Below are the 12 most recent journal entries recorded in name_i_am's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, January 11th, 2005
12:46 am	#374 Carmel lights melted onto the half-open, rain-speckled window. The sounds of the market surrounded me, and people in cut off jeans smiled in photos. The street looked like it was paved of gold with cables and boot marks tarnishing the yellow avenue. I watched all the shadows bend upon each other, morphing into conjoined silhouettes of spirits. The car pulled out of its parking space, the wheels stuck to the warm ground and I could smell the fumes. Past the corporate spires, the jagged teeth of the city sinking into a weeping pink skyline, we drove for several more hours. We were all so weary from the day; screaming, laughing, eating. Before, when it started to rain we didn’t run for cover, we chased the heavens through the park, we smiled and the folds around our eyes trapped raindrops. Some of us kissed, some of us joked, when it was all over we were wet, and tired, and happy. In the car we all watched belts of concrete lose track of our car, steel snakes maneuver themselves overhead. Our eyelids wilted and slowly we passed out, and when most of us woke up, the driver smiled and rolled down the windows. We reached out our hands and grab lightning bugs like stars. Their incandescence burned toxic green onto our palms. Eventually, we pulled over and sat on top of the car talking for hours on end. When our jaws were worn out, our tongues were tired, and our minds semi-dissipated, we drove all the way home. My ribs took deep, heavy breaths of the post rain humidity. This is what happiness tastes like. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 6th, 2004
6:28 pm	#508 I wake up with the taste of stale air in my mouth. Beads of rain turn my small porthole of a window in a kaleidoscope. The captain’s voice crackles like an old record. He tells me all about where to get my luggage. Gate 5. “Have a nice day.” People run around on cell phones, and a girl with crutches in a basketball warm up suit orders a hot dog. I feel so transparent. My chest seems to pull me across the concourses. Gate 5 isn’t important right now. I take a seat in concourse B. I watch a young couple play with their little girl. Everything is a silent beige color. An unassuming grey. Everyone here is lost. Lost is when you’re somewhere you’re unsure of on your way to some place else. This is lost. I check my watch; it’s five minutes until my next flight starts boarding. I take the electric train to Gate 5. I do an awkward handle shuffle with a stranger as we grip onto the pole. We look at each other and smile in a half embarrassed half amused fashion. I love strangers. I pick up my luggage and see the girl with the crutches again. She’s hugging her boyfriend. I bend down to pick up my bags. I notice my reflection in the circulating plated steel of the baggage shifter. I am a blurred silhouette. I run onto my flight. I sight down, sigh, and look out the kaleidoscope window again. It bends everything into partially magnified slurs of mechanical plane parts and natural tears. The captain tells me all about the weather we’re going to encounter. “Can I get you anything?” I can taste the stale air. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
6:26 pm	#423 I hear the solid crunch of knuckles breaking and the flesh of this guy’s fist smashes against my face. More blood. Okay, I’m done. Fuck this. Fuck him. I pull myself up. At this point, I’m pretty sure I don’t have a nose anymore. I put all my weight behind my fist. I break two fingers and unintentionally force-feed him his entire right cheek. He’s keeled over. He’s screaming and crying. We’ve both wet ourselves. And right now, the volume knob in my brain is turned all the way down. My fingers wrap around his sweaty, greasy hair. Fuck this. Fuck him. I smash his teeth against the concrete wall. I crack his nose against the concrete wall. I break his jaw against the concrete wall. He’s on the ground now. He’s in a ball. He’s convulsing. He’s spitting up, his irises are gone, it’s just huge black pupil. They absorb all the light. They take in all of it, and he’s scared. I pick up a cinder block. This ends now. BAM. I wake up with in a hospital with two cops looking over me. That guy’s buddy cracked my skull with a pipe. I’m not allowed to move my head, the bone’s shattered and I won’t grow hair there ever again. I can, however, answer all of the cops’ questions. “Yes, officer?” (Comment on this)
Monday, October 11th, 2004
6:28 pm	#124 I was in the food court. They were in the bathroom. Girls from Libby Liu performed a song and dance routine for snickering college boys in backward visors and football team hoodies. I looked upward and a myriad of stairs, escalators, piping, lighting, and wiring crisscrossed. It was a big metal monster; three floors of spent money and insincerity. How many cards have been cut up today? I wondered what the family feels like when they can’t by all the clothes they really liked. I wondered if dinner beat back Nike every time, or just some of the time. They were back from the bathroom. There was more exploring to be done. This place had seven entrances, or exits. It all really depends on your current mood. The doors were more like pores, oozing out a puss of merchandise and vacant eyes with white teeth. Or cut credit cards. Walking around this place felt more like doing an autopsy than shopping. We cut down a hallway into a store that involved over priced black clothing and things called, “Punk rock messenger bag” or “Goth chained wallet.” It’s still the American dream if someone’s making money off of it, I figured. The three of us got hungry. “Pizza or fries?” I had two dollars left. “Fries.” “How about McDonald’s?” “How about food?” “Oh, shut up.” “I vote we walk until we find something that looks good.” “And cheap.” “Yeah, and cheap.” “Meeting adjourned.” More walking. More stairs, elevators, white lights, bright smiles, glimpses of the cold night outside; it was waiting for us. No matter how wonderful or intense or terrible a moment got within this mall, within this sick, robotic incubator of fashion, the night would rob us of it. We’d be back out along the empty super highway road. Street lights, gas station, trucks. Oh. They stopped walking. A&W. A woman dressed like an acid trip, wearing face paint made balloon animals. “You look like I just took drugs.” “I know…” Still smiling. Kinda weird. I chatted with her for a minute or two. Then I was almost dragged into the restaurant. The place was nearly empty. Three Dog Night on the sound system. After an ice fight, greasy fries, and too much root beer it was back out into the rush. Up three flights of stairs. Coffee table books: kama sutra, goth, how to roll more types of joints than pot you will ever smoke. Okay, lost. Love Sac. Huge bean bags. 7th Door. Exit, parking lot, laughs, running, screaming. Uh-oh. Car accident. A body out on the parking lot. Smiling, scarlet toothed, a last goodbye and a hand held before impact. It was, is, or was what’s left of a woman. She was scalped by her windshield. Hit and run, they said. Half-hour later there was a chalk silhouette and yellow tape. We walked to the car all sobered up. It was a cold night outside. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004
8:20 pm	#194 The stale taste of last night's food greeted my tongue as my eyes cracked open. Yellow streaks cutting down the asphalt came into focus. Pastures with reclining cows and fields full of corn stretched out for twenty minutes. My ass and lower back ached from sitting for too long, and i started to wonder if blood would ever flow through my legs again. A girl with golden hair listened to a walkman next to me. Her head bobbed back and forth in time with the half audible dance fragments that crackled off her headphones. Her crisp green eyes squinted shut and opened again as she silently mouthed the words to herself. "We're going to need gas." The driver caught my attention with his voice. Short. Terse even. It held a certain dignity in it. "Yeah," the girl sitting shotgun. A Marlboro Red, complimented by her barely purple short hair, tucked behind her left ear as she turned to face me. There was always a cynical smile in her dark blue eyes, "I'm need some squares." Five miles disappeared into the smoke coming out of our muffler. A big, wooden billboard. Big Boy. Gas station. Marlboro Reds. $3.75. "Hah!" The sarcastic, ocean-eyed girl cackled, "Next left and i'll have my cancer, bitches!" The girl next to me hesitated and furrowed her brow. The left headphones was off now, "What?" "We're pulling in for gas," The driver again. That damned assuring voice. "And squares!" "Right. And squares." "Oh..." For some reason this caused the girl some thought process, "Okay." She said it like it was fine now because she agreed with our detour. Back to the portable dance party. I watched her lips. Back to the window. I felt my hair. No comb could save me now. More cows, farms, corn. 'Why did i just see a speed limit sign?' i thought. "Farmers are so fucked up," i concluded aloud. I saw the driver stop whatever he was thinking to go over what i had just said. Purple hair spun in the sunlight, "What was that, slick?" "...Nothing," I wanted to steal the blonde girl's headphones now. I wanted to mouth words and silently sing about love and parties and whatever else. "No...you said something." "I have to use the bathroom when we pull in." She smirked. "At least farmers don't lie." Shit. Okay, whatever. I needed the gas station, and i needed it right away. Back to a humid blue sky, open road, smell of horse manure. Dandelions whipped around in the air as we passed them. And... Gravel under rubber tires. 'Okay, i'm up.' "If anyone has any excretions please deal with them now or forever hold your pee!" Her lip ring glinted in the sunset. Faded mens sign. Flies swarmed all around. "Someone broke the condom dispenser? What the fuck?" I read the carvings on the stall. 'When we all die,' I thought, 'people will look at these carvings like we do the paintings we find in caves.' I pondered this idea. 'I feel bad for Rob. In one hundred years researchers will rediscover that he "eats fag dick!"' Back in the sun. God damn it was hot. I blocked the sunset with my eyes. Dry road now. No farms. Nothing but dying prairie and choking desert. "Catch." Black nails tossed a lemonade my way. "Thanks." She lit her cigarette even though she still had that same one behind her ear. "How much further to we have to go?" i asked. "We're not going anywhere." "Huh?" "We're not going anywhere." "Car break down or something?" "No, stupid. We have no destination. No end point. No goal." "Oh." "Yeah." "Can i bum a cig?" She pulled that cigarette out from behind her ear, "Sure." "Thanks." The sun was almost done setting. We killed our cigs in silence. The driver beckoned us back to the car. I got in and shut the door. I felt adjusted. I felt safe, finally. "I'm happy we're not going anywhere," i stated after 6 miles. "What?" This time she didn't turn around. She had her sunglasses on now. "I'm happy we're not going anywhere." "Yeah, i heard you the first time bu-" "Nowhere's better," the driver said. His eyes were in the rear view mirror asking for my concurrence. "Sure." (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 12th, 2004
5:41 pm	#749 Under a picnic table in a black night park i was with a girl. Twisting tongues and writhing limbs found themselves all over each other's body. I halted the madness, my words like the eye of a storm, "How far do you want to take this?" As sudden lapse in movement. She looked me in the eye, "Can i suck you off?" Scared, excited, worried. "....Yeah." As soon as it started things should have stopped. This wasn't real. This was animal instinct. I wasn't in the position where i needed to be fucking to save the human race what was i doing this shouldn't be happening who have i let ymself become why does she want to do this to me oh god oh god why? I stopped the ride. Her turn. All the normal commands, "faster" and "harder" and "more". I complied to every hushed moan and order. I let my insides boil in denial. I just wanted this all to end. Back to being five, back to playing in the sand. Before girls had tits, before my crotch had pubes. Before everything had ever entered my consciousness in this fashion. I felt ugly, sick, and stupid. She came, we left. I woke up the next morning to a telephone call. "Yes?" "Hi, um...something about last night..." "Is everyting okay?" "Yeah, don't worry, i just have a secret. I decided not to tell you last night." "Okay...." "You popped my cherry. "...Fuck." (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 9th, 2004
9:08 pm	#641 Late August heat warmed my grease-slicked body. Late for work. Unshaven, unshowered. Ring of the bell, i was inside the shop. He was hunched over a comic and didn't even bother to look up. He was hung over. He was listening to Pete Yorn. He always listens to Peter Yorn when he's hung over. "Tell me about California," i demanded as i walked behind the counter. "Huh? Oh, right." He set his comic down. As he divulged his party anecdotes, sex tales, and fond memories i analyzed his features. Deep brown eyes, pouty lips, pomade hair. He was handsome. He deadpan drawl made everything seem so chilled out and fun, but at the same time hilariously sarcastic. Regulars came in to use the back tables for gaming. Tom and i looked through his CD case, i pulled out The Smashing Pumpkins album Pices Iscariot. "Great when high," i surmised. His face lit up. "Hey, speaking of which..." He and i went "out to lunch back in five minutes" and locked the gamers in the store. Explained we were going to a local sandwich shop, and went out the back. The half-vacant parking lot was shared by all the stores on this block. Greasy pizza smells from Pizza Palace, stale dairy whiffs granted from Coldstone Creamery, and, finally, a scent of rotting Chinese food from the Red Dragon next door. As we walked to his car i almost kicked over a bucket filled with sand and our boss's cigarette butts. "Damn, she needs to stop smoking." "Yeah..." We opened his humid city beater. Zeppeling roared off the stereo. "Whoa...shit..." he turned the nob down. Pulled his pipe out of a Winnie The Pooh zipper bag. We drove, smoked, and then spent $15 at White Hen. My town hemorrhaged white. Everything had a sanitized aura about it. The suburbs look pristine even with the use of illegal substances. Something's fucked up about that. On our way back in from his car i almost kicked over a bucket filled with sand and our boss's cigarette butts. "Whoa, dude, where the fuck did that come from?" "I don't know...man, that's a lot of fucking cigarettes." Comic pages shimmered under the influence and music vibrated in warm, florid waves as it circulated off the old stereo. My Bloody Valentine is a Saturday in August in which i get high with an older brother figure at work, read comics, listen to music and remember that i'll be okay some day. (Comment on this)
Monday, August 23rd, 2004
9:30 pm	#603 The sun was setting in an azure October Sky, and my gas tank was a quarter full. I drove past kids wearing sweaters and shorts readying a football game in a park wrapped in a chain link fence. I remembered when i was like them; desperately trying to hold onto summer's fun before the fall reinstated responsibility with homework and school supplies. I rounded a corner and then pulled into a broken glass parking lot. Dirt stained letters popped out of the side of the building: ARDMORE APTS. I turned off my engine and let my thoughts cycle through my head. I knew what i had to do, i knew how to say it. I couldn't take it anymore. This had to end. I pulled my keys out of the ignition. Thump. Click. Squeak. Slam. I made my way across the parking lot. I pushed all sentimental feelings for her and this weather out of my head. I ran over my lines like an actor 5 minutes before his queue, and pressed the buttons to buzz in. "Hello?" a static, nasal voice stabbed out of the box. "It's me. Open up." The buzzer sounded like a death rattle.Twist. I double stepped my way up a vomit-carpet staircase. Room 440. Click. Inside the room. Coated in grease. Plastic covering on the couch. TV set on with incoherent babble of gruesome car wrecks and vicious murders. All the pain in the world was in this room. The light coming in from the window seemed out of place. I looked down, my face was turning red now. I scanned the empty cartons of chinese food on the TV trays, crushed Bud Light cans, five overflowing ashtrays, used syringes all over the floor. Her thing feet hovered over the coffee splattered carpet. My eyes moved slowly upward. Tract marks. She was wearing only an old Pantera shirt that was twice her size. "Evenin', baby." she moved closer, i stepped back, crunching a cockroach. "I can't do this. I need my stuff. I'm sorry, but you're too far gone." "What?" "Please, i just want to be done with this." "What?! You think you can come into my home and DEMAND your shit back?! FUCK YOU!" "Listen, i-" Smack. Recoil. "YOU FUCKING JUNKIE BITCH!" I grabbed her by the wrists. I could have killed her right then. Gouged her eyes out with my car keys and slit her wrists with a broken window. Instead, i roared in anger and threw her to the ground. "I-i...i'm sorry. Just, please, i can't stand the sight of you anymore, okay?" "O-okay. It's in the kitchen." I saw my books, CDs, and other things thrown into boxes. I guessed she'd seen this coming. I hussled out the door, boxes in arms, as another point slipped into her veins. I threw my shit into the trunk. Slam. Click. I broke down. I collapsed and sat with the back of my head against the license plate. The sun was setting now, bleeding the deepest scarlet into the horizon. Jets diced up the blue. I inhaled as deeply as i could. Shrapnel in, shrapnel out. I picked myself up and got into the car. There's something about this fall weather. In October we all seem much more aware of dying. You can see through all the optimistic bullshit your parents feed you, your friends "empathize" with and finally come to terms with things: no one here is alive. Rumbled of the engine. Cigarette. Drag. Roy Orbison's "Cryin'". (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, August 13th, 2004
5:21 pm	#102 It was January and i was in junior high. It was the type of day where everything was wet and cold, and it would get dark at three p.m. The type of day where a good Miles Davis song will burn blue on your tape deck. I had a rag-tag team of friends. We were all stuck in the same place, in the same uniforms, and we got picked on by the same people. When i showed up on the scene i brought them together and suddenly we were safe again. We back the eyes on the back of each other's heads, the cards up each other's sleeves. We weren't necessarily friends. We were allies. Brothers in arms. One day we were walking home together, and the usual mess of bullies hurled a snow ball toward my face. Like the solider he was a friend of mine jumped in front of it. Nearly knocked his fucking eye out. Two people comforted the guy while i bolted after those fuckers. My lungs burnt into a million different colors and my legs pumped after them. I was the fastest kid in the grade. They were scared shitless. Those guys had me screaming for blood for 3 blocks. They picked the wrong group of guys to fuck with that day, because as soon as i caught the jackass that threw the thing i ripped him a fucking new one. Suddenly everyone was in on it. It was a god damn mod scene. But when it came down to that, we had one advantage: We had nothing to lose. The fight seemed endless, and at the end of it it was a draw, but it felt more like a victory to us. It was the first time we'd ever taken a stand. I walked home with a slight limp and a bloody nose. Most of us only had bruises on coverable parts, unlike the guys we'd taken on. We made sure to work over their faces. We all walked home and laughed our asses off. We were gods and the sunset was to our backs. As we neared out homes we got to watch our town turn black and vacant. I've never felt anything like that again in my life. Definitely a guy thing. (Comment on this)
1:37 am	#290 Me: Do you think Jesus ever got poon? Him: What? Me: You know...action, tail. Laid. Him: Definetly. Me: Really? Why? Him: Dude, Mary Magdalene. That's what the Da Vinci Code was all about. Me: Oh yeah.... (Silence) Me: Hey, do you think he was big? Him: What? Of course not. Me: But he's the son of god! Him: Well, yeah, you'd think that, but his whole thing's about being meek. Me: Right. Good point. Sucks for Magdalene, though. Him: He's the son of god! He totally knows how to work it. Me: Okay, okay. (Silence. Again.) Me: What about Moses? Him: Dude, shut the hell up. (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 12th, 2004
1:29 pm	#123 I woke up at six a.m. in a public park. The fog was thick and it twisted the colors of the sky. Smooth blues and gaseous greens warped around the white beams that pierced the misty canopy. I was still coming down from the night before. I looked over at my friends. Colors moved in slo-mo and my eyes tingled. I felt all mixed around inside. I knew i was on my way down, and last night i'd felt like a god. I imagined and understood everything. I close my eyes and fall of the last rung of a ladder, into a dark warmth. I open them. Back to the park. I stand up, slowly though, because if i move too quickly everything i see ricochets around my head. Three hours of sleep. I think. Probably less. Wait, no. More. Fuck it. I call my friend's cell phone. It's funny. He's sleeping right in front of me as i leave the message. "I need tea. Call later." I feel around for money in my pockets. Two dollars and 8 cents(in pennies). Fuck. I walk over to a Denny's, and i'm just a little sickened that it's only a five minute walk from an open park to a greasy spoon breakfast chain. I sit in a booth, huddled up against a window. I almost have to peels my hair out of my eyes it's so greasy. Everything is coated in some hazy film. "What would you like, hun?" She's nice, but tired. Her question comes off like a statement. She doesn't like me, i can tell. The fact i smell like Luck Strikes and copious amounts of marijuana can't help. I pulled out the mess coins and the two bills. "Tea." "We don't serve that here." "Coffee, then." "How-" "Black." She brings it to me. Oil from a mug slips down my throat. And i remember, well, try to remember the night before. A girl said i looked like some rock star. I listened to music and chilled on a bean bag. Laughing, lots of that happened. Red light. Someone's asphalt driveway. I can't remember a good deal of it, and i like that. I love days like this. The morning after when The Velvet Underground song "Sunday Morning" means everything to me. I feel like i just conquered the world, and for once, i'm content. Today i discovered i love life. In a fucking Denny's. After smoking too much weed and waking up at an ungodly hour in a park. I look back down at my coffee. "What the fuck?" (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 11th, 2004
7:16 pm	#405 There was a time when i was at a girl's house in autumn. She was the type to live out the natural cycles of things, so she left her windows open until November. The curtains would twirl around in the breeze and every once and a while a dead leaf would grace the the papers on her desk. She pulled me into her room with excitement and glee. I was a wreck, but happy to be there. Happy to be with her, i guess. The hard wood floor felt like a grade school desk, and trees moaned as the wind ripped out the hearts of the town's inhabitants. She kissed me on the neck. Closed her eyes. Opened them. My jugular was suddenly frozen from her lips. I felt like vomiting glass and blood onto her sheets, like the glass you'd see at a car accident after someone's made a trip through the windshield. I wanted to cough, to scream, to bleed and have her hold me close when i was finished. We were suddenly under her blankets and sheets and quilts. I felt stripped of a conscience. She wrapped her tendrils around my body and pulled me into her. Her lips tasted like candy, her eyes squinted, her hands almost tearing my hair out. After an eternity of warmth and screams, i watched clove smoke bloom into a beautiful mushroom clouds as it curled off her lips. We stared at each other. I looked out the window. Breeze chilled my shoulder blades. A car drove by, shimmering in sundown. I fell asleep, wrapped up in her sheets. Black turned to white as the room came into focus. I took a breath, everything under my ribs felt frozen. I stared at the curves of the sheets, the bends in the quilt, and ran my hands through my hair. Still wet in patches. From the bed, i watched her read. Her eyes changed emotions with each turn of the page. Her room was still, silent, crisp. I could smell a fireplace burning wood every time the wind brought her curtains in. A plane went by over head and a muted roar filled the room. I kissed her on the shoulder as the airliner cut the sky, fastened my leather belt and hoped the damn thing crashed. I'd call her later and i loved her. She didn't even flinch. I was in the frame of her door, about to leave when she spun in her chair. "Nice sex hair." I smirked, and walked home on sidewalks so worn they could be cobblestone. An unfeeling sun painted colors on my back. When the neighborhood's this still, and everything is this dead, i feel unfinished. I feel like a blueprint.