Even if nothing you write is the truth, (and I suspect that there is a lot of truth in this post at least...) I think you are brilliant. THIS is brilliant. Besides, our truths are basically lies the universe makes up to amuse itself.

I never go too far. I am the flash, but never the fallout. Potential energy. At least you have the guts to go supernova.

*seeing stars*

Yeah. But I don't ever go too far -- okay, maybe every now and then though I wouldn't say it's physical because I'm a girly girl. But my mind goes too far and my tongue is sharper than a scythe. And I know that surge that feels both good and horrifying.

This is an immense post. Sorry I can't fight you about it.

I've talked often of my desire to get into a fight, or better yet, many fights, for a lot of the reasons you describe. Life is so much clearer and simpler in those moments, probably much like life as a hyper-conservative Christian of some sort, where everything is black and white because someone told you a book said so. It's so freeing, even just thinking about it.

But alas, I'm too much of a cheerful pussy to end up doing it any time soon. I'm too successful at avoiding confrontation, at calculating the odds someone would be severely injured or killed, or (worse?) I would get arrested or something. I need a fight to fall in my lap, and I need to be the good guy in it in case I have to explain myself to a jury.

I guess chance favors the prepared, so I'll keep on keepin' on. Not really training or anything, mind you, because I'm far too lazy for something like that. There's a reason I want the fight in my lap instead of near me-- I don't want to have to walk AND fight...

P.S. Want me to dress up as a troll and start poking you with a real point? Just say the word and I'll try my best, I've always made a premier devil's advocate!

"We used to fuck shit up in the moonlight." There it is...

I had a troll once. I made an entire post analyzing his pathetic comment - pointing out that it said much more about him than it did about me. He never came back. Some people just don't know how great a good wrestling match is. They throw a cheap one-liner out there and think it's enough. (I notice most people get really upset at the idiots so maybe it is).

First I thought this was called Getting Off and that you and Skip were talking about pheromonal expressions, and I was all, "Wow! Very enlightened for a couple of Troglodytes!" But, no, it was more of a guy thing. About ass-kicking. I've never understood the male need for this, but it sounds to me like you need to go (return?) to a good martial arts studio. Channel some of that anger into something beautiful and ugly at the same time.

Your writing really hits the "beautiful." The ugly, not so much. Even when you're provocative, you're a poet.

I am afraid of where my rage would take me if I ever really gave myself over to it. I think I would be completely reborn, and as much as that thrills me...it terrifies me too.

That is what it is about your writing...it frightens me into some sort of fucked up recognition of what I want.

I've always likened you to Poe. He wrote what others were afraid to. He pushed the edge farther than what people were comfortable with. Keep exploding, BHJ.

Ka- Fucking -Boom.

I have it too. The rage bubbling inside of me. But I never let it out. And I think it may be like a cancer eating me up from the inside out.

Woe betide the feckless individual who forgets that when they talk to you, they're getting both the poet and the killer.

Also this is the third thing I've read today that makes me think of rage gainsy the machine. No, I don't wanna work on Maggie's farm no more.

This is perfect. You just made sense of my life, my tendencies for going to far and having the last terrible word, everything...perfect. Just fucking perfect.

I believe we started this conversation somewhere in the neighborhood of a year ago (was it longer?) and you were deferring to greater gods at the time, 'ignore and move on' style. There were things I failed --both purposely and not-- to articulate then, but you've approached them here in this space.

I've opened a box with your name at the top about three times in the last couple-three weeks, but then thought better of it because I'm sure you are getting a shitstorm of mail behind the scenes and I know how tedious it sometimes is to have to respond when you are spun out to any degree. It was an e-mail born of worry and also a desire to understand where you're at, since it looked a couple of times for all intents and purposes like you were sailing a little further off of the edge than the realm of my personal comfort allows.

I don't think you're an asshole; I think you are sick of hiding specific things you feel and they've nowhere to go but ballistic. In a medium where a goodly percentage of people play nice to the face and talk mad shit behind their hands (the sniggering, ridiculous fuckjobbers) and your back, I applaud that shit, man.

Inasmuch as someone can who has never eyeballed a person face-to-face or clapped them on the back, I love you, I love Jenna, I love your family and I am wishing you all kinds of wells.

Hank was off-sides, but it looks like you're inviting it.
And here I was ready to fuck him sideways with a lunch pail.

I've always marveled at the integrity of this frilly veil of civility.
What would it take to taunt the animal from its lair?
Am I too practiced at silencing it?
Is it the price we pay for living with one another?
Or is it the price when survival is not enough of a struggle?

Is there really a frequency at which my soul will resonate and explode into its own desiring?
Am I just waiting?
Would it be so wrong?

I like Literal Dan's side that comes out here, as opposed to the side he shows on his blog.
I used to have a friend with whom I'd box or wrestle from time to time. It was fun, despite his always being bigger than me. For some reason, he lost interest when I grew to be bigger than him. He named us the Gladiator and the Norseman when we'd fight. 1990 was a fun.

I'm sorry, BHJ, that I can't be an adversary. I'd like to challenge you the way you challenge me. I read your words, and they're a kind of density that I must wade through, stopping from time to time to rest, because you exhaust me...and you hurt me...and you exhilarate me...and I have to catch my breath and feed the cats and read some more and make lunch for my kid (because you are words on a page but he? He's so painfully vibrantly alive and needy and immediate) and finish your words in small, rich bites, and then I have to swallow them, digest them, and sometimes it takes days for them to come to rest in my being, and by then I've moved on to some other distraction or plea or connection, and when I remember what you wrote, it's like a mental hiccough, a little aftertaste of something that I don't dare try again right away for fear of addiction, overindulgence, or heartburn.

I like the ice. I don't explode, I freeze solid and burn what I touch, what touches me. I play with fire, though...scorch things to ash and laugh with wild abandon as the flames dance and I dance and the stars shiver in their spheres.

When I was thirteen my brother punched me in the face for singing along with the radio in my father's car. It did not hurt. It was a noise, a sort of pop, a throb of sound and feeling, and then a swollen lip, the rusty iron taste of blood, and shocked surprise. I made him pay me not to tell. And I sang louder next time and dared him to do it again with my eyes, and he turned away in shame and pretended not to hear.

You scare me, BHJ...dark and swirling things in my mind that I cover with a thin shell of "I'm alright", and you crack it open with your KABOOM and out I spill.

Shade and Sweetwater,
K

This line caught me: "People who care about me are ashamed of me."

That's my greatest fear and obstacle, I think.

I imagine it is so so hard (it is for me), but your words, your thoughts and insights ... so much power and beauty.

I, however, cave in ... I can't say it all ... there's good and bad either way. Sacrifices and choices.

Thank you for your sacrifices.

This makes one more reason to go ahead and answer the damned phone. You may get to fight. Or at least tell someone off--maybe even a stranger whose sore spot you picked up on the moment they said asked to speak to you.

I love your writing style. It's got a really raw intensity to it. I've gotten into plenty of fist fights. Been punched in the face and even have a metal plate in my hand from punching one too many skulls myself. The thing is, it gets old and you come to realize that there are a million other ways to fuck shit up. Going too far can be good but you need to know when you're hurting people. Having kids changed that part of me. I want to teach them to have guts but I also want them to teach them respect. I also think it's important to put yourself in another person's shoes at least once a day. Words are strong and once you put them out into the universe, they scatter... You can never get them back. It's ok to fuck your own shit up. Just be mindful of fucking other people's shit up...

I talk about you behind your back. I'm gossipy.

I cracked my friend's head against the business end of an open door in the middle of a party full of people because we wanted to wrestle just for the fuck of it. After my daughter was born he married a miserable alcoholic who stopped talking to him, and I stopped going out to drink with him. The last conversation we had ended with me calling him a miserable fuck. I've choreographed the fight we'll have. I always win, because I know how to crack his head on the business end of an open door.

It's easy to be combative in pixel-land. In real life, it hurts a bit more.

I don't totally go kaboom. I'm a girl. I do run marathons, on trails, where I fall, and I bleed, and I get up, and I keep going. I've never thought about it like this before. Your words are definitely a "fist to my face". I feel all messed-up - I think a lot of people do. They just don't hang out there too long.

You're bloggings Tyler Durden.

I live with a bomb thrower. Such living, vibrant colors when the bombs go off. Such a desolate wasteland of collateral damage when the explosion is spent.

"Don’t you? Don’t you want to go too far?"

Oh shit yeah.

I've been far ... way too far, and all the way back again. I lie awake at night sometimes, remembering the shit I've done and my face burns. But I sure as hell would prefer to regret going too far than not far enough.

melissa's comment, blogging & Tyler Durden, was where my head went as soon i started to read this post. Fight Club jumped right to mind. My roommate wrote her masters thesis on violence, with Fight Club being the focus. And this post awoke that whole thing to me. awesome. you have some points that i hadn't thought about in a while, and i tend to agree with you. the alive thing.

individuals, all of us, seem to have varying amounts of the kaboom, to use your term. some (men?) may relate to this better than I do, but as a life long 'thrower', i can attest to the sheer live of shock and the thrill of aliveness i have felt when something i pitched across the room smashed and shocked the other. the satisfaction of showing the other person just how seriously UNpredictable i can be when pushed. instead of tasting blood, i watch coffee or nail polish drip down the wall, over the baseboards and pool. i see the shock in the face. the anger in return, and feel alive. and then shame, but the alive was my point. yes, very alive.

i also choose to use my words to be violent. being raised around people who contantly bantered and fought has made me an expert on the art of violent words. i sense i get a similar rush from seeing someone feel crushed by my simple tactics, seeing their shock at this new me, the old sweet me finally lose it and hit them where it hurts, their ego, their sorespots. when i feel cheated, i go cheap. and then sit back and watch them lose it. that's my pushing it too far. also, i get a weird twisted satisfaction out of making people who are idoits feel like idiots. yet another reason why i hate to venture outside the home...

I love how you write BHJ; awesome and fresh seem too lame, but those are what jump to mind when i think of your posts. thanks for sharing. and allowing me a little private spot to vent too.

contentment to you and yours
leel

ps. that whole people are ashamed of me thing, wow do i get that.

when i feel cheated, i go cheap.

That one line is an entire symphony in my head.

I want to go too far every fucking day. I wish I had the balls.

Violence scares me. I have seen to much in my life already. Blood. Bruises. Broken ribs. Torn hair and scraped shins. My violence is with words now. Towards my kids, my husband. I see myself in my head making these very huge mistakes...and yet I can't stop. Until I can get my meds adjusted. Or in my system. Or take a big break and escape for awhile. If only for awhile. I want to stop. Being so angry. Such a bitch. So unhappy, dragging everyone down with me. It's a miserable place to be. I just want peace. I want to feel at peace. With myself. So I can enjoy everyone else. So they can enjoy me. Before it's too late.

Hell yeah. I am bound by so many ropes right now, I can literally FEEL them chafing at my skin. And I am on the verge of gnawing through each and every one of them to race away and be free in the woods.

Middle Aged Woman... IT'S NOT A GUY THING. It's a human thing. Follow along.

Fighting is fun. I could enjoy a physical altercation now and again, I think--but I don't have a willing opponent and it is no fun with the unwilling.

I enjoy arguing and even a certain kind of yelling argument but it took spouse a while to differentiate between recreational and serious fighting. I think he's developed a taste for it now though. Then I had to get used to his departure from his peace lovin' ways when he starts them. You have to know how to have that kind of fight--where the unspoken agreement is conflict but it is bounded by certain rules to ensure no lasting damage.

I tend to use ice rather than fire - I'm all about the freeze, the shut out, the cold shoulder. I don't think I've ever really exploded, but you certainly make it sound alluring.

You know, there are plenty of places where civilised humanity is a distant dream and wild animals fucking things up in the moonlight is the everpresent and devastating reality. Perhaps you could go to one of those places and ...KABOOM? Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of the former USSR, the mountains of Afghanistan. In some places people pray for the kind of civilised veneer you're railing against because their lives are so blighted by violence. Isn't it all about the context? You personally might take some visceral joy from the experience of being punched in the face but I can only imagine the horror and lasting trauma experienced by a child, a rape victim, a kid bullied at school. The exhileration of violence is just like any other chemical high - it feels amazing while the hormones are pumping though the brain and body but in the aftermath is only emptiness and shame and pain both physical and psychological. You just sound self-indulgent and self-absorbed - think about your fellow human beings whose lives are defined by violence and who would do anything to escape it before you talk up the joys of split lips and trips to the emergency ward.

How'd it feel to tell me off like that, seaberries? If felt good, didn't it? You're smarter than me and better than me and you really taught me a lesson. While proving my point.

I know those feelings, or at least my own version of them -- attacking myself, cutting and biting so I can feel the pain, so I can feel anything, screaming and cursing to attack someone else, get their attention, make them feel my pain. In my own experience, though, every cut is another slide down the rabbit hole, each scream of righteous rage reinforces my alone-ness. Unexpectedly, maybe ironically, the things that are bringing me the most relief are the damn hard work of patience and forgiveness -- they sound like such pansy-ass words but I double-dog dare anyone to try it for 90 days and see if it isn't one of the hardest things you've done in your adult life. Every day I fail, experience a moment or 300 of anger, rage, fear, of the intention to hurt myself or someone else, and letting that moment go instead of hanging on to it, nursing it, feeding it, feels awkward and weird and hard, and rarely is satisfying in the moment. But four hours later or the next day I am able to say, man, that totally was not worth bleeding or going to jail over, and I'm proud of myself for turning my back on that want. And as the weeks go by I am slower to anger, it takes more to incite the rage, I'm climbing back out of the rabbit-hole, and I'm feeling more alive and less alone, at least sometimes, but that gives me something to hold on to and keep working toward.

I've come to your blog now through 2 different channels; one through daddy blogs, another through mommy blogs. You must be doing something right. Keep writing what you. Thanks.

" There’s some undeniable restless thing inside of me that wants to go too far. Craves it."

why would you only want to go "too far" as an "asshole"
rather than go exactly where you should go as a balanced person?

also generally "craving" something is different than intelligently deciding to do something. I might crave a sixth burger or to squeeze that butt in front of me in line at the store but that doesnt mean I'm gonna decide to do it.
unless I am a deathly obese pervert...which would be bad...and unneccessary.

the only people who want to hurt or get hurt for no good reason are those who dont respect life enough to enjoy their own and protect others. they seek negative attention because its better than no attention because then they would be alone with their life and that scares them because they simply havent put down their baggage and rented a funny movie for a frickin moment. life is a good thing. admit it....dont be that guy who trys to find someone to baby sit them as an adult for the rest of their life. how silly is that. yet people do it.

you know people who actually have god-awful lives of pain and suffering and war and starvation, they never want to die. they want to live...without pain and war and starvation. and wild animals do not want to smash other animals simply because they refuse to let go of some baggage. no animals in the wild with full bellies and just enough turf to live they kick back and enjoy the day...oh yes they do.

"why would you only want to go "too far" as an "asshole" rather than go exactly where you should go as a balanced person?"

Because being exactly where I should be, being balanced, is boring to me. That's your deal. Not mine.

"also generally "craving" something is different than intelligently deciding to do something.'

You are exact and balanced and intelligent. This post is about being wild.

'the only people who want to hurt or get hurt for no good reason are those who dont respect life enough to enjoy their own and protect others."

Mmmm. Respect and enjoyment. So you're exactly where you should be, balanced, intelligent, and respectful. You get loads of enjoyment out of life because you respect and protect. I bet you're loads of fun at parties.

"they seek negative attention because its better than no attention"

Read the comments. The positive attention is rocking.

"put down their baggage and rented a funny movie for a frickin moment."

OK, I'm supposed to keep taking you seriously? Did you just say "baggage"? You're trying to nail me regarding the definition of "craving" and then you're going to tell me to put down my "baggage" and watch funny videos?

"life is a good thing. admit it."

I never spoke against life. I'm speaking against tame lifeless pussies.

"you know people who actually have god-awful lives of pain and suffering and war and starvation, they never want to die. they want to live...without pain and war and starvation."

Oh, you know what people want? You should write a book. There's a market for books that tell people what they want... especially if it's balanced and respectful. You could call it "Lose Your Baggage. Rent Some Videos".

"and wild animals do not want to smash other animals simply because they refuse to let go of some baggage. no animals in the wild with full bellies and just enough turf to live they kick back and enjoy the day...oh yes they do."

But what happens when you go messing around on a wild animals "turf"? You might get fucked up, right?

Listen, you could've been balanced and respectful of me and my blog space but you came stomping through here with your "baggage", trying to teach me something. You wrote your dumb ass comment with the sole motive of poking me in the eye. So check out a mirror before you take me to school. You can dress it up with all the manners you want, you're still writing "Fuck You" minus the balls.

Well, I'm not gonna spell it out for you nice: Fuck You, dude. Bring the noise or go home.

(but you can't. you're either balanced and respectful or you like blood. I think you like blood.)

beat me, whip me, hit me, hurt me. just dont call me gay... (I love you)
would gladly suffer....do any thing...just to touch you one more time.

to step over the line, the boundaries...they might even call me an asshole...I dont care.

but wait..we could simply rent the Jackass movie and punch each other in the nuts...or
kiss and face the music. Maybe girlfirends would be cool with it...do we need their permission?
.
we were happy and laughing and felt so alive. even...bromantic.
besides.. in Italy, france, Russia, and in cool emo movies. they hug and kiss...and in frat houses..and actually everywhere. we all are attracted to kind beautiful friends....so whats the big deal?...why cant we simply be affectionate without having to punch in the face... to feel alive...WTF who made these rules. thats a problem. why dont I just hug you? thats neutral yet some would deny even that...

kindness is a strength not a weakness

and it is a free country.

"you could've been balanced and respectful of me and my blog space"
which I was
"but you came stomping"
not at all
"trying to teach me something"
yeah silly me
" poking me in the eye"
more like letting in the some fresh air
"you're still writing "Fuck You".
no...actually I didnt. so there's that
"either balanced and respectful or you like blood"

you think balance is boring, tell that to cliff climbers or surfers of monster waves or intellectual giants handling more than one issue at a time, or parents with more than one kid. You say that "blood" makes for excellent partys? only if you cant come up with better ideas and no one really get too hurt which means it was all a show anyways...

Lincoln said" a choice of words is a choice of worlds"
. If all you want is a good party than say that instead of bloodfest.
chances are you'll find the good party faster if thats what you say and thats what you look for.

you may be right in that my tiretracks are so massive that anything other than bypassing your blog
could risk crushing you into a bloody mess. My bad... Although it is a blog, with a comments section.
Thats like playing on the highway...with trucks passing....

nevertheless I will turn onto a different road....and leave you in the rear view mirror with only one crushed toe...and you didn't need that anyways did you.

Waving in your rear view.

If you don't want to fight, why did you come back? Twice? And then... now.

You like to argue. You like to be "right". And that's a kind of lust for violence. That's all I was saying, surfer dude.

3martini. I just counted and you've been here 27 times since yesterday. Plus you left the comment about hugging. Is that the balance you're talking about?

Previewing and editing post 24 times doesnt count:
27-24=3 plus now = 4

and your socks are funny. so there.

Yes. I have this need to start fires ... to initiate explosions and just watch whatever follows, or to be apart of the aftermath.

I am bored with everyday living and life, its not the drama or excitement that I crave but the fact that I have set particules in motion ... like the butterflies wings.