one fine morning without warning
i'll go through the blue sky
until i do i'll wait for you so
i can get this right...
- Travis, "Ring Out the Bell"

"Vindcated"
It's my head, Schwartz! It's my head!

Aw! Get it out! Get it out for the love of pete!

"Haps to the Birthday, Mephisto"
A few weeks back, Mephisto made me go out to Peace Park and look at the clouds, I hadn't done it in years.

On the way back from the winery, I looked up and saw what looked like a man sleeping in the clouds, and I became really worried that the road I was on and the car I was in and everything I'd ever known was nothing more than this man's dream, and I really didn't want him to wake up.

Haps to the birthday, Mephisto.

"I Dreamed about Killing You Again Last Night and It Felt Alright to Me..."
I've got to stop falling asleep in the living room while trying to read comic books. I won't go into specifics, but last night's dream contained the following elements:

* Erin, Kate, and a lot of cocaine.
* Mel and an irrate Sessions on a walk down Ninth Street.
* I was running around FARC in my underwear. I'd been wearing boxers and a tee-shirt, but I got rid of those.
* The recurring dream theme of refusing sex when offered for odd moral reasons I never fully understand upon waking.
* Why was I wearing underwear under my boxers?

Seriously, Daniel. What's the deal? Morpheus was an artiste. You're turning my dreams into American Pie filler.

"Georges Batroc, Save Me Now!"
I sent my letter off to Marvel today, and it didn't occur to me until I was on the way back from the post office that I'd basically just applied for my dream job. What am I gonna do when that doesn't pan out?

Rather than seriously address this issue, I retreated into that well-populated fantasy world I've constructed in my head: I saw an ad for Shrek 2 last night in which one reviewer said that Puss in Boots is the greatest animated character we've seen "in some time". My first impulse was to wonder just what the hell that meant, "some time". I only ask because I saw an ad for Secondhand Lions in which a reviewer called it the greatest family film since Finding Nemo, which couldn't have come out any more than six months prior to that -- and speaking of Pixar, The Incredibles looks like a real treat, but I'm just babbling now. Anyhoozle, I considered Antonio Banderas' delightful performance as the Marquis de Carabas, and I wondered how I could bring that same type of swarthy foreign fun to my own work, and once again, I felt a strange pang to write Batroc the Leaper, but -- barring any woefully wrong-headed and time consuming stick-figure illustrated chicanery -- that's something I could only do if I got my dream job, and what am I going to do when that doesn't pan out?

Sweet shit! My insecurities have breached the wall! They're in my dream world! Somebody do something! No, Batroc! Not you! You're useless! Help! Superman! What the -- Luke Cage? Um, alright... You get him, Powerman! You clobber that fear! Yeah, Krypto. Shit on him. Heh...

(I've gone quite spastic, don't you know.)

"Good Chinese Apple"
I think I'm becoming one of those people who only sees the bad in others. Actually, I think it seems like I'm becoming one of those people who only sees the bad in others, but there's public Clark and private Clark, and we only ever seem to deal with public Clark these days...

"Bad Chinese Apple"
Does it ever seem to you that the things that look like they'd be hard are sometimes easier than they should be, and the things that should be easy are so much harder?

Is the world topsy-turvy or is it a matter of perspective? Are the hard things easier than the easy things, or is it that the hard things were so much easier than we thought they'd be, while the easy things were harder than we thought, so it just seems like the harder thing was easier than the easy thing, but it wasn't really.? But then again, I haven't really done the easy thing, ever, so how can I really tell?

...

I don't know what I'm so afraid of.

"Exit Music (For a Film)"
In my current line of work, when I'm not dodging sharp plastic G's falling from the sky, I'm hearing a lot of closing credit songs.

I always imagined that if I ever wrote and directed a movie, Ben Folds Fives' "Don't Change Your Plans for Me" would play over the end credits. Because I always figured that any flick I'd make would have to have one of those oddly depressing upbeat endings in which my main character decides to wander off into the world for more adventures. This was not exactly the case with what I finished of Mr. Universe, but the song might be an all right fit for the apocalypse.

Sometimes I get the feeling that I won't be on this planet for very long.
I really like it here. I'm quite attached to it; I hope I'm wrong...

Yeah. That'll do, pig. That'll do.

I don't know what it is about this song that I love. It's not my favorite track on "The Unauthorized Autobiography of Reinhold Messner," but then again, it might be. I have this weird thing -- maybe it's not so weird, really -- where I feel like I have to tell people I'm a different person than I actually am. For example, someone asked me if I was scared of heights yesterday, and I told them I wasn't, because I don't want to be, but I think I really am. I don't stick. I could fall...

But anyway, I really like the idea of seeing credits rolling up a screen, and Ben Folds singing All I really want to say: You're the reason I want to stay. I loved you 'fore I met you and I met you just in time 'cause there was nothing left while a weary and soul-sick audience walks out of a darkened theatre. Poetry in motion, I tell you. Poetry in motion.

And I think, perhaps, that's why it's the perfect swan song in some regards -- or at least the best in Ben Folds' particular catalogue -- because in it's final moments, you've got that beautiful swell of music before that one line I've found myself coming back to over and over again through the years:

I love you, goodbye.
I love you, goodbye.

The sheer adoration I have for these words astounds me, and they probably reflect deeply-seated issues that I need to take out of that box at the bottom of the stack in the corner, remove from their mylar protective bags, and flip through and address, but I'd really rather make my mixed metaphors and ignore them for now.

I mean, I'd love to shed some light on this subject, but destiny is calling and won't hold and when my time is up.

I'm out of here.

NEXT:
37 Life Lessons...