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I haven’t been carrying my moleskines around lately, which is unfortunate; keeping them with me at all times was a habit I should have done more to encourage. I use them for such random, varied purposes, from jotting little ideas I have, or a single line of dialogue I think up, or using it as a journal for a few weeks and then abandoning it, only to return to it and decide to write about something else instead. They’ve been organizers, where I keep every little bit of important information at the time, to being address books.

Going through a couple of my old ones right now, I stumbled upon a couple of those little snippets of thought that I love finding in these things. Sometimes they transport me to the time I wrote them, or at least give me some vague sense of nostalgia, but at the very least I either think “Oh, hey, that’s great, I should use that for something,” or “man, that was fucking terrible, what was I thinking?” There’s even one page where I had written some stupid, out-of-context thought and apparently went back to it months later, crossed it out and put an arrow pointing towards it and a note that said “Thought it was a good idea at the time.” I guess being my own worst critic can be a good thing, but sometimes I feel like it paralyzes me when it comes to writing. Hopefully this blog can help me get over some of those fears. I’ve never feared the criticisms of anyone else, but the most disappointing feeling I’ve had as a writer is when I write something and look back at it and say “Man, that was terrible.” It’s more embarassing than being caught masturbating (especially when you’re masturbating to the writing of yours that you like).

So, for tonight, here are a couple little nuggets from the archives that I liked. There is no context, just loose ideas that I might use for something someday.

1:

I fantasize about yelling at my boss in jobs I don’t even have. Do you know what it’s like to be turned down or overlooked for a raise or promotion in your daydreams? It sucks, man, it really does.

2:

He was the kind of guy that wrote nice poetry to his girlfriend about putting rocks in his shoes so he would remember each step he took towards her and ruined it by later describing in detail the pus-filled blisters and blood-soaked socks at the end of the day.

3:

“If the world were black and white, would color cameras have been invented first?”

4 (from a journal entry when I was driving the buses on the Vineyard. I would write some of these down in the two or three minutes I had at a bus stop during my shift.):

Small, obnoxious kid goes into a frenzy, forcing everyone on the bus to listen to a rant about the entire story of the new Harry Potter, despite pleas from the other passengers not to ruin it. [It had just come out.] Continues anyway, visibly angering a teenaged girl with the book in her hands and a bookmark in the middle. Boy reveals that he is about to be shipped off to camp for a month. Passengers all cheer and applaud the missing parents and sympathize.”

—

Man uses the last two dollars on a $16 change card. I go to throw it away but he wants to keep it. For a scrap book. His used up, wrinkled bus change card.

—

Morbidly obese couple only passengers between Edgartown and Oak Bluffs, arguably the more scenic, if not the most, of the down-island routes. The husband asks, “so a lot of people come here, right? From all over?” When I say yes, the wife snorts and shouts, “WHY?” Their grunts, sweating, moaning and complaining about the heat, and the numerous stains on their shirts, combined with their utter ignorance will make me question my next piece of bacon.

Posting resumes tomorrow. Sorry.

We looked at the wrong camera

On account of posting three times yesterday and that it’s almost midnight on Sunday and I have a crazy day tomorrow, I’m going to do a real short post just to throw up a picture I found while looking around on Facebook today. I haven’t posted a single picture before now, which is sort of sad, and in the coming days I’ll post more. Ultimately, I want to get a really nice camera (I know, mom, you bought me one a couple years ago but it has a problem with the lens that might be more expensive than it’s worth to fix) and start teaching myself a bit more about being a good photographer. Then I’ll do a daily photo or something.

Anyway, this is a picture from a New Year’s Eve party a few years ago… maybe sophomore year of college? I guess it’s fitting to post this since I’m posting writing from around that time. It also happens to be a picture of me that I like, which is pretty hard to find. These are all people I went to high school with, most notably my friend David Linfield, who I later visited in Scotland and who remains a good friend. The best part is that there were two people taking pictures and we looked at the wrong camera, but I think it turned out better that way. I’m the guy on the right, for those who don’t know, wearing the black fleece with the Heineken in my hand.

I wrote this sophomore year of college, I think. I used to get infatuated with random girls everywhere and that’s what this poem is about. All those fantasies ended as soon as the ring hit my finger, I swear. Anyway, not necessarily a great poem, but it’s sort of funny to me because at least I understand it.

When I go out to write or read,
The corner-of-the-coffee-shop girl
Becomes
Center-of-my-mind girl
And
Waiting-in-the-rain-for-a-bus girl
Becomes
Saturday-morning-reason-to-not-get-out-of-bed-because-she’s-in-it girl
(And some of you may have noticed by now and I’m sorry
but I won’t hold it against you when you walk out of my life
without a word so we’ll call it even)
The day when singing-to-herself-while-she-walks-ahead-of-me-and-doesn’t-think-anyone-can-hear-her girl
Stops singing to me
Will be very sad indeed.

Here are those old clips I mentioned, that the Vineyard Gazette sent me.

First up is an article I had written about a band in high school, Slow Leslie. Looking back, it’s not such a terrible article from a 17-year-old. I’ve definitely written worse.

Next is a piece about an antique car show that was going on at the time. I believe it still happens annually. I haven’t read this one again since I got the clip, so I have no idea if it’s good or bad (maybe you guys can tell me, huh?).

And finally, at least for now, an article about the high school’s yearly “Hell Week” football camp to get the kids in shape after a summer of laziness. I remember being upset at the time that the lede was changed so heavily – the one the news editor put in there seems so bland to me, but I’ll admit I’m biased. I don’t even remember what the original said at all, but I’d like to think of it as some great injustice anyway.

As usual, enjoy and let me know your thoughs. Keep in mind that these are from seven years ago, so cut me a break if they’re not perfect.

And here’s a piece I wrote more than a few years ago that I just stumbled across in one of my old moleskines.

And so those days of subtle genius gone
Days spent fishing for leaves in the back yard
Full of hammocks and skinned knees, dew at dawn
And the dog has been missing since the sun went down

He bounds into view with the sun at noon
A strange creature with five legs instead of four
One dangles from his mouth, clearly not his own
And it will be used for walking no more

As blood stains the deck and drips from his mouth
It is a strangely beautiful nightmare
One that leaves a wanting for the waking
A curiosity for the mortal

Bent and broken at all the wrong angles
Flesh stripped away in no certain pattern
And no one will touch it save the dog and
Flies begin to materialize and feast

We three sit with our faces against glass
Groaning complaints of the sight and smell
And turning away is not an option

It stays for two days and quickly becomes
An average, common place sight
Like some everyday monstrosity

And when it leaves under cover of night
Reclaimed by some wandering creature
And no longer some scavenger’s bounty
We are forlorn and must look elsewhere for decay

And we are not disappointed, to say the least.

The Vineyard Gazette, where I formerly interned and freelanced a bit, sent me a few articles I had written to get my portfolio together. They only found three so far, apparently because the system they used to archive back then was a little wonky, but they’ll get more to me soon. Tomorrow I’ll scan them in and post them for your enjoyment.

I also found my old moleskine notebooks that are filled with great little notes I can expand on for material. Expect it to be a good weekend content-wise, which should make up for last night and tonight. Ivona gave me a good piece of advice on writing tonight, although it’s something I knew intuitively but was trying to ignore; I’m not giving this blog the time it deserves. I may be forcing myself to write every day, but that doesn’t mean anything if I’m writing at 10 or 11 pm every night just rushing something out there so I don’t have to pay one of you goons five dollars.

Boring post is boring. Better ones tomorrow.

This website wasted entirely too much of my time tonight.

I took last year off from school and worked as a garbage man to help out the family. I drove a commercial garbage truck, which means I dealt with dumpsters and commercial trash (as opposed to residential, though I did do that once a week). I was up at 4 am or so every morning to don my blue Dickies and bright yellow shirts, stumble into Ivona’s sister’s Jeep that she let me borrow for the winter (man I miss that car, even though it was falling apart), and drive a couple towns over to start my route.

When people ask me about driving a garbage truck, I usually tell them it’s as bad as it sounds, only worse, and then I pause for a minute as if to think reflectively and tell them “well, once you got used to it, it wasn’t so bad.” Maybe I’m just a fake motherfucker, but I get sick of answering the same questions all the time, so I at least have fun trying to perfect the same responses, or make up ridiculous answers (“No man, I loved that job! I found so many cool things in the trash, and I never had to bring my own lunch, if you know what I mean!”). For the first week, I was miserable and convinced I would quit. During training I was riding around in a residential truck with a Brazilian kid named Ramon who drove like a psychopath and would pretend to be a stupid, uneducated foreigner when dealing with some of the customers (“Yes boss! Sorry boss! Next time better boss!”) while I tried to hold back laughter (he and I had actually gone to high school together and his English was pretty good).

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When people ask me if I’m happy I got married, I generally tell them it’s the best decision I’ve ever made, and every day with Ivona affirms that. People ask me why I got married so young, and while there are a lot of reasons, sometimes I just say “I guess I was the marrying type,” which really means “I’m sick of people asking me this shit.” I have canned responses for tons of questions. It probably comes from years of driving buses and cabs, and being asked the same questions constantly. But my answers about marriage, while they may be canned, are also deeply true. It’s not being married that’s so great as much as it is the person I’m married to, of course. But you know what I mean.

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