September 5th, 2001:

Philosophy

Won’t you look up at the skyline
At the mortar, block, and glass
And check out the reflections in my eyes
Ya see they always used to be there
Even when this was all was grass
And I sang and danced about a high-rise

And you were laughing at my helmet hat
Laughing at my torch

Go ahead you can laugh all you want
I got my philosophy
(it keeps my feet on the ground)
And I trust it like the ground
That’s why my philosophy
(I feel)
Keeps me walking when I’m falling down

I see that there is evil
And I know that there is good
Then the in-betweens I never understood
Won’t you look at me. I’m crazy
But I get the job done
And I’m crazy but I get the job done

I say go ahead you can laugh all you want
But I got my philosophy
And I trust it like the ground
That’s why my philosophy
(I feel)
Keeps me walking when I’m falling down

I pushed you cause I loved you guys
I didn’t realize
That you weren’t having fun
And I dragged you up the stairs
And I told you to fly
You were flapping your arms
Then you started to cry, you were too high
Noooo… too high.

Now you take this all for granted
You take the mortar, block, and glass
And you forget the speech that moved the stone
But it’s really not that you can’t see
The forest for the trees
You just never been out in the woods alone

So you can laugh all you want to
But I got my philosophy
(keeps my feet on the ground)
And I love you you’re my friend
But you got no philosophy
(I feel)
Now it’s time for this song to end

–Ben Folds Five

That song seems to fit me well right now.

If you’re the type that doesn’t like to read song lyrics in someone elses journal, then don’t read the above. Oh… wait… I guess I should have put that at the top, huh?

Fuck You.

Fuck you for being such a coward that you cannot even tell her why you’ve left. How could you lie to her for so long? How could you talk to her as though she were your princess, sharing your dreams and your thoughts and your wishes with her? How could you try to convince her there are good men in this world; good men with real dreams, real thoughts, and real emotions that include her? How could you offer all these things and then take them back in a chicken-shit-instant with no explanation? Fuck you for making plans of train trips and American travel. Fuck you for not stopping with her, but dragging her mother and her sister in too.

I hope you are dead. Not because I wish your life to be over, but because I would rather know that you died loving her than to know that there is even a single being on the face of this planet like you that dare call himself a man; someone who shows so little respect, caring, and consideration that he wouldn’t even bother to say goodbye after letting such a wonderful creature put so much faith and love and trust and respect into him and what they had together.

I tried to believe her when she told me how incredible you were. In fact, I actually did. Through her, I fell for you as well.

I swear to all those things that are greater than myself that, should I ever come across you without a bright white flag in your hand and a damn good excuse that you can spit out of your cowardly mouth in the ten seconds that I might give you, I will beat you so bloody that you, too, will wish you were dead.

It is one thing to hurt me. It is another thing to hurt a kind, caring, loving, beautiful woman who gave you every ounce of herself that she could muster; who reached in to the depths of her soul and grabed all she could fit into her hands and offered it to you. But it is something entirely different when that woman happens to be my best friend.

Fuck you.

Though I’ve said this a million times before, I am certain that today is the day that I don’t want to go into work, more than any other day.

The rain is begging to fall on my face, the puddles yearn for my feet, and a hot cup of coffee is dying to scald my lips. The rain obscures the window’s view intentionally taunting, “if you want to see what I’ve got, you’ve got to come out here.”

I always keep a running tally of which musicians/actors/other-public-people I would emulate had I the chance. Prior to now the list looked like this:

Vocalist: James Taylor
Guitar: Eric Clapton

Since that time, my list has changed:

Vocalist: James Taylor / Ben Folds
Guitar: Eric Clapton
Vocals as a percussive instrument: Mike Doughty
Keyboard: Ben Folds

I now notice that there is no one on my list for “lyricist”. Anyone have any suggestions?

Before you bother making a suggestion, my list is only for what I consider the best of the best. So telling me that the lyrics in the Backstreet Boys’ latest single are very deep and emotional doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. I am looking for a constant display of superiority, versatility and as an added bonus, humor and wit. That means someone who sings of nothing but drugs, or love, or pretty little butterflies isn’t going to cut it. This is not to say that that particular artist isn’t any good, just that they are not good enough to make my list in the “lyricist” category. The person you suggest ought to be widely recognized by those who know music as talented. Some portions of musical taste are up to the individual, but there are indisputable truths that exist as well. Also keep in mind that just because a particular person sings certain words, that doesn’t mean they actually wrote them. Also keep in mind, the artist doesn’t have to be a member of a band I actually like. The lyrics will be taken as a completely separate entity from the music itself.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

Yesterday and today I received two completely wonderful pieces of email from two different and wonderful people. Who decided not to tell me the world was ending?

In both cases, and as one of the two messages also mentioned, I am left thinking “what if”. “What if” is just about the worse question you can ask yourself, because you can NEVER know the answer. Thinking such things always leaves me in a dream like state, physically here, but living out each infinite possibility in my head, over and over again, and without conclusion.

All of these thoughts break my mind in two. I enjoy my life now. I bitch constantly about it, and I am forever trying to make a change, but I am at least reasonably satisfied. But, as I was telling Elizabeth Monday night, I am always left wondering if things couldn’t have been better had I made a different choice along the way. And though these thoughts are constantly occurring within me, they are mostly background noise that my mind, over the years, has learned to tune out. But when it becomes known that someone else shares some of the same thoughts that occur in my head, those very thoughts jump forward and scream, “Listen to me, damn it”. And when they do so, they come hand-in-hand with one hundred of their friends.

And I am dazed.

I love you both incredibly, and always will.