One Man's response

It is a bitter sting, and one that you never learn how to cope with. My solution is to laugh in the face of it, thus try to ignore it, and not face it. For what can be worse then realizing that you are not wanted, you are not needed, and despite the insistence that you were "oh so close" it would be better without you. We all deal with it in different ways. With me it starts with the following phrase “I am sorry…” before it has even been read or said fully, my pigments react and I am there standing (sitting) with the lovely addition of having crimson red added to my already ‘pathetic and unsure what face to make’ expression so to compound the misery I get to do a double take as a tomato. While feeling as if my guts were ripped out of me by a fist, squished, thrown on the floor and squeezed by a foot, at first with the toe part then slowly the rest of the foot is planted on top and it grinds down on them (the guts), for emphasis. To let me know, that ‘yeah that’s the deal.’ Not to mention that for one of the few moments in my life I tend to be speechless, which is an achievement that merits the highest accolades. And as I stand there feeling gutted (hence why I say gutted, hopefully the above explanation cleared up exactly what level of misery gutted is) and mute, I try to stutter something, anything, however my brain also usually crashes. In a way similar to the old Windows 95 and 98...when you get that blue screen and there isn’t a thing you can do, except kick the computer case, curse it, and then press the damn restart button, well my brain does the same thing, and reason and though are not rebooted instantly, but they come online later, just in time to fuck you up again, for shits and giggles. Luckily rejection doesn’t happen as often as windows used to crash. Nevertheless it is there, now I am not talking about the tiny feeling like when you go up to a girl that is way out of your league at a club and try to talk to her, or worse get her to dance with you, that’s anticipated rejection that you initiate, something you do in the hopes of hitting it big, like when you bet on a game, you know odds are you will lose but you have to give it a shot. I am talking about when you pour your heart out kind of rejection, when you spill your guts (again I love guts) voluntarily, you put it all on the line and get an "i am sorry, but that was really sweet...." And as you (or me, but we will stick with you for the rest of it for effect and so the reader can empathize better, but again this is my reaction) are left there standing, or sitting, left to pick up the pieces of your guts and try to place them back in, and convince yourself you will bare them again someday for something or someone, even though in that moment you swear to yourself that you will live a hermit life—and never confess, or profess, a single emotion or desire to another human being. Because you cannot imagine a worse feeling then when that "i am sorry..." causes your blood to boil for a spilt second, and you feel as though you are sweating from every pore in your body, and that you have managed in an instant to completely be covered in sweat, only for the cold blood to rush in, and freeze you, cause your heart to skip a beat, or rather just plain stop, and allow a little crack to form, and add to the growing scar that is your life. However while your heart and emotions compel you to withdraw and leave in pieces, before anything worse can happen, then reason makes an unwanted appearance and takes over, you try to say something, which less then a minute later you cannot recall, and never will be able to—like that night you downed 15 shots, had a six pac, and woke up never knowing what happened save that you wish you never woke up—well this is the same deal, a blank in your head that you will never get back, and words that your will never be able to retract but you hope they were not worse then what you did on the aforementioned night. So there you are, having blundered something thanks to reason which wanted to talk it’s way out of the situation, and then quickly you realize that ‘fuck, wait a second, fuck, this just fucking happened! Why the fuck am I still here’ and as you take your leave, a broken man, with nothing left, regretting you ever asked, applied, or wanted to know. At that moment the old saying “Ignorance is bliss” has never been truer, or wiser.

Well here is something I want to get out of my system now.
FUCK REJECTION
There is no way you will bring me down, no way you will cause me to skip another beat, no way you will ever make me say that ignorance is indeed bliss, cause it isn’t. I will always be the curious motherfucker who just had to know, no matter the cost, no matter the stakes. I do not ever want to be spared or have anyone ‘take it easy’ on me. As I like to think to myself, and say to others “man up son, man up” though I usually sprinkle it—quite liberally—with fucks.

You wake up in the morning and fall out of your bed

"I watched you fall.
I think I pushed.
Maybe I'm crazy
Maybe diminished
Maybe I'm innocent
Maybe I'm finished
Maybe I blacked out.
How do I play this?"

There are intresting things in life, that are hard to notice, that one does not usually pay attention to, or tends to overlook in a busy and overcroweded life. They are all around you, and they contribute to life, yet too often they are unappreciated

"I will give my best today
I will give myself away
I have never hurt anything
Is the jury wavering?
Do they know I sing?"

Be it a smile on the face of a stranger, a clear night crimson blue sky, or a brilliant song that just keep on repeating in your head, and imparts itself onto you. A memory

"What's missing? he's living a day he'll soon forget."

So it is with me, i have found something that bought a smile to my face when i was walking along in the rain, that little glitter in my eye, that causes strangers to look at you on the street, and smile back, because they know that you are happy, and happiness is contagious, as ridiciculus as that sounds. It leaves a scent, it marks you. It is the little thing, that you tend not to notice, or appreciate, but if you do, it makes all the difference.

"Open the window
And lift into a dreams
Baby, baby
Baby starts to breathe."

And with this parting verse i hope that what my point is made, i can only thank my inspiration....which came when i least expected it, and from the most unusual source. Take the time to think it, lisen to it, leave your sense behind, absorb it, do not analyze it, just let it awe you.

Smile.

Post Scriptum

R.E.M.
Talking to strangers
Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland

Zizou

Can this even be described

We have just witnessed something extraordinary, something so sublime and amazing that may never be repeated. A man who takes complete and total control of a game, where he openly hold the ball, tells a team mate to make a run, the defender sees it, and yet he still gets turned, and the pass gets through to the target. There was not one errant pass sent by him tonite. At this level, in this game, unheard of. A man who danced around his markers, as if it was a training seesion, playing with a smile on his face not seen since May 2002, when he had perhaps his most brilliant individual moment.


At 34, Zidane has done the unimaginable, lifted himself from several lackluster seasons in Madrid, and resumed as if nothing had changed from that night in Glasgow in 2002, where he scored a goal that seemed to come from the heavens



But tonight, he was mesmerizing, and really there is no way to capture the full brilliance of him controlling every aspect of every french possesion but to watch the game. But i have found a few clips courtesy of you tube, that show the calm and ease with which Zidane gave a footballing lesson to the Samba boys, at 34 when most had written him off as past his prime.


A legend ladies and gentleman. A man who has marked an era.

1952-1966 Pele
1970-1980 Cruyff
1983-1990 Maradona
1996-2006 Zidane