's beautiful, but I know that it's impossible for her to love me. I know it. I don't have the tangibles-- good job, car, looks, etc.-- and my personality, of course, perishes in intangibility. If only we weren't such material creatures.
I love how her straight black hair rests upon her shoulders, ending in fine tips that point perfectly to her breasts. I love her smile when she directs it towards me. I love her eyes, her big, round eyes that appear to giggle as if they alone understand the joke life has played upon her. She calls herself Wendy. She's twenty-seven, an Aquarius, goes to law school and likes Hemingway. Sometimes we talk about her boyfriend. Sometimes we talk about my loneliness. Sometimes we talk about how lonely we both are and how nice it is to be alone with someone.
When she's drunk she tells me that she loves me. I say nothing in return. Not because it isn't there, the feeling, but because I know the impetus for her confessions. They say that the truth comes with inebriation, but so does impulsiveness, which is not always motivated by honesty.
We read books together. My lips tingle as I watch hers read aloud a line of import. I want to kiss her badly. I want my breath taken away. My mouth waters and my eyes are fixed. My thoughts go overdrive. Oh Wendy, tonight I will love you, you will love me, and I will forever be obsessed.
- all of these were originally written on my myspace blog.
© Patrick Patterson-Carroll
Photos:
This is from a video installation I filmed for J.C. Hernandez.
Found art object. '05 sometime. Looks gross.
** part of Women as Objects/Lovers which consisted of that story and a photo I no longer have.
Photos taken by me.
- These are all from my "fb" notes.
"Myspace Ads"
One thing I didn't miss in my brief respite from this beloved social networking site is the ads. Oh yes. The fucking ads. Whenever you log in or check your messages or read bulletins. Some are annoying (the ones that make NOISES or ask you to play games to win shit-- though beating the shit out of "W" can be rather therapeutically cathartic), and some are relatively innocuous; usually pertaining to sites you visit on a regular basis or coincide with things you've listed as favorites on your page. You don't bother them and they don't bother you.
However, their ubiquity lends to the notion that pop culture can't get enough of ramming itself down our throats. I am a single straight male, so naturally I always get ads for meeting new women on Match.com or some other shitty site where the only people you ever talk to seem to be those so drastically different, you might as well be sitting in Santa's lap, asking him for the things you'll never get (and believe me, none of the chicks you find on that site are as hot as the ones in the ads. The rare exception being my friend Jess. Hi Jess). Fuck Santa, and fuck Match.com. Hell, might as well throw eHarmony and all those other "matching social misfits: two at a time" sites into that fuckbin.
I love the ones that address me for the sad, pathetic loser I am. My myspace page is so perceptive that I think it might be becoming self-aware. It knows when I'm sad and depressed, and it knows that, aside from a cruel joke or two, my status has never been off "single" for longer than a couple of weeks.
I have never met anyone who had any luck with ads on Myspace. Not one person. Seriously. Now, http://www.foreignhookermailorderbrideworld.com/*, I hear, yields much better results in at least finding the love you desire; even if brief and marked by miscommunication. There's a reason the dating sites advertise like crazy. Because they aren't selling what people are eager to buy: emotionally distant sexual encounter. Seriously... let the internet serve its purpose, myspace. Advertise to the lowest common denominator. Accentuate the shallowness of humanity. Stop trying to guilt us into commitment.
That being said, I am not a cynic. When I see the ad that says, "Sweet, beautiful, bookish girls await you," admittedly, I click.
(2008)
"Shit"
Shit. I have too much shit. I'm burdened with it. My apartment is filled with it. Stacked to the hilt with shit; those things that I (no one) have no real need for. Shit just exists. Sometimes I'm not quite so sure I can deal. Shit bores me. Shit angers me. Shit confuses and flusters, frustrates and blusters. It keeps me from sleep. Shit and the enormity of its existence defines my existential woe. Shit makes me sick, it forces me to sleep in (the Bartesque paradox rears its yellow head). Shit keeps me from living the dream. I blame shit for everything.
(2008)
"Untitled"
Her: If I said that I love you, would you react honestly?
Me: I wouldn't.
Her: Because you think you'll hurt me?
Me: Because I am not an honest person.
Her: Well, I'm done with attachments. I'm free.
Me: I'm not.
Her: So you do love someone?
Me: I'm not free.
...
Me: I love myself. I think.
Her: I used to think that I loved you.
Me: I used to think that you thought you loved me.
Her: I used to think that maybe you thought that I thought I loved you.
Me: I thought that perhaps you thought that I was thinking that you thought you loved me.
...
Me: I never thought once of hurting you.
Her: Things like that just happen.
Me: Sometimes.
Her: Yeah, there was that one guy...
Me: There's always that one...
Her: But there never is a one.
Me: What?
Her: A one. A person that owns you completely.
Me: Lamentably so.
Her: Ha, lamentably. Never. No one should own anyone.
Me: 'Cause then it'd be slavery.
Her: No, because it'd be senseless.
Me: Everything is senseless. Absurd.
Her: Hence my reasoning for telling you to shut up last night.
Me: I was drunk.
Her: Drunk with passion.
Me: For what?
Her: For me. Always for me. You told me you love me.
Me: No I didn't.
Her: You did!
...
Me: I am not an honest person.
Her: Neither am I.
Me: I love you.
(2007)
"The Quiet and Other Silences"
The quiet pisses me off,
I hate libraries, barren waiting rooms,
I hate awkward silences, your quiet lips,
the rooms in which finnicky children sleep,
I hate the solitude, the desperation of contact,
the hoplessness of hands, the quiet, the study,
steady,
I hate the quiet.
The still.
What you call serene,
such nature,
and love,
I will digress,
to stress,
and I feel,
quietude.
Your lips.
I love your lips.
Quiet when they speak.
(2008)
"Ends."
Gregory used to watch the stars from the bench outside his apartment. On a cloudless night he could see everything, and if he knew anything about astronomy, he'd be able to distinguish the formation of stars into constellations. This lack of astronomical knowledge gave him pause when he'd consider inviting the pretty girl across the courtyard out to gaze.
She smoked cigarettes in quick succession, which he abhorred.
He tried keeping a journal, but found that he had very little to say, and what he did say made no sense. At all. Politics bored him. Sports was incomprehensible. Why would grown men dedicate their lives to rhetoric or playing games? The money? The infidelity? He knew for certain that the latter wasn't true.
Christina would call off and on, sometimes sending him dirty text messages in an effort to get him over to her side of town. She claimed that she was in love with him. He didn't love her back, though he insisted he did whenever she made an issue of it. When he'd arrive at her place, she'd usually answer the door naked. He came to expect this. In fact, sometimes he couldn't remember what she looked like fully clothed. Couldn't even imagine it. Didn't.
She never liked changing positions. It was pretty much the standard missionary. He hated the fact that she never opened her eyes. Sometimes he'd thrust into her harder, thinking to himself, "open your eyes you silly bitch." Then he'd laugh aloud, triggering her self-consciousness. This lead to a minimum of twenty minutes of assorted hysterics, usually accompanied by flowing tears. Instead of trying to talk her back into sex, he'd leave.
He took classes at university, but never settled into any kind of major. He'd think to himself, "Gregory Olender is good at nothing." Perhaps there was a fear of settling. A fear of success. A fear of failure. Simply trying seemed a frightening prospect.
Gregory took to a young woman in a sociology class. She was bookish and young with pale skin and large breasts. He liked to tell himself that enormous breasts are disgusting, but with lust came curiosity.
(2007)
"Lovers" **
"We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards." -- Jean-Paul Sartre Existentialism is a Humanism
I have a beautiful view of the palm trees. With my cigarette and my wine. And strangely enough, my girlfriend resides in the downstairs apartment diagonally to mine. But wait, honest narration requires of me that I explain to you that she's not really my girlfriend-- but a guy can dream. Anyway, sometimes I drunkenly sing songs to her door in hopes that she'll come out.
If I'm really drunk, she'll poke out her head, smile that smile, and tell me politely to shut up. It's beautiful, but I know that it's impossible for her to love me. I know it. I don't have the tangibles-- good job, car, looks, etc.-- and my personality, of course, perishes in intangibility. If only we weren't such material creatures.
I love how her straight black hair rests upon her shoulders, ending in fine tips that point perfectly to her breasts. I love her smile when she directs it towards me. I love her eyes, her big, round eyes that appear to giggle as if they alone understand the joke life has played upon her. She calls herself Wendy. She's twenty-seven, an Aquarius, goes to law school and likes Hemingway. Sometimes we talk about her boyfriend. Sometimes we talk about my loneliness. Sometimes we talk about how lonely we both are and how nice it is to be alone with someone.
When she's drunk she tells me that she loves me. I say nothing in return. Not because it isn't there, the feeling, but because I know the impetus for her confessions. They say that the truth comes with inebriation, but so does impulsiveness, which is not always motivated by honesty.
We read books together. My lips tingle as I watch hers read aloud a line of import. I want to kiss her badly. I want my breath taken away. My mouth waters and my eyes are fixed. My thoughts go overdrive. Oh Wendy, tonight I will love you, you will love me, and I will forever be obsessed.
(2008)
- all of these were originally written on my myspace blog.
© Patrick Patterson-Carroll
Photos:
This is from a video installation I filmed for J.C. Hernandez.
The 25ft rule, to our annoyance, was strictly adhered to. Cheeky fuckin' sign.
This photo was taken outside "The Grasshopper" in Houston. We got in free because of the Spartan costumes. Chris and Matt are the two Spartans. We did it on a whim.
Found art object. '05 sometime. Looks gross.
*If this link is dead, it was originally a joke about "Craig's List." That is where the link directed you.
** part of Women as Objects/Lovers which consisted of that story and a photo I no longer have.
Photos taken by me.
No comments:
Post a Comment