Connect Four

Elephant and I sit across from one another at a game of connect four. We're 11 pieces into the game. Giraffe and Zebra come over from their pinball game and sit at the table.

Giraffe glances at the connect four and says to me, "You've already lost."

His statement is accurate on so many levels. I look despondently at the game. I'm numb and no longer feel like playing. Giraffe motions to an empty slot and says, "play here."

"Shhh, let her play," Elephant admonishes, "I'll play you next."

Zebra, Giraffe and Elephant all stare at the connect 4 waiting for my move. I look at the esoteric disks in their little slots and try to make sense of it all. Giant waves of discomfort flood all the real estate in my brain and spill out onto the table. They're still waiting.

"Now I just want this game to be over," says Elephant. I silently concur. "Can we talk strategy here for a second?"

"Sure," I shrug.

"Okay. Giraffe said to play there because if you play here or here then my next move will win the game. But even if you play there I'll put my next piece here and you'll be forced to block me here or here but one of the spots will be left open and I'll still win."

"Right." I say dumbly. "So the game is over."

"Essentially."

I turn the game towards Giraffe. Elephant and Giraffe release the pieces from their prisons and start a new game.

Yesturday's Account

10:10: Woke up to the sound of my alarm saying "Hey! Pick me up!" over and over. I hit snooze several times. Didn't actually get up until Arin called me around 11:15 saying to come over ASAP so we could get started working on stuff.

Showered, didn't wash my hair, dressed, ate the last of the cookies I'd made the day before last and headed to Arin's on my bike.

Arrived at Arin's. He and Michael were working on compressing videos of the talks in London for the web. I prepared lunch which consisted of brown rice, tofu-mushroom scramble and steamed kale.

Sent out some business-y emails and checked all my social networking sites. Got on meebo.com and started a few conversations. Saw N.S. on line and was getting very interested in what was going on his life. Also talked to N.K. on google chat and decided to send him $100 via paypal because he's living in his car and is totally broke. Had to get offline because I needed to start select reeling some footage and had to cut my conversation with N.S. short which I felt bad about.

Select reeled some stuff, then looked at our finances, then waited for Arin to start going through some new footage that we needed to look through together. Once he was ready we watched the footage, laughed at it and took notes. Brainstormed for awhile about how we would intercut the footage of my interview saying hilarious but sad and prophetic things about our relationship in with the footage of Arin confronting me about my email romance with the boy I kissed at Slamdance. We got a lot closer to the edit we need to finish for Friday.

8-ish Arin started to get ready to meet a friend of his for dinner and I headed to my place. I felt giddy and wanted to be social so I sent Jason a text to see if he and his friend Kelly, who just arrived from L.A., were doing anything fun. Didn't hear back. Saw Mims online. Asked Mims if he wanted to get dinner. He agreed and was talking to Kelly so it was arranged that Jason, Kelly, Mims and I would eat Sushi.

I arrived at the restaurant first thinking I was running late but really Mims was waiting for me at his place. I called him, realized I should've stopped by apt before coming to the restaurant. He said he'd be on his way. I wondered down to a second hand store. The items were all expensive. Wondered out after browsing for a few minutes and went back to wait outside the restaurant. Kelly and Jason then arrived. I called out to Kelly. Jason and Kelly came over to me, hugs all around. I was so excited to see them that my voice shook when I spoke. Mims arrived last, we all bantered a bit then went inside.

Inside the restaurant I lost my tongue and listened attentively to their conversations. Over the course of the meal I began to lose track of what they were saying and got distracted by my own thoughts. I attempted to steer my mind back to the people at the table that I'd chosen to spend time with. At a certain point Mims told me he'd been thinking about things he wanted to say to each of his friends and said when he came to me he thought he should tell me that it was time for me to move on to my next project. My face got hot, it turned bright red. I mumbled something like "thanks for the news flash, you're like totally the first person to say that' and felt like crying. I put my forehead on the table for a second and everyone was like 'awww' and then the conversation moved on. The check came we paid. I wondered what was next. Part of me said it was time to go home, that I was getting too sad to keep hanging out but another part of me didn't want to miss out and hoped that I'd be able to get back on track. Jason suggested a bar, I complained about said bar. Jason asked for another suggestion, I had none. We headed to said bar but ended up stopping at the Levee. Jason and I played connect four. He won all the games. I felt like he was becoming disappointed in what this revealed about my intelligence or he seemed worried that I would feel bad about losing. I wanted to tell him that I know I'm not that smart or atleast I know he's smarter than me and not to worry about it but it seemed like saying that would only make things worse. Jason, Mims, and Kelly then all played connect 4 with each other. I felt I should leave but still refused to do so. The games all stopped and no one spoke for a bit. I felt awkward so I started to complain about the music. My complaining annoyed Mims. No one likes a Debbie Downer. We decided to leave the bar. Outside we all stood around, Kelly and Mims talked more to each other and Jason and I talked more to each other, at times all of us bantered. Jason teased me about someting and batted my face back and forth between his hands. I giggled uncontrollably. My hand reflexively went to his waist. He backed away. My arm dropped. We all waited for something to happen or for something to get decided. Nothing happened. Kelly and Jason decided to grab a car back to Greenpoint. We said our goodbyes. Jason hugged my tightly with an ironic chuckle. I joked about him choking me. He said 'you know you like it'. I stared at the ground and said nothing. We parted ways. On the ride back I reviewed the evening. I saw that I should have left earlier and that the others probably would have had more fun if I had left sooner. I wondered again 'what's wrong with me?' and started to cry. I arrived home locked up my bike, stopped crying long enough to wash my face and brush my teeth and then cried myself to sleep.

Serious Change

I've been running with a crowd of people that lead shallow existences. They are not shallow people but because of their cooperate jobs and what not they tend to keep their social interactions on a shallow level. They probably do this because if they thought too deeply about things they would have to stop what they're doing immediately and completely restructure their lives. I know they all have the intelligence, depth and talent to break free from what they're doing and lead utterly unique, fulfilling, creative, interesting and positive lives and maybe someday they will. I think I've been overexposed to their current form of living though, in fact I've been utterly immersed in their way of living. It's making me sick in spirit. I can no longer participate. I don't want to lose the connections I have with them, don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. I'm going to make a list of things I can do with people that will prevent me from getting sucked into a world that is making me exhausted, ill and sad. I cannot spend any more time in bars for the time being. If anyone has cool things to add to this list please do. The more ideas the better. I'm seeking anything that would facilitate creativity, inspiration, good times, hilarity, serious debate or discussion and connection. Things don't have to be deep all the time but I can no longer participate in activity that's designed to keep things from going deep. I'm looking for risks.

Walks
Bike Rides
Exploring
Drawing
Talking
Cooking
Good Movies
Listening to Music
Hanging out in people's homes
Tea
Photo Shoots!
Massages
Yoga
Staring contests
Dancing
Trips places

Ms. Pacman: the game of life.

I am Ms. Pacman. The ghosts are the infernal sadness that continually chases me around. The magic pellets are brief temporary reprieves from the sadness usually in the form of good times with friends, the occasional romance, or some such other distraction. How do I get out of this game?

The 6 year old living inside my chest is stamping her feet impatiently.

And this is what she's saying:
"Don't look at me, don't talk to me, definitely don't contact me via a digital or non-digital medium and don't think about me. Ever. Your thoughts go into the cosmos and effect my thoughts so stop it. You're causing me to become distracted: I've stubbed my toe, fallen of my bike for no apparent reason while dismounting, and clipped the side view mirror of a car while riding and fallen off my bike in traffic. I can't handle not having you on my terms. You drew a line in the sand and even though you still share your time with me it's not enough. I wish I could get you to like me more but since I can't I hid your passport under a pile of your folded shirts, I hid your condoms in your magazine rack and I stole $3 worth of quarters from your coin bucket. Fuck you, I'm gonna go do my laundry."

Horribly Vain

So I've been thinking a lot about what's wrong with me lately. Even though I do turn those thoughts inward towards personality things it always ends up becoming a very physical critique too. I'm not sure if that's just typical unhealthy vanity or if I can't personally separate my metaphysical from my physical. Anyways it lead me to the most hilariously pathetic art project I've ever created. As seen above I decided to rate the individual features of my face on a scale of 1 to 10 so I could then discern the average and find out my rating. I came out a 5.3, very average, not at all ideal for my ego. I've decided to quit taking the pill mainly because I think it makes my face puffy and makes me sweat when there's no reason to be sweating. Quitting the pill will increase my scores on the cheeks and jaw line at the very least. My calculations indicate I can get myself up to 7.2, maybe a little higher. This will also be incentive to practice safe sex EVERY time, not that I plan to have sex at all. That's a 'just in case' type thing. Another strategy would be to just not care about my score but I'm a Leo living in New York City and trying to not care would be like challenging a vegan to a pork chop eating contest.