For All the Unheard

Bouncing Souls: "For All the Unheard."
A guitar collects dust like his heart,
Soundless and still
A girl collapses on her bed
Writing words never read,
Troubled youth spills over into
Troubled life, and at times
We walk alone with our troubled minds

A guitar strikes a chord hits a misery so hard so bold
Sounding through this world where it's so hard to feel that gold

It's running through us all
A beauty
Buried deep under a river of grief
Where the Muddy Waters flow and the stones don't roll

This is for all the unheard,
All the music left behind
All the songs
Left on the floors in the closets of our minds
Where's the passion gone in our hearts?
Lost somewhere in the grind
It's time to bring it back
It's time to unwind
Find what we lost
It's time
It's time to bring it back

A lost song lingers on
Bouncing off stars on and on
A moment gone or is it looking for you
To sing its tune

Troubled youth spills over into
Troubled life, and at times
We walk alone with our troubled minds

---

I wrote a letter to a friend once, never gave it to her. But here's a bit from it:

"Sometimes an intense sort of terror overcomes me over something completely stupid. I think about all the people I'll never meet. Ever. It's impossible to encounter them all. And that scares me somehow. What am I missing out on, exactly? Is there someone out there, in all those billions, who I might really enjoy befriending? Or otherwise benefit from knowing? And it's not just people. It's books I'll never read, songs I'll never hear... it's the overwhelming amount of details I'll never be able to absorb. Maybe it is all just details, though. I think everything happens for a reason, and you bump into the people you need to bump into in order to live the life that is yours (what an oddly phrased sentence). And through your own life, you acquire the knowledge you are meant to acquire. You shouldn't worry about not meeting those people and hearing those songs and reading
those books because you just don't need to. Whatever you do encounter shall suffice. Yet despite my firm grasp on that principle, it sometimes saddens me that there's so much out there, so much happening right now, that I can't even fathom. Then again, it amazes me, throws me into a state of absolute awe. It's all very befuddling."

This song evoked a bit of that sensation -- it's a meaningful shout out to all the wonders we're all missing out on. The Virginia Woolfes and Elvis Presleys and Abe Lincoln's we'll never meet. Yes, it's all depressing in a way. But it's also liberating.

A sacred shred of anonymity still exists, in "the floors in the closets of our minds." Does that not excite you straight from the cerebellum to the toes?

It's beautiful, but sad. This song attacks detachment; we just can't let "troubled youth spill over into trouble lives, we can't walk alone in our troubled minds." Bring back the passion to our hearts.

Nonetheless, the closets of our minds... Oh, the idea just thrills me.
The Gold Record has a lyrical masterpiece or two, I must say.

18:23 - YOUR ROCKSTAR LIFE AIN’T GOT SHIT ON MY LAME ONE.
Current mood: chipper

Metablogging, again.

I once befriended one of my teachers in high school, an old nicotine-addicted Catholic Democrat who did a kickass impersonation of a hooker leaning against a streetpost and flexing her hips back and forth. Okay, so he was a bit of a creeper. But I begged for any consistent force in my life at that particular time, and the guy didn't mind my ranting emails, sent at all hours in all states of consciousness.

He once told me I was "born to blog," to abandon MySpace and create some sort of online identity and just bitch all the fucking time for anybody to hear. While this idea might appeal to me when I've more firmly resigned myself to spinsterhood (dear Christ, my spell checker didn't slap a red dotted line under the word "spinsterhood"; that shit's a real word), I like to think currently lack that pressing need for anonymous cynicism.

I still have the self-esteem to take credit for my own thoughts, twisted and fuck-word-laden though they may be.

Yeah, I'm alone -- medicated -- a bleach-dependent brunette -- pody-mouthed -- awkward -- fucking damned to the state of North Carolina for like seven more years -- clumsy -- utterly confused -- and so on and so forth, use your flippin' imagination.

But I'm me, I'm Cassidy Jane, and goddamnit, I'm okay with that. I really am. For the first time in my life.

I'm not useless because I don't give head. I'm not a phony because I'm so addicted to dying my hair. My eyes are the color of honeyed shit. After a good meal, the backs of my thighs resemble cottage cheese. I always say the wrong thing. I leave dirty underwear on the floor. I'm too snobby to date a guy who wears flip-flops to the bank, especially Rainbows. I mean what the fuck? Rainbows? Ugh. Grow a cock, please.

Speaking of cock, when I'm home alone, I yell "COCK!" at the top of my bloody lungs in the parlor -- just because it makes me feel delightfully dirty. I might get too caught up in giving you a hickey and end up drawing blood. Can't handle it, well go find a girl who will stick your dingaling in her cakehole and pretend she likes it. I hate parties. The movies, well, I hate them, too, unless I'm sucking somebody's face. I really like kissing. I don't care if red meat kills me, I'm gonna eat it until the day I die. Cheese and beans, too.

I can make a dirty joke out of nothing. And I'm going to be the best mother fucking Kindergarten teacher in the whole bleeding universe. I go to UNC Asheville but guess what? I'll probably vote Republican for the rest of my life. That's right, I think Barack Obama can kiss my rotund and blindingly white Irish ass, and Hilary Clinton... okay the thing I had for her was just TOO obscene for this blog. Ask me in person. Oh, fuck. She can suck my bald pussy. Bah. That felt GREAT..

So anyway, this same fine educator once told me a horror story about his son. Be careful, or you'll be in the situation my son is in, he tells me. And what is that?, I ask, trying to dissolve panicky urgency in casual coolness, then failing utterly.

My son is a very intelligent person, like you are. Okay, I say, but I know this comment he's making, it's more sinister than a compliment.

And he's in his thirties, he lives at home with me, he's obese, depressed, he'll probably never get out. There's not much of a chance.

Great, because I'm sitting here rotting from the sinewy depths of my seventeen-year-old heart and this is just what I wanted to hear.

Cassidy, you've got to find yourself somebody who appreciates you for your mind, soon, or you're going to end up like him, he tells me.

Well you know what?

I like food, I like lounging around the house, depression stimulates oodles of creative juices, and yeah, it's not a fucking Castle in the Sky, but it's not the end of things. I'm not saying I want that life or ever intend to have it.

I'm saying fuck you, you fucking old fart, for ever fucking planting such an idea in a vulnerable kid's crushed heart. Just because you're bald and smoke cheap cigarettes doesn't mean you have to squash my big fat dreams with your son's big fat ass. Suck my big fat cock.

Just kidding. I'm not all that irritated anymore.

But a thought is a hard thing to control, ask Winona Ryder's character in Girl, Interrupted. She'll tell you all about it. And a tiny thought-thing, well, it breeds. Asexually. The little bugger undergoes mitotic division after mitotic devision, encountering radioactivity along the way, mutating into a cancerous and smothering growth.

Clinicians like to call this "depression," and that's an apt enough word for it. Where you once stood upright, you're now a depression in the fabric of everything. That solitary thought bogged you down, drug you underground. You're just a pothole in this otherwise smooth, solid, dependable blacktop. You're not in a rut, you are one.

So you can lie there, all concaved and weird, and listen to people cuss as they drive over you. Or you can string up that thought-tumor round the neck and let it know what a feisty mother fucker you are. Come back with a vengeance. Eat it for breakfast. Attack that shit. With a machete.

GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH!

Patrick Henry. It's a great speech. Read it.

Discovery 2008... Fantastic. Not. But not dreadful.

"And we are vagabonds, we travel without seatbelts on, we live this close to death..."

... Talk.

"You were all dressed so professionally." "Yeah, except for Cassidy." "It's 'cause I'm a slut."

Here's one for the bucket list!

LET'S EAT AT BURGER KING!

"And he was almost in tears." [ecstatic laughter]

"I have to eat this fucking banana."

A chill possessed my toes, crippling them, and crept swiftly up my spine, warping the sinews of my hands, wrenching my heart.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR WHATEVER-THE-HELL-YOUR-NAME-IS, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU. [we sung this to some speaker, just not in so many words]

"The only way I'd teach there is to dismantle the robots." [chunk of Whopper escapes from lips]

I have a food baby.

"We've got smart boards!"

THE RAGING BULLS! ON RAGING RIDGE ROAD! OMG, THAT'S SO... SEXUAL!

I have left huge chunks of skin (via peeling sunburn) all over the state of North Carolina. Additional missing items include: 1 washcloth, 1 new bottle of shampoo, 1 aging bottle of blackhead scrub, 1 small chunk from an ipod charger.

"We're definitely representing potatoes here."

In an uncharacteristic move... Well, anyway, who needs a hazy future commitment while basking in the conveniently located and clear present?

"Hi, my name is Cassidy, and I really like cheese. Like, a lot."

"Cornbread and butter beans and you across the table,
Eating beans and making love as long as I am able."

Unecessary Titanic references, cover songs, sign language, the military.

1. location -- 2. irriation -- 3. irradication -- 4. deflation -- 5. filtration -- 6. temptation -- 7. negation -- 8. narration.

Including, but not limiting itself to, that particular order.

"You said I killed you--haunt me, then!...Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!"

-- Wuthering Heights

Really, what's cooler than being cool? ...

Don't have me break this thing down for nothing.

I just need some sugah, honestly, that's all.

... I AM yo neighbor.

Sheena Is a Punk Rocker

10:18 - Sheena is a Punk Rocker

It's true. Name your daughter Sheena and prepare yourself for strange piercings, serious hairstyles, raunchy boys, loud music, binge drinking, and tons of attitude. Just letting you know.

[01:50] miz jane: ooooh shit
[01:50] johnny: ?
[01:50] miz jane: i just fully appreciated that i have a really twisty chair that is a few solid feet off the ground
[01:50] miz jane: WHEEEEE
[01:51] miz jane: and it spins FAST
[01:51] johnny: hahah, huzzah!
[01:51] miz jane: i actually feel a bit sick lol
[01:52] johnny: lol, yeah, i feel a little icky after enjoying such chairs, too
[01:52] miz jane: but while it's happening it feels great
[01:53] johnny: hah, just like drugs
[01:53] miz jane: or raunchy hookups....
[01:53] miz jane: heh.

Ah, moments of sickening bliss. They're so great.

Sometimes it hits me: there are so many people I'll never meet. So many places I'll never go. Songs I'll never hear. Books I'll never read. It stifles me, I panic, a surge of hopelessness overtakes me. It's unavoidable -- I might never encounter the best of the best. And the billions of people before me, or after me, what about them? Is lusting after all this knowledge and experience even worth it? Even if I spend my life constantly seeking some great new experience every moment, I'll never get close to discovering everything.

I have goals, plans, things I definitely want to do; yet I can't adequately... I don't know, make an informed decision? Because I just can't possibly know what's out there... Ugh...

I can't do this. Not in a blog. Heh.

I'm planning this trip to Ireland and the UK next year. Yes, I'm stoked... But it's just so overwhelming. There's so much to do... I can't narrow it down to fit my budget or time. I mean I know I will, eventually, but aarrgh... My brain is totally and completely fried today.

And I just got interuppted by somebody who loves to interrupt me.

FUDGE....

Bouncing Souls -- "The Break-Up Song"

"I don't want this anymore is all I heard her say as I grabbed my stuff and headed out the door. With my music in my phones and my bike under my feet, things started to look different as I got out on the street. Sometimes I see her face in the new people that I meet. We're not who we thought we were when we saw this dream. Sometimes when I just can't sleep I hear the words you said to me: How did you get so deep inside of me? I wake up and I move on, I admit the past is gone, I wake up and I refine. Moving foward to the next lifetime, I leave it all behind. Sometimes when I just can't sleep I hear the words you said to me: Sometimes it takes a painful loss to realize you are free. How did you get so deep inside of me?"

"I'm the star jump-roper," he said enthusiastically -- an enthusiasm that masked sarcasm, which in turn masked a cocktail of insecurity and general good humor.

He swung the plastic jump rope above his head. With a deafening crack, it hit the floor. He never actually made it through the rope.

Behind thick glasses, his round, blue eyes opened widely, and he smiled sheepishly at me. He diverted his eyes to his worn skater shoes for a moment, then looked up again.

"I'll show you the Golden Eagle move!"

"Okay," I smile. A strangely familiar warmth, a sense of contentment overcame me.

He grasped the rope in both hands and flung his arms about wildly, screeching shrilly.

I stifled a laugh, as I instinctively knew I must maintain mock-seriousness with this one.

"Nice one. But I believe your body has to go through the jump rope for it to count."

"Who are you? The jump-rope expert? Sent here to teach us how to jump rope? What are you doing here, anyway?"

Though certainly mouthy enough, I knew he meant no harm -- this time. The kid possessed an absolute gift for smart-assery.

We chatted some more. I noticed his dirty blonde hair, his Red Sox t-shirt.

"I've been hurting myself since I was young," he proudly declared. "Right after I broke my wrist and it healed, I broke my fingers and sprained my ankle."

I believed him. Dozens of scabs -- some concealed by droopy band-aids, but most of them haphazardly exposed -- covered his skinny legs. He was just such a boy.

And that warmth, that contentment, it then had a source. I remembered. A calm, almost peaceful sadness replaced it.

When I got back in my car that afternoon, I felt stupid and angry. He was just a kid. He wasn't a message, or a sign, or a godsend, or one of Satan's little tricks. He was just a boy. A silly boy with dirty blond hair and bright blue eyes and vision problems and a favorite sports team and a few injuries to boast about and an attitude. That's all.

Testing, testing, 123.

This is a test.

Hotttttt salsa: A Freudian Slip

I dislike hot salsa. Mild salsa's too mild. But medium salsa? It's just right. I invariably chose it over its extreme counterparts.

My wits kind of abandoned me as I watched this guy stuff my taco. As he shoved the lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese in at my command, his arms fascinated me. They were tan. And muscely.

"What kind of salsa would you like with your chips?" he asked.

I looked up. I only saw two delightfully blue eyes, a weakness of mine.

"H-h-hotttttttt," I breathed.

I quickly amended my error, a little sloppily.

"Uh, I mean, medium..." Quick "oops" sort of smile. Direct eye contact with my shoes.

I don't think he caught my little slip. Very fortunate. He's not a bad-looking guy, but I can assure you... My interest in him does not transcend his ability and willingness to stuff my tacos. I don't wanna, you know, give him the wrong idea or anything. Desperation can make you do and say some crazy things.

It's just that my, er, taco needs stuffing. Bahaha. Kidding. But my perverted mind wouldn't let that one go.


Currently listening: Bouncing Souls... various albums and such.