"No one knows how love works."

I really enjoy Mark Morford's columns. He's insightful, witty, and pretty damn honest. Here is an article that I had cut out and taped in an old sketch book two years ago. I couldn't have said it better myself.

NO ONE KNOWS HOW LOVE WORKS
Mark Morford
San Francisco Chronicle
July 25, 2007

I am not married. I have never, to the best of my knowledge, been married.

I do not have any children of which I am right now aware. I am, in fact, recently single again for the first time in many years. Also: no mortgage. No debt. No daily array of behavioral meds (yet). No significant or particularly dangerous skeletons - none that can speak or call the CIA or reveal the location of the photographs buried on my hard drive, anyway.

This is a weirdly fascinating position to be in, and not only because many of my long-coupled friends think I must've won some sort of amazing social lottery, with the prize being a debauched free-for-all of sybaritic adventure.

No, when you're single and you've finally made it past the age when you've felt both love's deepest tongue probings and also its most random horror-flick slashings, what it means, at least for me, is that you get to become this odd sort of sounding board - a blank slate for love's warped potential, a reason for others to extrapolate on the nature of love and life and sex and how difficult/wonderful/impossible it all really is.

Which is merely another way of saying, I am learning something. Or rather, relearning. Or rather, knowing something everyone sort of knows but no one really talks all that much about because it's so damn obvious and also painful and fraught and wonderful, pounded back into my thick skull in a delightfully unexpected way.

Here is the big lesson, the thing that keeps coming at me, again and again and again: No one has the slightest clue how to make love work.

I know. Shocking. But truly, it's weirder that you might think.

See, singlehood at my pseudo-mature age can be a time of profound cleansing, of enjoying the moment as you ready for the new, of trying to figure out just what you're all about and what you really want and how to go about getting it, or not getting it, or letting it all go and not attaching to it so that it may find you, in the healthiest and sexiest and most honest way possible.

And so, you look around. And you ask. And you get feedback, comments, perspectives from all those in various stages of lovedom around you.

(Very few of my circle are single, and if they are, they're almost certainly seeking that special one to make it all make sense.) And that feedback ain't what it used to be. If it ever was.

For every happily married couple I know (and I do know a few), there are three more who are confused and tense and battling all sorts of doubt and crisis and regret. For every wedding announcement, there are two more separations. For every guy I know who's tremendously happy to be settled, there's another who wishes he could've had "just one more year" of unbridled freedom.

It goes on. For every woman I know who simply can't wait to have kids and who tears up in front of a newborn and whose biological clock is ticking like Dick Cheney's pacemaker in a gay fetish dungeon, there's another who has quietly realized that she should maybe never have become a mother.

Couples you think were rock solid and perfect have fallen apart, screamingly. Couples you thought wouldn't last a year have made it to 10 and show no signs of slowing. Couples who got together in college and were miserably mismatched took a decade off and had lots of sex with other people and then got back together and it's now the perfect, true thing. More or less. Unless it's not.

See, at a certain point, all the variants become so astounding, so dizzying, so universal, that you finally realize (yes, for the 1,000th time) there is no rule. There is no pattern. The exceptions are the rule. There is no approach that, overall, seems to work for most people most of the time. There's not even a hint of a possibility of a whisper of a rule, and anyone who tries to tell you differently, be it a church or a parent or a relationship guru, is, to put it gently, astoundingly full of it.

This is why God laughs. This is why the Fates roll their eyes and belch.

Because you think you have this crude set of boundaries and guidelines that you insist you will live by as you head into the uncharted waters of love and sex and attraction, and these silly notions grow and thrive and breed like drunken Mormons all through your 20s and 30s, when all your friends are hooking up and all the marriages are as fresh as squirted mother's milk and all the love is sweet and skittering and hot and everything seems aimed toward the positive, the right.

And then, time happens. Fights. Breakdowns. Crisis. Fertility issues.

Financial stress. Loveless marriages. Sexless marriages. Second marriages. Unwanted kids. Wanted kids who end up being the repository of all the angst of the loveless marriage. Divorce. Stepchildren.

Open relationships. Closed relationships. Polyamory. Experimentation.

Sperm donation. Therapy. Also: Cancer. Disease. Accidents. Death.

Rebirth. Morning breath.

Oh, and one more: infidelity. Oh yes. Here is perhaps the most fascinating topic of all, the soul's dirty little secret, the hottest of love's hot buttons. Because maybe you used to look at adultery and say, "Oh my God, no way, it's just so wrong, horrible, hurtful, dangerous." Maybe it was even your absolute rule. Unassailable. You simply do not cheat. Do not wander. Not ever. No no no no no.

Except, yes. Except when you get to know someone - or perhaps multiple someones - and for whatever unexpected reason and unquantifiable mutation of love and body and life, it becomes actually understandable. Justifiable. Encouraged, even. Still painful, hurtful, dangerous? Yes. But if you're honest, your boundaries will shift. Your definitions will blur. And what's more, you realize that this is how it has to be.

Maybe it's simply a case of the more you learn the less you understand. Maybe it's all about the wisdom of aging.

Me, I like to think it's simply because, for the most part, we're still just one big gaggle of spiritual infants, still love's little quivering carry-on Chihuahua: trembling and jumpy and sweet and trying to work through the infinitely frustrating, cruelly painful, orgasmically delicious variants of how the human soul can get its love on.

And baby, from what I can tell right now, we've got one hell of a long way to go.

Living well is the best revenge.

About two weeks ago I watched as a new friend of mine debated his failure at a personal goal against a group of people. After listening to a bit of well-earned self-pity about what the other people might think of him, this timeless line popped into my head: "Living well is the best revenge."

Personally, I try not to hold too many grudges in my life. Whether or not I'm successful in that endeavor, I can thankfully say that nothing I do as a result of a grudge involves a feeling of vengeance towards any wrong doing I've perceived directed at me. Sure, life is not easy and I'd be the first person to admit that. Unfortunately, too often people seem beaten down or fired up by their perceived lack of fairness in this world. Too much time and energy is wasted essentially shouting at the heavens for clarity, a chance at redemption, or answers when there actually aren't any to be found. What it comes down to is, at some point if a person spends their time focused on whether life is fair or not, as well as the concepts of winning and losing, they are probably wasting their best years. I have known countless people like that and have avoided those types of people as much as possible for years.

What seems like my now healthy perspective on fairness and winning came at a personal price, for I too was once wrapped up in years of long nights spent wondering the "hows" and "whys" of the universe. Finally, by the grace of some unnameable supreme being, I woke up one morning and realized it just didn't matter.

I've never been one of those guys who sought the highest highs of success, getting off instead on the adrenaline of "the doing", "the making." I've often received more excitement over the attempt than the idea of some anticlimactic "win", which felt like a brick wall of emotional let down. I can vividly remember looking at the winner of a class competition as a child and thinking "and now what happens to him?" Nothing. Life went back to normal for him and all of us, so why did it matter if we strived for the top prize? Of course, I can't say I don't enjoy being the best at something, nor am I ever not trying my hardest at a given task, but I'm never really too disappointed when falling short of perfection. There is usually someone who is going to be better at something than you are, but why beat yourself up over it? Growing up, whether I won or lost at something my dad always asked me if I had tried my best. When I would answer "yes", he would breathe a sigh and say "well then, that's all that matters" and never bring it up again.

Maybe overall I'm just not a competitive person by nature. Winning to me isn't all it's cracked up to be, and neither is losing if you learn a great deal from it. I've also learned that there is no weakness is discussing failure. All strength gained from lessons learned is a victory if applied timely and appropriately. So let's all go out there and do our best, take a deep breath, maybe stop for a drink afterwards, and enjoy the valid attempt. Sometimes that's all you've got.

"Forgive and Forget"

The adage "forgive and forget" could not be more accurate; one cannot forgive someone without essentially forgetting much of the pain from the transgression being forgiven. I have always marveled at people who could "forgive and forget" for the adage in my family has always been "Forgive but never forget."

I've been mulling this over lately with members of my family, essentially calling our version of the phrase into question. Gifted with very good memories, we don't forget much. As is typical, the thing remembered, whether big or small, is logged in a wrinkle in our brains where it lays dormant, waiting for the moment of necessary recall to strike. However, does that mean that I am incapable of forgiving anyone?

I can let things go, get passed certain frustrations or pains, get on with my life and be happy, but that doesn't mean I have forgotten the disappointment in someone or the pain they've caused. Sure, it's easier to cut someone directly out of your life cold turkey, getting a rare embarrassing Christmas card from them once a year, the ones you throw away after reading perfunctorily. But that isn't forgiveness, that's ignoring them. You still feel the twinge of sadness or anger that the offense has left behind, you've just moved on. That is not what this whole forgiveness concept is about.

I hear people all the time who are good friends with ex-boyfriends or girlfriends, saying they have forgiven them for the cheating and lying, etc., that they hang out and have a great friendship. Perhaps I'm too old, set in my ways, or immature, but that makes no sense to me. Maybe they're lying, and at moments the same sting of hurt boils up, though now that they're "friends" they can't do much but ignore it. It all seems like they are deluding themselves. Maybe it's just easier to say you've forgiven the wrongdoer, to ease the other person's guilt and to end the discussion, at least temporarily. I have definitely seen those same people go through bouts of jealousy and rage for other "new offenses", emotions only heightened by the memory of the past let-downs. It's all so very confusing.

Either way, as I've stated above, I'm not good at forgiveness. Mention a past hurt and the ache of disappointment will swell once again, though thankfully not to the level of the original moment, but still. So, perhaps another adage is more correct: Time heals all wounds. Well, I don't think it heals, it just puts a lot of new memories in to fill the gaps and soften the shock and power of the bad ones.

Anyway, this is what I've been thinking about. So if you've done something wrong to me and I say I've forgiven you, I'm probably just trying to make you feel better. Sorry, I'm trying.

The Philly Cheese Steak Experience

As I've already mentioned several times on my flickr accounts, Kacie was a blast. The eighteen hours or less I spent in Philly was more enjoyable than the several days I spent in one or two other places on my cross country trip (not West Virginia). Along with the six different photo shoot set-ups we accomplished into the early morning, we also made time to stop and compare the different philly cheese steaks offered by Geno's and Pat's, one of my goals from the very start.

They are both legendary places, and being across the street from each other made it even more convenient to take samples of each and compare in real time. Of course, first we did a shoot with Geno's as a backdrop since it was the more colorful of the two, all the while getting cat calls from loud drunks which Kacie handled by yelling profanities back at them. Only after that did we get sandwiches and fries from each place, found ourselves a table amidst the drunks, including the Toronto Blue Jay and Phillies fans who had just gotten out of their game, and began our taste test.

Not only is Kacie a perfect model, but with getting her degree in photography that week I could trust someone else to document me for the first time on the trip, which she did wonderfully.

I cleansed my palette as best I could between bites while Kacie took a much less scientific approach. Famished, she would take a bite of a sandwich, definitively stating that it was the best, then after eating a french fry she would take a bite of the other sandwich, seriously and definitively stating that now that one in her hand was the best. This went on repeatedly until they were both gone. Pretty hilarious.


Towards the end of the meal the peace and fun of the moment was broken by a throng of yelling and cursing at a group of girls walking past by another group of girls seated behind me. "Get the fuck out of here, you fuckin' Jersey Sluts! Fuckin' Whores! Goddamn Jersey Bitches!" I turned around expecting to see some type of tough, street hardened gang members, only to find four of the most innocent, sweet looking South Philly girls texting away, smoking their cigarettes and eating their sandwiches. Kacie and I looked at each other with amusement, though I am sure I had more shock and confusion on my face than she did on her's.

Though she is from another part of Pennsylvania, Kacie has the tough, shitty attitude that is quite at home in the tougher, more run down area that is South Philadelphia. Once the group of female roughnecks saw Kacie posing for more photos a few minutes later, they immediately became young girls again, talking about photography and modeling, asking for my business cards and wanting to pose for me. With all of them being 15 years old I let them down gently, saying they'd have to wait a while. They were very excited when I asked to take their group photo though. How could I leave without documenting them?

So the conclusion on "The Philly Cheese Steak Experience": for one, Pat's had better fries, hands down. For the sandwiches though it was far more complicated. After much deliberation I had to agree with what someone had told me earlier in the week, that Pat's has better tasting meat but Geno's has better rolls. Together they would be unstoppable, maybe they should team up...?

Quite the intense night. I was pretty worn out from the trip so far, highly satisfied with the photos I had taken that day and with the company I was presently keeping, and yet was fully aware of the daunting hours, days and weeks ahead. I couldn't help but breathe a heavy sigh of unnameable meaning while smiling the whole time. Only a month after returning did I realize that the sigh was equal parts exhaustion, amazement at the task I had undertaken and was accomplishing, and extreme joy.

By the next day I would be once again sleep deprived, taking photos in a stranger's house in New Jersey, and by the afternoon travel to New York City and beyond.

Insomniac

"Beat-Up, Eight Second Exposure Lit by Cell Phone, 2007"

I long for sleep. Every morning, on my fifteen minute walk to work through the dirty side streets and vacant lots I desperately look forward to later that evening when I can crawl into bed. Just the idea of a warm, inviting bed and a crisp, cool pillow has a calming effect on my constantly tense neck and upper back. This satisfaction ironically never happens when nightfall actually does come, at least not lately.

The last few weeks my sleep schedule has been more erratic and confusing than ever before. I've never had the reputation for being the most fit and sound sleeper in the world, but lately I've begun to even worry myself. Going to bed at 9:30pm will cause me to wake up at 2am with an inability to go back to sleep. Other nights, forcing my tired and restless self to stay up late, my 1am bedtime will only leave me tossing and turning hazily until the sun comes up. I've tried several different physiological experiments like drinking a fair amount of alcohol, working long hours with few breaks, and intense exercise. All of these were done in the hopes of wearing myself out to the point of exhaustion in the vain attempt to get eight quality hours of sleep. No dice.

I'm not one for making long term goals or plans, mainly because in an ever changing world they never work out the way you intend. But a year or even six months ago I could have made a rough sketch of a minor goal I was trying to attain or a basic frame work of what the next few weeks or months would hold for me. Not so any more. I honestly can not foresee what I will be doing next week or where I might be.

It seems since I've returned from my month long trip I've been in a daze. It would be nice to think I'm a smart enough guy to give a little rudimentary psychoanalysis to the situation and be able to personally figure out what this is all about. Am I actively or passively trying to figure out some complicated problem in my life? I don't think so. Am I worried about my abilities in some uncertain task or future development? No, not really. Is there someone I can't get out of my mind? Of course, but that hasn't changed for the last year or more. Given the answers to those questions, I am left searching elsewhere.

It's been said that most problems faced by modern man are internal. As a species we are used to working hard and dealing with intense adversity, eking out an existence watching for predators while trying to survive in harsh environments. With thousands of years of aggression and determination hardwired into our chemistry, who could blame us for finding it hard to adapt to a relatively calm and peaceful world of collared shirts, expressways and Netflix?

Personally, I've always functioned better in a challenging, frenzied environment where I questioned if I was going to be able to continue on. In that situation I know full well that I have every confidence in my ability to handle even the craziest of times and situations, and that in turn kept my body moving and my mind occupied. Often in the drudgery of my every day life, I now go out of my way to put things off until the last minute simply because the tasks I would have to perform would be too mundane otherwise. All of this directly stems from my month away. Sleep deprivation, mixed with hourly, daily, and weekly goals that were not only expected but proudly achieved, pushed me to an extreme, almost laughable level of exhaustion and accomplishment. It was an almost maddening state of constant flux and I loved it. Sure at times I wanted to quit, but whose brain wouldn't want to hit the pause button from time to time when faced with a life of perpetual motion?

When I got back, friends who wanted me to visit them a few hours away were afraid to ask, saying that I must be sick of driving. On the contrary, after driving over thirteen thousand miles in a month I was conditioned to the life of a trucker. The first several days back I found it hard to stay still, fearing I had someone waiting for me eight hours away whose time I might be wasting by sitting alone in my home. I miss meeting new people, seeing new environments, not knowing what was around the next bend. I miss the unknown.

My greatest fear is one that seems to be coming true, that there are no more challenges left here for me at home, or at least none that I find worth taking on. Even creatively I am dry. Aside from documenting my family or a few paid gigs for loyal clients, I've essentially stopped taking photos. The few shoots I've lined up with my reliable models I've cancelled days in advance because I just don't have the heart for repeating myself, even in the attempt to keep my skills sharp.

All of this is good, I suppose. In the life of an artist, it's been said that one needs a period to create and a period to live life and recharge one's batteries. It's an ebb and flow, a yin and yang, a delicate dance in which one can easily lose the beat. So how do all of these realizations help my sleep pattern? Hell if I know, but I'm doing my best to figure it out. At least I'm catching up on a lot of crappy late night television I've missed.

THE EVIL AMERICAN NIPPLE!

Beware dear friends, that you may not fall victim to that most wretched and vile of body parts, the Great North American Female Nipple. Even the most meager mention of those words sends a shiver down the straight, moral spines and bulging trousers of those most important lawmakers and purveyors of all that is righteous and pure, those protectors of our society at large and our individual souls in total!

Take warning children! Gaze not upon its warm and swollen eroticism! For even the briefest of glimpses will render the instantly corrupted viewer with surely nothing short of an unquenchable lust and moral laxity! The power of it in its engorged, aroused state has wrecked countless ships on rocky shores and sent otherwise good and decent men out into the cold night bellowing indecipherable nonsense up to the unforgiving heavens!

At all times should those disgusting protuberances of condensed sex be hidden beneath shirts and sweaters, as much cloth as the bearer of such burdens can withstand. They must be restrained and contained so as not to tempt the weak of heart and mind! Surely, no one, especially the poor female souls forced to ferry these delicious and provocative mammaries of misfortune, should ever be in danger of being forced to experience such a wicked display!

Not one of you lucky few who have yet to fall victim to this evil should even be given the choice to witness or not such a ruinous enterprise as the luxurious and sublime spectacle of those toggles of titillation. There is no hope left for us unlucky few, the initiated who have beheld one, if not a mouthwateringly matched pair, of these insipid swaths of demonic flesh. Our eyes would best be plucked out, though even the faint memory alone of the round, tanned dermis will surely guarantee our eternal damnation in the deepest corners of Hades!

The world needs constant diligence if we are to remain secure within our sanctity, safe out of reach from the terror that only exposed female flesh can create. Never shall supposed art forms, filthy and unsanctioned, ever be allowed to be shown to the masses for fear that millennia of culture and learning should be brought to it's knees by the mere hint of aureola!

May those who have the power, nay, the responsibility to censor and protect their fellow countrymen every tarry from their task, remaining earnest and true in this most holy and honored rite. Surely in most other parts of the world the aversion to this forbidden flesh is lessened only due to the fact that the power of the native born American teat is imbued with far more sexual intensity, therefore much more capable of bringing down society as a whole. Envy those fortuitous European reprobates, for they know not the dread and consternation of knowing that in every dark corner lurks those warm, sweet disks of destruction!

I pray each night that we have the strength and courage to hold steadfast to the core values that this nation was founded upon, to reject, destroy, and denigrate all that is shameful and ungodly: the naked, human form. May we all be so blessed as to survive in a loathsome world where these woeful bits of skin still exist. May God have mercy on us all!

(Author's Note: Forgive the frustrated rant, please. This diatribe was written after having the cleanest of my images become censored on multiple websites in a few short days and after having read "Fahrenheit 451" twice during the same time period.)

"What do you want for your birthday?"

("Coke Whore", Lawrence, KS 2009)

Thankfully, I am at a point in my life where if I really want something I can just go and buy it or easily save up and purchase it myself. The last few weeks people have kept asking me what I want for my birthday this coming weekend, a question that is tiresome before it leaves the person's mouth. Though I appreciate any and all intention people have in wanting to get me gifts, sadly 90% of the gifts I've gotten in my lifetime have been of entirely no use to me, not-applicable to me personally in any way, or confusing as to why someone would think of me when acquiring the item in the first place.

Admittedly I am a very difficult person to get gifts for. Unfortunately, my practical side tends to lend itself to a perception of rudeness. Truly, rather than wasting money on a gift that I am not going to like and never use, I would prefer a thoughtful hug, a chuck on the shoulder, and the knowledge that you were thinking of me. However, this response never goes over too well.

One or two friends of mine are pretty consistent with making me little cards or weird art packets filled with collaged notes and scraps of papers or books that they think I will like, which I always do, but they are the rarity. Wonderfully, the last few years I have been honored to get really thoughtful, hand made gifts that required complex packaging or FedEx drivers to deliver, which I must embarrassingly say was pretty surprising and magical. Again, these types of gifts are few and far between as I guess they should be.

(As a side note, I love surprises. The good kind, not the "surprise, I gave you herpes" kind.)

For as much as cash is always appreciated and can go a long way, the idea of people making things is a much more special gift than anything that can be purchased from some store. I personally go out of my way throughout the year to send handmade postcards of varying degrees of labor in them as well as other random fabricated, painted pieces of art. These go out only to those people I deem truly important in my world for no other reason than I was thinking about the individual and took a few moments to make whatever thing it is.

Still, even at moments of my most honest and selfish, when asked what I want for my birthday, I can't just say "a well thought out item that took you time and effort to create knowing I will appreciate it on multiple levels," though that really is the truth.

So I guess my official answer is nothing. Whatever you want to give me would be fine, but its the thought that counts. Thanks so much for asking, I really appreciate that. When is YOUR birthday? And what is your mailing address...?