Its funny to me how I seem to be these days. Background, since I haven’t written in a couple of months. This is not going to be poetic, its merely going to be the truth, and hopefully without embellishments.

Last year (school year) was exhausting. I spent countless hours, hours upon hours, pouring my energy and my passions into the theatre here at my university. I thought to myself, you never know what to do with yourself, you’re always feeling lost, why not give it a try? Prari was involved previously and I figured, you know what, this might be a better way for me to spend more time with her before she graduates and moves on. So it was partially for her, partially for myself that I decided to jump into things. I’d never tell her that tho. I don’t want her to feel bad or anything, simple truth. So I auditioned and was rejected, naturally. I did make it into a play, Prari’s actually. Which I still wonder about, not saying I didn’t do well but still… Did a bunch of plays eventually. Generally I believe it was mostly because of lack of options, but I wasn’t half bad I suppose. I wrote and directed my own, which was a great opportunity and something I never thought I would get a chance to do. I worked my ass off. And many things suffered because of it. I only had a job the second half of the year, but im used to living on shit pay. My grades were as they always are, mediocre. And I finally just couldn’t take all the drama, literally and metaphorically. I couldn’t take being ignored by prari, which is mostly how I felt. I never had any alone time with her because she was enamored with matt. A hard blow for me, because I consider her a great friend. I know she probably thinks the same of me, in her own ways. Maybe she just assumes ill just always be there. Maybe im that friend that people can rely on when things get tough, but maybe im just a downer when it comes to regular conversation. Maybe I try too hard these days… I don’t know. But I needed a break.

So I spent the summer alone. I stayed at my dad’s for a little while, then I moved into my mom’s with her boyfriend. New house, so I thought, ok this is a positive new beginning for my family. And I spent the entire summer mostly by myself. Granted I spent time with david which was nice, we went to California together, which had its up’s and down’s. I wasn’t able to find work tho, but in retrospect maybe I didn’t want to find work. I guess I just felt useless. All of my friends at schreiner mostly graduated. I’m the one left behind for a 5th year. But that’s my own fault, being lost just generally impacted my grades and my WANT to try more hours and get done on time. I wanted to delay because I don’t know where the hell im going, or what im doing most of the time.

So I came back to schreiner, dreading it. My fears over the summer were mostly realized. I spend a lot of time alone now, theatre isn’t going too well as many of the plays this year call for male casts. I kind of blew the first auditions this past couple of days, although I have my suspicions over whether or not the others cast in my place can do a better job than I can with a purely vocal part. But im not going to say they didn’t do well either. The funny thing is, I find myself having a few moments of great happiness, and then when im alone, its really sad. Not necessarily depressing, but great sadness. Sad that so many people are moving on, yet again, and im stuck in limbo. This great fissure of limbo.

I lost my job here also, because of paperwork issues. Although I have a great suspicion that my boss just didn’t want to fire me to my face because I intimidate her. But whats new, who don’t I intimidate? You’re supposed to be a certain kind of woman these days, and I guess I just never have been. Shy but just the perfect amount of straight forward. Thin, don’t forget that. Not loud. Not outspoken. Driven. And I keep thinking of William H. Macy’s role in Magnolia, when he’s busted out his front teeth and he’s talking to John C Riley’s role about how he has a lot of love to give, he knows it, but he just doesn’t have anywhere to put it. Me in a nut shell. Or I guess another person I relate character wise is The Weather Man, played by Nicolas Cage. All this shit happens ot him, and he just feels like a total fuck up and looks like a loser to his family.

So here I am on September the 12th. My friends are all in san Antonio at a bar, but I declined to go because I cant scrounge enough money together for bread and milk, let alone a drink or two amongst friends. Wanting to get a job but knowing that when I find one, im going to feel like shit about it. People are horrible to other people, especially doing the kind of work I know im going to end up doing. Cuz who the shit is going to hire me when they have to work around my schedule. But also, here I am telling myself ot shut the fuck up and just do it. Don’t be a pussy Kristen.

The simple truth of the matter is, I want to have faith in something because there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to have faith in these days. I want to have that meaning everyone is always looking for. And I keep thinking about Edna sitting in her rocking chair longing forever, and wondering if im going to be that way too. How can you have faith, when you don’t know where to put it? I keep thinking, everything will be ok one day, but you have to make that happen Kristen. You have to do it…but Im having a hard time getting the motivation to make things happen. I keep doubting that anything will work out. Constant doubt, and im really tired. I wish I could invite someone into my head for a day, so they could see that I’m really interesting! I’m kind and I like making people laugh, like seeing people happy. Spontaneous! But im also very, very lost and confused. And I just need that thing that I can hold onto, because I feel like im losing grips on myself. I really want to try my hand at being happy and having that faith.

I’m afraid that maybe I am ordinary, and boring…and no one will find me suitable enough to love for my charms, and not the charms a woman today is supposed to have. And that I won’t find my faith before I die, and that I will fade away like so many of us really do. Is the tragedy in life that few ever find what they are really searching for? Or is mediocrity the only thing I have left to look forward to? I don’t know, honestly I really feel like I don’t know much. And the how in the world can my writing ever be any good when I write like this. Simple and stunted, not poetic. I won’t ever be blake or shelly, Coleridge or frost, Eliot or even chopin. But im still hoping, even though reality is getting the better of me, that there’s something there that I can look forward to. Anything really. I just want to not lie to my friends when they ask me if im happy. I’d like to say, yea…yea im really happy. But im having a hard time of it. Me and lots of others I would wager. Lets just start with finding a job I guess...and hoping that I don’t completely fuck up my chances at schreiner.

Stop fucking looking at me like im some kind of pariah, because I’m not. I’m just like you and you’re just like me. We live the same life essentially with a bunch of shit thrown in the middle. The catalyst is always different, but the results are the same. You’re fucked up. I’m fucking up. I mean I accidentally wrote that I was fucking up rather than fucked up, what does that mean? I want my super power to come in the form of a giant fucking eraser that I could just destroy what permeates the mind. I want to erase this incessant need from the center of me, and I want to write and actually feel like this shit fucking matters. I want to know that maybe what I’m doing isn’t a complete farse, its got a meaning. I want some meaning!!! I’m a fucking modernist, centuries of shit have driven me and them down into an inescapable labyrinth of all human suffering compounded together into a giant compendium of infinite knowledge that we cannot escape! I think I’m good at something, or mostly I just hope that I’m good at something and everything else will fall into place.
Did I ever tell you that I’m lucky as hell? Most of the things in my life that hold some manner of good have been accidents. Maybe the universe was a giant fucking accident, that’s possible isn’t it? It’s a pretty awesome place…so maybe the luck that made it in all its fantastic glory and fury, could somehow infect the luck that seems to be running the events in my life. Down to Earth honesty here I don’t know how the fuck to do a god-damn thing, im fumbling in and out of semi-conscious state and sometimes I come out as a psychotic, and others days I come out firing bullets into the hearts and minds of those motherfuckers I call my friends, and then I step back step back step back and realize that I cant even control my emotions (the fickle fucker) and all those motherfuckers somehow become faces in the mass of everything around me that creates a wonder. Oh they’re fuckers don’t get me wrong, so wrapped into their own world that they can’t take a look around and then I realize I’m a fucker too, and I’m wrapped so tightly into myself that I’m surprised I haven’t cut off the life source yet. CANT YOU EVER WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING OTHER THAN YOURSELF? Maybe not. Maybe not. My perceptions are clouded and covered by the lens of myself.
Time is no souls ally. I finally understand my own words. You have to do one thing right to make in this world babe, you only gotta do one thing. ONE THING. And maybe this is or isn’t mine, but I know how I feel when I put the words on the page, I know that I feel infinite. What makes you feel infinite? I WRITE TO MAKE A CONNECTION. Because the connections are the only thing in this world that keep us from going slowly madly bat-shit insane from the inside out. What are the greatest fears of the world? The greatest fear of my life is being alone. Some are afraid of death. All are afraid of death. What are the greatest loves in the world? Maybe they aren’t original thoughts, but they’re yours. They are yours and that’s what makes them firsts for you. Life allows for originality, it has to. Maybe there isn’t any originality left in the world because anything else would be too much? Love and fear are strong forces to contend with on their own, if you added something else I think I might visit that psychotic ward a little bit more.

So what’s the problem? I want to solve a problem, maybe one success can give the hope that others will follow. These are not theirs. They do not own them. Ideas are free.

I want to run away and forget everyone and everything in my life. This is not a plea, nor a threat, or melodrama. Something in me wants to leave everything I know behind and carve out a spontaneous future. Everything is new, everything is amazing. I want to pursue the ecstasy of living life. I want that quiet place in my mind to visit me a little more often, and I want that incessant voice in the back of my mind to make sense. I wish I could write more coherently. Almost as if my words themselves are empty. I have no great story to tell, I have no great moment. Or worse even still is the possibility that its passed me by. Do I really believe this? Only during the quiet hours of morning. The dead hours.

These are the dead hours. A stretching onwards of the incomprehensible, an almost tangible amalgamation. An incessant beating and pulling on the fibers of what you call your core. I can feel it there, at the edges of my sanity, a constant reminder that this moment is finite, because it stretches into itself. I’m consumed with the knowledge of being self-aware, extra-sensory awareness maybe. Maybe it’s in moments that I really discover the true meaning of this or that, rather than ever holding some inherent understanding. Maybe because I know that nothing is ever right or wrong. I can’t say this or that is fact, when I know that doing so erases possibility.

I want to be out of my mind, delirious and outside of myself. I think the sad thing about me is that I so often wish for an escape from myself. But those kinds of wishes give the wrong connotations don’t they? Thus the dilemma, how to explain what’s bothering you, when the thing that bothers you the most is intangible. Fraught with doubt and uncertainty. I would seek them out, because then I might devote enough energy and thought to discovering some manner of truth. Even if that truth be a lie, wouldn’t it be better than nothing?

So without riddles. I want a break from everyone. Not physically, but mentally. I want to forget everything I know about literally EVERYONE, and start from scratch. Maybe then I could do better, maybe then my own faults wouldn’t convolute one thing and then in turn fuck up the next. Maybe that makes me an asshole, but right now I don’t have it in me to defend my reasoning. Is it wrong of me to want to discover myself, before my devotion to others completely ruins what I still have left with them? I don’t have the energy anymore to support others more fully than I do myself. How can you help others if you don’t even know yourself?

Always with the questions, always with the uncertainty. If I was on my own, stashed away in a temple somewhere with balding monks, maybe in that silence I would find meaning again. Maybe those dead hours would cease to be so dreaded, and rather be a release. I want to let go, and I think I’m doing it without consciously saying yes or no. Sometimes you have to let people go…because there isn’t anything else you haven’t already given or said that could make a difference at this point.

But as with all things, these words should be taken lightly. Because nothing is ever fundamentally right or wrong. Let your fears go….let them go….

So here I am, the day after I finished my play, and right after our read-through. And I’m pretty self-conscious about the whole thing. I’ll admit it. I want people to enjoy it obviously. But its un-nerving. I’m supposed to be the writer right? I’m supposed to be able to turn out good writing. But writing for the stage is so much more difficult than other kinds of writing. Also, a read-through of the play is hard because plays aren’t meant to be read.

I just want to do a good show, something that I can be proud of. I just want people to be entertained and have a good time. I’m doubting myself. Completely. And if its shit, what was the point in trying to do it at all? I’ve sacrificed so much to get this fucking thing in everyone’s hands, but now I’m wondering what was the point? Fuck. *big sigh*

I just want my friends to like it I guess. It would suck if they didn’t like it at all.

This is the complete and final script for my play XIII. It probably needs a bit of editing, but this is it.













XIII

by

Kristen Glass



















Scene I


CORRINE VALDIS (offstage): Oh my god, you have to be kidding me…

(sound of shuffling of parts, and eventually a car door slams shut)

CORRINE: Fuck its cold. (Sounds of wind blowing, an obvious storm)

(Center Stage: A woman walks alone in a jacket that obviously isn’t keeping the cold away from her. She stumbles, exhausted, and eventually collapses on the ground, dead from the bitter cold, facing the audience. Lights fade to black after a moment. When the lights come back up, she stands center stage, the jacket lying on the floor in the same spot she died in, her eyes fixed upon it.)

CORRINE: There was a day we spent together not long before it happened. He seemed like he was walking in another time, his mind somewhere else. I wish I could’ve taken that part of him and just wrapped it into me, as if holding on to him would’ve somehow kept him from the state he’s in now. Some part of me triumphs because his pain is so attached to loosing me. Have you ever found yourself wondering about your funeral? What would it be like if I was dead, how would people react? Who would be affected the most? You never know the impact a life has had on others until they’re dead.

But the dead can dance. Remember that they can. Whether you call yourself an atheist or a Christian or somewhere vastly in the middle and out into nowhere, remember that the dead can dance. We play the game of life just as much as the rest. We falter and fail, wonder at our mistakes and misgivings. I told him that he shouldn’t have fear of death, I did. Don’t be afraid of the inevitable, of things you can’t control. Merely try to take them in stride, hand in hand. Whether you go out quietly, or screaming defiance, you go one-way or another. And then I said to him, you will have all the time in the cosmos to contemplate the dead. And he looked at me and he gave me that sad smile of lies, and I thought maybe I had saved him. I think I did, for the time being. And then fate stepped in, gnarled and horrific, and I knew then that anything I ever tried to convey to him would be lost inside (motion to head).

Perception is everything, it doesn’t matter if it’s the truth or not. Lies and Truth are all a matter of perspective. What is real and what isn’t ultimately doesn’t matter. I sought what I thought was the truth, what I thought was a moral code, something to live my life by. Some people call it religion; some people call it morals and values. Maybe its God. Maybe its just living life. Be true to yourself is the mantra of the new age. Be true to yourself and all will follow suite.

What a piece of shit lie, what a bunch of fucking lies. Can I even give him the answers that he seeks? That he’s been looking for inside that irrational, tortured mind? I want to. I want to prove to him that we still dance. I want him to know in his ravings, that I’m still standing next to him telling him not to look into that black and onyx forever. I want him to be happy, to have a life. I want him to have peace of mind, and explore, and wonder, and have magnificent dreams. And I wish that I could be a part of that. I’ll be next to him, and next to you, dancing the waves of death and pushing back against that swirling torrent of madness. I’ll be there, waiting.

(MUSIC: Planet Caravan by Black Sabbath. Hold lights down for a few seconds and fade to black. Lights come up on an empty stage, JEB stumbles into his living space, extremely drunk knocking things over as he goes. Making it to his desk, he opens a spiral and begins to write fervently, visibly upset)

(Enter CORRINE. She walks behind JEB, who cannot see her. Leaning over him, she begins to read what he is writing in the notebook)

CORRINE: Dear Lord I am drowning in myself. I am suffocated from without and from within, and I only get air on those rare nights. Words of others don’t comfort me as they once did. Oh God, save me from myself and from the world that seeks to taint. Don’t let me give in to the fear. I can feel it there, always in the back of my mind. Always pushing at me, daring me to look it in the eye. Let me fly away and sail to wonders unknown and tragic and beautiful. Save me from myself. I pray for a release, a moment of clarity, before I become my own worst enemy and not even the memory of Corrine can save me from it.

(JEB falls asleep at the desk, CORRINE watches JEB silently, and the music and stage gradually fade away)














Scene 2

PSYCH: (sitting in office. Speaking into a handheld recording device) November 2nd. Client is a Jeb Morana, he’s been a patient here for a little under a year, non-cooperative on a variety of occasions, but constant at attending sessions. (Pause to survey notes) He’s been keeping a journal of his thoughts, expressions…and outbursts. I’ve given him a subscription for Xanax, at a low dose although using a placebo has occurred to me. There are-

(there is a knock on the door)

PSYCH: (calls out) You’re early.

JEB: Thought I was late actually. Were you busy?

PSYCH: No, we can start early if you want.

JEB: Can I leave early if we start now?

PSYCH: I don’t see why not.

JEB: Sure. (sits on the couch across from the Psychiatrist)

(enter CORRINE)

PSYCH: Anything you want to tell me before we start? What kind of things do you want to work on while we’re here?

JEB: What do you mean?

PYCH: Well you’re in therapy for a reason Jeb. I’d like to try something new... Try to think of something about yourself that you don’t like.

JEB: I thought we were supposed to be “embracing the positive”. What kind of shit is that, making me think of something so negative.

PSYCH: (flat look) We can do this another time you know, if you’re unwilling to cooperate.

JEB: (long pause, off in another place) You know those moments right before you fall asleep at night?

CORRINE: Yeah, I know them well. I look forward to it, every night.

PSYCH: (searching look, quiet) No, tell me.

JEB: (pause, thoughtful) I think I figured it out. Death is an abstract thing. It’s something we can’t quite wrap our minds around. Of course you have those who say without a doubt “I am going to heaven when I die”. And I just look at them and I frown.

CORRINE: (gently lays a hand on JEB)

JEB: (frown, then exasperated, questioningly) How can you be so sure? I mean, there she was just living life like all the rest of us, and the next I’m laying out flowers, wandering around this broken crumbling cemetery, completely and utterly dumbfounded. With grief? With shock, or maybe it’s awe? Dead. Say that you’re going to heaven, and then tell me, what happens to me when I die? I go to Milton and Dante’s fiery hell? Can’t be limbo, the Catholic church just said that was all bullshit.

PSYCH: Where do you think you go?

JEB: I don’t know…

PYCH: Don’t you find that frightening?

JEB: You have no idea.

PSYCH: How is death abstract? Lets go from there.

CORRINE: The last thing he needs is to dwell on death.

JEB: Let’s not. That’s just so…emo.

PSYCH: What is emo?

JEB: Emotional…? You know those strange kids, you probably get a lot of them in here-

PSYCH: This is counterproductive, Jeb. We’ve been at this for months, why don’t you let me help you?

CORRINE: She can’t help you.

JEB: I’m aware of that.

PSYCH: I don’t understand what’s changed. Has something happened? You can tell me whatever you want. You usually do.

JEB: I don’t know…

PSYCH: We have to talk about your file sometime.

JEB: I thought that’s what we’ve been doing.

PSYCH: (quietly waiting)

JEB: You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

CORRINE: Don’t, if you were ever going to listen to something that I have to say to you, listen to me now. Open your ears, your mind, your third eye, whatever, but listen to me. (enunciated) Don’t tell him/her anything.

PSYCH: Anything. I really do mean that.

JEB: Do you believe in ghosts? What about life after death?

PSYCH: Do you see ghosts?

JEB: (annoyed) …No. This isn’t the Sixth Sense man, I’m asking a hypothetical question here.

PSYCH: I’m not really too sure on that note.

JEB: You’ve never thought about it before?

PSYCH: Yes I have.

JEB: Well?

PSYCH: I think that’s something everyone has to figure out on their own honestly. I haven’t invested a lot of time in that concept.

JEB: How can you not think about it?

PSYCH: I just don’t.

JEB: Are you avoiding it?

PSYCH: Maybe I am. What about you?

JEB: How could I possibly avoid it…

PSYCH: You think about death a lot.

JEB: (nervous laugh, looking around)

PSYCH: Why do you think about death all the time Jeb. What does it have to do- ?

JEB: With ghosts? Its not Corrine, not really anyway. I don’t know what to think about it honestly. I didn’t even know what to think about it when she was still alive. She told me not dwell on it, that it would fade with time like everything else does. I wonder if that’s the same with memory? Can you forget the sound of someone’s voice, their face maybe? Even if you woke up to it dawn after dawn, night after night.

PSYCH: You aren’t going to forget her Jeb. Not ever.

JEB: You don’t know that. Sometimes I get this momentary lapse, and I close my eyes and I forget. I do. Its only a second really, but that one moment, it stretches on.

PSYCH: You can come back to her anytime you want.

JEB: It’s like you said…Maybe… (gives a nervous laugh) Hey do you mind…? (pulls out a medicine bottle and shows it to the PSYCH)

PSYCH: By all means.

JEB: (takes out a medicine bottle and pops a couple of pills.)

PSYCH: How are they working for you?

JEB: It doesn’t really take it off.

PSYCH: Take what off?

JEB: The edge.

PSYCH: It isn’t a miracle drug, lets give it some extra time and see what happens…. (long pause) What do you mean by-

JEB: The edge?

PSYCH: Yes.

JEB: (shrugs, shaking his head) You asked me why I think about death? (wringing hands together, facing the audience, looking off into the distance, silent)

CORRINE: (In front of him, inquisitive) Don’t.

PSYCH: …Jeb?

JEB: (turns around quickly) Tell me you don’t think about it late at night.

PSYCH: I’m not going to lie to you Jeb, I don’t. Are there moments when I do? Absolutely…

JEB: You know, as soon as I get here, I find myself wanting to leave.

PSYCH: You can leave if you want to.

JEB: (cont like the PSYCH hasn’t spoken) counting down the minutes when these eternal instances faded away like a memory. Although in another time it would have been a fond remembrance. What if he’s here right now.

PSYCH: Have you been drinking again? (silence) Ok, I think maybe we’ve had enough for one session.

JEB: I like looking at all the shit you keep around here, you can really learn alot about a person that way.

PSYCH: Jeb, its time to go.

JEB: No, man, don’t kick me out. I just um..

PSYCH: What are you talking about?

JEB: I can’t explain it. (scared laugh) You’ll think I’m crazy, fuck maybe I am crazy, it’d make sense wouldn’t it?

PSYCH: All you have to do is talk, I’m not here to judge you.

JEB: Aren’t you though?

PSYCH: No, I’m here to help you sort these things out, you wouldn’t be here otherwise.

JEB: (moves to speak but is cut off)

PSYCH: I realize that this was your parents idea, I do. I don’t tell them what we talk about here.
What could I possibly gain from judging you?

JEB: What everyone gets when they cast their eyes on someone else. Maybe you’re a masochist and you like the pain it causes.

PSYCH: If I was a masochist I would punish myself and relish in that. If I was, I certainly chose the wrong profession to get my jollies off.

JEB: (laughs) No you chose the right profession, who the fuck else would listen to this shit?

PSYCH: Didn’t Corrine?

JEB: Clever name drop. Do you mind-? (pulls out a pack of cigarettes)

PSYCH: (thinks for a brief moment and nods)

JEB: Yea, but she’s dead remember?

PSYCH: Of course, but that doesn’t invalidate the question, it still has merit.

JEB: Yea, she understood me better than my family ever did, that’s for sure.

CORRINE: (firm) This is pointless dribble. Come on baby, this is not going to help any. Just let go…

JEB: …It won’t light.

PSYCH: Lets start with your journal then.

JEB: (pulls the journal out of his back pocket, it is folded and shredded looking. He tosses it to PSYCH and moves to leave) Please, feel free.

PSYCH: I don’t have to read it if you don’t want me to.

JEB: (waves him off) Its fine. There’s a specific page I want you to read. Happened a couple of days ago, you’ll know what I mean about death then…

EXIT JEB

PSYCH: (opens the journal and flips through the pages until he comes to a recent date. He takes out his tape recorder and presses record as he begins to read)

“Death is a madness spread out over your mind. Cold and lonely. Mostly lonely…”

(freezes as he scrutinizes the journal)

CORRINE: (she picks up the journal and begins to read where he leaves off, monologue lights.) Don’t have fear of death, she said to me, and I want to believe her. I want to be the hero in the story who faces down the reaper. But I can’t. I. Fucking. Can’t.

One minute you’re here and the next you’re shit. HOW does that work? So I went home, gears always running after a night of work, and I wanted to get some relief. Do you know what its like to always have a voice in your head, spinning quiet profanities? You know what its like? It sucks. (smile) I can’t even describe how much it sucks.

(MUSIC – DISSOLVED GIRL – MASSIVE ATTACK)

FADE TO BLACK ---> exit PSYCH











SCENE 3


(Lights up on Jeb’s Apt, it is generally disheveled and looks very lived in. There are books and trash everywhere. It has a vaguely feminine feel to it, and seems to have a theme. Enter Jeb who walks to his couch. He takes out the journal, but it isn’t nearly as ruined as the one in a previous scene. and sits directly in the middle of it. In front of the couch there is a coffee table laden with a table runner and various small junk. From behind the table he pulls a bong and sets it on the table, taking one of the used water bottles on the table he empties the water into the bong and leaves it sitting. Proceeds to take out a box and individually place various pipes in a row on the table. He takes out a pill bottle and pops a couple of pills. Scrutinizing the pipes, he decides on one and packing it full of herb he begins to smoke.

CORRINE is sitting on the floor in front of the couch, and her attention is focused mainly on Jeb.)

CORRINE: (holding the journal) Friend of mine recommended an herbal remedy, but I’ve been self-medicating for a while. It doesn’t generally take an addict very long to find out what suits his fancy… And it got me thinking, like it always does….

Death. I tried to sit there, in all the smoke and drifting thoughts, the lost memories and barely remembered ones…that this was inevitable. I couldn’t escape it. Fuck. I thought about what it might have been like to be dead. To be cold. To be gone…gone where I don’t know. Just, out there. (motion out there with hand) Maybe floating, maybe lingering. I drifted, I drifted and I tried to imagine being dead.

(With a change in music she turns her head sharply, eyes darting around. She turns and looks behind her, but there is nothing there.)

(ENTER DEATH far SR, Decked in a Venetian mask and a cape of velvet. There is no skin showing at all. The mask is elaborate and androgynous, just as is DEATH him/herself. He/She moves with slow and precise motion, eyes staring down the audience through the mask. Walking along the outer edges of the stage, DEATH walks slowly into the vision of JEB who is still sitting on the couch. CORRINE scrambles to her feet and backs slowly away, visibly frightened but wanting to stand her ground.

JEB exhales after an intake on the pipe as he notices death and slowly turns his head to see DEATH, who is staring back at him with a titled head. JEB holds up the pipe and examines it closely.)

JEB: Goddamn this is some strong shit! (he quickly places the pipe down on the coffee table and turns his body slightly, moving a bit away from the center of the couch to the outer edge, away from the hooded figure.)

CORRINE: (to DEATH) What do you want?

JEB: Am I hallucinating?

DEATH: (since being on stage, DEATH has only been staring at the audience. When CORRINE and JEB both ask him a question, while still looking at the audience) I’m not here for you.

CORRINE: (silent, she starts to edge her way towards JEB)

JEB: (looks around) Ummm…

CORRINE: What do you want?

DEATH: Don’t talk. (cocks head to the side and stares at her, deliberately steps toward her, slowly)

CORRINE: (backs up a step)

JEB: Dude… Seriously I’m starting to freak out here, who the fuck are you?

DEATH: What does the high tell you?

JEB: What…?

DEATH: The high Jeb, doesn’t it fix your problems.

CORRINE: Why are you doing this?

DEATH: (looks at her and back to JEB, ignoring her) I’m not doing anything. You could say this was meant to happen.

JEB: …what was?

DEATH: Our meeting.

CORRINE: No. No, no, no, no.

DEATH: You know me.

JEB: (looks at the pipes on the table, and slightly fingers one) I don’t know you. What is…?

DEATH: -going on? … who are you?

CORRINE: Why are you mocking him?

DEATH: Stop. Talking.

JEB: What the fuck are you talking about man?! Who the fuck are you?!

DEATH: A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist.

JEB: (hold head in hands for a minute)

DEATH: You are however, still alive.

JEB: (sidelong glance at him) Are you telling me, that you’re…like, dead? Are you a ghost?

DEATH: A ghost… perhaps not.

JEB: A spirit of some kind…

DEATH: The spirit of something, at the very least my admirer.

JEB: I’m not dead then… I was thinking about it.

CORRINE: (whispered) What is he supposed to say to something like that?

DEATH: You are thinking of it.

JEB: So then you’re…

DEATH: I am many things, and no things. I am “the omega”. I am inevitable……..what am I?

CORRINE: Death.

JEB: (stares at him)

DEATH: Je suis la Mort. (French, pause) Soy Muerte. (Spanish, pause) Sono morte. (Russian, pause) Mors ultima ratio - Death is the final accounting (Latin).

JEB: Death..

DEATH: Don’t believe me?

JEB: (moves to get his pack of cigarettes on the table, and kind of knocks the pipes out of their neat pile. Getting the cigarettes he begins to light one, visibly upset and shaken, he finally gets one and relishes in it)

DEATH: Careful Jeb…those things can kill you.

JEB: (harsh laugh) I thought you killed things.

DEATH: I have many purposes, you can ask Corrine.

JEB: No! You are not going to do that, you don’t even know her, you don’t fucking…No.

DEATH: Denial is a wonderful thing.

JEB: How do you know about her?

DEATH: Well…I could say that I know more about you.

JEB: I’m not in denial.

DEATH: Please, lies are something that never became you.

CORRINE: One nightmare to the next.

DEATH: Confused?

JEB: Only by why the hell you’re in my apartment, spewing all this cockamamie b.s about my dead girlfriend.

DEATH: Ouch Jeb, that hurt her feelings a little.

JEB: …what do you want?

DEATH: It always fascinated me, how you were completely willing to let the unbelievable, the indiscernible, get into your mind. You let this drive you over the edge. You’re so afraid of dying, you’re so scared of it.

JEB: Yea, maybe I am. So what?

DEATH: I wonder if he thought that before he pulled the trigger.

JEB: …This is a hallucination, you’re…smoke from the bong, or you’re, a dream.

DEATH: The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

JEB: She told me not to have fear of death.

DEATH: Perhaps she had enough foresight beforehand to warn you of it.

JEB: Then she wanted me not to fear you...I wouldn’t ignore that.

DEATH: So he pushed your thoughts to a darker side.

JEB: How do you know about that?

DEATH: I thought you weren’t in denial here Jeb, yes him. Your neighbor wasn’t it? That killed himself?

JEB: I didn’t know him.

DEATH: Yes, but it certainly did make those wheels start turning didn’t it? (Indicate a spinning motion toward the head)

JEB: I thought I saw him, when I found out about it. I was on my front porch and I swear to God that I saw something. I was listening to this song... And it carried me away, up torrents and down waves. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be dead, and the only thing I could think of was what ran through his head right before he blew his brains out.

DEATH: The moment of death is a very...personal experience, you’ll learn this when its your time. His consciousness ended when he put the gun against his temple. At least Corrine had plenty of time to think about it before she died.

JEB: I still remember her, she still exists.

DEATH: Does she?

JEB: You just told me that she did!

DEATH: (laughs at him) Oh I can see I’m going to love goading you. (picks up Jeb’s journal and flips through it reading, making fun of it)

(mockingly) “Dear God, I’m drowning from without and from within and I only get air on those rare nights…” How’s the air now, cold…or lonely?

JEB: …”Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

DEATH: Is that a prayer? Voodoo? Chanting scripture and poetry isn’t going to make me turn to ash. How high are you?

JEB: You’re death then, ok, we’ll run with that assumption. I want to talk to Corrine.

DEATH: You don’t make demands of me, mortal. (this word like a curse) You want to talk to her? Talk. She can hear you.

JEB: (frantic) Tell me what she’s saying. Is she here?

DEATH: (walks behind Corrine and shoves her toward JEB) Here she is! Talk until you’re blue in the face.

JEB: Corrine.

CORRINE: Stop this! (to Death) Jeb.

JEB: Tell me what she’s saying god-dammit!

CORRINE: (runs to a side table and knocks a bunch of papers off, very deliberate about this)

JEB: (attention darts to the papers)…Did you do that or did she?

DEATH: (laugh)

JEB: (frantic) I can’t think… I can’t. What is going on?!

DEATH: All you need to know, is that your fate is imminent.

JEB: So you are here for a reason.

DEATH: Death has many reasons. Every man, woman, and child in this world has a purpose bigger than themselves. Your problem is you think your destined for great things. Maybe you’re the un-named soldier…except without all the honor and prestige. You laze around this shambled mess and weep, because your life means nothing. Because you’re scared of death. DO I SCARE YOU NOW?!

JEB: (begins to run out of the apartment, angry) You’re not real, you, are a lie!!

DEATH: Go on, run. I’ll be wherever you go. You can’t escape your fate.

BLACKOUT → Fade into THE END – THE DOORS @ about 1:05























SCENE 4

(Back at the Psychiatrists Office. The Psychiatrist sits with Jeb’s worn journal on his lap and looks up from it, moving through a couple of pages, he takes a bookmark off of the table and marks the page, then closes it. He thinks for a minute and picks up his tape recorder)

PSYCH: Client is displaying signs of dementia brought on by depression and anxiety. His journal elicits facets of psychosis caused by drug use. Recommend a halt in his current prescription of Xanex, which may have had an adverse effect in conjunction with the marijuana, or alcohol consumption…He may be fabricating, or creatively displaying his fear of death. His reasoning behind this however has not been made clear as of yet.

ENTER JEB

JEB: You use that for notes on me or what?

PSYCH: I just find it useful… I want to talk about the journal you’ve been keeping.

JEB: So do I.

PSYCH: That was quite a narrative.

JEB: You know, I knew when I walked out that door, I thought to myself “This guy thinks I’m nuts. If he doesn’t already he will now.”

PSYCH: So this is something that happened to you?

JEB: Yes, its not just metaphor.

PSYCH: No, its not. But you were under the influence at the time of your encounter with Death.

JEB: That doesn’t have anything to do with it man, I’ve gone over this in my head a hundred times. I know I’m not crazy, crazy people don’t know that they’re crazy!

PSYCH: You’ve said on several occasions that you feel like you’re losing your mind, I’m merely basing my questions off of what you’ve told me.

JEB: (begins to shuffle around inside the bag he left on stage) I’ve been doing research about it.

PSYCH: (confused) Research about what?

JEB: (pulls out various books about Demons and the Devil) You know, folklore and mythology. I don’t understand why...it…would come to me? Why me?

PSYCH: Why not you, you’re just as likely as the next, even more so because of Corrine’s passing.

JEB: I thought that too, but he wouldn’t let me talk to her.

PSYCH: Wait, are you saying that Corrine was there as well?

JEB: He certainly made it seem that way.

PSYCH: Don’t you think Death would’ve visited you to in regards to her death?

JEB: How am I supposed to know that?

PSYCH: I don’t know, I’m just trying to understand this. You realize how outlandish this all sounds.

JEB: (puts books down in exasperation) You don’t believe me.

PSYCH: I’m not saying-

JEB: He told me you wouldn’t believe me.

CORRINE: I believe you, he’ll believe you. (lays her hands on his shoulders)

JEB: She must’ve been there…

PSYCH: Jeb, I know it can be comforting to think of life after death. But to believe a physical incarnation of Death manifested itself right after you smoked marijuana…to have had this encounter in your altered state of mind, its not a stretch to say this may have been influenced by an an extremely potent hallucination.

JEB: You haven’t even heard everything I have to say.

PSYCH: This isn’t the only time this has happened?

JEB: No, that’s why it can’t be only coincidence, it has to be something more. It’s all there in the journal, that why I brought it to you. (very fidgety)

PSYCH: (moves to speak but is interrupted)

JEB: Just read it before you make up your mind.

PSYCH: I thought you wanted to leave early.

JEB: You’re the only one who can help me. You have to help me… Please, I don’t want to be trapped in my head anymore. Look, I know that Corrine is gone. But if there’s some vestige of her other than this jumble of half realized dreams in my head, out there somewhere, and there’s a link to that…how could you ever expect me to look away? How else am I supposed to endure this pain?

PSYCH: What about other people?

JEB: The more time I spend around other people, I just realize how damaged they all are. At least with her, I loved the decay as much as I loved the beauty. I’m not religious, I never have been. I always watched those kinds of people with a special awe. I never thought how blind they were, I always imagined that having that much faith in my life would’ve made me a better person. But thinking about that, what happens when you die, is there a God…it’s a question so terrifying to me that I don’t even want to utter it because the fear of doing so might give it power. Might make it happen. I can’t ignore this, and you can’t ignore me. Please.

PSYCH: *long pause * (he sighs and opens the journal)

MUSIC → HAPPINESS – GRANT LEE BUFFALO

JEB: (lights a cigarette and leans back in the chair, some visible sign of anxiety or tension)


FADE TO BLACK











Scene 5

(CS – Monologue lights -> Corrine is holding Jeb’s journal as she reads from it. Jeb’s apartment.)

(Fade Music)

CORRINE: “For the wages of sin is death,” Romans 6:23. Death sent by God to me. A spiritual death is a more heinous type… a hideous fate. Has my entire life been for any purpose other than its end?

I can’t seem to figure out its motives. What does he …she…want from me? It won’t answer, it doesn’t reveal much. Only that fate is imminent. What does that even mean? I’ve decided that the only way to conquer this is to face it. As much as I don’t want to, as much as I’m afraid of the answer, I think I’m more afraid of not knowing. If there’s a chance of seeing Corrine again, I’d face any fate.

(Lights up on Jeb’s Apartment. Jeb enters SR. He moves to his couch where he opens a variety of books, he looks around him wildly. Corrine follows directly behind him, concern on her face. Jeb paces back and forth)

JEB: Ok, I’m here. You said you’d be here, well come out. Come on! (nothing happens) …(he approaches the record player, flipping through the options he pulls out one and puts it in. Then takes out his pills and pops one)

(MUSIC → WESTERN EYES – PORTISHEAD *** This part is subject to change, we’ll see how it looks on stage. :D

CORRINE: (sings along to the song, trying to get Jeb to feel her presence) Forgotten throes of another’s life. The heart of love is their only light…. serpents breath. We lay our own conscience to rest.

DEATH: (enters when the beat comes in from the song) You didn’t actually think I would come when you called did you? )

JEB: I thought you would do what was in your nature to do.

DEATH: Which is?

JEB: Be purposefully ambiguous and make no sense at all.

DEATH: Well if we’re following nature here, you should be about ready to collapse from anxiety, yes?

JEB: I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t wary.

DEATH: You’re more than wary, you’re shaking.

JEB: You’d like me to be.

DEATH: Where did this confidence come from?

JEB: I don’t have to fear you.

DEATH: But you do.

JEB: (shakes head) I refuse to.

DEATH: You’ve always been taken away by your imagination Jeb, don’t expect me to believe that you’ve suddenly mastered your every emotion.

JEB: But I don’t have to master it, I have only to face it.

DEATH: Then here I am. I am the gateway that stirs the deepest fears of mankind, I am the unknown. Why don’t you do what you’ve been promising to for so long?

JEB: Is that your ploy then? You think I’d kill myself.

DEATH: I think given the right amount of pressure you would.

JEB: You want to know why I think so many people kill themselves? It isn’t because they’re depressed. Sure, they probably went through that phase. No, when you hit rock bottom you’ve gotten to a place that literally just doesn’t have a damn feeling in it. There’s no emotion. There’s nothing. Not a goddamn thing.

DEATH: What, you feel like you’ve hit rock bottom? You don’t know what rock bottom is.

JEB: (turns on him in hurry) You’re right. I haven’t. But at least I’m not some damn phantom, promising to be the answer when all you are is big fucking lie.

DEATH: You don’t think death is the truth? Come on, what do you think, I’m a figment of your imagination? That Corrine is just playing some kind of sick joke on you, like she’s just waiting to pop out and say “HAHA JUST KIDDING!” ?

JEB: (Rush at him angrily, yelling) Shut your mouth!

DEATH: (moves out of the way easily)

JEB: Death is NOT the truth. It doesn’t do anything. One minute you’re here, and the next your shit. You’re whole life amounts to a single column in the newspaper. I’m not at rock bottom your right, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t somewhere in my future.

DEATH: So sad all the time. Such a shell of what you used to be. So much promise they used to say. What now, Jeb? You want to take another cheap shot at me? There isn’t a thing you can do. You can’t deny me, you can’t kill me, and try as hard as you want, you can’t forget me. In everything you do, I am there. I always win.

JEB: You only win if I let you.

DEATH: Really. You think you’re exempt then? Some kind of immortal? Sorry to break the news but Cortez never found the city of gold.

JEB: What about Jesus then?

DEATH: You’re invoking Christ!? After that lengthy speech you gave to your psychiatrist about not knowing what happens when you die? You don’t know what to believe, just admit it.

JEB: No! No I don’t know what to believe you cryptic son of a bitch. I’m not talking about worshiping God, I’m talking the MAN. One of the most famous in history. You couldn’t KILL him.

DEATH: That all depends on your point of view.

JEB: No it doesn’t. Jesus exists. He’s remembered. Even if he wasn’t real, even if he wasn’t the son of God, he’s still remembered and that’s something you CAN’T kill.

DEATH: Time kills all things.

JEB: Apathy kills all things. Lies kill things.

DEATH: I kill things Jeb. Those are-

JEB: Those are your weapons, but they’re just as much at fault.

DEATH: Blame me then. I’ve been cursed and spat at since man became self-aware, I’ve even been worshiped.

JEB: You’re an amalgamation. You’re a kid with an ant farm, and you know what? You don’t control destiny.

DEATH: Christ then destiny…?

JEB: I control what happens. Me. I have free will.

DEATH: For such an atheist you manage to quote dogma quite a bit you know.

JEB: I never said I was an atheist.

DEATH: Ok. Agnostic. Kind of the same...

JEB: You don’t control your own destiny either. You’re a puppet, more than I can ever be.

DEATH: A puppet, how?

JEB: (deliberately step toward him) You don’t have your own agenda. Or maybe you do, but you can’t just do what you want. You’re bound by destiny, or, I don’t know, chance even. Some of us go screaming and crying, begging and, and praying but we go all the same. That’s the only choice we don’t have. The only thing you know how to do is what you were created for.

DEATH: Is that any different than what you were created for?

JEB: Yes, it is, because we don’t know!

DEATH: You don’t know what?

JEB: We don’t know anything. How to react, how to live our lives. What God to believe in, if any. What happens when we die!

DEATH: (laughs) You’re so afraid of dying.

JEB: Any man who says otherwise is either lying or a fool.

DEATH: Who’s the fool now, Jeb? Am I not standing right in front of you?

JEB: This whole conversation is circular. What are you trying to convince me of here? You’re just a figment of my imagination, go away.

DEATH: You were the one who called me. Ok, fine, I’ll go away, and then when you’re looking back on this moment years from now, you can tell your psychiatrist all about how the single most enlightening moment of your life passed you by because you were too afraid to face it.

JEB: Don’t do that.

DEATH: Don’t do what?

JEB: Come on man.

DEATH: Anything but a man. (looks at Corrine)

JEB: Don’t you know what you’re doing to me?

DEATH: I am opening your eyes. Allowing you to transcend the boundaries that a normal man can go. You limit yourself.

JEB: I do not limit myself. What do you want from me?

DEATH: How many times in your life you’ve simply taken the easy route…

JEB: So I made the wrong decisions in life? You’re condemning me for that?

DEATH: I’m not condemning anything.

JEB: How you walk around pretending that you’re God. You aren’t.

DEATH: I’m a part of God. Romans 6:23. For the wages of sin is death. You will die, you are dying.

JEB: Don’t give me that bullshit about dying a little every day.

DEATH: I’ve watched you every day of your life, biding my time. No one believes you Jeb, your psychiatrist won’t even believe you. You’re losing your mind.

CORRINE: I won’t let that happen. I won’t.

DEATH: Your choices have led you to this point. Seek your salvation, tell who you will. No one will believe you. (begin to leave) You don’t even believe yourself.

JEB: You don’t know my mind! You don’t know me!

CORRINE: (tries to comfort him)

FADE TO BLACK
































SCENE 6

(Psychiatrists Office. Jeb is leaning forward staring at his shoes, the psychiatrist hands the journal back to Jeb, who takes it quietly and lays it on the ground)

PSYCH: I’d really like some time to go over this.

JEB: What’s your gut reaction.

PSYCH: (gets up and faces away from Jeb) I’m not sure what you expect of me here.

JEB: The truth. All I’ve ever wanted from any of you is the truth, no more beating around the bush.

PSYCH: I’m being honest with you now Jeb, I feel like you’re the one who is avoiding the truth.

JEB: I admit it, I held back.

PSYCH: What is that you want me to do here? Say that I acquiesce your story, I acknowledge that this happened. What would it change? It’s almost as if you’re asking my opinion to validate your opinion on the matter.

JEB: What?

PSYCH: It is my professional opinion that you may be over-medicating. I’m not saying that this is your fault, sometimes a trip can seem real. I once did ecstasy and was convinced that my reflection was God. Looking back on it, I even have misgivings.

JEB: You know what I want? I wanted to look into Corrine’s eyes when everything around me and you has turned to shit and know that I was always going to have her. And what the fuck do I have now?! A phantom stalking my every move, a lingering shadow of a memory of the best years of my life.

PSYCH: But you’re young, there is so much more to life than this.

JEB: You know how you have a problem, and you ask someone else’s opinion…and you know, you just know exactly what they’re going to say. Some small feeling. Some little understood nagging that makes you ask the question.

PSYCH: I know what you want me to say right now.

JEB: (begin to stand up) You should’ve lied to me. Lie to me. For once in all the pointless sessions and talking and scribbling, just give me a small scrap of lies.

PSYCH: I want to answer your questions; do you know how often I go home thinking about your situation? How you are? Do you know how much I want to help you? I want to, I do. I can’t take away your loneliness and isolation. But how you feel, its normal.

JEB: This isn’t normal.

PSYCH: It is. (firm) What you’re feeling is the loss of a friend and lover. You’re going to have good days and bad days. The memories are going to drive you crazy, this is not going to be easy, you know that.

JEB: I know a lot of things.

PSYCH: Yes you do, but you don’t know everything. You obviously can’t get through your grief on your own. It’s not even just grief at this point, your isolation has taken on a life of its own, and if you were left to your own devices I honestly don’t know what you would do. Sink further down the rabbit hole maybe.

JEB: You know…there was something that happened that I didn’t put in the journal. I didn’t think I would have to mention it.

PSYCH: (exasperated he turns away from Jeb) You need to have a new purpose, accept that Death is a part of the wonder of life. (he moves to turn back around)

(At this point, Jeb rushes the psychiatrist after grabbing a letter opener off of the table between their two chairs. The Psychiatrist is so taken aback by this sudden move that Jeb manages to get a good hold on him, the letter opener at his neck.)

PSYCH: What are you doing?!

JEB: Shut the hell up!

PSYCH: Let go of me!

JEB: SHUT UP!! It told me you wouldn’t believe me!

PSYCH: So attacking me..

JEB: Stop TALKING!! You don’t get to talk anymore! The only way you’re ever going to believe me is if you know exactly what I’m going through.

PSYCH: So you’re going to kill me?! WHAT WILL THAT ACCOMPLISH?!

JEB: Shut up, shut up, shut your fucking mouth!

PSYCH: Let me help you Jeb, I’m listening!

JEB: You’re not listening, you never have been.

PSYCH: I’m not doing anything, I’ve only ever wanted to help you!

JEB: I am going to cut your throat. You are going to die. Say it to yourself, you’re going to die!!

PSYCH: Stop, listen to me, listen to me!

JEB: How does it feel, how does it feel?! Is it pressing enough for you? (bring the letter opener closer to his neck)

PSYCH: (heavy breathing, terror in eyes etc) Let me help you!!!

(Jeb grabs his head and spins off balance a little bit while maintaining his hold on the Psych)

JEB: You can’t help me! Not even Corrine can help me. Always hovering, I feel her around me all the time you know. I can’t see her, I can’t tell her how I feel.

PSYCH: This isn’t going to solve anything.

JEB: (enunciated) It’ll make you understand.

PSYCH: What makes you think I haven’t this whole damn time?! Fine! Fucking cut my throat, no one will be left to listen to your ranting! See what happens to you when you’re left alone with Death!

JEB: There you go, that’s what I want to hear. It makes you angry doesn’t it?

PSYCH: The only reason you’re so upset is because you’re threatened by mystery. You have to have all the answers, and you’re not willing to hold yourself accountable! There are things in this world that no one can answer, no one can understand no matter how depressed or angry they get!

JEB: You think this is my fault?

PSYCH: No, I’m not saying that, I’m not SAYING THAT!

JEB: Then what are you saying?! Speak plainly, I’m so tired of all these riddles!

PSYCH: No this isn’t your fault, but to say that these are a serious of unfortunate events is a cop-out, tell me that it isn’t! Don’t you feel any responsibility?

JEB: (as if something is dawning on you) Never mind. (throws him to the side) Don’t bother calling the cops, I won’t be there…. … I’m sorry!

PSYCH: (fake coughing) Jeb, JEB!

JEB: (runs out of the office)

BLACKOUT



















SCENE 7

(Lights up on Jeb’s Apartment. Death is already on stage.)

DEATH: (hums Don’t Fear the Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult)

ENTER CORRINE and JEB

DEATH: (scrutinizes him) How do you feel?

JEB: Tired…

DEATH: You might want to lie down, you look faint.

JEB: Romans 6:23. You want me to pay for my sins.

DEATH: I don’t want anything, I’m here for one purpose and one purpose alone.

JEB: You’re here to kill me.

DEATH: Yes.

JEB: Why now? (he blinks, holding his hands up to his head)

DEATH: Because its your time to go, its been your time to go.

JEB: So now you stop speaking in riddles… I don’t…

DEATH: You look vaguely ill, Jeb. Regardless of what you might think, what is happening to you is real.

JEB: (takes out his bottle of pills and places one in his mouth, closing his eyes and holding his head with his hands) What is…?

DEATH: Did you think I would need to drive you to kill yourself?

JEB: I’m not dying, I’m fine.

DEATH: Are you so sure of that fact?

CORRINE: (shakes head) We never had any time together, none. I wanted to watch him grow old at least…if anything else.

DEATH: You’ll get you’re time. Every man, woman, and child meets Death at some point in their lives, every single person in this world will meet their own Death. I am yours.

JEB: My what?

DEATH: I am your Death, I am Death.

JEB: I feel sick.

CORRINE: Don’t have fear of death.

JEB: You didn’t take Corrine then.

DEATH: No.

JEB: I thought this was all malicious, you wanted to drive me crazy, make do something I didn’t want to.

DEATH: Death can be many things. Malicious, angry, combative, or peaceful, as was the Death that took her life. My purpose is to take you, but on your terms.

JEB: The pills?

DEATH: The alcohol.

JEB: But I’m not ready.

DEATH: Most aren’t.

JEB: What happens when I die?

DEATH: Are you afraid?

JEB: …not anymore. (sits down) It hasn’t done anything, fear hasn’t gotten me anywhere.

CORRINE: I’m waiting. We still dance.

JEB: I’ve been dying for weeks.

DEATH: Death only appears to the dying in that moment. Yours has stretched on and taken a life of its own.

JEB: Don’t have fear of death… How right you were Corrine. How pointless to spend a life drifting through one fear to the next, every action and thought bent on horror and the intangible. I don’t know why it took me so long to understand those words.

CORRINE: Its ok.. you know now. It wasn’t all a waste. No life is a waste.

JEB: I feel strange, and…

DEATH: It’s time, Jeb.

JEB: (faintly, but with force) But I’m finally seeing straight, for the first time in a long while. I can see… Now comes the mystery. (he leans back and his eye’s flutter. He goes limp, and dies)

CORRINE: (stage direction up to the discretion of the Director, but she should be sad he died.)

MUSIC → DON’T FEAR THE REAPER – BLUE OYSTER CULT

DEATH: (walks to Jeb’s form and runs hands up his shoulder) Time to go…

(Death grabs Jeb by the hand and pulls him to his feet, reluctantly his body and conscious form stand. He looks around, and Corrine who is near where he died, locks eyes with him. Jeb walks up to her and takes her hand, kissing it, and they both walk off stage, hand in hand. Death watches them leave, and then turns to the audience.)

DEATH: In the Thirteenth Major Aracana, there is not just physical death, but an end. The ending is a change, rather than a death. (taking a tarot card from inside her hood, she throws it on the ground and a slow smile creeps on his/her face, he/she slowly walks off stage as the lights fade away.)

THE END…

There’s always that moment in life where you feel unsurpassed nervousness. I think I just hit it. Today is Prari’s show, its opening night, and I’m finally in a play. I have a comedic role pretty much, although there’s a healthy portion of drama thrown in as well. I’m having some serious chills run up and down my back. I wasn’t really kidding earlier when I said I would throw up. I won’t do it at the event, but, I’ve had a couple of moments tonight where I’m like “AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” It’s just first show jitters though. I know my lines so well, I absolutely cannot mess them up. And if I blank or some similarly unfortunate occurrence, I will make my way through the fuck up as best as possible.

I didn’t think I was going to feel this way, honestly. I thought, oh I got this shit. But now that I’m actually doing it, I’m thinking “oh god.” And I get all gnarled up inside. I just need to make it past the first night. I’ve decided not to go to any of my classes tomorrow. I’m just going to sleep like a mother fucker. And that will be good. BAH, I can’t think about this right now.

It just seems like I have all this crazy stuff on my mind. Like how I’m going to pay for schreiner this semester. How I’m going to finish writing this play for the spring. Shit, I’m all rattled and crazy. Generally I’m pretty laid back and chill about things, but right now I’m having a serious momentary freak out.

FUCK THAT. I’m fine. I got these lines down so well. I just need to not get caught up in the energy of tomorrow night, make sure to go over lines before the show. It’ll be good. Everything’ll be fine. How sad, I sound like I’m going all crazy or whatever. I wonder if I’m going to get any sleep tonight. Ah I hope so. Sleep bring me some peace.

*15 minute pause* I feel a lot better now. I’m going to have butterflies, but I think once I get out there and nail my first scene with Alphonso, I’ll feel infinitely better. I got this shit. I know I got it.

I lit incense tonight about four times. The last time, the smoke lifted into the air and swirled into a perfect circle, and floated off into space. I think maybe time and space gave me a reprieve for just a split second.

I think perhaps I'll always remember it.

An evening of new beginnings I hope.

I opted to audition for Chris' play, although there seems to be a smidgen of hope attached to my reason behind actually doing it. I've always been one of those strange people who uses their alone time at the end of the day to engage in all the things I find impossible outside of normal reality. I was once forced to memorize the Shakespeare to be or not to be. I still remember it to this day. And late at night when no one is the wiser, I sometimes find myself reciting the lines to that one monologue that seems to be forever imprinted on my mind. I imagine that I am Hamlet, that I am myself, reading back over the impossible questions. The questions we ask before we fall asleep at night, when much of the world's insanity is reflected inwards...and only outwards in short bursts of fire and water, silent sobbing and tears to go with it. And in that moment I am somehow infallible, the masses applaud me. And then I think back to the day and hope that such courage can be reflected during the day.

I am beautiful. I am whole. I am learning and searching and wondering if perhaps this life I seem to be embarking on can save me from myself. Turn that beauty to a reprehensible evil that even those closest to me couldn't drag away. But even in the black there is a hope... even when my thoughts turn grey I have this minute glitter in my stomach, saving me from the madness. I am beauty.

Sometimes late at night, when I am alone I listen to the gypsy music. And it takes me here and there, on a wave of brilliance and inner explosions. I think that small bundle of galaxies wandering around the pit of your stomach is what we call a soul. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed I cannot seem to even cry.

I want to go on a journey with someone not afraid to know the open road, and the spirit of living free. I want to embrace old friends and new, and if even not amongst these, I want to guide you slowly through my forest.

I want to live it with you.

If I fail, at least perhaps I tried.

I think that the measure of one's life is taken by the thing you treasure most, and how you treated it. I've always believed that somehow my own happiness can be sacrificed for the well-being of others and that when I die and God says to me, my dear you gave so much to so many... I will finally be able to put all of those distant thoughts of madness and loneliness out of my mind for good. I will have done something good with my life if I can say at the end of it all, that I gave fully to others that they may live where maybe I could not. Is this folly? Perhaps to some it would be. But this is what I know. The electricity of my life will branch out like lightning weaving its way across America, where it will be picked up by a larger wind on the Pacific and be carried onwards, and onwards. I will be the catalyst for changes, large and small.

I cherish my friendships above all, although I fear I cannot give all of what my heart proclaims. I have a million and one emotions all crying out inside me inside a moment and a thousand and one possibilities are all swirling just below the comprehensible... screaming, this is what I feel for you. But can words express that? Can they convey the sweeping heights to which I am carried just by being around a person whom I love, and even in ignorance, love the idea of them? Even if such an idea of them is nothing like their true self. None of us are ever truly who we convey ourselves to be though. Not even now in these words can my reader see the depths of me, although I could try with all of my might to do just that. You could spend an entire life upon this ever changing orb of existence and you would not have spent a wasted life if all your endeavors were to convey some type of beauty for others to see.

Always here I am pondering over the state of what will be, and what I once did and had done, that I worry my life is fading farther from my vision and into the corner of my eyes. But this is not the case, it cannot be. Am I not living now? Through others at least I will live on through time, though my deeds and my mind and face be forgotten. My words in this moment can live forever, resounding outwards and across the universe for a distant star, like-minded, wanderer like myself can have that same inspiration. And that will have been me. It will have been my energy, renewing itself in others. Alien, foreign and un-imaginable. But still living.

I will live in moments. Finite pieces of perfection, scattered over a quite chaotic and unflinching atmosphere of critics and lovers, souls and wonders. I only hope you can manage to do the same. And if you can't, you can come with me.

The measure of my life will be a long and savory thing. Alive and Magnificent.

I pray to God tonight that I may reconnect with the divine in my life. The spiritual. I'm yearning whole-heartedly for a light in this new darkness. Never before have I felt myself so adrift from the part of me I call the almighty. I doubt consistently, rather than create and soar high, high above the swirling chasms of blue ocean. These do not threaten to swallow me whole, as the white whale once did to Ahab...no, I am Ishmael. The forever survivor, but damned to losing myself amongst the vastness. The immensity. I am calling to it this evening. Calling ever so urgently that it may come back to me.

I flounder and need saving. I want the optimism. I do not wish to lose that part of myself. I want to remain whole. I am crying out for salvation from above, and from within, and from about. Save me, and through that let me grant serenity to you.

Amen, Blessed Be.

Tonight, I ask forgiveness for jealousy. This is why.

April sometime, its a date I keep on going back to whenever. When I'm at Daniel's or when we go to a hookah bar and he tells me how his life consists of getting lost in the stories he reads...through which he reflects on his own existence, when he isn't getting lost in the midst of someone else's. Thats good I say. I mean it. He tells about work, and the stories of Mr. Nancy of Anansi Boys and American Gods by Neil Gaiman, of which we both seem to mysteriously have read at the same time. And then he mentions the journal he updates and April flashes in my mind like that unfinished business a ghost might stick around to carry out. April was the last time I updated anything. April was the last time I wrote anything of consequence for my "oh so captive audience".
Fuck.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone even reads these. If they don't, then maybe I am rattling away in my mind, lonesome and isolated as the rest of the world. I guess you could say that a bear shits in the woods, and that if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it...that no one hears it so what's the fucking point? Or that if you were the one in the forest, you know you heard it...but rather than be content with that knowledge you wander around the rest of the week pondering if anyone else heard it? Cyclical bullshit.

But back to sometime in April, back to Daniel. Daniel the scientist, although he might scoff at such a description. Back to alternate dimensions, his and mine fused into an amorphous ever expanding amoeba. Our own private ever growing universe. anti-matter clashing with matter. Stick to science I want to say but I never do. After all, who am I to think I could tell an ever wandering, walking mind like his to stay with the new religion. Science. Literature. Words. Worlds. Four words all beckoning and damning me into this spiraling thought process fueled with virtual ink. You see Daniel doesn't make me angry, what he represents does. What I lack, angers me. A man of science, gifted with an understanding for the living world that I won't ever share or partake in. A man of words and passions, painting his perceptions on paper. I strive for this. The fact that I'm consistently thinking and always wandering and imagining just like him...but with my mortal flaw worn on my sleeve. I'm a hero in disguise, my fatal flaws guiding my hand, rather than letting my hand guide my flaws, my flair, my fucking life. Too much time spent in the grips of that tree falling, and wondering about the sound. I want to forget it, and steal a little bit of that inspiration from a man who seems to have so much of what I need. Be my robin hood. Give to the needy.

I met a poet once who could create a poem out of anything. I thought at the time, I want to be like him. I thought, I want to be that. And then I realized, at least for me, how trivial everything in my life would become if I graced so much with my poetry. I could be philosophical right now, and say that life is poetry. I could masquerade amongst the greats and pretend I had just stated something "deep" and that it was "a timeless question". But you and I know better I think. I'd rather say that my poetry creates something special. Its a gift to those things I immortalize, and through that, it becomes something special. Special moments that make up a meaningful life. Perceptions that make up a meaningful life, and a vague searching hope that something you've done can matter or make some kind of difference. Where that is, you couldn't say and don't know. But the pull is there.

So I push the judgment below the surface and wonder if I aroused any repulsion or anger at my words. I'd say that if I did I managed to succeed twice. Once by having an audience, and two by meaning enough to my readers that they could muster the energy to feel that way. But don't be too harsh, though as you see I can be just the same. Don't judge me before you judge yourself. Imagine that sound, and how the madness of that question can make man do many things...all of which are grand in scope, and can be just as equally malicious. Intent is nothing. Perception is everything. These are my perceptions, and my expression. I have an intent. I suppose its up to you to figure out what it was. And when you do that, explain that damn tree. It's been keeping me up.

Flash at me, you fucking reminder. Perpetually waiting on the next momentary letter, but never enough to satisfy.

Tonight I have a million and one ponderings on the state of my life. My brother, my friends, my friends problems, my next year in college, what perhaps this summer will hold in store for me, and even more so, those bigger questions that everyone asks right before they fall asleep at night, or perhaps when they are alone and isolated from the world. It’s always been my contention that those who lived before the ages of television and radio, before cars and telephones, they had the occupation of the mind to keep them company. So then perhaps that is why words became so popular then. As for now, it seems to be a pastime of folly for those who desire to place some mark upon the earth saying to the heavens: dear cosmos, I am.

My brother called me tonight. He’s driving his girlfriend back to Kentucky. She says she wants to be back home on her own for a while. Michael says they aren’t broken up but yet I don’t seem to believe her. Everyone it seems has it in themselves to fuck my brother over in one way or the other. It seems love only wishes to find those that have never had it in one sense or another. Fairy tales happen to the innocent, not the downtrodden. But isn’t that what every person secretly wishes for, at least a little bit? He’s talking to me on the phone saying, hey I need you to keep me awake, so I stay on the line. He tells me he lost his job again, through no fault of his own. Even I wonder sometimes if he pulls my chain or if he really is just damned to the worst luck in the universe. I tell him that he needs to go back to school. He needs to pack up and leave everything in his life behind that seeks to do him harm and cause ill will.

He, just as I seem to be doing, has a problem dealing with the world as it is. Perhaps its that we can’t seem to find our place in it, perhaps it is that we feel the continuous need to always be doing something worth while. I wish to perhaps inspire with my words, but when I look back on them the only thing that I can see is how much I ponder, how much I dream, but do I ever DO anything? Am I merely sitting back while the world around me moves here and there whilst I have no control over anything in it, not even my paltry existence in it? Sometimes I just want to go up to my brother and say, you and I are partners in crime, we could do a great many extraordinary things. Lets leave. Forever.

Ah the words of a romantic. Ever in love with the idea of leaving all behind for mystery and suspense. But that would only afford me a greater host of impossibilities and problems. Perhaps once I have lost everything I hold so dear, will be the day that I am finally grateful for all that I have. But is it even that? Is it even that I am un-grateful? The human race seems to hold the propensity to better ourselves so close to the goals aims and actions that dominate our lives.

I want a great adventure to dominate mine. I don’t want to sit here at 1:45 in the morning living in my mind. But isn’t the greatest adventures the ones in our minds? A lover is all the more attractive and attuned when we take our own perceptions of them in the flesh, and twist them around to suit our own ends.

I am naturally a selfish being then, because I take all things around me into my mind and thwart them for my own ends. So it is that I want to take my brother, perhaps one of the few people in my life that understand me, understand my plight and my existence in the world, and leave for a world of adventure far greater than death itself!

But these are the dreams of a hopeless romantic condemned to rot in a reality I can no more escape than I can change.

Corrina and I have barely spoken recently it seems. I have seen sporadic moments of her here and there. I spoke with her in text message last night over the coarse of an hour. She tells me that she has visions, though of what in this moment I can’t rightly claim. She tells me she fears death will claim her, but I told her no. I told her God came to me in a dream and showed me two alternatives. There was one where we grew old together, and there was another where she did die. I do not believe; correction, I refuse to believe that she will die. I think I would rather throw myself into a bottomless chasm than experience that. It would be as if a part of myself had died with her, I guarantee I would never be the same person after that.

I once got extremely high, and I was bombarded with the sense of death and ending. I felt a great rift it seemed within my very being. I was so over come that even the slow, faint sounds of grief so overwhelming would not even come out of me. I am reminded of the night I truly knew my parents marriage was at an end, a night where I made sounds I’ve only thought were capable in film and story. You live a thousand times, and die a million in moments like that. And even though I knew her death to be a lie, I could see her standing there before my eyes, I felt like I was standing in front of the great unknown world, a desert of nothingness spreading out before me. No sun, no rain, nor emotion of any kind would visit me in those vast empires of the lost. I felt eager that perhaps I should rush into it. But I refrained. I did not go into it, for I knew that it was not a place that I need tread, and I prayed to God in that moment, as I hid my tears below a blanket laying on her couch, that I would never have to truly see it again.

She told me when I refused her death over text message that I had nothing ever to fear of that death because she would never truly leave me. Not even death could keep me from her.

I do believe this. I believe it will all the heart I have in my soul to give. And while I am weary and tired, and perhaps jaded also, my soul is just as expansive as that desert of loss and despair I glimpsed, though I am its antithesis. I am that place’s enemy. And I will not let myself get lost within it. I hope I will be able to grant some understanding to mine. I hope that God will strike me down if I ever forget her, because I know then I will be past all recourse of redemption and love from others at that point.

I go to my dreams knowing that at least for now, I keep that land of madness at bay. At least for a moment. Illusions can trap just as easily as can reality. I live in a land of dreams. I live in a land of reality. Although I walk a fine line between the two.

I saw Taxi Driver tonight. I decided that I relate to Travis (Robert DeNiro) in this movie. He’s a standup guy, all the other cabbies like him, he plays all his cards right. But on the flip side, the one that no one see’s when he’s alone in his apartment, or silently watching the world, there’s this slow seeping madness and desperation, perhaps brought on by his loneliness, perhaps brought on by the overwhelming mantra of shit that he finds himself within. When he talks to the candidate Palantine in the car, and Palantine asks him what he thinks needs to be changed most about America, Travis responds that “someone needs to clean up this city. It’s just a giant fucking mess” And goes on about it for a little while, not really elaborating, because its impossible to elaborate on something so grand. He only see’s the shit in the world, and when he tries to experience the good, he’s beaten back.

This is how I feel sometimes. Like I’m trapped in my own mind, like, everything going on around me is a product of the twists and turns of a labyrinth shaped by God for what? To drive me crazy? To laugh at, to play the ant in the ant farm? Or, my mind is the advanced stage of the human capacity as the dominant animal, it puts me at the top of the food chain, but does it ultimately lead to my downfall too? Ah timeless questions, I’ll probably never know. I probably don’t want to know really.

I always say that I walk a fine line between madness and sanity. I think that’s what I most related with Travis. One day he’s fine, the next he’s gone off the deep end and feel’s like “destroying something beautiful” as the fight club saying goes. Meh. I used to only think these things when I was alone, now I start to think them when I’m in a group of people. Sometimes I feel like this dark part of me, this gritty un-explored portion of myself is too close to the surface me. But I maintain, that every person has a suppressed and deeply dark part of themselves that they push below the surface to appease society. I know I do. It’s the kind of things you only admit to yourself right before you fall asleep at night, and you pray that if God does exist, that he forgive you for them.

Maybe my darkness will be like Travis’, exposed to the world, heralded and celebrated, and then one day when I am dead and gone, someone out there will think, “maybe that’s not what it was at all”.

Eh. I only partly believe this. Its late. Or early. Late for me. Never too late to re-introduce myself into the world of the waking. Never too late to suppress that side of me again. But do the problems come when you give into those urges? Or when you push them back down into that rarely glimpsed human troposphere? Damn the questions. And damn anyone who thinks me a loon.

I go to sleep knowing that when I glimpse you, I am looking in a mirror.

My mother always told me when I was a girl that love is how amazing someone can make you feel, and love is the end all, and love is when a person loves you so completely that they would do anything for you…but most importantly, love is knowing all the terrible bad shit about you and loving you anyway, and loving you because of it. I understand these things… I understand them being an outsider. Being so utterly cursed to have the unconditional love of friendship, but never that of a lover.

My guy continually tells me, there is someone out there for you Kristen. There is. But most nights I fall asleep thinking of all those people who have someone to lay next to at night. For someone to hold them, and remind them that that one small moment is perfection.

My ponderings on love have led me to understand fully the concept of life not being fair.

It has also led me down a path of personal criticism. Do I not have someone because I’m fat? Do I not have someone because I’m overbearing, or too loud, or intimidating (as often seems to be the diagnosis by people)? Am I ugly?

Am I worthy?

There are really no questions to these answers as of yet. They’ll only really be answered when I do find that one person I’m looking for. But for me, as it has been all my life, it remains elusive.

And it does so while all of my being wishes and hopes and wants that I can have just a little bit of what everyone else seems to be finding… or getting…and irreversibly fucking up.

So I hold on to my faith, even when I question it too. And I keep on going, cuz whats the alternative?

Daniel’s situation with Prari is perhaps the catalyst for tonights thoughts. Daniel says that she’s leaning towards getting back with Brandon. Honestly? I don’t know if this is the right thing for her to do…more and more I wonder to myself.

As I told Daniel, I have so much wrapped up in his relationship maybe’s and almost’s with her that I do with her relationship with Daniel, its really just a question of which one of these decisions is going to suck more for me in the long run? But you know what? I never tell her these things. I never defeat her by giving her an impossible end. I listen. I try to give unbiased advise. I love her, and I am there for her, and I always will be. I look above my self to help her and aid her. And its tiring, and I am taxed beyond belief. But I do it anyway because I love her. I don’t think she realizes how easily people fall in love with her.

I think mostly she takes this for granted. She doesn’t realize how Daniel loves all her imperfections… I told him tonight, and I mean it forever, I wish someone felt about me the way he feels about her. Because I’d have to be a fucking FOOL not to see it and not to feel gratitude every single day of my short life. I would have to be Prari to be so blind to a passion and compassion and love that someone was freely throwing at me.

I only hope that I am not that blind. I hope that God has someone in mind for me. Otherwise, what IS the point in living?



Softly push aside emotions
Meanderings
Ponderings and longings.

Remember:
The unconditional.
The spontaneity.
The perfections and imperfections…

Am I worthy?

Quietly lay aside emotions
Fluttering faintly across my
Waking walking wandering
Memories.

“Love me as much as he loves you”

Gentle possibilities dancing
Like the brilliant
Color spectrum of my life,
Defying logic and laughing in stride.

Flow on ebb and tide
Before all of this wavers,
Whispering faintly,
And finally dies.

Scot and I always had this thing we did together where we would force ourselves to pick our favorite movies of all time and number them. So after a few years without keeping mine updated, I went back and re-evaluated them. Some had gone so far down the list it was embarrassing, some proved to be momentary obsessions, like my Phantom of the Opera phase. Hero’s was knocked off the list completely because I realized the plot itself wasn’t that original, the fighting was cool, but didn’t really trump other fighting movies I’ve seen and its biggest plus was the cinematography which I still enjoy, but alas, it does not belong on the list anymore.

This list was no passing fancy either, it took me well over a day to choose the honored. I have this terrible sinking feeling that I’m missing a crucial film, although looking over Scot’s list I realize I don’t think I’ve missed anything. Potential future holders are A Clockwork Orange (which for some ungodly reason I haven’t seen yet), The Last Temptation of Christ (which I won’t watch unless I’m with Scot), Taxi (the one with Robert DeNiro, not queen Latifah you un-enlightened bastards :P ), and some Akira Kurosawa which I need to digest before I add. The squid and the Whale hold a special place in my heart because I relate to it, but I want to see it one more time. Army of Darkness (along with the Evil Dead movies) is rather special to me, but I decided to leave it off just in case it turned out to be a passing interest.

Some of these films are really new. Like, not even on DVD yet. I consider this to be a testament to my intensely, and generally good, labeling of film. If I like it in theator’s, chances are that I enjoy it after, but for it to have ended up on the list, I have to find myself thinking about it all the time.

There is one film on the list, which amazingly enough, I haven’t seen in its entirety yet, and in all honestly it probably shouldn’t be on the list because of this. But of the scene’s I have seen, I’m obsessed with it, and I fucking love it. I’m Not There, the movie about Bob Dylan’s life. I’ve seen a good amount, and its amazing all over. I’m fairly positive it will remain on the list, but we’ll see really soon.

I made a calculated effort to include films I still watch today from my childhood. I think it really says something that a cartoon beats out film in several areas, but it is in my mind, better than the others for a variety of reasons. The films included are of every variation you can imagine, and one is not necessarily in any way like another on the list. But if you want to get inside my brain in its many moments, you need to see these films. Tell me what you think of my list. And then, go and tell others what your list is. Force yourself to choose numbers. It’s fun, and you discover that it is possible. Even if number 1 and 2 are only separated by a whim, it says something that you can make a choice. ^_^

The hardest decision on this list was numbers 1 and 2, because their genius is almost unparalleled IMO.

1) American Beauty (1999)

2) The Godfather Part I (1972)

3) Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

4) Fight Club (1999)

5) Donnie Darko (2001)

6) The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

7) City of God (2002)

8) Sideways (2004)

9) The Godfather Part II (1974)

10) Interview with the Vampire (1994)

11) Crash (2004)

12) Reservoir Dogs (1992)

13) Hook (1991)

14) The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

15) Apocalypto (2006)

16) What Dreams May Come (1998)

17) The Virgin Suicides (1999)

18) Requiem for a Dream (2000)

19) The Red Violin (1998)

20) American History X (1998)

21) 3:10 to Yuma (2007)

22) I’m Not There (2007)

Everyone annoys me. I annoy myself. Good friends I am annoyed with. Yes, that includes you reading this. I hate the world today.


*hey hey, I saved the world today. Everybody’s happy now, the bad things go awayyyy.*

wtf Kristen, stop being a bitch. You’re just angry over the stupid fucking IDST test tomorrow because you don’t have any idea what’s going to be on it. *grumbles about bullshit*

I care of nothing. I just want to sleep all day tomorrow and be served all of my meals in bed.

I hate life. And I hate Kerrville fucking bullshit ass Texas.

I should be making mushrooms.

45 minutes later…

ok I cleaned the kitchen and made the mushrooms… I really hope I didn’t fuck this up as I spent some decent money making them. Well, if I had had a god damn spice rack like normal people I wouldn’t have had to spend an arm and a leg on spices. Although I have to admit the mushrooms themselves were like 5 bucks. WTF. I was actually complaining in line at the HEB and the guy behind me was like, “well, its mushrooms. They’re worth it.” I paused and thought about it for a second…yea, yea he was definitely right.

So I made the mushrooms. I wish the onions had been more minced, but I only had a blender so it was hard. My stomach is kind of messed up from smelling the white wine vinegar, or maybe smelling it in conjunction with the cake I ate beforehand.

Its ok, if I’m too upset to eat, ill just try one and then let Daniel and Prari have some, and save the rest for tomorrow. I was also going to make Ham Steaks in brown sugar with garlic, but I was so tired after busting out the shrooms that I decided to save the ham steak for tomorrow night. I’ll maybe make it with pasta, veggies, and biscuits… or maybe I should save those biscuits for a better occasion? Like, maybe I should make some kind of soup or gravy or whatever. As Daniel and Al say, Eh. No Meg.

IF these fucks don’t come out right, my hopes shall be dashed to the rocks. God of Foods, watch over the mushrrooooommmsss!!!!


EDIT:: Ok, so I took them to Daniel's and we had them together. He said, "They're fucking awesome." I think they were also pretty good, although next time im gonna see about adding an egg and some celery. Maybe some vinegar. Anyway. They were good, but not as good as they could be.

I have to learn to cherish my alone time. Prari was talking to me off handedly the other day and mentioned that she thought I read a lot of books when I’m alone in my room at night. Maybe. I don’t know about that. I tend to watch movies on my mac, or like tonight, I rediscover music or discover music. Tonights song list is this, you should try it out:

She’s So – Royksopp
Boy Boy Boy – Underworld
All My Friends – LCD Soundsystem
Wayfaring Stranger – Neko Case
American Dreaming – Dead Can Dance

Sometimes I feel so utterly overwhelmed by the amount of things in this world that interest me, or that I want to get involved in, that I feel like I’ll never get to do everything that I want to do. So to cherish what I can do, or what I may do::


Tonight is a light of possibilities
All drifting, falling, feathering
Onto the faint consciousness of my mind.

I’m remembering the pluck of inspiration
As I recalled the day that
all my inhibitions and recoiling moments passed away.

I’m thinking fondly on all the
Whisperings and faintly passings,
Held under luck and key by Muse.

This morning evening standstill
Is lighting my way to forever,
And finally peace at last.

So walk fly sail and glide with me my friends,
And glimpse the first stars of my life
Falling gently like the faintest happening once past upon
The endless flow of things.

I want to write a love song to writing. All about how every fiber of my being yearns for a tender kiss from the muse of my universe. How I think about her every moment of the day, reminding myself that miracles are possible, reminding me that I won’t be forgotten…that I will be granted some amount of time. How I want some fucking attention from her, how the intricacies of her race, creed, orientation, and composition fascinate me. But how in the back of my mind, I consistently feel like I’ll never get a chance to have. How I love and hate her…love the idea of loving her, and simultaneously hate every small detail about her because of how mad it drives me.

Being human is to be a fallacy. To write, is to write fallacy. And through it all…its fucking beautiful. Maybe that’s perfection.

And this is how I feel at 2:40 a.m, and tomorrow at 3, and 4, and 5, and every hour in between when I’m asleep, is how I’m going to feel. So in a desperate attempt to save my fading fantasy of writing something amazing and earth shattering, I’ll wither dismally with the spite of growing old and I’ll enact the timeless price we all pay. And that will be it. What I’ve done in this world will last as long as I created it to last.

But my revelation tonight was not merely the realization that time was ticking (pink floyd made that discovery 30 years ago or so), but that what I really wish for is that thing that’s going to make the world remember Kristen Glass when she is dead and gone… Perhaps Randal contributed in his confessional on loneliness of the ultimate kind, of loss and wastefulness, but not I realized, of a lack of creative energy. He is consistently creating, he is consistently representing the “darkest” chasms of his mind, even if these moments are seemingly fit for a moment alone in his room. Am I not just as driven to express my inner feelings? How similar we are, yet how very different. Sometimes all I want is to grab him and hold on until he knows, by my actions or some other force, that he is not alone. How much we as human’s suffer the pains of loneliness because of our fears, because the inner us, while coping with all the shit this world throws, cannot bear just that small amount of rejection from those who surround us.

Even now, I think terrible thoughts. I make judgments, I call my own beliefs the all mighty, and everyone else seems to me to be so misled. But behind it all, there is the me who just wants everyone she meets to love her. How can there be so simple an answer as science…how can love only be a product of nature? How much I want to throw away the heaps of grey material that clouds my life, that prevents a true relationship with all those I know.

Who would I embrace? What would I say to them? And through that truth, would I destroy the only people in this world that I call my truest friends? They are mine because they accept my faults, they accept the me that I am afraid the world will tear apart, and would, without them.

And this is what makes it a fallacy to live. People all wandering through a world of confusion and imperfections, trying to touch one another, trying to embrace them and somehow say, (and this is what I want to say to all of my friends)

“I am a liar. I am judgmental. I think terrible, reprehensible things…and a lot of the time I wish that I could dash my life from the face of this terribly fucked up planet. But there is something that keeps me from doing it. It’s the faces of those who are in my life, it is the minds and souls and hearts of those in my life that keep me from doing it. It is you loving me regardless. For not finding me fucking repulsive, when a lot of the time I think it enough for both of us. I know that there are things you think about me, that you never say, and that’s ok with me. I know that I may never be the person that you feel you can tell anything, but let me tell you my friend, I’m willing to come all the way. I would rather spend my life breaking down barriers and destroying inhibitions than to live in an uninspired cesspool of bullshit. What a truly amazing world to live in, these ideas, but this is not the world I realize. I want to live, so that one day, when I am 80 and I look back on my life, I can truly say that there is nothing I regret, if however small. This is the society I want to live in. I want to be infinite, but I don’t want to do it alone, if for only the reason to adhere to the fundamental laws of the human condition that no one fully understands. Fuck it, I’ll try.”

So fuck you writing, fuck you my absent muse, for being terrible at your job. Instead of waiting for you to touch me, I’m going to dig deep inside for the tangible. I’m going to write of what I know and understand, and hope that someone, somewhere, can find those words insipiring and helpful. So I guess perhaps I’m not a bad a person as I make it out to be, because why would my ultimate goal consist of being remembered in order to help others. If I was so terrible, I wager I wouldn’t care. Ultimately, I find people fascinating and amazing and terrible all in one…and that’s fucking beautiful.

So that’s my love song to writing. It wasn’t much of anything at all, and it was blind and searching, and maybe didn’t get my point across at all…but maybe, just maybe, somewhere, someone understands where I am coming from…and I’ll have made some small manner of difference…if only for a moment. But at least it would be MY moment.

So… tonight was really fun. It was like, stupid fun though. Prari and I just bummed around the apartment all day, I went to my meeting and she did her dance practice and play practice. We decided when we got back from break that since last semester was so shitty and dark for all of us, that we needed to change some things up. So in order to not be reminded of last semester at all, we re-arranged the entire living room and I’m in the process of doing my room too. I love it even more than last semester. Well, this evening I just jammed out to old Incubus songs as I worked on my room, and Prari went to the H.E.B with Daniel to get him some groceries. Well, they came back and we watched the previews of Adam Sandler’s new movies that are coming out. There’s this one scene of a shark with a weird ass “smile” on his face and in the background there’s a guy doing voice over laughing like an old geezer. I don’t know why but that is some of the funniest shit I have ever seen.

Then of course we had to download a bunch of Adam Sandler songs, two of my personal favorite’s being the Hanukkah song and Piece of Shit Car. So for some reason Daniel decides to carry Prari into her room to bed, because she’s just that fucking lazy. And I’m sitting on the couch in the living room listening to different renditions of Ave Maria, and I found this one that said it was by Michael Bolton…so I had to listen. Well it was improperly labled cuz the voice was Placido Domingo. But Prari asks, whats the name of that famous cheesy love song from the 80’s that he sings. So I look it up. This is it:

Tell me how am I supposed to live without you
Now that I've been lovin' you so long
How am I supposed to live without you
How am I supposed to carry on
When all that I've been livin' for is gone

So then we decided to watch the music video which was even worse than the song because it included terribly awkward cheesy close ups of Bolton’s face and of course, his terrible man wig hair of 80’s bigness. So from there I moved on to that terrible scene from Saved by the Bell when Jessie gets hooked on Caffeine pills… And its really terrible acting, but I recall my 8 year old self saying, “OMG I’M NEVER GONNA DO DRUGS” /innocence

So we sang Michael Bolton for a while…tomorrow, if I remember, I’m going to taunt Daniel and Prari with it from across campus. :P