Disappearance

Sometimes it feels like I'm disappearing.
Sometimes I don't care.

Reflex/Reflects

Sometimes you can walk by the same place (or person) a hundred times before the light hits just the right way and reveals the subtle beauty that has been there all along. I've got that funny feeling in the back of my throat like certain words just won't come out.. or maybe I'm getting sick, I'm not sure. "Just cuz he can't hear what you say doesn't mean that he's not listening." After the sunset the only thing that lights up my face is a computer screen and the occasional fleeting thought of a brighter future. The lights are out tonight. I'm going to take my chances curbside against the flow of traffic and hope to turn up somewhere that I can flip the switch. The road is there for travel but it's mostly for the return.

dm.

Shot.

Throw down your cameras! The exclamation point makes me sound far more enthusiastic and/or excited than I could be bothered to even pretend to be right now. I feel completely disillusioned with the idea of photography at the moment. Perhaps my constant documentation of the minutiae of my life is beginning to have a negative effect on my feelings about the art form and probably the quality of my work (or lack of work, as it were). I find myself becoming the people I recently mocked in a photo essay in Washington, D.C. That may be what sparked this feeling in me. While documenting the way people experience our nation's capital, I noticed people simply living through their cameras and not experiencing anything at all. After reviewing the photos and the idea I realized I am one of those people. I do things all the time but almost for the sake of a photo. I enjoy looking back on my daily photos, but I also realize that I am not progressing toward anything. I either need to become much more actively involved in creating a portfolio while gaining experience or I need to stop thinking I can do this and move on to something I can do. I need to shit or get off the pot. It's almost like using my camera for documentation has made it seem less than art to me. I can't be happy with any image I get. I'm too scatterbrained at the moment to even articulate all the things I'm thinking......

I need a new camera. With a good lens.
I need a process.
I can't focus on anything.
I am far too easily distracted.
I don't think I'm good enough for anything.
Everything keeps moving whether I like it or not.
Or not.

dm

There is no mirror reflective enough to show us who we really are.

A Family of Melting Snowmen

Everything is temporary.
Everything we spend time carefully building falls apart.
With time.
Our homes, our beds, ourselves.
There is no permanence.
Our idea of permanence is temporary.
It changes with age and understanding.
The realization is slowly revealed to us.
We are a family of melting snowmen.
Each part of us that was carefully crafted drips away.
Without regard or remorse.
We shrink in the sunlight, clinging to a cold core.
Wishing for winter nights to feed our souls.
Even if we sculpt a new exterior, we're gone.
Our essence absorbed into the ground.
Where we stay forever.
Or whatever forever means to us right now.

dm.

Sense

Sunlight is subdued today
Cloud cover plays through speakers
Echoes in a large expanse
Familiarity lingers vaguely in the air
Numbers count down to when it’s no longer okay
To be here or anywhere near
Aisles to exits that shine for attention
Demanding they be taken.
Seriously.
Exhaustion weighs heavy on eyes that never want to close
Vision lies with perception; without sight
Feeling is beyond what is tactile
It is not beyond attempting to touch
Singing words aloud to deaf ears
Words carry only the value we assign
Far from where they once resided
Finding new homes among strangers
How could anything convey an idea
Tastes change and speak in different tongues
Ideas pervade, even with a simple gleaning
Books hold words but seldom meaning.

.dm

The Tree

Everything is ugly sometimes.
The tree that grows from a seed stands dying in winter.
Rotted fruit lies beneath.
Once sweet and alive, it caves in on itself, shriveling in the cold.
The tree provides no shade for there is no sun.
Only gray.
Diffused light that covers life in a blanket of misery.
Quiet seems only too apropos.
Artificial death calls to end this; fittingly.

dm.

Walking forward

I closed my eyes on the brightness
I opened them up to the quiet blue evening
Feeling the seasons change can be exalting
Time is fleeting and that lesson is frequently taught
Years are teachers and minutes are messengers
Traveling a path most taken
Moving on doesn't always mean letting go
It just means you have to extend another hand.

I've never told anybody that before

My vision moves much slower than my eyes.
Staggering down a straight and narrow path.
Moving when I should be standing still.
Or is it the other way around?
You're one in a million to me.
While I'm just one of a million.
It seems like despair is much better at taking over than happiness.
Maybe because you just feel it more heavily.
Happiness makes you carefree and light.
You lose track of time when you're floating.
It drags along when you're pinned under an oppressive rock.
I'll just swim down until I reach the bottom.
I'm waterproof but I'm running out of air.

Building a House With No Foundation

Where's my head?
I've traveled so far and I knew I was going to forget something.
Thinking too clearly to really be me.
I'm usually cloudy with a chance of fucking stupid.
You should do card tricks because you're quite the illusionist.
Never mind the accidental references.
Get over yourself long enough to see who you're under.
Working out these meaningless words so they can have definition.
My heart strings have me tied up and locked in a back room.
In a way I don't want to break free.
How long can I live isolated from reality?

dm.

I just wanna feel...

We're taking a trip but I can't stop falling.
Headed in the right direction but I'm more than lost.
You can measure the miles in my stare.
Trying to distance myself from the knowledge.
My feet are next to yours but I know where I stand.
I'm lying in your bed but never in your head.
The line between us is a moat.
I'll never be royalty.
I've got fires to be started with all this yearning.
I keep hoping this is a fire worth burning.
The same voice that puts the wind in my sails can take it out.
I'll stop this ship from sinking so I can drown the crew myself.
Your lips are the horizon I can see from distant shores.
I'll set a course for destiny and hope you'll come aboard.

dm.

There is no progress.

A Fallen Leaf

"They" say that you show yourself in your artwork without even trying. I feel like this shot of the foggy forest in autumn is a reflection of how I've been feeling lately. The trees are losing their leaves, their life, their once vibrant appearance, dropping to the ground in brilliant color before quickly turning to brown to be stepped on and forgotten as they return to the earth. It's impossible to focus on the things that are right in front of me, as close as they seem to be. I'm always thinking two steps ahead and never worrying about what's right under my feet. Even at mid-day, the dew remains on my grass, as I never let anything get too old except myself. Even the flattest ground seems like a slippery slope on days like these. The future is uncertain, shrouded in a fog that won't pass. It keeps me wondering how far my path carries on. I'll never know until I get there. Walking through clouds can't get me anywhere, but I keep heading for them and ignoring the solid ground that's holding me up. I seldom notice how askew my perspective is until I fall back on an autumn day and look up at what I've become. Tread lightly.

dm.

Open Letter to the Weather

The constant patter of rain outside my window that sometimes soothes me like nothing else is now nothing more than a constant taunt. A bully that hangs out around corners waiting for me to walk by so he can knock the books out of my hand for no other reason than to ruin my day. In this case, the bully is God, if you believe in that sort of thing. Or Mother Nature if you take that phrase seriously. I think it just comes down to really bad fucking luck. It does seem uncanny that the weather patterns seem to arrange themselves in such a way that the majority of annual rainfall occurs on days when I have something outdoors planned. This phenomenon appears most frequently when camping is involved. Muddy ground and not-so-waterproof tents are things that are just par for the course when it comes to sleeping under the stars that are above the clouds. Most recently, the rain tried to spoil my trip to Boston but only managed to make it just a little bit more annoying. This morning, as the rain lands on the ground outside like a constant tap on my shoulder to let me know that it's still there just to fuck up my day, I resign. I give in to the precipitation that follows me like the proverbial black cloud and accept my fate. It won't stop me from enjoying the day. I will thrive under the cold drops, taking in the moisture like a starved plant. I won't be finding a new way home just to avoid this ubiquitous thug. I'll stand up to walk straight into its face until it backs down or until I'm done hiking the Pinnacle Trail. Nice try, rain. This is happening.

Lose, lose

You're always closer to the front of my mind than the back
At the tip of my fingers but not close enough to touch
I wish you only existed at the vector of my gaze
I don't know when I took up residence in this selfish place
Lying in the place of better men, I rest my head
Nothing that I think seems to go unsaid
I keep my hands on the wheel and my eyes fixed on the rearview
Because no matter how hard I try I can't see where this road leads to
The match was lit and it just keeps burning
You can't put out this fire and it's starting to make you worry
I imagine the eyes that would stare me down to nothing
And hands that could break me without ever touching
My eyes adjust to the dark and now I can see
It could take forever but this is where I want to be.

dm.

i hope it feels this way for you

the future doesn't exist.
only in our minds.
that's as real as the conversations we have with dead people.
i try to imagine a future--any future--but it's only an idea.
tomorrow is only possible, not definite.
it's only inevitable in our heads.
we could cease to be at any moment in time.
this is fiction.
we create the world around us.
we destroy everything that we've created.
some more than others.
tiptoe past the ones who care en route to self-destruction.
we only have the present to manipulate.
and each other.
the future is concept.
reality is in front of us but passing by with haste.
leave the past on the soles of your shoes.
the future is past.

dm

I am but one small instrument...

I hurt myself at the concert the other night. My knee. Again. I spent all of yesterday in the hospital for the most part. Just getting x-rays and scans, not because I was seriously injured or anything. The doctor said to stay off it and come back on Monday. So I'm going to New York today. I have things to write about but not now because it's awkward keeping my leg in this position right now. They had me in the CT for so long, lying perfectly still, staring at the holes in the ceiling as I thought about God, fate, karma and what was going to be my summer... can't stop me.

dm

Laundry list of problems.

Demetri Martin is doing stand up but nowhere near New Jersey.
lame.
Las Vegas in a few weeks.
not that excited.
I don't have any food in the house...
I need to go shopping.
I can't wait until the work on the house is done.
I'm a little sunburned from surfing.
I want to go for a bike ride.
I might do that now.
I need to get hummus.
See ya later.

dm

Letting go is love...

I have to be up in a little over five hours to drive Nathan to Brooklyn. I offered to do it but now that I'm still awake so late it feels like an obligation. I'm tired. Why aren't I sleeping? The internet. Updating blogs. That's what happens. I had a long day.. I really need to get some rest. I went kayaking, biking, played home run derby and took a long walk. It's time for bed...

more to come...

dm.

I hope we all feel alright..

I went kayaking with Nathan today. The other day when I went hiking in PA I realized that there is so much that I want to do with my summer and I need to do it now when I can. I have time off with no job right now and I want to use the opportunity to do the things that I really want to. Even if I have to do them by myself, I want to do these things by the end of summer:

-go surfing a few times
-one hike a week
-bike to the shore again
-bike from the shore to Philly (by the end of summer/early fall)
-several day backpack trip
-run an 8k or 10k
-kayak the Maurice River

That's just a basic list of the physical activities I'd like to do this summer. I'm sure there's more that I forgot right now... I also want to:

-finish my portfolio
-enter at least one show or gallery
-learn more on acoustic guitar
-record a few songs (maybe?)
-finish the garage/rec area/exercise area
-finish episode 3/start filming pilot of Don & Chuck

That's another basic list... I also want to read more. I just ordered three new books on amazon that will be coming this week so I need to finish up the book I'm reading so my slate will be clear for the new ones. Let's hope I can follow through with these goals.

Time to go for a bike ride.. it's way too nice to be sitting inside.

dm

Miles away

I woke up to a beautiful breeze, a sunny day... and arguing neighbors.
...and they can't even speak proper English.
Oh, New Jersey, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.
I need to leave.

dm