happy new year

I don’t make resolutions, I make demands, and I want to get what I want. I want a job I care about that’s not in a suburb, I want to return to Uptown slash “that feeling,” and I want to ride a bike everywhere I need and would care to go. Yesterday I saw the sun. Never see it in the dungeon at work windowless 8 to 4, only catch it coming going, never full on and how it wears. I need to grow.

I cleaned my apartment and at one saw the light scatter from the mirrored ball hanging in the window, then at three, cut through the beveled glass in the west window. I miss that every single day proofreading shit I don’t care about in not enough light and too much cold (summer hurry please, my fingers will stop working). Bought lemons today, though I should know better. Made the caffeine-rich almond iced tea lemon explosion ignoring that very well it is the cause of my kidney stones. Had to do it, though. Reminds me of summer and getting things done. Just want to lie in the sun forever.

New Year’s Eve an envelope was passed around the prep department. I put $5 into a pool for the 210 million dollar Powerball, my coworkers and I getting a total of 85 tickets. Never bought a lottery ticket in my life, and for twenty scattered minutes the day through I imagined what it’d be like to win, silly grinned full of doubt but still dreaming, full of a hope I didn’t comprehend, a hope that didn’t quite get me, much less give. We didn’t win. Not even close. And I don’t wonder now what I would’ve bought—not with my share, not with the five dollars.

I’m finally in a position where I have a little money, and I mean a very little money; it disappears quickly into the gaping school loan hole it’s hard to convince to me will be around for quite awhile, so chill out and put your shoulders down. Stop hiding things in your back. A little extra money meaning a couple-few hundred dollars I could buy a nice toy with

But I don’t need anything, and I don’t even want anything money can buy. I want to get what I want, and I want time. A week here and there, or an extra day a week, or a couple hours per day I didn’t feel like doing nothing in, feeling spent wasted in the dark reading messageboards I don’t care about or the submission guidelines for publishing companies I don’t have a book to sell to. But the water comes out of the faucet real hot and I have that to be thankful for.

Having a job is strange—a job without passion or prospects, that fools you into thinking it’s not that bad (“and it’s not”), that takes up so much time and negatively affects the time it doesn’t. Having any full-time job is strange. Deceptive and damaging.

Whether talking to strangers at the supermarket, to friends who are in school now or just left, who entered the workforce (??workforce??) recently or right after high school, the sentiment’s always the same, and I’ve said it myself, and abhor it: You’re lucky you have a job. Lucky to work, so stop complaining, end of story, quit your dreaming. Privileged to take a part, now take apart that teenaged discontent acting like a mid-life if you went home early don’t kid yourself, kid, you’d go to sleep. Sit in front of the TV or surf the internet then parse the hourly wage forty minutes a serving you’ll eat in five and immediately forget when deciding if the fancy soup is worth it. It’s not. You put hot sauce in everything, anyway.

Our fortune is based on but blind to our eyes that sag from pay-outs to social security we’ll debatably ever see, to taxes we’re not so sure about when every social program we care about is cut to pieces or killed completely, when we turn down the heat to save on gas and never see the sun and fucking freeze, but (every-)man woman child alive, in this country, this economy, we’re lucky. What do we need a machine for, propaganda Barbies (“Working is fun!”) and Big Brothers cashing our checks for the debts that ride the American Dream? We shut ourselves up just fine.

My time in Fargo over my five-day vacation was lovely and strange. Saw family, saw friends, went to bars and restaurants I’ve never been, got relaxed, got fed, rained expensive presents on my little brothers and got poured on myself. \

I’m an atheist, and I love Christmas. I cherish the traditions my family has made, and I hope I don’t piss off god when I put a tree in my house and lights in my windows and tell my someday children about the birth of his son I won’t expect them to accept as their personal savior.

In my family, the most beloved custom is the ruining of Christmas. I’m usually pretty good at it but in 2002 got bumped by brother Joe who caused Sam to throw out his back while attempting a pile-driver. Guy was out (as in couldn’t move at all) Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Day. Nice work, Joe. I tried to regain my before-reigning championship, but alas—the Official Ruiner of Christmas 2003 award goes to my mom, who bought Sam an ice-scraper. Sam, liability-boy extraordinare, doesn’t have a car. Zing! Good job, Mom. We love you anyway.

Fargo gets weirder and weirder. Downtown turned into one, big parking lot, they put a library in a strip mall, and at Playmaker’s Pavilion December 27, I saw of all things a suspension demonstration, and I don’t mean the happy deepsicks kind. The demo produced in me the same reaction as any on-display bondage and beating—a give-take combination of disappointment this is weak and disgust this is disturbing, nauseating straight-up with no room for approval, props or legitimate fascination though I keep showing up or at least not turning down the invitations to witness deviance, and that’s what interests me: my role as a spectator. What my eyes and presence mean to the parties on parade when surely they could abuse themselves in the privacy of their own homes.

Am I necessary? Complicit? Aiding and abetting? just how much do I feed into the getting off, and what do I get. As well, if anything.

Ahem. Well. All I can say is Saturday night, the participates looked pretty fucking scared. Grit teeth expressions weren’t tough, they were trying not to cry, young adults my age “on the wild side” creating scars they can show their friends and future grandkids. Funny though, I know, it will never have been different “back then,” and neither will they. Neither will I.

In addition to the demonstration, the band Inconvenience (or possibly Inconvenient?) took the stage and, though not really my style, thoroughly owned. From somewhere I never caught in Minnesota, they are screamy and loud and kinda hardcorish but probably considered nü metal though I’d hate to tag ’em such unless they tag themselves. And I hate to allow appearances to rule, to make a difference in my perception, but I can’t help mention it because I was so… surprised. And pleased. Impressed.

The lead singer was in a wheelchair, and he rocked out hard, totally commanded the stage, could sing/scream well, and not for a moment did the group slip into anything resembling insincerity or taking themselves too seriously. And you know what? Angry, loud music built on power chords and nihilism needs a frontman in a wheelchair. I was unable to find any info about ’em in digerati, but my ears and eyes are wide; I want to know where this leads.

Check out some pictures of Inconvenience in archimago—and also please heed I’ve included some shots from the demonstration. None of these are extremely extreme/clearshot/clear cut these guys are cut up, ’cause… well… I don’t want to. Yeah, this place calls itself deepsicks, but it’s also the internet—you are on the internet—and if that’s what interests you, I’m sure there’s plenty of places to fall into.

But it was too strange. Holding the camera, I was the camera, untouched and detached. Looking at the pictures I dared effectless shining blood shown now make me want to throw up, and it’s not all that cool at all. Be advised, however, that there are shots of people who do have hooks in their bodies, and even obviously, despite my discretion.

I include these because… well… I do want to. The way the light plays or pulls away, the expressions on their faces even if you can’t really see them… it’s something I want to share, public view push into my own audience to add to this experience not my own in the first place, though it adds and affects and detracts from what I thought I was capable of watching and thinking worse of documenting. I’m just glad I want to puke now, yeah? Thankful indeed.

Archimago also has some new Wormwood photos from their December 28 show at Urban Wildlife. Their next appearance is January 21 at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis. Yay.