I've never been much of a blogger, but I'm going to start being better about that.

First thing's first. I moved to Utah. Home of every Mormon ever, the most beautiful mountains, and every Mormon ever. Oh, and the most attractive women. <-- also Mormon. It was just time to move, you know? I felt like I knew every person in Tulsa, and even new people seemed like people I already knew. Same clothes, same tattoos, same bars, same shows, etc.

So I'm here. Found a very well-paying job at Vivint, and this place is fantastic. I was shocked at first by the sheer fanatacism of most people, but there ARE a few bars in Provo, and SLC isn't far. Also, I've been hiking, rock climbing, and spent a lot of time smoking cigars in natural hot springs. I love it.

And in honor of my newfound freedom, I'll post a shit-ton of pics from the past few months. Enjoy!

Life has taken a turn for the better lately. Got a job at Saks in the Contemporary department, a photography gig tonight for Fashion's Night Out, and I'm playing a show with my new band on Saturday!

Honestly, a lot of my recent "success" is due to my diving into meditation. My best friend Sarah and I have been meditating together once or twice a day, and it makes every single thing easier to deal with. It helps having someone else in the room. The book is going well and seems to be writing itself. I'll post an excerpt soon.


Also, Bill Clinton's speech last night was fantastic.

More to come later tonight, I think.

Unemployment does not suit me. I drink too much, sleep too little, have too much totally meaningless sex, and spend entirely too much time without clothes on overall. My main friend group does too much skinnydipping and stripping at parties.

Wait. What the fuck am I saying? Unemployment is fucking rad as hell. Today, I woke up at eleven, made waffles, ate them with peanut butter with my friends watching Tron, went swimming, went to the drive-in and had wine and cheese, played the Game Of Thrones boardgame, cooked brauts, and now we're playing strip poker with some other people who came over. I haven't been to my apartment in three days.

Time for more bourbon and a cigarette. Maybe DMT.

Let's see if I can do this before my laptop dies.

So some serious happenings have been.. happening. I got fired and very nearly sued by my former employers for keeping tabs on how much the owner of the company was illegally skimming off the top, and where that money was coming from. There are ways to take money from your company that are completely fine, and there are ways that get everyone fired for fraud. Apparently, it wasn't worth my job or the stellar progress I'd made dragging the company into the new millenium. It didn't help that I was the youngest employee by about twenty years, and had access to a LOT of files and numbers that made certain higher-ups nervous. The receptionist was thirty.

Good news is, they won't sue, because I'd give any one of the NINE government agencies in charge of export compliance a call and tell them where the holes in our audit are. (I did the audit. There are holes.) Or, if I was feeling more sinister, I'd give a competitor a call and give them the business plan for the next five years. So, long story short, there's a black hole on my resume.

Oh, and my ex-fiancee is back in the picture. Fuck my entire life.

I'll post more later. I'm back, SG.

i picked up my stuff from my ex-girlfriend's apartment today. it was far weirder than it should've been. she wore seersucker shorts and a nylon jacket over one of the tshirts i was there to pick up, to put on a mini-show about how things were so comfortable and casual that she could laugh about it as i went through her apartment, collecting the odds and ends of a relationship made up of odds and ends. christ, i hate when people plan out little stages for conversations.

the guitar we traded back and forth to write what we thought would be the first of many duets.
the wonder woman t-shirt from the vintage shop on fifteenth street commemorating that costume party.
a headband from a concert.
a pair of shoes (did i leave without shoes?)
my paints and brushes and the nude of her that turned out just how she hoped.
the tattoo designs she tried to make me that told me she didn't know anything about me.

she's not a bad person, but she's the face next to the words "honne" and "tatemae".

i think she expected me to watch her take my shirt off. i didn't, and it made how badly she wanted to appear aloof and okay feel tangible. i grabbed my stuff, kissed her on the cheek, and reminded her that it was her idea before i turned around and walked out. i didn't stay for her response, because that wasn't for me. that was for her.

Some thoughts on love: that most difficult realization that someone other than one's self is real.

Let our scars fall in love.
–Galway Kinnell

We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems–the ones that make you truly who you are–that you’re ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: it’s got to be the right wrong person–someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.”

Tell yourself: I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.

saw this, laughed, and knew exactly where to post it. enjoy. Men-Ups

growing up has its pros and cons. i like making the money i'm making, and let's face it: i love wearing a tie every day. but little by little, i find myself worrying about things i was so sure i wouldn't have to worry about until i was thirty. maturity comes in the night, pokes me in the head, and whispers, "hey. you. yeah. you're gonna start worrying about shit like your 401(k) now. the comic 'dilbert' will suddenly be funny to you. you might not have time to dress up like ryu for the japanese convention. push-ups and sit-ups are going to start being way more important, now that you're drinking coffee and eating whatever-that-cute-secretary...-fuck-i-think-it's-danni-or-daniella..-baked-and-left-in-the-breakroom. you're going to start dating women based on their marriageability and look more deeply into their relationship with their families. you're going to start buying food from a co-op and decorate your apartment in "mid-century modern". you'll realize a lot of your friends really are going to be waiting tables til they're thirty-five. you'll start to value your free-time and your weekends will become increasingly desperate attempts to feel like you're not aging."

i'll stop with that one, because it's getting bad. i can't close down the bars with my friends like i used to, so i'm becoming more and more the life-of-the-party on the weekends. switching entirely from beer to bourbon to save on calories. smoking weed because i'm finally high up enough in the company to avoid drug tests. making out with girls who should really have their IDs checked again. fuck. when did i decide to live like this? parting my hair on the side. thinking about having kids. simultaneously being so excited about growing up and railing against the idea of vacation days. part of me thinks i'm just craving intimacy.

i need to do some painting. it's hard to paint during the workweek.

this seems as good a place as any.


too easy to be anything true, living in rooms poster’d and painting’d to cover dead beiges and eggshells and creams, sleeping on eastern-style floor mats to show western-style enlightenment packaged to be smiled at in conversations heavy with practice and the most sincere efforts to appear authentic, in attempts to feel what should be felt, but there’s nothing nothing nothing but amusement at the nothing. wearing mask of deep meaningful silences covering mask of secret strength covering mask of desperate hope covering screaming wrenching tearing gnawing fingernails breaking nothing.

smooth liquid appearance of wisdom is the crying relief in secret balm for monotonous tuesdays creeping into nights of alcohol-fueled confessions of the half-truths we more comfortably hope is what is us. the tender reassurances of direction and the just-let-speak soothe only the few reals of what words so eloquently with perfect anguish float with the web of silk smoke in rooms only occupied by wants. should be shouting and crying but whispers can be respected and whispered pleas for forgiveness for what can’t be said are too real so no shouts or pleas no forgiveness. respect and wisdom and safety and secrets form smoky figures to love and hold and hate for being you and far too unknown.

smoky figures howled away to rise up a man of straw, sick with kindness, heavy with compassionate listenings appearing wise and hoping books and movies and stories and songs can make him the man he wants his soul to devour. shriek envious at the wolves and forests and wind, wild jealous of the unashamed bear who is alone-and-never-alone. wistful sighs crack with desperate imaginings of life beyond taking orders on scraps of paper, sitting alone, and so very so, in suits choking on lies bubbling up to gush from between teeth bleached trying to be human. heart-hounding flashes of logic and rage force the writhing beast upward surging glinting madness in promises of a more primal god with a beast of his own to tame and love half-smiling fiercely for the fiery heat it brings when all other warmth is driven from the stirring voiceless soul of another dried-up stream.

in darting wrinkled nights at lofty cigarette-filled lips stare longing, turning love to loathe and hold to hate to write ballads of grinding teeth and looks through the bottoms of pint glasses. disgusted rendezvous with the legs and mouths and breathless guttural utterances whose owners have unusual names give bitter definition to words like ‘vitriol.’ lust over truth, craving comfortable smiles and interweaving fingers to the scent of soft orchids. sunrises of turkish golds and camel reds illuminating the vastness between lovers so previously twined, embraces wrought of ancient iron and fog revealing the quiet quiet truth. sneer at your hopes finding only shadowy eyes that know far too much to wear anything but hair dye and faded jackets. choke on the world you wanted when you were younger and hated the blues.

mirrors of who you are not confuse the smokeless fires and despairing contortions of lies in early morning heaviness that hangs, speaking wordless loud as lions pining, crying out epic poems in their roars for jungles they’ve never seen alive. foreign ears listen to the lips too cracked to belong to anyone you’ve ever loved or hurt for love as spectrums deepen of cool colors below red-rimmed eyes of simultaneous agony and indifference to match horrifying clean haircut and blistered charming smile.

hands creaking, shifting the split leather shifters of interchangeable cars full of ashes and coats and haloed wild-haired companions slick with glazed-over realities and pomade. yes! yes! the choruses careen over shivering asphalt from room to darkened room. whiskey and wishes blur into the single anonymity so cherished, so cherished! pray the pools are not so shallow as they should appear and dive soul-first into depths of art and madness only to surface on carpeted beaches miles from places whose only title yearns to be home but cannot be home.

wishes for motorcycle-clarity and sleek polarized vision catch in aching throats and the tired tangle of limbs and sighs that wakes in cold apartments to swallow tiny pills, those miracles, those round or square or cylindrical or rectangular white flags taken with too-tepid water tasting of metal and defeat, all in hopes of a brighter tomorrow where breaths and smiles and words of comfort come easier. speak to those who did what you couldn’t and hung the proof on the walls framed in mahogany and oak. speak of the terrors, the guilt, the shame, the shame, the shame, how the sighs don’t help like they used to, and no matter how much you fuck and cry and scream and fight and sing and paint and type, the lion will grow weary of his roar, stretch ragged paws, and die.