Category: Personal
The life and times of John Fontana — personal blog posts about things John is dealing with / going through / thinking of / experiencing.
Powerless
Well, day one of being home alone goes by without incident. Well, sorta.
New York and the Northeast, as many of you already know, has gone into the dark. Of course it’s brighter in NYC than it is in Tampa Florida as it stands at this moment as I gander back over my shoulder to watch TV. I am amazed at the City that Never Sleeps and how they are dealing with this. The city and the tri-state area as well as most lf the Northeast have been through this before and aren’t entirely alienated by the notion of the city without power. Hearing about the blackout didn’t shake me so much because I knew NYC and the northeast weren’t strangers to this. What did shake me were the images of those in Manhattan flocking out of the city across the bridges and mingling on the streets.
Horrors of 9-11 came back to my mind.. yet there was something that brought peace to my mind this time – something that made me happy enough and proud enough to write this entry up: the citizens, though inconvenienced, are all smiles and going through what they have. You know, I’ve grown to resent the statement that New York is the greatest city int he world (mostly because of those Damned Yankees) but it’s situations like this that just proves it — that Manhattan Island and those int he 4 boroughs adjacent to it are residents of the greatest city in the world. When faced with adversity, New Yorkers overcome. Too bad the rest of the Nation hasn’t taken lessons in this.
Questions in the Dark
For an audience of one:
How was the show Wednesday night? Certain friends told me about it a few weeks ago….
An Insomniacs Confession
Once again, I struggle to sleep. 2 AM comes around and I find I can go on till 3 just fine and dandy. Before 3 hits, I am off to my bed where I hope gentle slumbers will take me for a pleasant trip to Dreamland… Yet sleep doesn’t come. I toss, I turn, I let my mind run…
3:15, 3:45, 4:15, 4:57…
It was after 5 AM when I finally fell asleep. This is ridiculous.
Speaking of ridiculous, is there anyone who actually finds these entries enjoyable? Because they are either too personal a confession or just… I don’t know, repetitive rants of the liberal kind.
The last thing I should be doing is questioning my writing right now because that’s all I’ve got, or so it feels sometimes.
Home Alone (should I stay or should I go?)
My great aunt Cassie died yesterday and my mom is very broken up about it. Her and my father are planning on leaving for Massachusetts for four days to attend the funeral 00 that’s if they don’t drive up there – and either that leaves me home (mostly) alone or gives me the chance to get out of town for a few days.
Not really the circumstances I want and not really what I want right now.
My legs aren’t doing well at all and being home alone now is not my ideal. Niether is going on a trip 1500 miles to mingle with people I don’t know and be stuck with my parents more than I am as it stands. I am planning on staying home but Miguel is harping that I should go with them because he won’t be around in case something bad happens.
Yeah, like being 1500 miles from home is going to keep me from having something bad happen to me? I’d be alone in that case as well as alone by staying here… and by staying here, at least I’d be entertained and be able to get in touch with those close by if something bad happened. There? I’d be alienated and have to deal with the ‘Rents too much.
I’m opting for staying here. Worst that can happen is getting in an accident and struggling to a phone and calling 911.
Sure it will be lonely but it’s a sight better than being annoyed all the time.
Night Life
Insomnia unlimited take 3.
I was at Andy’s place with Andy and Mike tonight and we were all hanging out and putting together ideas what he could do to the place to improve it. I really couldn’t believe we were hanging out together at my brothers own house… It just seemed surreal. I was in Andrew’s own 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home.
He painted the place — at least the living and dining room. He’s also treated the shelves so they aren’t plain white any more. He’s cleaned up the kitchen a bit — stripping paint off the capinets… But by god, he’s got to replace his bathroom stuff — STAT! FUGLY Toilet, FUGLY sink, FUGLY bath tub — UGH!
I really need to bring the camera over there and take some pictures. The view from the kitchen and the patio is terrific and the rooms are rather nice…The yard could use a nice shade tree compared to the ratty bushes that are there…
The drawl of the day continues
I’m looking for a positive today – some positive that effects me directly instead of all these negatives hanging over me or swirling around me.
Where’s the surprise? Where’s teh unexpected? Where’s the change-up? Something’s got to jar it’s head into my life to get me back on track because I am drowning right now.
Sleep-Deprivation: The source of Famine the world over
Insomnia sucks…
I mean it really sucks. Sure, it’s 2:30 when I write this — in the afternoon. This was after I was up till close to 5 AM just tossing and turning and trying to find something to help me drift off into golden slumbers.
My mind was running in circles and honestly I should have just gotten up and written for a while in order to find some escape – that was working for me earlier this summer… The thing is I want to write explanations and at the same time – explanations are why I ended up taking actions that need to be explained in the first place.
That’;; make sense to no one. Maybe that’s my sleep deprivation talking, I don’t lnow… can someone pass me the espresso?
In other news, I spent 3 hours at Andy’s place yesterday afternoon… It’s got a ton of potential but at the same time – it’s a pigsty and grossly outdated. At least one of the bathrooms need to be totally gutted and replaced, the kitchen and “pool room” as Andy described it, hast a ton of potential… The living room / dining room remind me of my uncle Alan’s place… Oh, but the view in the backyard is stellar with the pond back there. I really need to take some digital snapshots of the house when I get a chance – hopefully this weekend…
Bro-da-Homeowner
Andy has his house now… He closed on it (despite some setbacks – including his mortgage company being destroyed in Memphis, Tennessee storms) today….
He’s also back with Adriane which surprised the hell out of both me and my mom.
First Name Last, Last Name First
I started realizing a dilemma that I’m going to be facing if I am in the writing realm… It’s actually something I noticed a long long time ago but didn’t think it would have any effect on me because I didn’t know where I was going with things with my life. The fact I am getting into writing and — possibly — going to make a name for myself through fiction and other writings causes one slight, teensie little problem.
My name.
You see, John Fontana is a really popular guy. I mean REALLY popular. Not only was he a bartender in New York (My grandfather — known as Giovanni Petra to his parents, I believe, from what my mom was telling me) and the guy I got my name from… He also is a Senior Editor at Network World Fusion and Linux World, a writer for Infoworld and CRM Daily… Not to mention a baseball coach as well as a thousand other things out there.
John’s a popular guy… Real popular. I mean, he even worked on “Bag of Bones” for Stephen King!
Of course, JP Fontana is a wacky Frenchman writer and that causes me some more grief but not as much as I could be having over it.
I need to make a habit out of calling myself John P. Fontana (or J.P. Fontana — I like that one)… I could see a future where some guy gets a call asking to pen an article for a fiction magazine and they were looking for me the entire time… Or me getting asked “When did you get into writing like that, John? I thought you dealt with only the tech stuff?
Internet Boogie
So anyway….
I’ve been finishing going over assignment 4 and I actually killed off the happy-ending for the sake of the plot twist. Not so much a plot twist but a more realistic ending. If I had 2500 words or more, I probably would have further gone into things but alas – 2000 words is the limit and I’ll stay under it, thank you very much.
Meanwhile, I’ve been over at Blog for America and doing my regular political shuffle over at Kill the Web the past few days… Pretty often in fact… All of this and I’ve also been over at DeanFilter.com trying to add news bits here and there. I could use some help to be honest, because I don’t think I’m keeping things news-worthy….
Then again, I could also invest more time in this stuff… I proposed to Toe that it would be beneficial if I started coming up with some heavy political satire to go along with his outrageous and much loved/detested Gwbush04.com web site. I mean, just LOOK at this beautiful stuff he’s writing on his own…
Makes you wanna join the party, don’t it??
At any rate, I need to get my shit together and send out assignment 4… Also calling Doctor Smith’s office is going to be a necessity if I can’t find out some details about surgery or get in touch over the web…
The Matrix has you
I’m testing out a new feature that I enabled for one reason or another.This will give you the chance to read something I wrote over at Kill The Web
As one who is on the progressive side of the fence with my political views, I feel like one of those freed from the Matrix and having to fight against the Machines in order to make things right again. I feel like Politicians in general right now are agents and either a citizen who remains in ignorance about the wrongs in America is an enemy up until their mind is freed, because those Agents and politicians will use them through their propoganda to support their own personal means.
Der Long Ridge and contested "Affections"
So as I stated in a previous entry that I got assignment 3 back on Saturday. After pinning Sunday and writing my entry for Monday on and off during the day before publishing it Monday morning… Well, I got back in the saddle with writing. Not writing, per se but editing.
Assignment 4 is due to be 1000-2000 words and I thought that there were ways to achieve that without trying to write a story fresh from scratch… even though I have a few concepts jotted down in a notebook I now can’t find, and plenty of stories I started but never finished, saved to my computer.
Back to the topic — Assignment 4. I decided to take a stab at editing “Thank God for Arthur” down to within the parameters… I was intimidated when I started — Seeing the unedited version of the story is 2791 words… Trimming 791+ words looked to be a task.
And yet, after just two simple passes over the story — I’m down to 1980 words… Pretty hot shit! I think it could be submitted as is. I’ll go over it again before printing out a copy and trying to spot errors in that before throwing out my final copies for the class.
Tres cool, no?
Meanwhile, I was looking around late last night on Pif Magazine while pinning and trying to find a local magazine to submit an edited Assignment 3 to… I stumbled across a writing magazine called Glmmter Train and decided to take a risk — a 10 dollar risk — and submit my edited version of Assignment 2 to their Very Short Fiction contest with a handsome 1200 dollar first place prize. Then again, I don’t know if they’ll even consider a story under 1000 words :(.
Maybe it was wrong of me to just dive in without researching Glitter Train much… but the hell with it — what did I have to lose (besides 10 dollars)? What do I have to gain?
Ego
One moment you can have your ego coddled by the powers that be, the next minute you can have it torn down by a barb. One minute you can feel really good about yoruself and the next minute someone can fuck it up for you in one way or another.
That’s Saturday for ya!
I was feeling really good about myself after getting my latest assignment back from Lou… Especially when he pushed the fact that the story was such a piece that it was worthy of publication now…
Oh, there were edits I needed to make, but tte story content was so vivid and so identifiable that it just was great…
Certain people will coddle their own ego knowing what the piece was about and knowing they told me to write about that specific subject.
Then? What happened? Well, lets just say I deflated and deflated pretty fast for that matter when I felt strung along by the powers that be, people, things, etc. Oh, I could make mention of things I’ve previously complained about recently in here (Medical, medical, medical ) but it was more out of my control than that is (and that is very much out of my control).
THe poetry that’s shown up here was written in May and early June when I had the creative juices going. Sometimes posting a poem is easier than writing a journal entry — of coruse it is, damnit, becasue you don’t have to write anything original off the cuff like regular long winded journal entries are written….
A Questioned Chance
A Questioned Chance
Thumbed nose
At the bright red rose
And vile thoughts
At the offered olive branch
A questioned chance
Beliefs are worth their weight in gold
Giving heart back to you ten-fold
And stolen heart is what she holds
I must let go
I must let go
Seeking out, not quite on a whim
Seeing doubt from the hurt within
Void of a chance
Needing escape
Bullet holes
And tempting fate
Searching far, wide and beyond
Sycophant minion, just a pawn
Secure the mast and sail with me
Rising tide upon the sea
And growing weeds surround the rose
To which, with a twitch, she thumbed her nose
I feed the flames with the olive branch
What have you done to earn another chance?
© 2003 John Fontana
TKO
A technical knockout or a TKO is when a fighter is knocked down three times during a fight (or some other specified number).
Three times. Three times. Down and out three times.
I’ve talked briefly in past entries about my balance being bad – partly thrown off because of my legs, partly because of stuff I don’t know… In the past 24 hours I’ve fallen — and fallen hard – three times because of balance SNAFU’s.
I don’t know, I just don’t know any more. It’d be nice for someone to comprehend how difficult things are for me right now. It’d also be nice to be able to contact my doctor and discuss things more with him… But I don’t see him (and maybe not at all) until 2 days before the operation.
And I’m sorta scared because there’s just too much of the great unknown laying before me. It’s not the unknown I fear as-so-much not knowing what the deal is going to be before hand. I can play things on the fly – but as far as I know I could end up in rehab for an unspecified period of time after this.
BTW – I am done with 24 season 1…
Lethargy
I can’t believe how my day has gone. My highlights are falling down earlier, getting my head hit by the door when Mike entered the room, watching some of Fellowship of the Ring, trying to figure out how many hours +/- General Mean Time I need to set Tampa Bay For Dean and writing about one paragraph on the newest short story I am writing.
Wooo fucking hoo hoo. Wild day at the office. It’s a good thing there haven’t been many on this journal lately because honestly – the news I am reporting should bore the shit out of anyone.
A whole lot of blah
A whole lot of blah being served up on patrami, hold the pickle.
I’m talking to Miguel about guest-blogging in here for me while I am out of it. i might offer that option to a few others. It’s not so much so he can report about me as he can just try to keep the journal going while I am out of commission later in the month.
I mean, he’s no Howard Dean who guest-blogged for a professor at Stanford, but he’s one damn good “journal”ist.
In other news – I can’t bring myself to finish a story I started that was going to be very short. A guy getting flowers annonymously while at work. Seemed like a good premise and it is – I actually got a resolution drawn out and know how it’s going to end. I’m just being lazy in actually putting the words down onto the document (“paper” doesn’t apply because I am typing, damnit).
Dejà-VooDoo than I Do
DejÃ-Vu.
Very, very dejÃ-vu…
See, about a year ago I had some things happening to me that made life a big worry… A worry much bigger than your day to day but not so incomprehensible that you would think I’m an alien or something like that (though the Men In Black would argue that)… It’s just something that hung over me much like a new job, moving, or some other great unknown worry would have this feeling of heaviness over you. There’s anxiousness and anxiety to go along with it and a question of just where this will take you.
That was a year ago and I’m repeating it this year.
Yep, John’s got a scheduled date for surgery now – Wednesday, August 20th at Tampa General Hospital. Pre-op on Monday the 18th. I’m thinking of other odd things going on — Bill’s sister is due to have her 2nd kid about that time and — it’s SO STRANGE because that is what happened last year while I was in the hospital.
Very strange, very deja-vu.
Of course this year I won’t be writing to anyone on the pager, telling them soemthing I should have told them the night before I had the operation…
…Nor do I think I’m going to be out of the hospital in 3 days. Hell, I don’t even know if I will be back to walking anytime soon after surgery. I’ve talked about my legs being weak as is right now – I got to imagine if everything goes fine I’m still going to have weak legs and on top of it I might have to “learn” how to use them again.
I don’t know if I will need rehab or what… I don’t know if I should be looking intot he ibot or the Segway because of future lack of mobility… (then again, I want to look into the Segway no matter what so that whole point is moot).
At any rate, after a night off from the computer, I’m writing again with another story… Maybe assignment 4, I didn’t look at the assignment as much yet but I’m writing with constraints just because. Sort of good story but I think it’s been done before…
Also, Melanie will be glad to hear that John got disc 5 of 24 season 1 in the mail. I may very well have that watched by the end of the day… God I love that fucking show
Bad-Legged-Freaks
So it’s late night Saturday (early Sunday, bloody, Sunday morning) and I’m losing myself in my writing again as I have at times of the past few months.
Ahh, the comfort in text – now if it was only worth reading… and if there was only proof people read this stuff (hint hint — click the comment link below and leave a comment about any given entry).
I used most of my day for writing and for 24, disc 4 (It is now 4 PM on the day of the California Presidential Primary) but I had a little incident this afternoon that re-inforced the scary part of my life…
My right leg gave out on me – twice.
I bent down to pet my cat, Smokey — hunkered down — and the leg had no strength in it (at the thigh). I struggled to get my balance and to not fall on my ass or whatever…
OK, maybe it was three times… I remember trying to get up from a chair and it giving out on me again… along with one other instance of leg weakness.
Monday I’m going to learn the date of snip-snip (surgery) and I hope I get to speak to Doc Smith before then.
Sleep time is near… must go… must go… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Dwelling and Moving on
Sometimes, sosmething or someone pains me. All my close friends know that I’m sensitive about shit and what not… They also know I tend to dwell and that bothers them. That bothers me in some ways looking at it long and hard.
Some of the poetry on this very site I wrote while dwelling on the good and the bad, the wants and the hurt with people. Dwelling leads to a lot of inspiration for these works, which is a good thing (not saying I want to be hurt, because I’d prefer the dream, but I actually thought it would be better for my writing being hurt again… That note is for the Eerie out there if they’re reading)…. But dwelling seems to be bothering a lot of people and myself included.
Time heals all wounds… Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get the fuck over it and all that jazz… it just doesn’t work with me.
I dwell on details with people, I dwell on the feeling, the emotion, the pain — or even the euphoria when I feel it. The happiness… but it’s with who I’m feeling those things with that I dwell on – not the events specifically. I could name five events where I got hurt badly emotionally but I couldn’t tell you specifically when I last went hysterical laughing with someone I cared for, or 5 specific times i made someone lose control of themselves with making them happy or laugh or whatever. (ah, memories – i can think of one specific instance off the top of my head).
Actually that’s not quite the truth – it’s just the negative comes out easier than the positive… The negative leaves a more lasting impact than the positive. That’s human nature though. There are plenty of instances that enjoyment / mutual laughter I have had with friends and family but those don’t stand out as monuments so much as negative things. I can think of positive things that stand out as monuments with people but those monuments are faulty idols now from a long-extinct tribes of the world, or so it feels.
I don’t want to dwell on the negative things I could think, I want to move on, I want to move away… Yet, how? How can I?
At the same time I don’t want to hurt anyone trying to get my own personal escape and move on through another, only to toss them away when I’m over things. I’d rather carry my pain than bestow it on another person. I’m “messed up” like that… I care where other people say they don’t.
I care too much, for god sake… I talk to a friend off and on all day yesterday and today and I feel funky, if not upset, when I find out she’s got a guy friend over her place? Why do I take it so personal? Just my own selfishness? My own idealistic dream that someone woudl want to hang out with me?
I don’t want to be aloof in life. I don’t want to close off my heart to everyone except a select few… Yet I don’t want to carry un-needed burdens like this.
For the record, I don’t think I did when I was truly happy — but right now I’m not, and I don’t know how to get there from here.
Survival of the Fittest
Well, the good news is I am not dead yet.
…
No, no… it’s not that bad, I’m just tired right now and not thinking straight for the most part. I got to Bartels office at 11, waited till about 1 to see him, you can imagine how much fun that was. And my appointment didn’t last more than 10 minutes… I mean, I like the guy, he’s someone that you got to respect and trust, but jebus, Doctor Bartels, hire another doctor to share the load with yourself… There were people in there that waited just as long or longer than I did to see him and it’s just sorta sad.
So what IS the verdict anyway?
I’m honestly not exactly sure, though I should have been more forward in finding out what was up though Doc was pretty certain that it wasn’t tumors in my head doing everything that was wrong with me. The tumor that is causing my leg weakness is also helping throw off my balance from what I was told…
Great, perfect, juuuuuuuuust perfect…
But it’s not as grim as I saw it just a week ago, that’s good. Not going to be pleasant though with whatever the next step is – that’s bad.
Anyway, in other news I’m getting attached to another Howard Dean support site by my web-friend Chris who runs the satire extremes George Bush for President ’04 (or W04), Red Tide News, and of course the social blog Kill the Web which I regularly contribute to over there (but too often in a political form and not just social stuff and pop culture mumbo jumbo that could easily be bloggered). This new site (deanfilter) goes on top of my message board for the local dean activists who haven’t yet entirely flocked to my humble web site.
(Insolent peons! You will love me and bow down to me and flock to my site or I’ll… I’ll… um… Hold on, it’ll come to me… Ok, I’ll do nothing except bitch and moan. What else do I do anyway? :-p )
Top of the day entry
Seeing how it’s almost 10 AM I thought I would start the day off with a journal entry. I’m seeing Dr. Bartels inside 2 hours and I’m going to be talking turkey with medical stuff.
Ah, and to clarify something I said yesterday: I’ve been dealing with a story that I’ve written off-and-on the past few weeks right now. It’s going ok but I don’t know when I’ll close the story up or what I’ll do to close the story up for that matter. If I just keep going with it — and i don’t know how I can, I had one idea ironed out and I’ve gotten through that idea with 14 manuscript pages — I’ll find a closing spot… but right now as it stands it’s going to be a much more difficult thing to do for me than I would like it to be.
But that’s writing for you – it’s not always a joy… yet immersing yourself in writing and concentrating on it gives you escape from the world.
Trust in things…
Was writing today for the most part — as I was yesterday as well. Don’t feel quite up to a full entry, want to get away from the computer again…
Trust in things
beyond my doing
Faith in things
I can’t believe
Wanting things
That leave me yearning
Craving things
And the pain they leave
Telling you
In lingered silence
Seeing you
In the words you weave
Smelling you
In your sight for sore eyes
Loving you
And your careless deeds…
Choices
Choices are what defines our life and is an integral part of what drives us. Other’s choices have helped define you as a human being and helped form your habits. Your own choices have defined you up until this point in life – where you are reading this journal entry on a web site you chose to go to and you will choose if you will read beyond the end of this paragraph or if you will switch to a different web site on the World Wide Web (hell, you might have already).
Some choices bring you to joy and other choices bring you regret. Other’s choices can bring you to joy, or might make you regret that you dealt with them… Or perchance they will make you want to encourage them to make a better decision, a more thoughtful choice because the particular choice they are currently using going to end up hurting them.
You could look back at a relationship and say “Hey, it’s his / her loss” over the fact they chose another course over choosing you but at the same time – you’re most likely pinning in one way or another becasue you don’t want them to lose out on you, or in general.
It’s all about choices. Sometimes it’s not your own choice that forces you to live life in solitude but the choices of others — the choices they made to be part of the in crowd and how you wouldn’t be good for their image, or the choice you made to not associate yourself with this-or-that type of person because of some quality they have about them.
You’ll chose what you have to eat tonight, and what time you’ll go to bed — stay up and watch Letterman or maybe go to bed early to get a jump start on the new day? You’ll chose whether to sit back in your chair as you read this or shift side to side, or put your feet up on your desk while you read.
Choices, choices….
Do I take the blue pill or do I swallow the red? Do I make another movie quote here about a famous choice or do I go on with my ramble?
Some choices are made by fate, or by God or by whatever higher power is overseeing our lives. Disease, famine, drought, death, life – so it goes without saying that we have only so much we can control. Sometimes we just don’t want to control, sometimes we think control is an illusion… And then sometimes you realize your choices up until this moment made control look like an illusion, and you can’t get yourself back in control.
We’re all on the edge of sanity and sobriety in our lives and the choices we make put us on either side of that edge. Steven Tyler said it best when he sang, We can tell’em no, or we can let it go… but I’d rather leave it hanging on which is just leaving things flextible and open to decision at another time… It’s a choice I once found comfort in… Yet that was a time in the past, back in the days of high school and now I find myself making decisions because there is no more care free living. Not just that but leaving things wavering — for or against? Yes or no? Do or don’t? — often makes things worse than just getting them out of the way.
I’m surrounded by choices… They chide me, are snide to me, delight me and damn me all in the matter of a moment.
Choices… For you, for me, for society, for the world… Choices.
Besmirched!
Everyone knows about getting a song stuck in your head, or has suffered it at one point or another… Sitting around and suddenly the opening verse from The Facts Of Life just will not escape from your head (You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life, the facts of life….) or perchance you get a song from the radio in your head that is getting a ton of airplay but it’s gnawing at you — asking you to think about it over and over again.
Yeah, you know exactly what I mean
I’m sitting around here and I’m not having a song get stuck in my head (though me bringing up The Facts Of Life theme seems to have forced it into my head)… It’s actually a single word getting stuck in my head and pleading for attention.
I don’t get it really, I honestly don’t… You see the word once or maybe you hear it or something like that and you want to make it a part of your vocabulary — even though I have no reason to use the word at all and it just doesn’t feel right when I say it… Besmirched. Besmirched. Besmirch… BLAH! This is like me making transgression part of my vocabulary when I thought I had wronged someone royally (well, I had… She trumped me though and got even )….
I am besmirched by my word choice and feel slandered! OH THE HUMANITY!
So I’m feeling like crap – feverish even though I am not sick… I FEEL sick… Maybe I have a cold? I went to bed around midnight last night – kept waking up hot and flushed (not sweating). It’s a good thing I wasn’t sharing the bed with anyone because i would have kept them up.
In other news – I want to network mine and my parents computer and my father is being an ass – like usual – dragging his feet with indifference. The problem is his indifference is leading to him tying up the phone all the time because he’s a Net addict now.
Like Dreamers Dew
I controlled my dreaming last night / this morning. i don’t mean one or two degrees of it, I mean I totally controlled my dreaming (or so it felt like).
It’s hard for me to remember anything at this point besides certain details – Vincent Lecavalier putting salmon (dead salmon) on plants as fertilizer, him having a bigger, better house than my brother Andy who (in this dream) drafted by the Lightning. He wasn’t burying the dead fish, mind you – he was just throwing them on top of where the seeds / plants / sapplings were.
I also dreamed about the gap between myself and others physically and a voice said “Just dive in” — I was on the edge of a cliff and where I wanted to be was far below… the land then shifted and everything was high above me and I figured it’d be easier to get there in a plane….
…enter the prop plane and what seemed like Microsoft Flight Simulator
I’m in control of this plane and I’m getting the feel for it while on the runway and I start taxi-ing into position and then things got clouded (trying to understand the dream)
I know Brian Dilenge was in this dream, he and one of the actors from An Officer and a Gentlemen for that matter…
There ain’t no friggin’ way I’m going to dissect this dream apart like I have in the past so I’m just posting it in order to get it out.
No thought was put into this, I always knew it would come to this
Thought – it’s your enemy… It’s also your greatest ally because if you don’t think you end up doing things you regret or things that hurt other people… Or yourself for that matter.
What am I thinking about that happens to be my enemy? Hmm?
Politics…. Anything and everything that is rehashed propoganda from one side of the political spectrum to the other… It happened 5 years ago with Clinton and the Monica-Lewinsky and now it’s happening again with Dubya and lying in order to sell the nation on a War that is no longer popular nor seen as something that had been needed.
The Weather….. Florida’s gotten really lucky the past… oh… I don’t know… 11 years since Hurricane Andrew struck south Florida. Tampa Bay has been even more fortunate because it was never struck by a strong hurricane (well, it hasn’t been for a while) and it is seen as an area that would see the same devestation Homestead saw if a Hurricane hit us directly… That worries me a bit because, much like earthquakes, the longer the silence between events, the worse they are going to be when they finally happen.
My Health…. On my mind too much lately – literally.
The Buccaneers…. Camp’s open! May the title defense begin! Oh, and Brian Kelly? Shut the hell up and just play your fucking game, will ya? Money grubbing, greedy bastard….
24…. It’s now 8 AM on the day of the California Presidential Primaries and I’ve learned I should hate Netflix just because I won’t get episodes 9, 10, 11 and 12 for at least another day (I just watched 5-8 tonight and it floored me. What a fantastic show!)
Mica Furniture…. or “How I learned to hate my furniture and want to take a match to it.”
Writings…. It’s funny how you can get inspired and know where you are going to go on a story and then procrastinate over telling the tale. I have a “Running away” type story on my mind that I’ve typed 10 manuscript pages for but I’m procrastinating — again — over finishing it up. Maybe I need to do something with the music on my computer — bettter organize it — so I’m not as distracted any more over it while I try to write?
Der Stonegauge…. Have you had your ‘Gauge today? 😉
Ah well, thought is your enemy and thought is escaping me at this point.
It was over 365 days ago today….
You know what? It’s been a year (physically and on the calender) since I Had a jarring event in my life — very jarring in fact. Something that shook me and also sort of encouraged me becuase I played with the big boys and I stood my ground (at least for a while) until retreating.
The whole Beatle Lyrics and Album Covers fiasco.
Like the article says, I actually was sorta giddy when I got the legal threat – it was like the ultimate adoration that a fan could get… I mean, imitation and plagerism are forms of flattery… I took their complaints as flattering because www.beatlelyrics.com was the biggest and best of the fan sites that were operated on the net at the time.
Was. Past tense.
So as it’s late and I should really get to bed, I pay homage to Beatlelyrics.com and to all the fans that supported me through that fiasco.
In My Life (Lennon/McCartney)
There are places I’ll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I’ve loved them allBut of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you moreThough I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more
*Sigh* I miss the fans. I miss the fun of maintaining that site, but alas – it’s the past. Always will be a part of me though.
So will those who helped me get through this time when things were tense.
Johnny's Screwed
Finally
I get some help after bitching about falling forward.
I turn out
the lights and I fall forward. I cover up my eyes while I am free standing and
I fall forward. I pull off my shirt and I fall forward or backward.
My leg may
not have "given out". I may have suffered a falling-forward spell.
Last night
I had another loss of balance with the lights off — I’ve dealt with them on
and off since 1997 and this time something happened that scared me — after
grabbing a hold of something and steadying myself (the doorframe to the bathroom)
I felt a jarring in my head. You see, every time I upset a benign tumor somewhere
in my body, I end up getting a bit of a jarring sensation from it. This time
it came from my head.
It pissed
me off and upset me greatly because I was willing to deal with this back in
APRIL, let alone wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. My parents encouraged
me to wait with money and other things becoming a factor.
Now my back
is taking away sensation from my legs. My head gives me aches and has thrown
my balance off. My motor skills (my legs) are awkward at best. Things are deteriorating.
After everything
happened last night I sat down and I actually started sobbing to myself because
I felt walled in. If I told my parents about it they may very well do the putting
off again. "But the doctor said…" — The doctor said MONTHS ago!
MONTHS ago for Christ sake and I’m falling apart right in front of you! That’s
how it’s always felt with my family – I made a case for something with me, they
downplayed it or played ‘ignore it, maybe it will go away."
That’s just
another reason why I get pissed when people put off (or when I procrastinate
and put off) — you let things sit and feaster they get worse. Not better.
So after
I sobbed to myself I wrote my father an email (because it was something like
1:30 in the morning) before sitting down to read The Gunslinger (edited
version which wasn’t as good as the original)] telling him that we can’t keep
putting off and that something has to be done.
I got up
this morning and presto – he told me I had an MRI Wednesday at 1 (tomorrow where
I sit) and see Dr.
Bartels ont he 25th. I just wanted to say "What took you so fucking
long?" but that would have been pushing my luck. I honestly would have
dealt with this in the spring instead of letting myself rot as I’ve been forced
to. I can’t walk well, I couldn’t run for a while (and I blamed it all on the
back stuff — HA! I knew better!). I can’t stand or keep my balance and I get
headaches as well as other minor things… And yet everyone can put off because
it’s John and he bitches and whines like that.
In other
news I edited Assignment 2 from Der
Long Ridge though I may have already mentioned that in a recent journal
entry. It comes off a bit stiff still but it’s hard to present charisma in under
1000 words. It’s also not the most flattering piece but at the same time —
it really demonstrates the perception of knowing something and wanting something
and then realizing you can’t have it even though circumstances present themselves
that give you that perception.
Futility and Film Wise
Well, I’ve
been out of touch and out of taste with my journal entries lately because of
what is becoming very futile with my Moveable Type transition. Complex coding
and greater HTML know-how is required in order to successfully use the alternate
journal (I don’t know Cascading Style Sheets and that factors in – sorry to
give the average user a bit of confusion there if they don’t know what that
is) and I’ve just thrown up my hands with even trying with it for now
For now.
SO here
I’m sitting on Monday evening and I’ve been cleaning off my desk which further
needs to be cleaned after I shuffled several of my papers and folders somewhere
else. In other words — I’ve done a very unconvincing job of cleaning even though
I claim that i have been cleaning
I got a
lot of props for my entry about Adaptation
because of the fire and emotion I showed in the entry. Well, at 2AM all you
are going to do is show fire, emotion and perhaps incoherent rambling. The latter
is what I was afraid the entry would turn into when I wrote it and in a lot
of ways – it is.
But I was
truly impressed with the movie.
I’ve watched
a few flicks the last few days – Catch
Me If You Can (that really made my heart ache over Frank W. Abagnale
Jr having to run form the girl he was in love with because she hadn’t been strong
enough to deal with the feds), The
Animatrix, and a few others that I can’t think of right now. In fact
I’ve been keeping tabs on my
Netflix Profile and I have rated and viewed a LOT of movies over the years.
So anyway,
I’ve got to finish cleaning here and I’ve got to sit down and write again…
Need to keep that trend. Need to drown reality in the figment of my imagination
or I will go insane.
Non-commital and an acquital
I want to
rant about commitment and things like that right now and people’s fear on it
because — well, there’s just some of it around from a few different people
and it’s more of the same in my humble opinion. More of the same that I’ve already
been exposed to but I hadn’t commented on…
I’ll pass
though. I’m just not committed to the idea of going off on that one…
I think
Assignment 3 is done for der Long Ridge. I mean I really think it’s done. It’s
not that I was toiling but as I said in previous entries to this journal – I
was avoiding (there is that wacky lack of commitment thing again! How ironic!).
Though I’m not entirely happy with the story because it seems weak and not provoking
or anything like that – just a report on living as a Bucs fan up until January
of this year (SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS BABY!!! YAY!!! 
) and that makes me sorta depressed because I really like writing stuff with
a hook or that really makes you pissed off…
Writing
should invoke emotions at times… I mean, this journal is a purging of my own
emotions most of the time (and an attempt to get me on the knack of writing
in general for the day) yet there are thoughts and ideas that have been presented
here that might make you say "Yeah, I’ve been through that before."
Or perhaps, "Damn, I can’t imagine what this guy is going through."
That’s still invoking an emotion. What I wrote and will submit to my course
was supposed to invoke more of the feeling of a fan that has suffered through
the hardships and the relation to fans across the nation and around the world
who have suffered for years… Yet it didn’t end up that way.
I still
have to write Lou a
letter… Or more like edit the letter I already wrote to him. No biggie there,
just gotta commit to it instead of zoning out.
Eh, one
last note – I’m pissed off at the online pizza ordering things. They’ve dumped
all their deals and it’s making it harder for me to buy a pie online (which
I used to love to do).
Ambling Verse
I could continue to rant about my health situation or my current writing assignment but instead I wanted to bring up some old writing for the sake of just filling this entry up with something besides the same-old stuff. One thing about “Staying drunk on writing” as Bradbury didn’t say, is that sometime — you need to refill your bottle in order to get drunk again and it’s a hard thing to do.
I Want to Write Your Song
I want to write your song
Dabbling through the sounds and things
Using guitars, snare drums and strings
WIth a joyous tune that makes everyone sing…
I want to write your song
One that mirrors your personality
One that touches your fantasies
One that’s as captive as your beauty
I want to write your song
Yet the words keep coming out wrong
Why can’t I see
Your delicacy
Is a tune that can’t be put into words?
© 2003 John P Fontana
The Horizon…
The horizon
An unobstructed view of the West
Where the fading light shows it’s wide spectrum of brilliance
Dimmed on the palette of mother night
The horizon –
Where will tomorrow lead?
Will encounters in the West will leave another impression
On this stranger?
And as we dance towards the farscape in our
Winged Chariot
I can only hope I can find peace within the fleeing light
And inspiration through my solitude.
© 2000 John P. Fontana
Fight Lines
So I was up at an hour that
is between dawn and lunch… I couldn’t tell, it was all such a blur to me that
my "wake up" shower lasted 20 minutes with me mumbling as I scrubbed
and thinking of things and people instead of focusing on my day ahead. Actually
it was quite nice to be up at a sane hour in the morning for a change (even
though I didn’t get to sleep until midnight). I’ve been stuck in this unending
trend of getting up from 10:30 to Noon and having rather unproductive days because
of it.
Well, actually, this day
hasn’t been too productive either so don’t think everything was much better
off with me getting up at a sane hour and being able to term the start of my
day as it truly was – the morning.
SO I went to see Doc Smith
and his merry band of medical matrons who masterly manipulated and mutilated
my moxie by keeping me waiting for an hour after the time I was scheduled to
have my appointment. Of course, Dr. Cahill’s passing was most likely the cause
of things being tied up at TGH, so I’ll forgive them for this.
Unfortunately it’s a lot
harder to forgive my body for what it’s putting me through and putting my doctor
thorough, who isn’t quite certain what the cause of trouble is for me or where
to proceed. And there’s a lot of trouble for me. Even more trouble than I mentioned
to him and trouble that can’t be found on MRI images (well, at least this set
of them).
But all in all, a fight
line is being drawn. Action is going to take place soon enough. The powers are
aligning – some for me, some against. Of course, I have to battle on much as
the poem says. I’ve got too many places to go, things to see, people to do..
It’s such a demanding existence, I tell ya! :-p
I had Keith read my first
rough draft of my Non-Fiction assignment (mind you, there are 5 of them and
I was just trying harder with one) and basically he told me it was crap
Of course he also inspired a re-write that put the story more in the first person
about going through the trials and tribulations of a Bucs fan over the years
and the end result was 920+ words and a much better story. I’ve gone through
it once since I wrote it, will have to go through it again before I get up the
nerve to print this story out and send it to Lou.
Personally, I don’t want to keep doing Non-fiction, I want to learn how to become
more charismatic in my writing (as my last assignment feels cold except through
the story’s twists and turns) and keep on chugging with fiction.
Walk On
Yesterday wasn’t one of
my better days, unfortunately. Yesterday confirmed to me that I am in deep shit
with my health and that Monday’s appointment with Doctor
Smith (you do NOT know how long I’ve been looking for a picture of him online)has
to be pressed for action with my problems. The only problem with that might
be Doctor Cahill’s passing last week and might swamp the Neurosurgeon department
at TGH.
But I’m telling you things
are messed up with me and yesterday proved it. I’m not showing you so much.
Showing you would just be telling you I’m having a tough time navigating around
a crowded house. Having trouble walking a distance..
Today was more confirmation
of it with more trouble walking around. This time, however, I was enjoying the
scenery and not moving around as much as I could have been. See, me and my mom
took a drive to Andy’s new place. The houses felt like they were built on top
of each other but at the same time it wasn’t as bad as it could have been with
the fact he’s got a ton of property behind the house. Also the pond that lies
behind the house is BIG. He could use a real tree in the yard though. Fortunately
I’m growing a couple of "real" trees right now and have tons of seeds
ready to be earthed 
I didn’t enjoy my time at
Andy’s place (as short as it was) as much as I enjoyed where we went right after
we saw his house. We went to a little park near the Anclote river and former
power station up there and we hung out on a pier in the sun for a little while.
It was refreshing and calm for a mid summers day. Quiet and serene would be
another way to term things. I found peace on that pier before I stumbled back
to the car.
I’m still struggling to
write that non fiction or to bring myself to write it… My mind is also wandering
a bit here… Like dreamers do.
Independence Day
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure
these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers
from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles,
and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness.
Hats off, gents. We could
use a lot of you right now… Because the governent you have instilled has become
tyrannous and slanderous.
Happy independence day,
everyone. Today has proven to be a lack-of-independence day for myself but I’m
still alive and still kicking besides the morons around me giving me a tough
time. I just love to spite people like this
Doctor, Doctor
I’m not feeling great again
today, and I’m blaming it partly on the antihistamine I took last night to deal
with sinus pressure. I want to know WTF is wrong with me… And what would be
easier, putting
me out of my misery or giving me a cure?
Speaking of doctors, and
I really feel weird about the cure-or-kill comment because someone who worked
to cure was killed. It happens more often than people will acknowledge or can
acknowledge and it’s strange that I’m making a big deal about this… There
is a doctor who I have never met – or if I met him it was seven years ago…
His name was Dr. Cahill.
Why am I bringing him up?
Well, my leg gave out in June as my constant readers on this site will know…
We called my doctor’s office about it to report what was going on and they said
that if things get worse – go to the ER because Doctor Cahill was attending
that given night. And there’s more to it than that simple coincidence, I’ve
known him by name for years because he shares office space with Doctor Smith.
I probably have passed him in the hall after an appointment or something like
that.. I was just really surprised this happened. Also the fact that I’m going
to be there on Monday is going to be super strange. I don’t know if Doctor Smith
is going to have to carry a bigger load (taking his appointments) or what the
deal will be, I’m curious about that.
Oh, by the way, I actually
did get some of my non-fiction assignment done after my bellyaching in yesterday’s
journal entry. It’s still not complete or how I’d like it but it came out a
little better after I got into my gear writing by typing out that journal entry.
Ironic, ain’t it?
I'm Ranting on Ranting and non-fiction!
I don’t get it. I honestly don’t fucking get this.
How come an opinionated asshole like myself has written dozens of rants on topics from local roads to Dubya and had them published as letters to the editor in the newspaper, has had thousands of rants (be they sports related and or political related or music related or what) posted on message boards across the Internet, and yet I don’t feel comfortable at all writing out this non fiction assignment?!? UGH!
I mean, you do a search on Google for me + the St. Petersburg Times and the following is just some of what will show up (you’ll have to scroll down for each of these letters most of the time:
Light Rail should be Joint Venture
Rail Transit Plans have some big holes in them
"Sunset
Point crossroads needs Overpass" – only one of several letter’s I’ve
written with regard to US 19
"Mass
Transit Could work if Counties combined efforts"
"What if views had been conservative?"
"We Didn’t Deserve the Olympics"
Scientology and Anti-semitism displayed in St. Pete Times letters section
That’s just a brief glimpse of stuff I’ve ranted about. Plus those who know my journal know full well I have ranted on and on about other things and other concerns of mine in here… I already made mention of that in a recent entry into this journal.
It drives me friggin’ INSANE knowing I can write all these short quips about things that concern me but now that I have to write 1000 words on them I’m shit out of nerve to do it. Someone pinch me, someone cuddle with me and someone re-assure before smacking me and telling me to snap out of it and get with it, that this is no big thing and I’m making a mountain out of a molehill.
The Air of Destiny
The Air of Destiny
The air of destiny
Often starts as a odorless breeze
Lacking resemblence of what it will become
Time passes, fools come into power
Rivers forge new banks with the spring flood
And the scent lingers on the air
Guiding its minions and revelars on a collision course with
Fate
Tides change and the air grows heavy
You find yourself enthused on a rocky trail
Breathing in the alotment of your life
Feeling a drive inside you
And a lusting hunger for the
Sweet scent that surrounds you
And at long last, the air of destiny blows at a torrent
Hair whipping in the cutting breeze
It is your duty to face this
Accept it
Nurture it
Make love to it
Or face damnation by fleeing from it
© 2003 John P. Fontana
Positives and Negatives
I started out yesterday just going through the motions on things – it progressively got better until I went off on Bill but in a constructive manner… Telling him he needs to stop talking / focusing on the negatives so much and find a positive and look forward to a positive in life. And things just felt GOOD after that rant.
I figured that was exactly what I needed as well – focus on the positives and not the negatives, because God knows I am surrounded by enough negatives as is. Of course my mind didn’t become a total disaster until my one major positive turned into a major negative for me but that is besides the point a bit.
Actually it’s not besides the point… but it’s an unacknowledged fact from the positive.
Anyway, back to what I was saying, things went good for the most part yesterday after I ranted to BIll. I was happy with my writing – I sent out notes to everyone asking them to read some stories and get back to me because I needed input and I haven’t heard back from anyone — that’s a negative. In fact, there are certain people I haven’t heard back from after asking them quesitons and projecting an image that I am too interested in them and not just looking to be friends – that’s another negative (and a very big one at that). My self esteem is wavering because of stuff like this. I could be doing much better if people would realize what they do – the most mundane stuff – does effect others.
SO right now I am down, nursing a Mike’s Hard Ice Tea and trying my best to stay awake. I took my time getting this entry up because I found a cartoon that really told the tale of my heart right now but at the same time I don’t have permission to repost this cartoon and I won’t (because I am such a nice guy) until I do.
Tomorrow is… Well, tomorrow is something to me that dwells on the heartbreak. More then.
Equilibrium
As of starting this writing, there are a lot of things that are going through my head right now that I wanted to enter in here, but at the same time I need to give some order to the chaos, right? First things first, second things second and all that… right?
The first thing is the balance of the soul — Equilibrium.
Actually, I’m not writing about balance directly or about Libra or about the soul and all that deep shit that I could get into right now. Instead I’m writing about the movie Equilibrium with Christian Bale. Now I’ve talked about wanting to see The Matrix Re-Woah-ded and seeing I haven’t, this makes one very acceptable substitute in my mind. No bullet time and the action sequences weren’t as sped up as The Matrix, but the idea of Gun Kata (a martial art that makes the gun as lethal as a sword) and this 1984 / Fahrenheit 451 / The Matrix inspired film was excellent in it’s own right.
The premise of this film that got my attention the most, however, was the emotion=crime / war / man’s destruction premise. I couldn’t feel Sunday morning besides sorrow or numbness. I started watching the movie and I could identify with Bale encountering emotion for what was probably the first (or a fresh) time. It was like me receiving sound again by way of the ABI in
2001… He is overcome by trivial things such as a sunrise and other emotions and it’ s… just powerful. Of course they could have overkilled that (or maybe it would have been proper?) by showing more imagery like that — having the character just staring at something we take for granted every day and finding emotion (pleasure) in it? That would have been strong too.
As things go, I’ve got 2 papers I may very well use for my 2nd Assignment with der Long Ridge. I’m waiting to hear from my instructor, Lou Fisher, about a question that I had concerning the paper and hopefully that will be soon. I’m also waiting for Sarah Evanchalk to get back to me with regards to the stories — I sent them both to her for her to critique.
Speaking of stories, I’m also waiting for someone to get back to me on a story I touched on a few days ago on here. I think it’s a good story but it could be cleaned up a bit.. And I long to be able to piece together some of the things I touched on with this story by starting another portion of the thing.. I know, I know – vague, but it’ll become apparent soon enough I hope.
I’m also thinking things I shouldn’t be – or I had been thinking things I shouldn’t be. Now I have regrets and I started believing things that aren’t true any more. Talk about a fucking roller coaster with emotions.. And also another vagueness that I apologize to the masses for reading. The person who that would mean something won’t even see this, so it’s not like I’m doing anything by publishing it.
Oh well, more ttomorrow – got stuff on my mind and got time to write.
Stumblin' on a Neon Grove
I’m really struggling right now personally. The soul-sickness is just progressively getting worse instead of getting better. I had felt better a few weeks ago after I had identified the problem and I had other people come back into my life in minor ways here and there and things seemed to be getting back to normal.
Then others reared there head without thinking I needed time and distance from them and the whole deck of cards came crumbling down because of it. My last entry closes out by saying exactly why the deck of cards fell. Time heals wounds and I wasn’t afforded time, so to speak.
And now nothing feels right in the world again. Nothing at all. People don’t get back to me, people don’t want to open up. The entire world has gone conservative besides those who can afford to open their heart – those who never truly left my life and are comfortable with me being a part of it because they have security around them and they want me secure too.
So I wake up in the morning right now and I don’t see a reason to get out of bed — maybe my set routine of reading the newspaper or taking a shower ends up doing it — but I struggle from that point on. I’ve reached out to friends, strangers and others in the past few weeks but I still feel hollow inside, a hole in my soul if you will. I keep expecting something to come up and distract me from all of this – something I can invest myself in that doesn’t require me to dwell on my thoughts as my writing does, and that investment of time and thought cure me of what ills me… Yet that does not happened. Target talked about wanting me back when they fired me but they have not acted like it, my limbs are too weak right now for me to do work anyway (and that is an entirely different story).
I feel like I ought to close up shop — no one in or out of my life unless they are attempting to reach me, not me pouring out my heart and soul to others like I have done. I spent hours last night trying to get into someone’s head and help them out but… It just bummed me out at the same time. I brought this person up in an entry called Seeing Past Yourself last month… And unfortunately no one seems to be able to do that – see past your own personal wants and own personal logic and look from someone else’s shoes and try to understand them and try to comfort them.
I don’t hold out hope for the human race as it stands right now – i always had such a longing desire to see Man overcome it’s weaknesses and selfishness and thrive to better everyone on the planet… Instead, we want to be paid, fed and fucked… And that just continues the stumbling of my head and heart on the neon groves.
Finito — Assignment 1 returned
Well, my first Long Ridge Writers Group was returned to me by Lou Fisher and the response was pretty admirable — for 500 words. Now I get to seriously start looking at my next assignment of 750-1000 words and I sort of shudder right now because I just can’t focus properly on it. Oh, I can write 1000 words on someone or a situation but it doesn’t exactly fit my assignment parameters of writing a situation up. Got to find discipline. Got to make it interesting.
Meanwhile I wrote another story that fit inside these parameters and mimicked just how I was feeling this morning. The problem was that this story is utterly depressing and involves a guy sitting on a bench with a gun in his hand, contemplating his end.. Depressing but it all ends up as a good piece of writing. Unfortunately it’s too autobiographical in a fantasy sense to really make me feel good but it came out cleanly and for a time it made me feel better.
Writings been an escape. An escape that doesn’t last but an escape none the less. Be it good poetry, be it these journal entries, be it short stories, be it instant message conversations with someone who can hold a conversation – it’s escape. Ray Bradbury put it great when he stated that you have to stay drunk on writing or else the rest of the world will destroy you. By investing yourself in your writing you immerse yourself in another world – you get out your own feelings, your own aggravations, your own fantasies and purge yourself of what has been hanging over you.
Of course that doesn’t solve problems of wanting a friend to comprehend what they did and how it isn’t as acceptable as they perceive it. *Sigh* I hate the phrase, “What goes around comes around” but that’s the only thing that gives me peace of mind over things. Sure my heart may mend in the future and I might be able to talk with this friend again but at the same time — the preferable way for things to be fixed is understanding/comprehension and not such selfishness. “I need this, I needed that. I wanted that.. I have to find a way around that.” It’s Erie when someone makes it that way. It’s Erie when someone assumes three weeks is supposed to be enough time for someone to get over a broken heart they helped destroy.
Disappearing Act / There Ain't No Comin' Back
Yes, I am back. Johnny boy went on hiatus but I didn’t leave you guys flat. Could you imagine me doing that? Never!
Had to take apart my computer and desk in general because the new one was set to arrive yesterday (it did — late) and I needed to just store everything in general because I couldn’t very well have both desks set up at once in this room. Impossible.
The new desk is nice — everything is so CENTRALIZED instead of being spread out on two seperate desks, it is awesome in that way! Though the color is sort of dull because it’s only one tone, it’s better than the pieces of crap I had been using as my desk. Now I have my Phone, my printer, my scanner — all on one desk. If I could find a place for my speakers, I’d have it made!
Anyway, just a short update for the sake of keeping it — well, short. I leave you all with my newest pissed off anthem that I penned weeks ago. It’s been availible on the web for a while (what site, I won’t say) but now I am officially releasing it to the world… To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction – even if you can’t comprehend it.
There ain’t no comin’ back
There ain’t no comin’ back
Find my worth’s reduced to zero
Feelin’ less than a fuckin’ hero
Her silence tells the total tale
And there ain’t no goin’ back
There ain’t no goin’ back
Tore me down for the wreck I was
Ripped my soul without a pause
Singed my heart for a fucking cause
Chained me to your iron bars
You check to see that I’m “OK”
Wanting you in the baddest way
Now your crimes take away the day
Anything you say
Anything you say
Picked the lock and forged the key
Blessed by silent misery
Dwelt on pain and lost my way
Yet found some sun to stop the rain
The key to song is melody
The key to story is fantasy
The key to the soul is through the mind
The key to your panties is too much wine
You called me up the other day
Crying sorrows and whining pain
Tried to reach with a bit of tact
But hell, my dear, you’ve forgot a fact
You pissed on us and tossed away
Spit on memories every day
Shit on me and screwed the pooch
Wake up, honey! You were bound to lose!
So listen close to this lessons end
Your actions are nothing that you can defend
Don’t try to get me back on your track
‘Cause there ain’t no comin’ back
There ain’t no comin’ back
© 2003 John P. Fontana
eXistenZ
What does life amount to? Absent of all the emotions and all of the material stuff? What does existence amount to, or the human soul?
In simple imagery, I think of life as stretch of beach that goes on for no set length, no known distance, endlessly spanning north to south, or east to west. Is there something beyond this shore? Of course there is. But we aren’t able to see it. Heck, we aren’t even able to comprehend it. We’ll get back to that in a minute.
So before you lay an endless stretch of white sandy beach. The granules packed pretty loosely as there aren’t many people walking along this shore to pack things down. There have been those to walk along it before or at least they have been there in our imagination. Right now it’s just a hypothesis that somewhere at sometime, someone walked along the shore and put things as they are.
Now take a closer look at the sand itself. You can see that the sand isn’t so small like sugar, but it’s of the thicker variety. Hardy, yet very movable by the tide and nature itself which always plays a part on any sandy beach that lies anywhere on earth. Pick up a hand full of that sand and let it course through your fingers until you have one granule of sand left. What does this amount to?
Your existence in the grand scheme of things happens to be one grain of sand on an endless stretch of beach, surrounded by endless others who’s existence borders your own.
Toss that grain of sand to the sea and you have just wiped out your existence in one fell swoop. Oh, don’t worry, there’s more sand there to take your place – those lying underneath you, waiting to be exposed to the air and the sun, and many who have been tossed to or swept away by the sea have a chance of washing up again in their existence until they are destroyed in whatever fashion sand gets obliterated.
This is a really good analogy to life itself when I think about it. There is so much that is beyond our comprehension right now that we don’t even have the faintest clue that it exists. I touched on this a moment ago by mentioning that there is life beyond the shore. You know that there is more inland… it’s a fact of geography. We’re not just a sandbar or a desert isle, that’s our current limit of comprehension how small we are.
Some people move on in a greater cosmic sense beyond their lives, I have no clue as to how much time it takes them to achieve this but at the same time I am sure it happens. Some of it is accidental, some of it is by nature, but it does indeed happen. Some of us move away from the shore and get mixed in with the soil that lies inland or whatever lies beyond.
But for so many – billions upon billions – we’re trapped along the shore, being swept away with the tide and washed up again later on during the duration of our soul’s existence.
Our live are nothing, yet we make up a beautiful stretch of shore together. If only we could comprehend the smallness of our lives, or that working together for a common goal helps us achieve something great – picturesque – that lasts for ages beyond our own time…
Now if I could only find someone who wants to be part of that picture with me…
Be Honest With Me
Be honest with me
How many times –
– Does a sparkle energize?
– Does a ruby’s glamour cry?
– Does an angel comb it’s wings?
How many crimes does it
Take to scrutinize
Old men hiding secrets
And their oil companies?
Tell me what defines –
– The tying of fresh binds?
– Silly little love songs?
– My desire to appease?
Where are all the women
And their honey-pots of gold?
With amber-waves of auburn hair
And gentle, pleasant souls?
Fortune running over me
And none the less is saved
Shadows edging harmony while
Fools and morons play
Be honest with me
I am not what I may seem
Lusting change
And Lightning games
With nights of ecstacy.
© 2003 John P. Fontana
Back to Reality
You ever have one of those days where it seems no one wants anything to do with you and you want to just slam your head against the wall over and over again? Or perhaps one of those days where it seems like everyone is in love around you and you’re th eonly guy/girl showing up alone to some function or another?
Yeah, one of those days. I’m having it now.
It’s hard to strike up a conversation when someone doesn’t want to open up. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine someone wants to talk to you when they keep putting off the details to things. It would seem like they were trying to get you disinterested in the first place so maybe you would get the hell away.
That describes my morning.
Now why does someone ignore you after a date? Yeah, that’s basically how it feels right now. I can’t help but feel I fucked it up somewhere along the way – my own insecurity voicing itself again. I opened up too much to start, or I didn’t do anything too interesting or whatever. Me me me. How fucking sick and pathetic is that?
Yeah, get back up and start riding that horse again right? How can you when you’ve been kicked in the head and stomped on by the nags you’re trying to ride?
Re-Arrange
And now my site has changed in oh-so-many ways
The “Home” extension seemed to vanished in the haze
Damnit, i kept trying to finish that verse/parody from Help! and it just didn’t quite happen.
The site’s URL is now www.stonegauge.com — sans the home. I’m still working on making sure all the links are A-OK. Please feel free to leave a comment int he comments box to tell me if something is phuckered.
And by the way — MAKE SURE YOU ARE SAFE AND SOUND AGAINST THE LATEST WORM THAT IS SPREADING ON THE NET (if you are on Windows NT, 2000 or XP)