And What This Is I Just Don't Know

The reality of the situation rarely lives in just one plane of existence. Most of the time, a congruence of different angles juxtapose just so to bear a new and intangible matrix; unkown, a bit scary, it transcends through many layers to, in the enlightened end, become a familiar shape.

Usually two arcs, conjoined at a sharp point: the ubiquitous, easily recognizable 2-D representation of a mammalian heart.

How does such a tangled web, blurry and dispersed, sharpen just so when looked at from the right angle? Wiser men have asked better questions than this, and everyone still stands around with their hands in their pockets, trying not to be the last one picked for the dodgeball team. Disappointment, that guest that no one remembers inviting, yet always closes down the bar, still breeds its sickly offspring, and in quantities full blooded bunnies might envy.

The long answer includes part of an earlier version of the quadratic equation—a more difficult and less elegant form that could never be punched into high school brains (sad to think it’s been forgotten, dusty and crying in a corner, if we have solved it instead of the more popular and arrogant incarnation, quantum physics might have found its golden ring of unity by now). It also necessitates a loving knowledge of proto-hungarian, that marvelous precursor to Korea and the Magyars. For obvious reasons, that explanation shall be skipped.

Therefore, without further ado (which always seemed like a ludicrous statement, enough with the parantheticals and just get to it all ready and all that jazz) we get to the short answer: the only certain thing we know is that no one knows anything for certain.

Cataloguing The Cyclical Metronome That Is My Life

My friend cielo from high school recently found a letter i wrote to her the summer between high school and college. It mostly delt with fantastical musings about "getting on" this girl or that, none on whom i actually ever "got on." the diction had such californian syntax, i almost couldn't finish it. it felt foreign and fake. not the subject matter, but my vocabulary and style.

i wonder, years later, if i ever make it out of the greatest city of our time, whether my personal style will make me cringe again, and feel so east coast.

i try to picture that dustin, in many ways a wandering, depressed soul, still a year away from losing his virginity, and can really only see myself now. oh sure, i might still have had hair down to my shoulders, with the barest signs of the spare tire to come around my middle, could still play a full soccer game without dry heaving out that sickly unctuous spittle into the water fountain, but so young in the game called life.

not that i felt young at all at the time. I had graduated. i was on my way to college, for crying out loud, that ellusive goal i had worked so hard to reach for four long years. four years of losing my naivete, becoming cynical, taking responsibility for my own well being... ending my ability to be happy with who i am in the futile quest to be liked by one and all...

who is the real dustin? the child that could go out into his garden at six years old and have full scale ninja wars replete with a large cast of characters, most importantly centered around my best (imaginary) friend alex (who looked and acted surprisingly similar to a boy named alex in my kindergarden class who i really didn't know)? the boy who first talked about orgasms as "the shockwave," an event that took a few years to coincide with the ejaculation of anything but the need to do it for a bit? the kid who skipped five days of school in two weeks, mostly spending the day in a dilapitated arcade playing cracked copies of street fighter II, surrounded by a group of squalid mexican youths wondering what the hell a gringo looking youngling was doing on this side of the avenue? the young high school freshman who truly did not want anything to do with drugs? the senior that did?

being a living breathing creature means a life of constant flux. the now is always ticking by, second by second. we can try to chase it down, but it always becomes the past before we can even get a sense of what we had. i am all those dustins. or is it more, those dustins are all in me? for every second im alive, a new, more experienced dustin is born, tentitively peeking out his tussled head from the birthing canal.

why then, is it so hard to live in the style of my older selves. can i not find that time in myself when i could simply just be... it might not necessarily have been happy, but, not sad? maybe that's why the loss of innocence and ignorence appears in the very first chapter. once you take a bite, you can never go back. once you feel uncool, whatever nonsense that means, how impossibly difficult is it to not doubt your worth?

i wish i could write another letter. one to that very version of myself, bored so bad in a friendless summer, forced to live in an imaginary world where women fell atop of him left and right. i would tell him to hold on... hope would come. soon a lovely and gentle brooklynite would whisk away the dreadful v-card. an insationable hunger for knoledge would grow, albeit a bit later than i would like. the magnificent epiphany that the opinion that matters most as to one's self worth had to come from the self itself. if that was in place, the outside social scene would follow suit tout-suite...

but how tempted would i be to try and change things? would i tell myself to kick more educational ass sooner? would i give myself pointers to situations that popped to twenty twenty in the irksome hindsight? or would that cheapen the lessons that made those later selves what they are?

does it all happen for a reason?

how old are you? where were you born? when was the first time you tasted chocolate? why don't you call your mother anymore? is god's vagina omniaquiferous? how much native american blood is metaphorically dripping from your ancestral lineage? boxers or karates? do you drink here on a regular basis? what are the largest breast you have seen? not in a magazine or television? the largest you ever touched? had in your mouth? biggest penis? held? inside of you? how much money do you have in your bank account right now? how much do you get paid an hour? how much is an hour worth to you? how much are you worth for an hour? why did god make you exactly the way you are? couldn't have she put a bit less fragility? or is that precarious precipice precisely the point? why do my feet sweat? how hairy will i ultimately become? did someone die the exact moment i was born? what is your problem? seriously? did somebody fart? how the fuck do i get into them jeans? what is the longest you have ever gone without showering? doing your laundry? sleeping? eating? having sex? getting off? masturbating? talking? why are some people so fucking annoying? and how many people think that of you? are you sappy? are you happy? are you nappy? are you straight? has anybody ever asked you that point blank? have you ever had jury duty? made the jury? convicted someone? lied under oath? had a dream you were flying? fucking? had a dream where someone you loved hurt you? or you hurt someone you loved? why is talent so hot? or lava for that matter? have you ever measured the depth of your vagina? would you be surprised if i had measured my penis or not measured it? how well do you know me? what is the last good book you read? have you ever broken someone's heart? had your heart broken? felt good about dumping someone? wanted to kill yourself? felt an utter emptiness so hollow that null void emptiness immobilized you with its black hole gravitational pull? a complete ecstatic joy that leaves you giddy, smiling, almost to the point of shivers? have you ever given a blow job in a taxi? in public? had sex on your parent's bed? your bosses desk? your significant other's anal cavity? a church? have you ever begged for money? strippersized? watched a full tae bo infomercial? bought something from an infomertial? have you ever written a book? a screenplay? a blog? how many questions does it take do get to know someone? to get to sleep with someone? to find out something new? something interesting? something dirty? how much does peace cost? war? why don't you just stop? really? you're just going to keep at it? just like that? where's your g spot? where's your tickle spot? where's your favorite part to be carressed? when did you first kiss someone? taste a strawberry? lick a testicle? steal money? pray? actually learn something new? why does my face look funny when i come? why does skin feel so fucking good? who's your daddy? when will it end? how? can you tell me? can you? what is your record for most consecutive questions?

stop being so nosy, you stupid fuck.

what is it about fucking a girl doggie style that makes me feel like such a man? to hear her moaning, her breaths getting shorter, and then that magical spine shiver as she lets out a yell, why does that make me feel so good. as good as the orgasm. i get up, and take off my condom, throw it in the trash, look at myself in the mirror and i can't help but smile.

sex, the funniest act ever, still holds up as one of the most fufilling. will it ever get old?

i hope not. cause even when im tired or in a bad mood, once sergio (my dick's name) pops up, and i get to pumpin', let the good times roll. spilling seed never felt this good.

let's start this off right. if you were not present at bowery ballroom on wednesday april 5th 2006, then you missed the show of the fucking season. Went to get rocked by Art Brut, and got suckerpunched by Gil Mantera's Party Dream, who just threw down such a quality show, even with two technical difficulties intermissions where gil just ad libbed some hilarious stand up. and then art brut, unbelievably, took it to the next level, just playing so tight and with such disaffected british style.

but not so fast. cause on thursday april 6th, sondra lerche (pronounced lerk to my surprise) jammed out for over 2 hours. they started with some old stuff, then played their entire new album, which they are about to record, then encored five songs, including an impromtu norwegian children's song about hawaii. what a fucking show. what a fucking double nighter. i heart ny, bitches. you don't get that kind of action anywhere else.

anyways, i had a post in mind.

i'm psychic. well, okay not psychic, but just... highly intuitive. don't get it? let me break it down, and in so doing, i also tie into some of the themes of previous posts.

it all comes back to chess, and i will illuminate it with remembrances from my past that help me remember (see prev. posts). Jenna was going to jersey the next day. we were at my place, and after a terrific diner, as we laid post coitaly lounging on my comfy bed, she randomly asked if the 1 9 stopped at 23rd. Do you see it? I answered, to her amazement, yeah, but you can just take the express to fourteenth and catch the path train there.

and now, for the real memeory that spurred this post, think of yourself in a large college class. one of those 150 person literature surveys in a tiered classroom. not usually allot of discussion, Prof. Pfister liked to lecture. but sometimes he threw in a question or two to put us on our toes. we were discussing some 1800's ground breaking woman writer who is now forgotten (by academia on the most part, and by me right now), when he disgustingly said, "and some critic said that she reminded him of zola. now why is that funny?" 150 supposedly highly selected college students sat stunned, silent. i trepidaciously spoke up, "when did zola come out." Pfister, a cherub smile on his foppy face let out, "exactly, dustin! exactly. when did zola come out? after ______ (whatever her name was) died." these moments, ah, these moments. this is what i live for. to speak intelligently in front of a crowd, why does it feel so good? if a comedian brings down the forest with some killer jokes, but no human hears him, was he funny? its so warm, feeling the recognition in the air, no one says anything, but they all feel you a bit differently now. the same thing happens when i say something witty. the beauty of the well turned word. with a receptive audience to polish it off.

but back to business. how do i figure things out like that? as i said, chess. you make a move, then your opponent does. then you do, then she does. you have an aim, you're trying to pull something off. but at the same time, you have to check out what she's doing to make sure you protect yourself. so every move is key, evey move is a hint towards their intention. so, you analyze, realize, and retaliate accoringly. just make sure you are attentive to all the information, and then let the intention show itself.

why would jenna ask about the 23rd street station? oh, wait, she's going to jersey... of course, the path trains.

why would Pfister be disgusted by this critic? what would really be funny about this? if it were totally wrong... so what would make him obviously wrong? aha. if zola came out after.

when i pull it off, and add the equation, there's nothing like it. one day i'll do it in front of you, and you'll see. you'll see.

i don't like religion. too much bullshit has gone down on its name. and god, well, she doesn't really make that much scientific sense.

(but let me tell you a parenthetcial secret, i pray at weird times. on airplanes. i get on and im like, yo, god, could you just keep this one in the air? or when i can't find some very necesary item, i say, please jesus let me find this fucking missing tape for work.yes. sometimes i say jesus, even though im not really christian, or jewish, though i have rights to both. but it's just easy to say)

i might try to switch all this to zeus and the like. that was a pantheon i could understand. their anthropomorphic concupiscence (hah, been waiting a while to drop that one), the backstabbing, the nepotism...

im not really going anywhere with this really, im just saying, them greeks sure were right about alot of stuff, why not thundergods, horny as hell, i mean, hades' domain.

sometimes i wonder what it is about beauty that has all of us up in a tizzle. yeah, okay, beautiful things are attractive, but why?

why would i rather hang out with an attractive person and not an ugly person if i had a choice?

what makes someone beautiful?

of course, we could automatically go to that cliched place where "everyone is beautiful, at least on the inside," but that's not what i'm talking about here. strictly on the outside, what makes nice bone structure, good skin, great hair, interesting eyes and eye color more engaging than a bony nose, or owlish eyes and a crooked smile.

if we focus stricly on weight, then maybe we could say that darwinianly, we search for mates that physically seem like better breeders, but where does science fall on a gorgeous smile, or those victoria secret model pouty lips?

i've been under this dictatorship of beauty all my life, and i can't seem to break it down. this ellusive attractiveness... the x factor that makes angelina jolie and pam anderson household names... why?

i ponder this now for positive reasons, waking up next to my amazingly cute girl friend gives me the wonderful fuzzy feeling that no matter how shitty the world can be, and how much monday morning will drag my spirit to the gutter, right now everything shines with the special warmth of love. i stare into her beautiful face and it blankets me with happiness. (okay, there is the relationship behind that as well, but just looking at her makes me happy, and i doubt the coupledom would have come had either of us found each other ugly).

but falling under beauty's spell has negative side effects. there's a few relationships that might have been great, but i could not get past the skin's depth. there have been idiots that i tried to suck up to, who i would never have given half a chance if not for their attractiveness...

how funny this world can be. we are all striving to be something we can't explain.

oh man. i had something cool to write about that had been simmering all day, soaking itself in the back of my mind, ready for a delicious typefest before bed, and now, with hanging out with Jenna and watching ANTM and cutting in new slices for the Design Trip quicktime... i just can't remember what it was. so much for my memory.

but worry not, where one story shall ferment a bit longer, i'll stay in my games kick and reminisce about the summer of '01. yes, before an unsheduled stop at the twin towers penthouse, and even before summer proper, i was hanging out with the gorgeuosly prudish Chithra and the totally egomaniacal greg barlow (in his defense, he has the smarts and talent to back it up, but the attitude puts some people off), when somehow the game of scrabble was brought up. i had never played before, but was confident that my vocabulary and chess strategy would be enough to compete. Chithra started with an okay placing of ham. i connected to the h with some stupid word, and then barlow, (also a linguistic master in his own right, but more importantly, a player of the game since a young child with the rest of his brainy family) built two words, placing axe down from the m to also make ma, hiting the x on a double letter, and doubling chithra's and my score. and just like that it all came together. i recognized that scrabble wasn't about how cool your words were, but how you placed them on the board to maximize points. i started playing better but ultimately lost to barlow, though i thought i won because of an addition mistake for a while. but i had caught the bug.

cut to the summer, after and incredible trip to italy with my family, i chose to comeback to campus a month early to live in a house with some very cool peeps. including joel sanders in the duplex next door. he too was a scrabble aficionado, and we started going at it. then we learned about the cherished scrabble players dictionary, the bible of allowable words, which includes some archaic nonsense that doesn't seem gramatically right but helps you score higher. joel and i, playing at least twice almost everyday made an incredible insightful decision: instead of playing by actual rules of challenging words, we played with the slightly more pussy "open dictionary" policy. this meant we could go in and check if we thought we had a permissible word, and not lose a turn. the magic of this, is that you can confidently play what you think is the better choice, but more importantly, you learn more admissable words. especially those two letter words that allow your to form long chains of connected plays. a necesity in any good scrabble players arsenal.

that glorious summer of porch chillin' and free sandwhiches (half the people in the house worked at the deli up the street) instilled in me the basic strategies of scrabble, and i am happy to share them with you. always look for a way of making more words, and use high pointed letters as the pivots (the ones in both words, down and accross) to really get the max play. guard your esses and only use them for good word doubling, as they are easy to attach at ends of words. if you have an ess and a blank, chances are you can probably get a bingo, a 50 point bonus for using all 7 tiles on your rack, so don't settle for less. watch your placement, don't put down words that open up an avenue to the tripple word score, let your oppenent give that to you. if you are lucky enough to get the high point tiles, j q x z and k, don't just squander that pointpower, use them on premium squares to juice it up, just don't get stuck with them at the end. think about your next move, don't leave yourself a rack that has too many vowels or repeats. and finally, nobody but the obsessives have time to memorize wordlists, but you should know the 23 acceptable two letter words, and the few q without the u words like qat (a shrub) or qaid (don't remember, maybe an arab chieftan?). find them on scrabble.com and just leave them in your scrabble set, it i'll make you a happier player.

so after that summer of games and games with joel, which i one a bit more of, but which i would sometimes, like three or four ocassions, cheat and change my tiles if he left the room (i confessed it later in the school year and have not done it since), i was suddenly a scrabble living room master. i would meet barlow that fall, randomly having my travel set, and i was ready for my revenge... but the tile gods were not with me, giving him all but one ess and both blanks, and me the hawaiian curse of mostly vowels. as he totaled the massive spanking, he casually dropped that he really didn't remember the last time he had ever lost at scrabble. well, i bit my tongue, knowing his hubris would fuel a glorious comeuppence through my newly developed skills

it took a while, we played again that winter, but with a newbie (this crazy nerd christos, who was a chess wiz, but didn't know he was swimming with scrabble sharks) in front of him leaving all the juicy openings, he won again. at the beggining of spring, a four way game had the same result, too many other variables. finally, graduation weekend, at the eclectic reception (my antifrat house which i joined senior year, ill touch on that later) after playing some eclectites that i knew were good, i had barlow all to myself. except i was not armed with a copy of the official dictionary, all we had was an unabridged random house, so i was unsure of some of the better tricks up my sleeve, like ae, a three toed sloth, or aa, a lava flow. but i continued on, playing well and staying within reach, when i got the q a bit late in the game. i played a low score to try and get a better position, and sure enough, i had qua (as in, like sin qua non or something like that) on the triple word. only i didn't know if that huge unabridged would have it, but i had to take a chance. and sure enough, cocky barlow, who had won mostly from his vast intelligence, but not from a real devotion to the nerdier aspect of word list memorization, could not fathom this would be an actual english word, and challenged. bam! i handed him his first loss.

he still brings it up to this day (okay, fine, not as much now, but you'd be surprised how much), my cheapness of knowing and using this basically dead word.

booya mutherfuckers. revenge is a dish better served nerd. i loved that summer. thank you joel sanders.

(i'll end by saying that we stopped playing as much at the end of the month because joel was tired of all the shit he was getting for being too much of a scrabble junkie. oh joel, you silly rabbit, trix are for hookers).

there was a good chunk of time when, after i came home from school and had our familial lunch, my dad and i would play chess. the fragil strands of mememory can't undwind perfect details, but i belive it started when i was nine or ten. most of the time in those early days, he would point out hints, putting his thick fingers on his threatining piece, "watch out," and of course he let me take back my move, keeping my queen alive.

sometime after that, again exactness eludes me, one year, two? i got my first actual... tie. yeah, my dad was tired, wasn't paying attention, and bam, i force the tie. it felt so good. a few weeks later, i got my first bonifide win. priceless. the hints and my takebacks then stopped, and while my father kept winning for a bit, he had to work for it.

and then it happened, slowly of course, but quite definitively... i started to win everytime. it wasn't easy, i had to bust my brain, but sure enough, unless my dad concetrated to a way too intense degree, i would take it. soon after, even if he did concentrate, i would win.

and some days i look back and realize that i owe a tremendous amount of my problem solving skills to that early arrival at the second most complicated game on this planet. if framed my brain to think about the big picture, analyze the situation, and figure out the creative
path to victory. my amazing memory (not always amazing, but usually), my ability to figure things out with very little information (sometimes making me look a bit psychic), my pattern recognition, i owe all this to the game.

but really, i owe it all to an amazing dad who took the time play with me. thanks dad, for the terrific afternoons that made me what i am today.

doesn't it feel just like yesterday when we were very young children playing out in the lawn as the adults prepared a delicious meal. dusk would settle in as the fireflies came out to hover omenously, child hands sluggishly chasing them just a bit too high for their reach...

and as supper would continue with the familial din humming at its usual pace, the crowd would jovially prod the younger set on what they wanted to be when they grew up.

"i want to be a fireman" or "i want to be a ballerina." maybe the slightly older boy could even throw in a paleontologist just for shits and giggles. It all made sense. the formula was easily solved, the overarching pattern seemed worthy and correct.

but oh how that naivete breaks, and the heavy burden of cynisim weighs on us all sooner or later. for me, the meandering riverroad that is my life has been heavily demarked. options came and went here and there, but mostly i just rode the wave.

my brain could handle a broad array of skills. indeed, sometimes it felt like anything could be grasped and mastered if only i cared enough to put in the time. so i dabbled. i tasted this and dipped in that. i had momentary obsessions that could consume me only to fade as fast as they were once strong. i skied through life, a blur of dissatisfaction and boredom mixed with intense moments of utter joy or paralyzing depression (or is it desperation?).

i always felt like a writer, but my output streaked out, short spurts, very few golden nuggets between vast deserts of procrastination or fear of the debilitating blank page. It started in high school, really. while voraciously consuming trashy novels, moments of Athenian inspiration would burst out of my head, getting me amped and jittery, unable to go to sleep, drunk with the possibilites. but high school ended with very few true moments of musal rape, and the track was layed out before me, to college.

amidst a cloud of smoke, i notched a nice array of scalps: some acting, a story in a publication (ultimately censored for slander), all star captaining of soccer, the next plateau of guitar skills, foosball guru diploma, loosing that darned v card... but my motivation was mediocre at best, i still just did enough to just get by. my profound laziness riding on brains that knew exactly how little to do to still be okay.

and deep down i knew what so many of us, the progeny of the american upper middle class knows, cultivating their connections and "skills" in the small liberal arts campuses of the east, that we'd rather not slog away at soul sucking nine to fives, that we would gladly whore ourselves out to the sacrosanct iron fist of creativity.

and how the pretention can run amok, making fools of us all. who is to say that the bricklayer does not have more fun than the screenwriter, that the court stenographer actually lives a happier life than choreographer? no one, but it was too late, i was bit too young. upon graduation, my aimlessness only pointed in the vague direction of "something slightly creative."

and once again the path found me, and in post-productin i found a home. almost four years later, a skillset to boot. a part of society, actually contributing. and yet also floundering, unsure where my river would lead next, and whether or not it was time to finally grab hold of the wheel

well, it took about two years of therapy, 25 years of distracted floating, and one small idea to get it out of me...but i am finally in a place at my life where i want to grab my own rudder, and start working towards something i want, not the next thing that falls in my lap. and just last night, the epiphany hit, like the classic lightningbolt, like the Goddess of War herself, shooting right out of zeus' head... i want to be a director. i verbalized it, and it rang very true. i couldn't belive something could fully grab me enough to actually exert all my effort into trying to make it happen. but this sure felt right. i couldn't sleep at night, ideas swirling through my enlightened dome.

and now, a day later, the fear of failure has started to creep in, the mountanous journey daunting me with the classic perils and difficulties. which is why i had to write it down, to remember the strength and conviction it first brought out of me, the hot pulsing raw energy pumping through my veins, the sheer night-before-xmass excitment about starting a new leg a of my life, for once, with direction. with the ecstasy of self-wrought purpose.

remember.

My good friend from college emailed me about a month ago:

From: "Lauren Abrahams"
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 23:34:37 -0800
To: "Dustin Stephens"
Subject: how

the hell are u????
tell me whats going on or call me.
how ridiculous is all this??? life, i mean...

I was in a weird mood, and what came out is probably the third best letter i have ever written, and probably the best email. I had forgotten about it because it took Lauren a month to write me back (the pressure to try and punch back with, but in rereading it, i feel like it deserves a wider audience.

Oh shit. I don't fuckin' know.

You're question, so open, slighltly silly, a tad existential... It happens to come at one of those times where I can't even find a place to answer it. I guess the beginning is always good.

How ridiculous? Very. Like, just off the top of my head, so ridiculous that the definition doesn't fit and you need the next level word, or you have to Joycefuckit with classic just hipster enough combos like uber or tetra so you're cooler than using super.

I having been breathing eating growing crying sleeping pissing shitting for over a QUARTER of a century. Been talking and walking a bit less than that. Reading and imagining for just a bit less than that. Ive been lying wondering worrying for... You get the picture. I really wanted to do the list faithfully and get to masturbating but I just don't have the patience.

Point is, you blink, and its almost four full fucking YEARS since you graduated a bubble fairytale world. And yes, in three months you’ve acually been out of college longer than you spent there. Officially. Don’t even get me started on the proximity of the high school tenner.

And what do you have to show for yourself? A bit wiser. More technically trained, your resume actually shows a profession. You have your black belt, been down the pink AND the stink. Less drugs, less drinking. The wide net of friends becomes an even wider net of aquantances, real friends slowly paring down, the road towards The Big One And Only Pair beginning to show. More money, some luckily, some from the sweaty brow and jewish tendencies. Some still in the shadows, the weight of a legacy not quite pushing down yet. One heart broken, surprisingly cracking your own more than you thought it would. Maybe another altercation like that currently in play, the dice rolling still, unsure when to mete out their joy, or to allow the house to take it down like always. Days of bliss, days of sadness, days of unrest, days of depresion, days of stress, days of leisure... days and days, mostly, all blending into the puree of memory, the nutritious mix of experience.

...but the aftertaste, that weird feeling that makes you wonder what eating really is... That’s the constant conundrum. For life will be good, and life will be bad, but why we keep glutting ourselves is really the rub. (maybe we have nothing else to do).

Yes you caught me at one of those times of wonder, where the loss of one hour of sleep is cheap compared to the attempt to write something... Je ne se qua... Funny? Smart (and not just for snobs sake, but with some actual substance we hope)? Cool (how it sickens me to be a slave to the cheap thrills of hipness)? Or Worthy? Worthy of me when I actually care and put effort? worthy of a beautiful incredible person with high standards, worthy enough to break her time (and professionally) engrained jadedness, maybe create something to feel that lifepleasurespark that lets you see the schooner inside the flourescent jagged "magic puzzle" that is life.

I saw your profile on friendster a bit back and thought of you. I havent put a testimonial on this one, and even though I no longer really use these social networking sites as much as when their newness was addicting, I felt the urge to write some trashy line like: if you ever have a chance to have a threesome with lauren and a hot N.A.P. (nubian amer. Princess), don't for the life of you, turn it down in a fit self righteousness.

But that was really just a baiting line to get into our sexual tensions conversation... Why did we never hook up? I always feared that the reality of us carnally could never live up to the fantasy, that it would tarnish that beautiful energy that magnetized us into being more interesting around each other. So many oblique chances, each one charging up the battery a bit
more, a bit more, the danger of ruining something good also tinging the mix with the exciting element of danger...

And now. now its too late. 3000 miles and a friendship later, and the energy is just on temporal freeze, too volatile to reawaken. We'll write witty emails, talk about our current lovers, be amazed as time flies, have good food when in the same geographic vicinity, wonder why life is the way it is... Plato would be proud.

Lauren. thank you. for being my friend, for almost being my lover. for giving me the most unique relationship i have with a female. the love that could always be, so hence never really was... a friendship to cherish.

sorry for the weirdness of this rant. to steal a line from wilde, i would have made this shorter, but i just didn't have the time. as i said, you caught me in the precise moment that would expunge this strange letter out of me. made me stay up til 3am, (about last night
alo helped, god, mamet, even when basterized into an 80s date movie, is so good). and now its two days later and i will finally send this.

hope all is well, that you are enjoying the criterion collection, and that the sophomore slump of life isn't hitting you as bas as me.

your friend,

.dustin barnet stephens aguilar alvarez.


i wish i could speak in this calibre of verbiage all the time. or maybe its not even that good and i'm just being a narcissitic A-hole. whatever, life is bigger than what we think of ourselves.

i love being a new yorker.

being a new yorker means that you get pissed when the cab driver turns on 96th to go accross town when he should have just turned on 97th, fucker trying to jack up the fare with an extra light.

being a new yorker means you take a special delight in pulling the ultradiagonal accross
the avenue and the street.

it means knowing the aural (not oral you dip shit) difference between the express and the local, allowing you to sit on your bench and smirk as the non nyer gets up to check.

it means knowing where you have to be on the departing track to come out right at your escalator on the arrival side.

to quench the ravenous drunkhunger with the best pizza this side of the atlantic, 4am style.

to make love in the shadow of the empire state building.

chilling on a rooftop on a hot summer's day, enjoying the delicious breeze, while your buddy grills you a hotdog.

catching every movie before it comes out, every play as it premiers, every band that goes on tour, all the best operas, whatever type of crazy dance you're into, basically, every single form of entertainment show conceived by man woman or child, mostly ahead of the rest of the silly world.

did i mention all the art, hansel-hot or balls-deep cultural?

or having the culinary diaspora of the entire globe feed you till your heart's content?

yes. i'll say it again, i love being a new yorker.

Like Woody Allen keeps saying, sophocles said that it might have been better to not be born at all.

there are days when i can only whole heartedly agree.

when the repetitive pointlessness of the day to day grind just pulverizes my will to keep trying, and keep trying, and keep striving, and for what? for more grind? for the illusive and only recently imagined pursuit of happiness?

it's such a weird cloud that sickness and slight depression can put upon you. it can really seem that bleak and black and white... you can forget all those great moments you've lived... the times where you were so happy you could take a chunk out of the sky...

i think i should start enumerating the long list of great times i've had. Somtheing like Dustin's Hall Of Fame Moments. Just for rainy days where you can't see the forest of bliss because of those fucking black cloud trees.

The only problem comes from this slippery act of writing. i have these crazy memories, just dying to be immortalized in print/html, but the mind fogs and exagerates, twists and morphs with time... and when typing time finally hits, the urge to up the ante with the style takes over, suddenly horniness is concupiscence, simplicity gets florid, all to succumb under the iron glove of The Cool. I wish i could just regurgitate straight as it happens, but i guess physics proved that as soon as you measure anything, just the fact that you looked chaneges the measurement. so i must accept it and try to put it down as honestly as i can.


okay, just a quickie because i really must get to bed.

junior year, i went to audition for a crazy sounding play, Rebirth In The Third Person, and read the cold reading script, and understood exactly how to read it. I just felt the character (it ended up being very close to being me), and just red with confidence, fully in the role.

but that's not the best part, the great feeling comes from the smiles. You know, The Smiles, fron the auditioneers, the people watching and watching, hoping to find that perfect fit... and the smiles they get when the see you and know... and then i know, i just feel it. I'm going to get that part. Ah, nothing like that.

so just remember that, Dustin. Just remember that there are countless more moments like those yet to come, if you just roll through some of the hiccups.

i've never broken a bone.

Shhhhhhh... my other blog will hear you

Go here to really check me out, bitches El follador