I was the kid they said would go nowhere. Would live under a bridge. My teachers told my parents I was a flake. I was a small boy until my mid-teens, and I got pounded on. Later, I went back and did some pounding of my own. And I'm still here.
I was the original wait-a-minute private, then the nightmare corporal. I saw horrors underground in Panama, and windrows of dead on the desert sands. I got some scars. And I'm still here.
I was the apprentice millwright, the Get-Us-Some-Coffee-And-Then-Clean-Up-Our-Mess pissboy. Then an aviation mechanic for a dodgy freight carrier. Then I met a Cheryl, and then she left with my dog. And I'm still here.
Then I was a mook, and then The Man, and then the corporate whore fix it guy. Then I joined the Science Gestapo and I fuck the future into existence, yet I still have to deal with petty tyrants and other crazy people. My head is a mess and I'm firing on 5 cylinders, and reality is something that happens to other people and that's OKAY on account of
I'm. Still. Here.
Where the hell are you?
I have no idea where I am.
I wanted to hide so i dived deep into books, but when you are reading people can still interupt.
So I dived deep into my own head but no matter how deep i went, there I was.
It meant I turned my back to all my demons so they got a backstab multiplier.
It got worse the deeper I got, it burned away my positive self-deceptions and left me only with the negative ones.
It also got smellier, and smellier, and viscuouser, thicker than the dank soup I was struggling through before.
For a while there hope brought a smile to my face, I could finally see a light at the end of this wet and nasty tunnel!
Welp, time to change my underwear again.
Quote from: Reginald Ret on April 13, 2015, 08:48:09 PM
I have no idea where I am.
I wanted to hide so i dived deep into books, but when you are reading people can still interupt.
So I dived deep into my own head but no matter how deep i went, there I was.
It meant I turned my back to all my demons so they got a backstab multiplier.
It got worse the deeper I got, it burned away my positive self-deceptions and left me only with the negative ones.
It also got smellier, and smellier, and viscuouser, thicker than the dank soup I was struggling through before.
For a while there hope brought a smile to my face, I could finally see a light at the end of this wet and nasty tunnel!
Welp, time to change my underwear again.
:lulz:
I don't tell my story often because it sounds made-up, but here I am.
I've been poor and I've been rich and I've been poor again, but either way, here I am.
I could have been a better wife and I could be a better mom, but well, here I am.
I do what I have to do do get by and at the end of the day, here I am.
Ultimately, there isn't much to say about it all, because no matter where I go, here I am.
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on April 13, 2015, 09:53:25 PM
and I could be a better mom, but well, here I am.
I've seen your kids. You do just fine. And there you are.
Once, I was young, and full of privilege.
I learned things from books.
I abandoned responsibility.
I was unproductive.
Now, I am older, and full of privilege.
But at least I understand that, now.
I try to learn things from people.
I attempt responsibility.
I strive to produce.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 13, 2015, 09:58:09 PM
Once, I was young, and full of privilege.
I learned things from books.
I abandoned responsibility.
I was unproductive.
Now, I am older, and full of privilege.
But at least I understand that, now.
I try to learn things from people.
I attempt responsibility.
I strive to produce.
INACCURATE.
Try again.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 13, 2015, 09:56:47 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on April 13, 2015, 09:53:25 PM
and I could be a better mom, but well, here I am.
I've seen your kids. You do just fine. And there you are.
It can't be too bad, because, after all, here we are.
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on April 13, 2015, 10:20:11 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 13, 2015, 09:56:47 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on April 13, 2015, 09:53:25 PM
and I could be a better mom, but well, here I am.
I've seen your kids. You do just fine. And there you are.
It can't be too bad, because, after all, here we are.
LO bounced around like she owned the world. That's a sign of a healthy, happy kid.
Nigel is Supermom, only without the compulsion to shame other parents on FB. :lulz:
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 13, 2015, 10:21:40 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on April 13, 2015, 10:20:11 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 13, 2015, 09:56:47 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on April 13, 2015, 09:53:25 PM
and I could be a better mom, but well, here I am.
I've seen your kids. You do just fine. And there you are.
It can't be too bad, because, after all, here we are.
LO bounced around like she owned the world. That's a sign of a healthy, happy kid.
Nigel is Supermom, only without the compulsion to shame other parents on FB. :lulz:
Thank god. If I ever do, send someone to my house to pith me.
Where am I?
WHERE am I?
Where AM YOU!!
It's a little bit past the time of day when they start issuing out new hours, minutes, and seconds.
My silkies are soaked to my ass, and my compass is spinning.
The XO ran off with my last protractor.
I asked for an 8-digit and can't even get which map I am supposed to be on.
I wake up, sweating, dry-mouthed, fixxing to shit myself.
I wish I had those problems, because you can always just start walking.
Always just start yelling. Leastwise you know how to blame.
Oh no, noon, and the bus is early instead of late and now I'm late for for the last day of the last class only I'm out of bond my paper got printed on greasy tacobell wrappers in too many colors since I'm out of black of toner but plenty of the other kind maybe if I run I can catch the bus only I trip, fall, tumble, the snaps that never come because all my joints were prebroken.
And now?
I'm lost.
Where I am there are no maps.
Or rather all the maps I have are 30 years out of date.
:eek:
I'm feeling sideways.
:eek:
I was an angry kid and I'm still here an angry adult but the anger is humor now unless it escapes me. I wasn't picked on much but sometimes I was the aggressor and I'm ashamed of it still when I think of it. The thing I always was is weird and I had to try and I still have to try, and I'm still here with all my skills watch me go. They used to tell me I was smart and sometimes they tell me I'm funny and a few times they tell me I can write but I am a dispatcher and I am still here.
I was a sucker for a pretty face or two and I had no substance and I was a poor man for my unhappiness but I am still here. I went away to college and I met there so many people and in seven years since many are gone but I am still here and the ones who are still here are why I am still here.
I've been having a lot of sideways times.
Sometimes I got my points plotted, but then some jackhole spills jack all over my map.
Sometimes I got a solid azimuth but then some jackhole peels a magnet from my cover.
Sometimes I got 8 digits but half the digits are letters or flavors.
I got a fresh box of squares and
I got a fresh box of batteries and
I got a fresh box of bullets and
I got a fresh box of rippits and
I got a fresh box of honeybuns but
Then the sky turns orange and
Smells of diesel
Hydraulic fluid
Cutting oils
The t-walls shake
That's not rain but
Then it's rain
I can see where, but can I truly know?
Do I need roads?
Do I need eyes?
I am from the desert.
But the deserts all bleed together.
I look out at the sky.
The flat flat flat white-gray sky.
It's so white it hurts.
It threatens rain, but never rains in my desert.
I look out at the turf.
The ground is green, then yellow, then brown.
They said I was smart.
They said I was well-spoken.
They said I was going places.
They just never said where, or how.
They all assumed I'd know where and how I'd get where I should go.
I can see where I've been.
I can see how I got here.
I still don't know where I am.
I went from one desert
To the desert of the city
(At least it had a beach and solid steel sky)
To the sticky version of the desert the wrong coast has
To a desert I couldn't go out to touch
A timeshare desert
Held in abeyance by t-walls
But here it's cold
and
dank
and
dreary
and the grass never stops growing even though grass and dank and cold and drear don't belong in the desert.
Inside it's still the 80s and 90s
Outside it flips from the 50s to the 60s to the wrong future
Coyote, I think you just broke my heart.
I'm in 5 different cities to talking about and running 6 different jobs with 7 different people all of which must know anything about the others. Though sheer force of will and no small number of highly simple and creative lies I am often in all these places and have been for around 18 weeks.
Where am I? I'm compartmentalised to fuck and pretty sure I can't say more due to an NDA with some fucker at this point.
Don't try and ask me how I got here, I can't stop laughing to answer.
Quote from: Don Coyote on April 13, 2015, 11:21:57 PM
I've been having a lot of sideways times.
Sometimes I got my points plotted, but then some jackhole spills jack all over my map.
Sometimes I got a solid azimuth but then some jackhole peels a magnet from my cover.
Sometimes I got 8 digits but half the digits are letters or flavors.
I got a fresh box of squares and
I got a fresh box of batteries and
I got a fresh box of bullets and
I got a fresh box of rippits and
I got a fresh box of honeybuns but
Then the sky turns orange and
Smells of diesel
Hydraulic fluid
Cutting oils
The t-walls shake
That's not rain but
Then it's rain
I can see where, but can I truly know?
Do I need roads?
Do I need eyes?
I am from the desert.
But the deserts all bleed together.
I look out at the sky.
The flat flat flat white-gray sky.
It's so white it hurts.
It threatens rain, but never rains in my desert.
I look out at the turf.
The ground is green, then yellow, then brown.
They said I was smart.
They said I was well-spoken.
They said I was going places.
They just never said where, or how.
They all assumed I'd know where and how I'd get where I should go.
I can see where I've been.
I can see how I got here.
I still don't know where I am.
I went from one desert
To the desert of the city
(At least it had a beach and solid steel sky)
To the sticky version of the desert the wrong coast has
To a desert I couldn't go out to touch
A timeshare desert
Held in abeyance by t-walls
But here it's cold
and
dank
and
dreary
and the grass never stops growing even though grass and dank and cold and drear don't belong in the desert.
Inside it's still the 80s and 90s
Outside it flips from the 50s to the 60s to the wrong future
You sound like a grunt. Good stuff.
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on April 13, 2015, 11:08:32 PM
I was an angry kid and I'm still here an angry adult but the anger is humor now unless it escapes me. I wasn't picked on much but sometimes I was the aggressor and I'm ashamed of it still when I think of it. The thing I always was is weird and I had to try and I still have to try, and I'm still here with all my skills watch me go. They used to tell me I was smart and sometimes they tell me I'm funny and a few times they tell me I can write but I am a dispatcher and I am still here.
I was a sucker for a pretty face or two and I had no substance and I was a poor man for my unhappiness but I am still here. I went away to college and I met there so many people and in seven years since many are gone but I am still here and the ones who are still here are why I am still here.
You're still here, in part, because you've become Sams.
Stay out of the basement.
Coyote that was incredible stuff.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 14, 2015, 12:50:46 AM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on April 13, 2015, 11:08:32 PM
I was an angry kid and I'm still here an angry adult but the anger is humor now unless it escapes me. I wasn't picked on much but sometimes I was the aggressor and I'm ashamed of it still when I think of it. The thing I always was is weird and I had to try and I still have to try, and I'm still here with all my skills watch me go. They used to tell me I was smart and sometimes they tell me I'm funny and a few times they tell me I can write but I am a dispatcher and I am still here.
I was a sucker for a pretty face or two and I had no substance and I was a poor man for my unhappiness but I am still here. I went away to college and I met there so many people and in seven years since many are gone but I am still here and the ones who are still here are why I am still here.
You're still here, in part, because you've become Sams.
Stay out of the basement.
Things don't always go the best for Sams. But Sams is still here.
a point on
a line in
a plane in
for i = 3, undefined
an i-space
next i
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on April 14, 2015, 01:59:29 AM
Coyote that was incredible stuff.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 14, 2015, 12:50:46 AM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on April 13, 2015, 11:08:32 PM
I was an angry kid and I'm still here an angry adult but the anger is humor now unless it escapes me. I wasn't picked on much but sometimes I was the aggressor and I'm ashamed of it still when I think of it. The thing I always was is weird and I had to try and I still have to try, and I'm still here with all my skills watch me go. They used to tell me I was smart and sometimes they tell me I'm funny and a few times they tell me I can write but I am a dispatcher and I am still here.
I was a sucker for a pretty face or two and I had no substance and I was a poor man for my unhappiness but I am still here. I went away to college and I met there so many people and in seven years since many are gone but I am still here and the ones who are still here are why I am still here.
You're still here, in part, because you've become Sams.
Stay out of the basement.
Things don't always go the best for Sams. But Sams is still here.
Yeah, Sams is always wearing somebody ELSE'S gore.
I'm slowly dissolving like an alka seltzer in a glass of water, I have been for about a decade. It's a slow comfortable kind of thing that you dont feel the need to lash out against (and it's not as if there was anything concrete to point to either way).
Its not a death, that would be something solid, definitive and tangible, it's that there is less and less until its all gone.
Where the fuck am I, and where is my horse?
Jewcat Happy
Brother Sodomized
Binks angry
Me angrier
Ass is bleeding
Texas hot
Quote from: Metal Bear on April 15, 2015, 03:01:59 AM
Where the fuck am I, and where is my horse?
Binks angry
You are on the lam, and Binks is fucking your horse in the ass.
DO NOT MAKE BINKS ANGRY.
Here I am, rockin' like a hurricane.
Not really though.
I don't know where I am.
I feel like I have nothing to say.
Yet I want to say a lot.
I'm afraid. So afraid, in fact, that my nightmares have stopped scaring me. They just are.
I'm afraid of dying. I'm afraid my puppy will outlive me.
I'm afraid because my dad died at 40. I'm now 33.
Sometimes this completely cripples me.
And I really just want to write, but I am unable to find the mindset and calm to do it.
Quote from: The Waffling on April 15, 2015, 12:16:18 PM
Here I am, rockin' like a hurricane.
Not really though.
I don't know where I am.
I feel like I have nothing to say.
Yet I want to say a lot.
I'm afraid. So afraid, in fact, that my nightmares have stopped scaring me. They just are.
I'm afraid of dying. I'm afraid my puppy will outlive me.
I'm afraid because my dad died at 40. I'm now 33.
Sometimes this completely cripples me.
And I really just want to write, but I am unable to find the mindset and calm to do it.
You just did, maybe calm isn't the right writing mood for you at the moment.
Hah. True. Luckily it lasted only a few days.
Now I really am rocking like a hurricane. Albeit a very small one.
I was the naked child on the beach in paradise. Then things went sideways with the "family business" and we had to run to the frozen north. Now I'm here.
I was the smart poor kid in a town full of old money who couldn't shut his mouth. I got my ass kicked every day for 7 years until the recession saved me in the form of a doomed economy and we had to run to the glittering jewel by the sound where dreams come true. Now I'm here.
I was the one who decided to carry on the "family business" until my friends started disappearing one by one, victims of the product, the competition, or the law. and I had to flee both the consequences and the weight of my betrayals. Now I'm here.
I was a ghost, wandering from city to city and job to job without ever leaving anything tangible or memorable in my wake. Bouncing in Pontiac. Bartending in LA. Street hustling in St. Paul. Selling power tools in the Sierra Nevadas. I don't even know how it's possible to flee from your own fleeing, but I did. Now I'm here.
I was a businessman, legitimate but still profiting from other peoples' bad habits. I embedded myself in the fabric of a small town, running for office and appearing shirtless in a charity calendar. Oh, and I stole. I stole from myself until I had to flee bankruptcy and failure, as far away as I could get. Now I'm here.
I was a chef bouncing from town to town, island to island, ocean to ocean, using my alchemy as currency both literal and social. I used my talents to see the world, meet famous people, and sleep with beautiful women and for one fleeting moment I thought I had found fulfillment. But the world changed again, or maybe I did, and I became increasingly unable to ignore the fact that I profited from an industry dependent on exploiting the people who make it possible. Things got to the point where the people above me began to punish me for being unwilling to fuck people over because they were poor or brown-skinned. It got so bad that I started having anxiety attacks and occasionally had to leave the building to do breathing exercises so I wouldn't lose my shit and beat my GM to death. I tried to find work in a different industry, but it's tough with 20 years of experience that doesn't really translate to the normal world. Eventually I couldn't wait any longer and I just up and quit.
That was yesterday.
So now I'm here. But I don't know where that is and I don't know where to flee to now.
Also, holy shit Coyote. That was amazing.
This is one hell of a thread. Thanks for that, ECH.
I am the anticipation of doing it right again
Just before tripping on a power chord
Going down, down, down, down
Charging tentacles colonize the brain
Mothy feathers all the same
Suction cups doing rails around
Power's grip on Oil, Standard
Reaching in advance the grasping
I am that destination of all flight
I am that depth that brings night
I am that difference in the right
I am that waiting beyond respite
I'm Thirty and Four years tan
The arch-firmament triumphant
The tetrarch of silken chastity
The scalloping of toothed time
I am the ruffle of your scales
The bark of resounding shores
The shedding cortex of eternity
The perpetually intercoiling one
Death present in life flowers on,
So suffer my children to return.
They twist and seek being drawn back
The Image of their Sun, Father burns
And Fall they do, for each 'n every lack
Just a hint at their vestigial birthright
Thoth pecks a heart's undone remains,
With plumage measured, balance light
Reckoning unknowable, errant stains
Of this life's soul beyond containment
Love is toward of what they conspire
Soon cloven surfeit by false desire
The object is to more absence acquire
There: false memory no fan inspires
Quote from: East Coast Hustle on April 19, 2015, 10:14:05 PM
Also, holy shit Coyote. That was amazing.
Thanks ECH.
Also,
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 19, 2015, 10:31:41 PM
This is one hell of a thread. Thanks for that, ECH.
what LMNO said. So much great in this thread.
Quote from: East Coast Hustle on April 19, 2015, 09:54:40 PM
I was the naked child on the beach in paradise. Then things went sideways with the "family business" and we had to run to the frozen north. Now I'm here.
I was the smart poor kid in a town full of old money who couldn't shut his mouth. I got my ass kicked every day for 7 years until the recession saved me in the form of a doomed economy and we had to run to the glittering jewel by the sound where dreams come true. Now I'm here.
I was the one who decided to carry on the "family business" until my friends started disappearing one by one, victims of the product, the competition, or the law. and I had to flee both the consequences and the weight of my betrayals. Now I'm here.
I was a ghost, wandering from city to city and job to job without ever leaving anything tangible or memorable in my wake. Bouncing in Pontiac. Bartending in LA. Street hustling in St. Paul. Selling power tools in the Sierra Nevadas. I don't even know how it's possible to flee from your own fleeing, but I did. Now I'm here.
I was a businessman, legitimate but still profiting from other peoples' bad habits. I embedded myself in the fabric of a small town, running for office and appearing shirtless in a charity calendar. Oh, and I stole. I stole from myself until I had to flee bankruptcy and failure, as far away as I could get. Now I'm here.
I was a chef bouncing from town to town, island to island, ocean to ocean, using my alchemy as currency both literal and social. I used my talents to see the world, meet famous people, and sleep with beautiful women and for one fleeting moment I thought I had found fulfillment. But the world changed again, or maybe I did, and I became increasingly unable to ignore the fact that I profited from an industry dependent on exploiting the people who make it possible. Things got to the point where the people above me began to punish me for being unwilling to fuck people over because they were poor or brown-skinned. It got so bad that I started having anxiety attacks and occasionally had to leave the building to do breathing exercises so I wouldn't lose my shit and beat my GM to death. I tried to find work in a different industry, but it's tough with 20 years of experience that doesn't really translate to the normal world. Eventually I couldn't wait any longer and I just up and quit.
That was yesterday.
So now I'm here. But I don't know where that is and I don't know where to flee to now.
Shit, bunny. Just... shit, bunny.
Where I Am:
I am in an empty office. All accoutrements are gone, packed up and back at the house. Not even my son's boot camp pic is on my desk; the giant Squiddy pic is off the wall, and the "Horrible Bastard" sign has been removed from my door. Where I am is on the other side of the city, not giving a fuck about this dump.
Quit or fired?
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 20, 2015, 04:00:52 PM
Quit or fired?
Gonna quit. I don't see why I should spend an hour packing my stuff when I finally leave.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 20, 2015, 04:41:30 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 20, 2015, 04:00:52 PM
Quit or fired?
Gonna quit. I don't see why I should spend an hour packing my stuff when I finally leave.
:lulz: I like that you're just that blatant about it. Has anyone mentioned it yet?
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on April 20, 2015, 04:49:08 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 20, 2015, 04:41:30 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 20, 2015, 04:00:52 PM
Quit or fired?
Gonna quit. I don't see why I should spend an hour packing my stuff when I finally leave.
:lulz: I like that you're just that blatant about it. Has anyone mentioned it yet?
Yes. Everyone but Lillie, who hasn't been in my office.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 20, 2015, 04:41:30 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 20, 2015, 04:00:52 PM
Quit or fired?
Gonna quit. I don't see why I should spend an hour packing my stuff when I finally leave.
Enjoy.
And 5/5 for forethought.
ECH - Great piece. If you're utterly fucked I hear there's some kind of maintenance gig opening in Tucson.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 20, 2015, 05:12:08 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on April 20, 2015, 04:49:08 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 20, 2015, 04:41:30 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 20, 2015, 04:00:52 PM
Quit or fired?
Gonna quit. I don't see why I should spend an hour packing my stuff when I finally leave.
:lulz: I like that you're just that blatant about it. Has anyone mentioned it yet?
Yes. Everyone but Lillie, who hasn't been in my office.
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
Quote from: Junkenstein on April 20, 2015, 05:14:41 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 20, 2015, 04:41:30 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 20, 2015, 04:00:52 PM
Quit or fired?
Gonna quit. I don't see why I should spend an hour packing my stuff when I finally leave.
Enjoy.
And 5/5 for forethought.
ECH - Great piece. If you're utterly fucked I hear there's some kind of maintenance gig opening in Tucson.
:horrormirth: