. . .

I really don't want to live with ben.

Mou Sukoshi - I think I should stop watching romantic anime.

I was thinking about girls earlier today. More in the vein of, "what is that essential trait that I need in a girl?" rather than, "what body parts have to be what size," but I guess that's more to be expected of me. I think I've kind of nailed it down. I think what I want most is substance. First I thought it was all these combinations of things, but I think it comes down to the fact that there has to be more than meets the eye in a good kind of way. Maybe we're all a collection of puzzle pieces nicely laid out. If you got a GED, you have one piece, if you can sing well, you've got another piece-- every little detail, every little ability, every little thing is another piece. And I think what I need is a girl who has lots of pieces. Lots of details and things about her. For example, if I'm a puzzle, then I'm all over the place. I've got pieces in all quadrants with some pieces that aren't even connected to other pieces. Oh, another important thing is that she can't be totally bounded. I think it's kind of a given, but you know how you start puzzles from the outside in? You set the boundaries first, and then you go for the substance. It can't be that way though. I don't think I'm quite bounded yet-- there are border pieces, but since everything isn't quite connected, you never know how many pieces are gotta fit in between what I've already got. I want it to be the same way with her-- I want her to grow and change, just as I expect myself to grow and change. I'm more worried about the size of the puzzle and the piece count, and not so much the actual content of the puzzle. (although, to be sure, all that's pretty important too)

That being said, I think I should stop watching romantic anime. There's a particular strain of romance that does something to me. It...kind of feels like I get to see myself, zoomed out. I realize how many pieces I've got to me, but also how many pieces I'm missing. It makes me realize how discontiguous I am, it literally makes me feel like I'm all over the place, like I've got holes in my identity, in who I'm supposed to be. It makes me feel pathetically incomplete. It makes me realize that maybe the most important quality isn't the piece count, or the size of the puzzle, but that she'll fill in the holes and make me feel more together.

I don't like this feeling of being pathetically incomplete, as though I'm not a good enough person to stand on my own; to be a person in my own right, but maybe I'm not. What if I find her, and the sun sets and I lose her again? I'm scared that I'll, pardon the phrase, go to pieces. If I get used to this feeling of being complete, only to have it ripped from me, could I handle it? Could I keep it together? Or more importantly, could I, could Chris as a being, as an entity survive?

Sure I'll biologically survive, but I'm not quite as sure that who I am will.

...Yeah, maybe I should lay off the romance.

The Inside of a Music Box

I'm coming to realize more and more that almost everything I hear, with music-box sounds I like. I'm not sure why. I think it's because the way it sounds is so incredibly evocative of memory for me. Not necessarily a memory that I have..but evocative of the idea of memory.

But if it's not really evoking a memory that I have, then why does it matter? Why does it promote such a visceral feeling of longing or memory for me?

I think it's because it goes back and touches the idea of memory itself. For someone like me, who can't help but to romanticize his past, simply because he can't remember, a music box is like the key to the chest of all the memories I don't have, the ones that have been lost, or forgotten.

Regardless of whether they're happy or sad memories, the fact that they're locked up in a memory box always means that it's worth remembering, even if it hurts. Maybe that's why. It's an acute consciousness of the past that exists in the present, a remembering that's so vivid it displaces the current moment with one that had already been irrevocably set in stone.

I often want what I can't have, and in this case, it's the memories that I've lost. Music Boxes make me feel as though I'm opening up a memory that I had lost, and that...takes me back and makes me feel a little happy, a little sad, but a little content at the same time. I'm glad to have my memories, even if they hurt.

Untitled; to the flash Starshine2 play

If I knew your name tonight,
would I rush to find, the rest of who you are,
where you are and maybe why I am so pulled to be with you?

If I knew your voice tonight,
Would I take off in flight of fancy,
imagining your face, your smile, your eyes, your soul
only to find that I'm too drawn in to ever pull back again?

Or maybe I would flee and hide,
to spend some time in solitude
to be the man that you deserve,
rather than the boy I am today.

To build the muscles to protect,
the wit to make you laugh,
the charm to coax a smile from you
The knowledge to impress.

I'm scared I won't be good for you,
My secrets you won't scry,
My darkness won't make sense to you,
I'm scared I'll make you cry.

But what if I'm not good enough,
if you're already gone?
And what if you've found someone else,
if you're my only one?

Then maybe all my solitude
is not so much for you
but just because you couldn't wait
but needed someone new

You needed warmth within your heart
and arms around your head.
You wanted phone calls when it rained
and cocoa when it poured.

I would've been the warmth for you,
A fire blazing red.
But now you've settled for the coals,
clinging to fires dead.

I would've been the arms around your heart,
A shield from all the pain
I would've been there when it poured,
and loved you while it rained.

But now you cannot be the one,
the one for me is gone.
I'm set adrift, with half a soul,
a key without a song

My heart desires trickery,
to scheme you back to me.
And yet to soil the love we'd make
I'd rather let it be.

My honor code is firm on this,
that love you cannot take.
And so I watch you drift away
ignoring a dull ache

I know that in the skies our destiny
was nearly holy-writ.
But star-crossed loves scripted above
is mere contract tacit

And bards will sing of this, a love
that was quite nearly true
and maybe they'll embellish it,
they way they often do.

But 'almost' makes for tragedy,
which calls for romance end,
and 'almost' breaks the reader's heart
which only love can mend.

But you and I were almost there,
a moment gone askew
if I were perhaps someone else
and you were not quite you

I cry a foul on destiny
the Fates I claim unfair
I serve my sentence; solitude
I only claim my share

So cast adrift, without a hope
one-winged, half-souled, alone
I mourn the loss of melody
that never had a tone.

If I lived in Torrance

This is the first time I'm actually thinking of what life might be like if I lived in Torrance. The whole concept of Torrance has been bound up with my family and parents for so long that it's been anathema to me. But I started thinking recently...

What if I could go back to Torrance in the Summers?

The thought is honestly a little disturbing, because the implications run so incredibly deep. I'd be a completely different person, I think, mostly in good ways, although there are some possibly serious drawbacks too. The idea of thinking about it makes me a little nervous, 'cuz if I explore it, I might end up wanting it.

There were all these people in Torrance that were always marginally friends-- people right on the verge of being solid friends but still mostly acquaintances. I kind of had 'friends all over the place,' nothing ever solid, but always drifting. I would've expected to cement those bonds and the kinds of friends I'd have now would have made me really different. I think I'm just going to go this far, and entertain the rest of the possibilities in my mind, because I don't know if I can go any further than that. But just think, I could've been someone else.