Tell me a Secret

FESTIBA was yesterday, Saturday, considering it’s still Sunday here in my part of the world. I was a little happy to be around, but regret I didn’t take anything for the reading. Emmy Perez asked if I was there to read; I replied saying that I was only there for leisure.

I’ve been thinking a lot about things lately. Now the Men’s Resource Center gig, I’m thinking that I should rethink the Peace Corps. I know it sounds like I’m backing out, but it’s not. If I can help out my own community, then I can feel accomplished. The only thing it lacks is the travel to the far off lands. However, I’ll be finding myself in Indiana next month. I suppose Gringolandia is a far off land.

Men’s Resource Center of South Texas

Emiliano Diaz de Leon called me yesterday morning to talk about his departure from the Valley, which will happen in June. Emiliano and I met where I met most of my older friends, at the Nueva Onda Poets’ Cafe. I was a writer for The Paper of South Texas at the time and he came up to me and started talking. It seems, and I’m greatly known for this after a reading, I avoided all contact with him before hand. I didn’t do this on purpose, well, at least not to him. Most people who want to talk to me after a reading want to know my genesis and I’m not that sort of writer. At least not yet, or at the time, I should say.

After the usual small talk, Emiliano, business like, got down to the chase. He’s leaving to Austin come June and he wants to leave behind a strong board of directors for the Men’s Resource Center of South Texas. As a nonprofit organization, this means board members should not expect to get paid, which is fine. I need the volunteer work and community service because that looks better on an application to the Peace Corps. However, he also gave me the skinny that they’re looking for a grant writer. Bingo, this is what I needed for that job experience. I’ve talked it over with The Professor in the past and it’s something that I wanted to pursue, however, like with all things in life, experience is needed for a lot of grant writing jobs.

Again, a nonprofit organization who cannot, sadly, pay its staff, which Grant Writer would fall under.  Okay, fine. This added community service/volunteer work can fluff up my resume and my application to the Peace Corps. Not to mention give me the experience I need for the profession and an all paid expense trip to Indiana with Emiliano for more information on the “fatherhood” grant. This trip would happen in April with an online meeting at the end of this month, so I need to play catch up as quickly as possible.

I know it’s not the best book on the market, or even the less insulting, but I needed something to give me some sort of insight, and goddamnit! if it’s made for idiots, then surely I can understand it!

That and because it was cheap as sin, so that played a great deciding factor on my decision of buying it.

I’m going to meet up with Emiliano this morning, which means I should really be going to bed instead of writing this blog, so I can see what I’m going to be getting myself in if I take the job of grant writer (which, by the way, is only a 10hr/month job, for seven months). I’m also interested in the board of directors, no doubt, however, this just means I’ll have to find my way to Harlingen every so often.

But we’ll see. The deciding factor is tomorrow because I don’t want to waste the organization’s time with my indecisiveness and my empty wallet.

From the Ennui Files

Naturally, The Ennui Files is actually the name I took for my journal that I kept in the spring of 2007. It later morphed into what I now call my e-zine. Last year, Jose Skinner had us keep a journal to chronicle scenes in our everyday life. Needless to say, I found myself becoming involved with my subjects that I chose. One, a young couple, of which was my favorite. I became so involved with them in my journal, that for a moment, I lost myself inside of them. I wanted to be them. Share their happiness. I now bring you, what I rarely do these days, a glimpse into the mind of chaos.

NOTE: names have been removed:

19 March 2007

Nothing eventful happened. I just spent the week writing and remembering, going through terrible withdrawal.

I wonder what’s gonna happen today. A strange anxiety has been building up. The area looks empty. I want them to come already. Ding. Is that them? I looked and saw nothing.

What would I write if I wrote my manifesto? Who will live by it? What will it be called? Who will read these hieroglyphics of mine? What messages - purpose - would this thin book convey?

Another ding. Elevator stopped. Is it them? I see no one. I hate this torture.

[...]

So disappointment has set in. I don’t think the girl’s gonna make it. I think I’m being avoided. I had a terrible dream that this girl is R****’s little sister. I wonder now, but do recall her talking about moving in with her brother and sister, and I don’t remember R**** ever having another sibling. Sometimes I wonder if I can find out about that little girl so many years ago. If my actions - well, not mine, but I did nothing to stop it - had some sort of emotional effect. If all the times we tortured and scared her left her unable to trust others.

[...]

I saw her outside, writing or reading. I wonder if she was told not to have any contact with me.

20 March 2007

For as long as I can remember, I never once had to celebrate my birthday at school - only once, in Kinder and once in high school, but the odd thing was it was at the beginning and the end of my public school career.

And both involved cake, come to think of it. The first was from my mother who surprised me with a birthday party and the last was provided by an old friend of mine named A*** P****. To me, in those days, she was the object of my desire. No matter how many people she fucked, I wanted nothing more than to be with her. She was….who flashed me. We’d been through hell and back and each time we grew close, she’d pull away. It was a game, I’m assuming, something for her to do. It’s been four years since I last spoke to her. I imagine my image of perfection is somewhere out there with wrinkles and a self-loathing disposition. She brought me cake, a rather large cake, announcing my birthday. I left the cake with Mr. Mauro.

Then there was A**** C******** whose name fit her. A slave to her lord, I believe for A**** it was all an act. I never truly believed she was Christian, but I did like her in a grotesque sort of way. I think I wanted to spoil her. To show the humanistic side of her. The true form of her depravity wrapped in angelic virtue. She gave me what any girl should if they ever want to be accepted into my world–****** ****** ****. I’m addicted to them.

One day I will write about every one I knew and immortalize them for my readers.

[...]

Today she did not look at me any different. She smile, in fact. She smiled.

[...]

…I’m in class and it escapes me why I came. I think it’s because today is when S******** B**** is giving out her story. I’m not sure why I still worry about her, or if I should be at all. I get too attached to people. I should learn how to stop.

30 March 2007

Ennui Prayer. I wonder just how deep this will be.

Hamartia - tragic flaw

16 April 2007

“You cannot be a good writer of serious fiction if you are not depressed.”
–Kurt Vonnegut

24 April 2007

Tired. I can’t think straight. All I have in mind is J****** because of my “Samantha” story. Nothing feels right. I’m tired.

I never thought it would be so hard to write something I experience for two years.

25 April 2007

I stopped thinking.

1 July 2007

Like a dream I couldn’t get out of, she appeared before me like I had hoped. She, of course, was with him, but I’m glad they do things like that. I’m glad he drives her, takes her to baseball games. Slowly, I realized, they are my Henry and June. And I am the Anais Nin of this ordeal. Only, I will not have sex with either of them even if I wanted to. Like June said to Henry, I have become bored with my life so I have taken them up.

12 November 2007

I just saw a man who stopped at a trash can to look in. He stood there as I passed him by, stopping to look as well. The creature looked up at us, eyes pleading to escape. I began to walk away as he asked me to stop and help him with the trash can. I hesitated, but he did it anyway. The animal crawled out and walked away slowly. The man placed the trash can back. As we walked away, I asked, “How do you suppose it got in there?”

He answered that it was looking for food.

“How did it get in?”

“Sometimes,” he answered, “it’s easier to get in but not out.”

5 December 2007

Jyg’s in the mood of no longer dealing with me.

22 December 2007

Something’s wrong with me. Everything I look at is another way to kill myself. The bag on the floor, for instance, seems to be the easiest way to do it. Just to cloak it over my head and lay down seems blissful, but so weak. I refuse to be weak.

29 January 2008

I saw T**** Saturday. She’s now working at Barnes & Noble. She recognized me, looked at me and went back to her red velvet cake.

[...]

I met Adam Zuniga.

5 February 2008

I fall in love with people’s minds. I have fallen in love with several people - infatuation, not raw emotion.

17 March 2008

Returning to a journal after a long pause isn’t any different than talking to an old friend after 5 yrs. I’ve resorted to blogs for the story of my life. I feel that I have fallen victim to the modern technology disease.

After all the years of fighting for Jyg, I have succumbed. I am returning to the place of friend. I am never sure where this path will lead me.

So I’m thinking that with all my friends becoming more and more fixed in their lives - with marriage & children - and now with Jyg leaving me, I need to move on. I’m thinking of joining the Peace Corps.

18 March 2008

What parts of me am I willing to expose? Which parts will I be willingly to give to another? In classical literature, I am told, most poets would give their lover their bowels. Every stinking, putrid organ of their bodies for their love, for their women, for their men. What am I willing to give up for the one that I love - that I will love? I want a woman of strength. Someone who is strong enough to love me. Someone I can be strong enough for. Someone I can spend the rest of my life with.

I want to expose myself to the world, as I have exposed others. Each part of me shall be left shackled. Left tormented. I want to see the world, while helping others. I want to be emotionally available without giving my heart away too soon. But that defeats what I want in life. Is my heart a vital organ I am not willing to give? To expose?

I want to transcend. I want to fill myself to remove the void. To cover the most shameful parts of my body.

[a cross with the word "WISH" written upon the middle, beneath: "I want so much to believe."]

[a heart with thorns upon it, a flame burning upon it. "Tender Being" is written above and below, on slot for each word.]

I am Ennui Prayer.

I am now dawning on the anniversary of being Ennui Prayer. I’m now fleeting in a world of post Poet Demas. I change my alter ego so much, it’s no wonder I’m having an identity crisis.

What now? I applied & tested for telecommunications. The city doesn’t want me, nor does the university. I know it’s because of my lack of license. I want to drive. I need to drive. But I need to get over my stupid fears.

That concludes my journal entries I was willing to share with you. I’m hoping, with time, some of these entries will become a part of The Wastelanders.

I Think I’m a Lesbian, and Other Wacky Stories

Just as the title states, I think I maybe a lesbian, but I don’t like the fact that I will never again have a sexual use for my male genitalia. However, I can just be full of shit which is probably more likely.

For those of you horny guys who strolled in here, I’m so sorry to disappoint. I am a male and I do have a penis. And no, I’m in no way gay. I tried the whole let’s-see-if-I-could-write-gay-porn-reviews-for-$400-a-pop (no pun intended) life choice. I watched the porn, puked a little in my mouth and thought, shit, some guys would do pretty fucked up things for money because you know that not all guys willing to suck cock, fuck and be fucked by a guy are gay. Some of them are just as straight as you and me.

But to be a male lesbian is to be something completely opposite. You still have relationships with a female, but you just don’t use your penis to pleasure. Looks like you get the shit end of the stick, hu? I don’t advise any of you to try it, however, for those of you who proudly admit in most jockish voice, “Oh, I’m a lesbian, huh, i like to fuck girls…huh huh,” that’s what you’re proclaiming.

In all reality, I think it’s really not cool, so perhaps I’m not really a lesbian, just going through a lesbian stage so late in my life, because Geb knows that I’m not gay because, yeah, gay sex can be slightly uneasy - not that it’s bad and I prefer lesbians because I’m the almighty straight guy, but because it’s not for me - same thing for lesbian sex, by the way - and blah, I’ve lost my train of thought.

Change of subject. Today I did the unbelievable. I applied for shitty telemarketing job at Teleperformance. I did it to pass the time. I mean, I already pass the time at home, but I get paid for this. And the fact that my mother left me twenty dollars yesterday - injuring my pride - didn’t help my self-esteem for the blow that came next. (As I write this, it is still Monday, by the way.)

Besides, I think I’ve made the decision of going into the Peace Corps. I’ve contacted a recruiter. For those of you who are already thinking I went against your advice, I’m not running away from my problems. I’m not escaping Jyg. I’m not escaping at all. I want this for myself so I can figure out who I am, what I’m here for (non-godly of course, but I still believe people should have a purpose in life, and I can’t seem to find it on my own) and what I’m supposed to do. I love you all, but you know the Valley isn’t for me. I’ve outgrown it. Or perhaps, I didn’t grow at all. Actually, I think everyone around me has grown up but me.

It’s sort of like that clip from Clerks II, where Dante and Randal are driving back to work:

Dante Hicks: Why do the Go-Karts help?
Randal Graves: I don’t know, it just reminds me of a better time in my life.
Dante: Like when?
Randal : Like when we were young and the world was still in front of us.
Dante: We’re not that old.
Randal: I don’t know, man. Sometimes it feels like the world left us behind a long time ago.

Only, I don’t have a partner in the mix. I suppose that would have been the binx had he not grown up before me..

I love my friends. I love the old ones and the new ones and the ones I probably will never meet in the Valley. But you’ve all grown up.

We’ve gone from this (we were never really this stupid, though):

To this (also not really, but you know, I fucking love the Pumpkins, man):

I’m not sure if I’m making myself clear, or I’m just confusing you. I know what you’ll say, but I thought it over. It’s not about running away. It’s about finding my place. So if you don’t have words of encouragement, please just stay silent.

Love is just a crash away

Sorry if I have devolved into an emo whiner. I suppose in many ways, I have let my failed opportunity at love get the better of me. I’m burying myself inside the world of job hunting, hitting websites from the City and college. I’m going to make the rounds the moment overwhelming amounts of walking don’t cripple me. I want a job where I can read though, so I’m hoping to stop by the museum later on and fill out the application for the greeter there. I know, BA in English and I’m looking for a mediocre job. There are reasons behind everything, I suppose. I want to go back to college, but I want to have a job before I do. And while I’m half way done with the application, I still haven’t finished it because I’ve been thinking for joining the Peace Corps and just leave all this mess behind. The world was so much brighter last year. Now it’s just bleak and I’m afraid of not achieving anything. Isn’t that great?

I’ve been thinking a lot about a certain friend now. It seems I’m not the only one who’s having a failed love life. Not that I’m saying she’s out of the ring yet, but it seems that one more hit will sail her flying out. I don’t know, I think I’ve exhausted my advice. Where I used to be so good, I think I’m flailing in the wind with my silence.

Not to mention, another friend of mine is feeling just as useless as I am. She hates the fact she doesn’t have a great job; we even toyed with the idea of signing up with the Peace Corps together, but I dunno. I want to. I just don’t know what to do, really. I need some guidance. What do you all think?