Ashes to Ashes...

Time is flying. It feels like time is being pulled out from underneath my feet. It is here, and then it is gone. It makes my anxiety and myself look like a fool… I worry over things that are here and then gone. My anxiety attacks me in the moment over the moments to come, and once they do, they are here so quickly, and then they are behind me.

S.W. was a man that Stephen met on the internet. They chatted many times. Stephen thought he was hot, and once I saw his pictures, and so did I. He came to New York maybe six months back. Maybe eight, I don’t know. Stephen ran into him out and about on a Friday night, and S.W. was apparently trying to get into Stephen’s pants to the point of being obnoxious. But who doesn’t after a few drinks? ☺ The following Sunday at the Eagle Beer Blast, S.W. came up to me. He behaved the same. I tried to speak with him, but he was very much focused on the one thing. I declined his advances for spending more time with my friends, but i thought good for him. After all life, is short, and he knew what he wanted and didn’t mind putting himself out there to get it. It's a lesson a lot of people could stand to learn. He was handsome, and you could tell there was a kindness in his eyes, but there was also hurt. He wanted desperately for someone to love him for who he was. I hope he found that.

Stephen got a call from his S.W.’s brother yesterday. S.W. passed away from spinal meningitis. When my boyfriend called me on the phone to tell me, all of my memories mentioned above came flooding back to me clear as day as if they were happening simultaneously. To think that this person, this stranger who I spoke with was here, and is now gone. Somehow it’s more bearable to deal with celebrities and rock stars and former president’s wives…but when it is a stranger that I spoke with…it is somehow more real. Those in the news media are like Greek gods to most people. I feel like I live in Olympus living here in Manhattan. I am not one of the gods, but I see them on the streets and in stores and in restaurants. But still, S.W. is someone who I actually spoke with, who I gave a hug to as I left. He was someone real to me, who I embraced, if only for a moment. And now his body is in the ground.

It seems like such a foreign concept. This morning I woke up and all I could think about was him. What was he like? Had he been a happy child? What things went through his mind as he was about to take his last breath?

It is a slippery slope for me to even think on it. I have never been good with death, having lost so many as a child and then later as a teenager. I have never feared rejection, for at least that person lives on. It is abandonment that devours my core at time. The fear of my friends and loved ones leaving me. And yet my greater fear is what comes next, for it is so uncertain. I don’t fear hell, because at least there would be an awareness. But what if there is no awareness. What if Rex is no longer Rex. Then Stephen and all that we had is gone. Carsin and Caleb, my niece and my nephew, their laughter is gone. My friends vanish. All of this, all of these beautiful and terrible things that we live through and cry over and squander and embrace and fight for … it is all gone.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

It is hard to even try and wrap your head around. So I won’t.. I will try to go about my day, breathing in the world around me, and trying to smile despite the tears that hide just behind my eyes.

I didn’t know you S.W. , and for that, I apologize. But I hope that your life was good.

Yesterday & Tomorrow, A Rant

Remember myspace? Most of my peeps in NYC are long over it and have since moved on to the new, more user-friendly facebook, but most of my friends back home in Texas are still avid myspacers. So I just hopped on myspace, which I haven’t done in a few months. And lo and behold, a few people that have recently popped up along the periphery of my subconscious had either friend-requested me or sent me a message. Be it psychic or simply synchronistic, as I read the messages, old vibes washed over me. Thoughts of not what it, but what could have been. What if I had stayed in Austin, or moved to a small town? What if I had opted to travel the world and not concern myself with my next paycheck or taxes as I once had planned? What if I ended up with a married to a woman and had 3 kids? Hehe. That is doubtful, but with this life, there are no guarantees.

As a kid I dreamed of a shiny jetpack future. Spaceships traveling to resorts on the moon, hover skateboards, personal flying rocket backpacks, tiny credit-card sized computers that guided you through everything you need… (okay, so iPhones are close on that last one). I could give you a total rundown of my expectations but neither of us have the time to write or read that much. Let’s suffice it to say, that this is not what I had envisioned. This is more of what I had hoped for, but then again i grew up on Star Wars. Sure, there are huge TV screens in Time Square, but where are the eco-friendly hover-cabs? I don’t know. I honestly expected us to be further along. In technology, in taking care of our planet, in taking care of ourselves. I mean, we don’t even have cures for cancer or AIDS.

I feel like the process got retarded along the way. The wrong people were put in power by people who rather fuel cars with gas and oil than help the earth. The people who control the world of medicine rather treat the symptoms than cure the illness… otherwise they wouldn’t stay rich. We don’t have hover-shit because we’re too busy fighting amongst ourselves down here. It’s sad. We could have done so much, but instead our petty squabbles and greeds have destroyed the hopes we had as a kid. It makes me worry for the future.

No, not all this comes at looking at myspace pictures of friends I haven’t seen in the better part of a decade. But it is good to see their faces. Whether they’ve gained weight or cut their hair, or popped out a few kids, their eyes still have the same glint of life. Some are sadder, some are happier, some are simply more wise, but their eyes still echo familiar with me. Flipping from album to album and pic to pic, I think of all the decisions it took for me to get here instead of there. It’s a bit of a mind-fuck really. Everything starts to feel like a dream, reality fades its light, and your mind wanders to other possibilities of what you could have had.

The funny part? When I come back to this life, I’m glad I made the choices I made. The reality I built for myself is a good one. It’s no doubt easier for me to say it because I have this great life with a great boyfriend and a great home and a rad job and rad friends, etc. etc. etc. I’m sure if I was miserable, I’d be less pleased, but for now? I couldn’t be happier. Well… maybe if someone gave me some money…

Anxiety, Ideas, & Home Sweet Home

I don’t get it. I’ve been working each day to calm my mind, to quiet my thoughts, to fight the voices in my head that try to keep me in fear. So why is it that come Friday night, I have a kind of small terror grow over me in the face of a relaxing weekend? What is it about next month’s cruise that instills in me a panic, not just for the flight, but for the following week?

As I walked to work today, under a beautiful blue and open sky, and a cool breeze stirring the leaves around me, I tried to sort it out. It isn’t the trip itself. It isn’t even the flight. It’s simply the idea of being caged by the circumstances surrounding my vacation.

The idea of being powerless taunts me. The idea of being out of my safety zone, and far from home, scratches at my mind like a terrible itch. It isn’t getting on the plane that offends me, it is the metaphor the plane has become: a symbol of something taking me away from what is only an idea of safety. Home.

Home. It is likely the most comforting word in the English language. It is where a person can be him or herself. Where one can drop all pretenses, and quit playing the games that we all play in the day-to-day rat race of our lives. It is where we feel safest. It is where we are surrounded by our belongings and those keepsakes of times before. We can be happy there. Or sad. Or angry. Whatever the case, we can do whatever and be whoever we want to be. There is no pressure.

But it is all an illusion. As with anything in life, anything can disappear in a moment. A home can be lit on fire, or washed away in a flood. A gale wind can drop from the sky, pick up your home, and toss it like a rag-doll. And these are just natural instances. My point being, no matter where you feel safe, an event can take away your idea. An idea is just that, it is a concept. An idea can be a thought, a conception, a notion. It can be an impression, an opinion, a plan of action, an intention, or even a groundless supposition or a fantasy. But it is a thing that exists solely within the mind. It is a result of mental understanding. But a mental understanding can be wrong. An idea can just as easily be false as it can be true.

The world at large once had an idea that the world was flat. And that was inaccurate. That was false, in the realm of facts. As children, many have an idea that Santa Claus brings them presents on Christmas. That is also false in the realm of facts. And let’s face it, we all have ideas floating around in our heads that we defend righteously…only to late discover that we were wrong. So why do we cling so vehemently to these things called ideas?

Perhaps it is simply ego. Perhaps it is an environmental trait we picked up as stubborn children attempting to match the stubborn nature of the adult world. Or perhaps it is a survival instinct we needed tens of thousands of years ago to survive in a harsher world. Maybe our predecessors needed to embrace that which they knew and believed. I don’t know that a single answer can be written. I do know that I struggle with anxiety. With fear. I have most of my life. But when I was younger, it seemed much easier to overcome. But now? Now it seems almost worse, despite my knowing how much I have survived.

Haha, listen to me talk. You would think I am having fear about going off to war. I am literally having fear about going on vacation! It is ridiculous.

And I know it is ridiculous. There are people without the money to go on vacation. There are people with too many responsibilities to pick up and adventure for eight days. But here I am, scared of my own shadow. Yes, right now, in this moment, I know I am a fool. What am I trying to hold on to? What is it that puts knots in my stomach in the middle of the night? It is like I am only half the keeper of my mind, and the other half is controlled by another. I hate it. Why can I not simply let go of these fears and move past them without a second thought?

…

I don’t know. But I’m working on it. Dispelling the illusion of safety is something I have done before. But apparently it is a lesson I need to relearn. I have fought my fears in the past, but they have an insistency to return. Now I am armed with the knowledge that I am a prisoner of my own ideas. You would think that would help me in some small way. But I am a creative, which cannot help matters. As I can build entire worlds of fiction for my characters and my novels, I can do the same with my own fears and anxieties, armoring them against my own defenses. If I were outside my own head, I would likely marvel at the complexities of my own mind. Instead, I’m just annoyed.

So I guess I just have to try and break down the barriers of ideas. Find a way to dispel the solidarity of the things I think I know, and instead uphold the truth: that ideas are just that. Ideas. There are facts in the physical world, but the anxieties I have are simply fears with no concrete standing. My anxieties are wisps of air in the reaches of my mind. But amazingly, they still manage to cause me pain and discomfort.


“When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive: to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
- Marcus Aurelius

dream a little dream...

A warning... my dreamed are FUCKED UP. they always have been. but the great thing? I'm a writer, so they always inspire me. so enjoy...


All my dreams last night were all very tied together in a small texas town. I don’t know that it had a name, but I know it was small and in texas, and it was supposed to be located somewhere between Austin and San Marcos, both places of where i had lived, both plkaces only a few hours from the desolate regions where shit like the Texas Chainsaw massacre is supposed to take place. Anyway, this is a dream town that at some point I had supposedly lived…

It was a nice summer night and i was having a party in my front yard as were many of my neighbors. It was a block party and there was bbq and beer and good conversation. Parts of the crowd were going across the street to my new neighbor’s house. They had done up there whole house Halloween-style and wanted people to come over and take a Halloween "Scary tour". I realized I had never met my neighbors, as they had only just moved in a few days previous, but still had no interest. I didnt like Halloween and i didnt like being scared. All my coworkers were going but still I hesitated.

As we had all stayed out drinking and partying on my front lawn, dusk became night and night was becoming dawn. The partying was thinning and i didnt remember anyone saying good-bye, but so it goes. With the sun coming up I felt safe to go into my neighbors house. It was day, nothing went wrong in the light of day, i thought.

One girl and a guy who worked with me agreed to go with me. We knocked on the door and a little girl answered, and said come in, take the tour, then ran off into the back.

"What about the parents?" I asked. "Don’t you think its odd no one has seen them? I feel uncomfortable going into a house with just kids and no parents?" My coworkers were like, "Rex come on, don't be a pussy. The parents are probably downstairs working the tour."

We went through the living room which seemed already very lived in, which was weird considering they had only lived here for 2 or so days. The walls were dirty, the room unkempt, the tv on. There were old halloween decorations hanging about but they all seemed covered in dust and tattered and torn. Nothing was new. The room reminded me of a 70’s home that had been left to grow old over time.

We turned around the corner, there was a single bedroom with a single bed that was untouched. There was a bathroom. And then there was a long stairwell down into the basement. The stairwell seemed rather longer than it should be, and the whole house felt wrong. It felt dark. The little girl, in her white dress and her dark eyes, and her two front missing teeth, laughed, and said, come on! And disappeared into the darkness.

"I changed my mind," I said. "I’m gonna go wait on the couch."

So I did. I sat down on the couch, which threw dust into the air when I sat. I watched an old 50’s or 60’s sci-fi film. The tv was as old as the movie. Huge box with fake wood paneling and dials and no remote. The picture was hazy, as if color were a new concept. The movie was only just entertaining. It was the kind with ships flying around, but you could see the strings holding them. There was a ship lost in space and melded with another ship and then almost crashed into another ship, and then a space robot came to attack this ship that held the last people from earth. If they died, humanity died.

And I fell asleep on the couch.

When I woke I looked outside and realized it was still night. How was that possible, we came in at day? I hadn’t slept for 14 hours, had i? I looked at the windows and they seemed almost reverse tinted. Something was wrong. Where were my coworkers?

I looked outside the window and there was no one outside. I went to the front door, except there wasn’t one. The front door had vanished. "fuck fuck fuck fuck."

I walked to the deep stairwell. And looked down into the darkness. I heard talking and laughter. I started to walk down the stairwell. I took two steps and stopped. The laughter was behind me. I walked back and found the room with the single bed, except the whole room had changed. The bed was much larger, and the two girls sat beside the bed talking to my two coworkers who were in the bed with the sheets and blankets pulled up to their necks. I looked at the little girls, both with white dresses, and they were laughing. They had chocolate smeared all over the bottom half of their faces and they both had forks in their hands. And they laughed and giggled together at me.

"We have to go, something is wrong," I screamed at my coworkers, but they just laughed. I pulled the sheets back, and there it was.

There bodies were open like boxes. Their innards were gone. They were hollow, as the girls had been eating their insides. My coworkers laughed. "This is the best Halloween tour we've ever been to!" And the girls laughed, and I realized that it wasn’t chocolate smeared across their faces. The girls ran back over to my coworkers and resumed cutting with butter knifes and forks at the insides of my friends.

I suddenly realized I had to escape, that the parents would be home any minute. And if the children were this ghastly, how bad would the parents be?

Then the alarm went off and I woke up.

In case you don't know: my boyfriend.

Trailer Park to New York

I grew up in a trailer in Texas. A trailer, if you don’t already know, is a large tin box put up on cinder blocks and called a home. My neighbor had these huge faded-pink plastic flamingos in her yard that were so old they were rotting and caving in on themselves. She herself had a concave face with only two teeth in her mouth, both of which had assumed a kind of yellowish-brown color scheme that the flamingos were beginning to adopt. She and her plastic pets looked like something out of a horror movie.

My parents divorced soon after (not because of the old woman or her flamingos, mind you) and my mother and I moved into an apartment, and I took up reading comic books. They were a source of escape and fantasy. Every time I turned a page, I was the ultimate hero, or sometimes the sinister villain, and I could do anything. In my mind’s eye, I could move objects with my mind, or I could see the future. I even dreamt that one day I could escape my welfare upbringing that I was oh-so-ashamed of when I later attended one of the richest school districts in Texas. My peers were driving BMWs to school and my mom was a waitress at Ming Dynasty serving pu-pu platters.

So I read comics. And I came up with my own worlds and realms and colorful cast. I wrote and drew (though not well) and fantasized that one day people would read my work. But it was a fantasy, and under it all I knew that. I didn’t think myself hopeless, just realistic.

I never could have guessed that a mere decade later I’d be living in New York City working in the comic industry I was obsessed with growing up.

It takes a certain kind of human animal to thrive in this city. It’s not just that you have to be hard-working and diligent, you have to be willing to tolerate the smell of piss on the subways some mornings. You have to have a kind of ambition underlying your sense of self, something in you that is not willing to wait for the next lifetime. You have to know that you have to do something.

So here I am, planning comic book conventions for a living. I answer to Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the Justice League. (I’d love to work with the X-Men and the Avengers as well, but they work for the other company at the moment.) I read comics, attend comic-cons, and meet the big guns behind the books I loved as a kid—and I get paid for it.

The comic books that used to be for fanboys and nerds are now plastered all over the big movie screens—and they’re making millions. The transformation from indie comics to Hollywood hard-hitters and from 1930’s pulp to the new century of CGI, comics are the LA agent’s new best friends. We’re all familiar with the Spiderman, Superman, and X-Men franchises. And for those of us in the know, we were happy as pigs-in-sh*t for movies like V for Vendetta, Hellboy, and the upcoming Watchmen. And of course this summer, we’re all wetting ourselves over Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Batman’s Dark Knight.

What’s this have to do with me? I’m writing comics, meeting illustrators, networking editors, and all the while still dreaming big. Whether I’m on the precipice of getting published and making a name for myself, or if I’m just destined to hang in the background, I don’t know. What I do know is life is good.

My fellow nerds have done great things. From comic book to movie screen, people’s dreams are being realized every day. Why not mine? Why not yours? I came from a tin can house on bricks and now I live in one of the greatest cities on earth in an office surrounded by my fellow geeks.

Have a dream, follow it, and see what happens. The worst thing that could happen is you end up happy.