Sometimes I just want to kick myself. (Part 1 of How A Resurrection Really Feels.)

A voice comes over the loudspeaker. It's so early in the morning, you can tell they're just taking care of their daily prep. Lucky for me, I'm the test sample.

"Hello, hello, hello..." mutters the voice lethargically. "god damn, I'm hung-over."

I look around, and no one else has batted an eye-lash.

It somehow grows darker outside. I'm asked to turn off my phone, and electrical devices until we're at a certain altitude. Everyone else just closes their eyes, and prepares to wake up fresh as a daisy in a new time zone. I look through my texts one more time, and think, "Sometimes I just want to kick myself."

"Sir, when the sign asking you to put on your seat-belt is on, that also means turn off your cell phone. When it goes off again, you can turn it back on." She doesn't mean it rudely. In fact, she says this with a perfectly legitimate smile on her face.

"Just...another minute, okay?"

She places her hand on top of mine, and continues to the back of the plane. Moments later she returns with some unidentified drink in a clear, plastic cup made to simulate class. However, worrying about class in coach, in a middle seat while Lindsay Lohan traipses across the screen in some wacky comedy. You see it in her hollowed-out eyes; she's trying to justify her addictions and proclivities for tabloid-rag front pages. "I still belong." And for a second I feel a connection to Lindsay Lohan. And in the next I feel a burning fire in my throat. Cheap whiskey on a cheap flight at some ungodly hour in the morning.

This is class done with class. This is style done with style, boy.

A story unfolds on the tiny screen in front of me. It's funny how something the size of a pocket planner can change every moment of your life.

I hold the "End" button with less and less certainty. What's in front of me is waiting for me the moment this plane lands. For now I can pretend. That every mile conquered in the sky is an accomplishment. That I'm doing something with my life, and that if my dad could see me now he'd be impressed and proud.

But at three in the morning, while the rest of the world is asleep, every thought is revolutionary.

Thoughts like driving down a dark highway alone, with the windows rolled down and the Pacific in the distance and the radio screaming the playing field in equal parts entertainment, and relativity. Where the sun never rises again.

The kind of relativity only the truly broken hearted, open eyed could ever actually relate to. The kind of relativity only a beating heart fueled by plasma, soul, rock and roll and love could relate to.

The kind of relativity that when that singer sings so passionately, that when they sing good-bye, you feel that strength, too.

See, for some of us, the worlds coming to an end. We're just waiting for the final rotation. We aren't nihilists, we just want that experience. We just want confirmation that that choking feeling in our chests was justified; that our intentions weren't vilified.

There's a last second straggler just like myself. She isn't haphazard, she's just frazzled and tired.

She sits near the front, and she's fidgeting nervously. She keeps going through her things, over and over. Like a record with a small skip, she continuously checks a small red bag.

Outside the sky is so dark, the lights on the tarmac seem futile. Beads of rain decorate the street in a sheen of clean, clean evanescence. This city is washing it's hands of me. Tomorrow it's going to wake up with a clean slate. The grass is going to be just a shade greener; the sky just a little bluer, the air just a little fresher.

The seat begins to pull me back, keeping in rhythm with the growing hum on the outside. Ears begin to clog with pressure.

And in seconds the ground below me twinkles less, and less brightly. I stare in awe that I was allowed to escape without the ground opening up and eating the plane whole.

I want to read. I want to listen to music. But what I want most is to live in this moment unmolested.

The ground growing blacker and blacker, the air getting cooler and cooler.

The girl up front, she's slipping on a light pink hoodie. And if I hand't seen it with my very own eyes, I would have never believed it.

She pulled out a flask. I don't even know where you get a flask these days. Much less the brazen fortitude it takes to sneak one onto an air-plane, especially when it's made out of metal. Somehow, her exploiting an obvious hole in our Homelands Security makes me comfortable, and happy. The warming effect of my own drink helps, too. And despite it all, I'm smiling.

Sometimes it is those little things. Those small victories we achieve when absolutely no one is watching. When all the right people turn left, and we get the chance to sneak right and live in a different chapter of a better book. A book not everyone gets to read, because to read this book means your a lifer, whether you like it or not. You don't sample the fruit, you feed openly.

But one thing...there is absolutely no turning back.

She drinks without concern for regulations on flight safety. She drinks without regard for silly things like sobriety, livers, or taste.

I find myself drinking with her pace, and having a great time trying to keep up.

The lights are dim in the cabin, everyone else is sleeping. Dreams of flying, dreams that mean nothing, dreams that can, and will be forgotten. What a waste of what little imagination we have left.

I keep getting sympathy drinks from the flight attendant.

I keep racing a stranger that doesn't even know they are in the middle of a heated competition.

There is mild turbulence, and while some of the slightly conscious grip their seats with half-awake white-knuckle fear, I relax and sink deeper into my seat.

It was 1997, and we were just kids. We'd heard the adults constantly say how we were joined at the hip. I smile with half my face. The other half knows what the other is trying to ignore. I'm a friendly-fire casualty caught in the middle of a war I once fought in, and that's fine by me.

But we were just kids. I guess in a sense we still kind of are, too. We took a trip with that church group out to California because it was summer and we hated the heat we knew. It's not that we believed in Santa in the Sky. It's that we believed in getting away from our parents, and exploring each other in sleepy churches next to the beach.

We rode the Superman ride at Six Flags. The line was forever, and you knew I hated to wait. You always thought it was odd, throughout all our time spent that I'd hated waiting so much because usually I was so patient with everything.

It was hot, and I felt sticky. You smiled, and held my hand. I think you always assumed that I was kind of scared of the ride.

You assumed right.

But I was excited, too. We got to be among the first to ride that ride.

My hands gripped tight on the restraints, and I never got a chance to open my eyes; it was over before I had a chance to see it in full. It's one of my biggest regrets.

I closed my eyes with you, and gripped tight. When I opened my eyes you were gone, and my hands were stiff and sore, like it was bone on bone for so many years.

Now I can't help but lay back and let the chaos work it's wonders. See, I believe the world is coming to an end. So, if this is the rabbit hole, then I want to see how far down it goes.

How a Resurrection Really Feels (An intro of sorts).

For the next couple of posts, I'm gonna switch it up. I'll be presenting the short story in it's entirety, for free here. It's called How a Resurrection Really Feels as the title of this blog would suggest.

I've not written in this kind of capacity for quite some time, so I apologize for how shaky and rough this thing is gonna be. Truth be told, I have the premise in mind, but unlike real writers, this will pretty much be written here. Meaning I haven't worked it out in advance. Just a couple of cans of Hurricane, inspirational music, and trees.

And a big dash of real life.

Yesterday when I went to my job between jobs, I discovered this pile of papers at what's effectively my desk. What this means is that whoever sat there previously doesn't work there anymore.

I was looking for some information, when I came across this long letter. The author of the letter was a girl, the handwriting is kind of hard to read.

But the letter broke my heart.

It reads out like part suicide note, part revival, part desperation.

Whoever wrote it has a strong addiction to heroin.

So in the next few posts will be a short story. We'll see where it goes.

Stay safe

Oh, I'm kind of like a sailor back in 1942. Yeah, I'm gonna fight the good fight but god damn I am gonna miss you.

Life moves.

I've always had a fascination with airports and planes. I realize this puts me solely in the minority of people who have an opinion regarding planes and airports. But truth be told, all those planes going all those different directions make me pine to be on any one of them, going in whatever direction, with absolutely no idea as to what I'm going to do when I land.

When I was a kid, I used to want to be a pilot.

But it seems that any time I go to get ready to travel some place, it's always for the wrong reasons. I'm always one step ahead, or one step behind.

Because of my wayfaring ways, I often wonder if people actually come in contact with as many strangers as I do.

See, the downside of friendship is, that no matter how long you've been friends with someone, most of the conversations always start with a "hey, what's up?" and the thing is...that's more of a greeting. People rarely answer that question, honestly.

And I want to know.

Those who've been unfortunate enough to be along with me when I've been out and about, I don't know if they've ever noticed how I can make an instant connection with a stranger. I can't count how many times a friend has asked after I've finished a conversation with a stranger how I knew that person. And it always surprises me, the look on their face, when I explain, "Um, about ten minutes."

Sometimes it happens over the internet, too. I can't tell you how many of people I consider close, close friends I've met simply through this blog, or older ones I used to do. And I'm finding that this is something of a rarity...but why does it happen so constantly?

I live in Phoenix, Arizona. I have since January. I've spent most of my life here, so I'm far from a stranger to these lands.

I've grown to increasingly despise the surroundings. Not necessarily because of the heat. Though that in itself can get very close to unbearable, part of me likes that humanity could never replicate in a close way, real sun light. The way it warms your body, naturally.

But the people here...

It's been a wide subject of debate, SB 1070. I won't get into my personal feelings about the bill. Truthfully, they've pissed off both sides of opposition/support of the bill at rallies.

But the hatred that's imbued in so many people here.

It's been kind of a funny, sometimes scary thing. The actual race that I am. There was a situation in San Clemente, California where I was illegally detained by some racist cops. I wasn't asked for ID, asked for my name, or even simply explained too why it is John Q. Law was slamming me against a door, cuffing me and then shutting a door on my injury prone knee.

People often assume I'm of Eatern/Arabic decent. I realize its because I grow beards. It was a lot worse before I grew my hair out, because when it my hair was shorter than my beard is when I found the policia upset with me existing.

Often times at work, or other places people who see me daily will finally come up, and it never fails, say this (nearly verbatim): "Now...are you Arab? I can never figure it out."

My origins, if they are honestly at all important, are half Irish, half Hispanic.

But the other day, the worst its been in a long time happened. I was on the way to the bus stop to go pick up my check, when a woman in a walker who was sitting down at the bus stop walked away. I didn't think anything about it.

I was listening to some music, when about 15 minutes later she re-approached the bus stop bench. I could see from my periphery that she was talking, so I moved aside my headphones and asked her to repeat herself.

"You stupid fucking spic. Why can't you go back to your own fucking country? You have such an ugly language, you people talk just as loud as the niggers."

That's a lot to take in. Mostly because...anyone who knows me know I'm actually very soft spoken.

Oh, and the racism thing bugged me a lot, too. Though I did wonder why Eva Braun could identify my race, and people who I shared a common ancestry with couldn't.

And so I go back to the idea of travelling. It's no secret that I'm planning on leaving this place. I just don't know to where yet. And this shriveled woman was somehow embodying every grievance I'd had about this place.

Worst of all, it made me never want to talk to another stranger again.

Yesterday I went to the market to buy my groceries and pay a bill. My card worked for the bill, but when it came time to pay for the groceries, it wouldn't accept it.

Now, your first inkling might be to say, "out of money." except I wasn't. The card is somewhat damaged, and it does this from time to time. It's frustrating. As it was in line at the store. I started to sweat because a line was forming, and I really hate holding people up.

Realizing that it was 110 outside, and that the buses only run every half hour, I started to walk away from the groceries. I'd been in the heat all day, I just wanted to get home and die in peace and (cold, air conditioned) climate.

When a guy behind me swiped his card through the terminal.

"What are you doing?!"

That was my audible reaction.

What are you doing? You don't have to do this, dude.

"I can tell you have the money, but everyone deserves a boost once in a while."

I still don't know what to say about that. $17.45 was the total bill.

It's just weird to me how something that I've actually done before surprised me that much. Not saying that everyone should go around paying for other peoples groceries, but why shouldn't something so kind and generous be so much of a rarity. Why does it take tragedy to remind us that we're all breathing the same air, and life is hard no matter who you are. No matter the amount of money in your pocket, no matter the hours spent wondering where life went as you wait for the 5pm mercy kill from work, so you can go home and be to tired to create, or do something you're passionate for. We're all in tight places.

And then I come across a comment a few weeks ago on this here blog, titled Over Fire (Joshua John). It was something, especially at that time, that I needed to hear. It took me days to try to figure out what, if anything I should say.

After some exploration, I found that the commenter has a blog of her own: Set Fire to the Catalyst. Come to find out she has very interesting thoughts, very good photography, and we seem to have some sort of bond. She's right, it feels like I should know her. You should, too. So make sure to click that link a few times, follow her, leave encouraging comments.

You know that quote, "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers?" That quote bugs the shit out of me. Get your act together, and move forward and be a responsible adult.

However, I've always loved the comfort of strangers.

Stay safe.

Somebody's drinking our last ration of victory gin; I'm sober as sin.

Time waits for no man.

The world is a wide open place, and it's up to us to discover it in our own way. I know what it's like to give up completely, on anything and everything. But I also know what it's like to find that fight again. Buried deep in the recesses of my mind was the will to keep going on.I was nearly homeless. But due to the good graces of some people, I was able to get my footing.

It can be terrifying, too, at times. Because this time there is absolutely no

going back. The thing is...I know for a fact I don't want too.

I think about those I've lost contact with and the reasons for it and I kind of feel like...yeah, maybe it was for the best. For whatever reason we were negative spots in each others lives, and truth be told I don't think I've ever been happier.

Because life is new again. That wanton desire to explore, to see, to try new things again is there, and it beats harder in my chest than my heart.

So I sit here wondering where I'm going next. But I know I'm going to enjoy it more than ever,

because this time...fuck, it just really...really counts this time.

Inspiration in a time like this is absolutely crucial.

See, a while ago I began writing a book called Open Roads and Brick Walls. But for whatever reasons I could never seem to just end it. Later on in the book it just became, not necessarily a laborious and tedious process...just one I couldn't figure out exactly what tonality to leave off with.

But it's times like this good tunes and good visuals really inspire the desire to exist, live, breathe

and explore the depths and crevasses most people wouldn't dare.

It can end in only one way...

See it boils down to this: I don't want to wait for life to get better. And I hope no one else wants to wait for it to get better. If it sucks, go out and change it. Every one has a bunch of sad stories,

and I empathize with that. But why leave off on sorrow?

We can be a lot more.

So we work, we play...and what else that fills up the time between, well, that's there too.

Giving up on yourself is one of the most desolate feelings in the world.

I want to concur every great city in my own way. I want to work during the day, explore during the night and sleep when I'm d-e-a-d. And I plan on doing just that.

Stay safe, and until next time, make sure to check out some truly awesome and visually inspiring

pictures. They're gonna evoke a reaction out of you that's going to

make you want to go out and get a camera and get in touch with your inner shutter bug. And while you're at it, buy something.

Velvet On Holiday.

P.S: Below I've included a few of my pictures as well.

See, this is gonna be the summer of photography....

Toltec, Arizona. Oh, the joys of urban exploration.

Southern California.

Every where I go, they have make a fuss...

Awesome skyline.

Outside of a homeless shelter.

See you on the other side of the shutter.

Suffocation, Modern Life in the Western World.

Happy Memorial Day, all who happen to read this!

It's sweet to have a few days off to spend with your families, drink beer, barbecue, river raft, a whole bunch of things. And man, those things are a lot of fun to do.

But the reason why we can do those things is because there was blood shed. Not to stop on a dime, and be one of those people. Truth be told, war should always be the last result. But there are times when not only the future of your somewhat infant country is in peril, but also the freedoms of other Nations as well...it's truly amazing that people younger than I gambled their futures to maintain the way of life they had at that time.

I really often wonder what some Veterans might think of the advances in modern technology. If they, even for a millisecond in moments of cease fire, if it ever crossed their minds how far this country would go.

Just take a second and really appreciate what it is you have. If it weren't for the bravery of youth, we wouldn't be living the lives we live now. For better or worst, there is ALWAYS a chance to better our lives; the price of freedom was paid with the blood of those who came before us, people we can never possibly meet.

Thanks.

Over Fire (Joshua John)

I grew up with a kid named Josh. He was a close friend my entire childhood/teenage years. In fact, a good portion of his youth was spent under my roof. He was the last child in a long line of siblings, and I kind of this that by the time he was 8 or so, his parents pretty much let him raise himself.

It's not that they were bad parents. They provided, had game nights, loved to cook...the whole gauntlet. They're both successful, extremely intelligent beings. Both lawyers, in fact.

Truth be told, all of Josh's siblings turned out to be pretty big successes. Many of them being lawyers as well. Josh though, he never really went down that path. He was more of a loner, who was much more content spending hours doing absolutely nothing on his dad's computer at all hours of the night in his fathers law office.

Josh began to have seizures right around the 7th grade, and not a lot of people really knew how to deal with him. It wound up alienating him from some people in a way, because it was such an odd concept at the time. Most kids had never really seen something like that transpire, and truthfully if you've ever seen a seizure take place, you know that they can tend to be very frightening.

But he was like a brother to me. In a lot of ways, even though he was older, I wound up kind of looking out for him at times.

When his mental illnesses became too much (at the time) for our very modest elementary school to handle, he was referred to a school...I guess better catered to people who's needs were similar to his. His parents had me go with him his first day to kind of watch out for him.

But Josh....Josh is a special guy. I mean that in a very positive way, and I know I have to be careful with the context considering his above listed mental illnesses.

But he could make anyone smile. He could make anyone laugh. He was, in a way, the price of irreverence. He never cared, one bit, what anyone ever thought of him.

And at times that put him at odds with some of his older brothers. They'd tease him to the point of him needed to physically remove himself from the same zip code. It's not that they rubbed their success in his face; truth be told they were trying to push him to better himself an realize all his untapped potentials. Believe me, he had many.

But I understand how it all rolled down to him. Despite being the youngest, his parents we're somewhat older than other parents (oddly enough, that's one thing he and I bonded over, given that my parents were also a bit older that most of the kids parents at our age.) But he brought a whole new definition to the term 'latch-key kid.'

But he was always, I think, viewed as the black sheep of his family. Everyone heading one great big direction forward, and him always seemingly in neutral.

But the signs, they weren't what anyone really looked for.

I think for me a lot of how I perceived his actions were eccentric, but just...Josh. That's the best way to describe it. He was just himself.

He didn't listen to the right music, like the right movies....he didn't like parties, or anything like that.

But I think he fought hard to try to come across a bit more normal, to fit in.

The older he got, the more erratic his actions became. He'd go months without anyone hearing a word from him, or seeing him. I remember once literally having to kick down the door. The sight of him sitting in a rocking chair, staring mindlessly at a tv in a dark room while drinking out of a huge jug of wine (literally) was something that really sticks out to me now. I should've seen it then.

I broke up with a girl that I truly loved on October 16th, 2006. Josh, in his way of supporting, really kind of trashed her a lot during the following two weeks, or so.

I'd bought her an early birthday gift a few days prior to getting dumped. Cursive tickets on Halloween. One of my favorite bands on my favorite holiday with my favorite girl. All signs pointed towards October 31st, 2006 being my favorite day ever.

But she broke up with me, and I decided to go to Cursive anyway. Josh had offered to go along with, which was surprising, because crowds weren't his thing.

I won't get into the details because it's so petty now, so unimportant. But suffice it to say, after that evening I resolved to cut him out of my life.

He was negative, he had a tendency to take things, like friendships, for granted. he'd bad-mouthed a girl I was still very, very much in love with. I walked away.

Over the next few weeks he'd call, try to get a hold of me. But I always looked at the caller i.d, and ignored the call. Eventually, around the end of December the phone stopped ringing. A few months later I packed up everything, had a going away party (sans Josh, which felt weird then, too) and left.

Occasionally over the next few months I'd think about him. Wonder how he was doing. But goddamn I was so angry with him, so hurt, that I just kept on going. He was a touchy subject for a while to come.

Eventually I moved back to Arizona, same area, back with my parents. I dealt with my fathers cancer and knee surgery, chased a girl, got tired of chasing her and started chasing another, began writing seriously, and before I knew it, it was October 31st, 2007.

I kept on going.

About a year and a half later I got the last phone call from Josh I think I'll ever get.

It seems he'd went off the deep end. He'd been in a home once a few years ago when he and I were still close. But in the conversation he told me, and I can still remember the...emptiness in his voice. He was asking me if I'd told a judge that he heard voices, because they took his license. He told me, in fragmented sentences that were so eerily jumbled...how he'd attempted suicide a few times, lost his license (which always meant the world to him. It was always the one part of his life he could control with out seizure or behavior medication) and how he'd been to a hospital a few times.

He asked me, and I remember that for the first time in the conversation he showed any emotion, he asked me if he could see me.

This time I wasn't angry. I think at the time I was, but it was more to mask the chill it sent down my spine; his voice had almost being laying supine, but when he asked to see me, there was a hint of...something. Something sad.

But I turned it down.

The other night Josh was brought up in a conversation, and I remarked how I'd hoped he was in good health, and happy. The other people present wound up telling me how he now lives in a mental care facility, not an institution.

And that the thought of me sends him into a break-down. That he has severe nightmares about me.

It hit me in the gut like a truck.

I don't really know what to say after that, except that all I could do was write about it. It's included below.

I wish somehow I could give him peace.

This song is called "Over Fire (Joshua John)."

Take a seat my old friend

It's been years, my God what's happened to the time?

I heard about the spells in your head

A motion in a black ocean

Swallowed alive by these waves of regret

Another bullet in the chamber to live with

And I'm so sorry for the tremors

The shaking, the scars that no one can see

I'll bite my tongue even though I hate the taste

Rough days and demons dancing in plain sight

Voices shouting, but mouths sewn shut

If I could, I would take the brunt

Stay awake through the shakes

If it meant you could get a nights worth of sleep.

It feels like I've lost a part of myself

The memories rust shut, an honest man turned into a liar

I break at the thought of you freezing

Even though this dance is held over fire.

Heard the saddest song sung

Solemnly whispered from the tired soul of a caged bird

Mourning the memory of flight.

Churning in the guts of the imprisoned

Captioned for the deaf, a dream to fly higher

No longer dragged over fire.

My brother, take a seat

It's been years, time just pased us by

I dream about the spells inside your head

Constant moments and thoughts of bad days

Filling you to the brim with dread

And I'm so sorry....

My mouths rusted shut, and there's nothing I could say

Just know that I'd give it all without hesitation

To walk by your side over fire.

Until next time, stay safe.

Do you think about me now and then?

Two posts in less than six months? Insanity. I've decided to start making time to write again. My dreams have been on pause, but lately life has seemed to want to unravel. So instead of sinking to the beat, I've decided to go down swinging.

Even on my worst of days, I'm still doing about a thousand times better than Scott Heisel.

This job I've got has played to a deeply repressed part of my self. The kind that would kill a thousand men just to secure the almighty dollar for a moment more. And I hate that portion of me, but lately I've just played to the hidden side of myself.

I'm about to be with an apartment because of some shifty managers disregarding their own rules and logic.

And every thing feels like it's dying around me.

But for the first time, even without her by my side to help fuel that fire...I'm damned angry, and I'm hitting harder than before. The writing I've done is so much more impassioned. I've gotten a lot more responsible, I'm enjoying life a lot more, despite this past month. I'll wind up on top, or die trying.

But with the realization that the apartment situation, that's literally been a Hell-Hole situation since minute one, is coming to a close I realize I can...go anywhere. Be anything, or anyone.

So it's exciting, but bittersweet at the same time. I've lost a lot of people lately, but I've also gained some that I know would hurt to lose.

The title from today's blog comes from Kanye West off of 'Graduation. "Homecoming" featuring Chris Martin of Coldplay.. If you haven't, check it out. I think it's something most people could easily relate too.

And in relation to me, this song helps remind me that the situation I've got...

I've lived in Arizona most of my life. My dad, mom and cat are here. Close friends.

And there's this line in the song, "But if you really cared for you, then I guess you'd have never hit the airport to follow your dreams."

Well, for too long I've put other people in front of me. And the thing is...that's not some good karma thing, necessarily. It reeks of cowardice for not taking a chance.

So maybe I don't care for her.

Or maybe it's that I do and I just want to not for a few minutes.

I love the story of the Phoenix, and think that with each passing year the City that bares the same name follows it's homage a little closer. Minus the borderline-racism, homophobic undertones.

But maybe I just want to see it from a distance, and try to make my own happen. It's a strange time, so who knows what's going to happen.