My Truth Is A Duplicitous Urethra
My blog - friends, enemies, critics from various schools of pop psychology - is my personal space wherein my truthiest truth shines forth in its most truthfullest truthhood. It’s like a virtual organ, you know? Sometimes it’s my brain. Sometimes it’s my heart. Sometimes it’s my urethra (a complicated organ that emits both waste material and the seed of life). But the truth – my truth (I’m looking at the man in the mirror) – is complicated. It depends.
Indeed, friends. Truth itself is a urethra. Piss. And semen! All from the same fucking tube! It’s enough to melt your brain. Philosophy is dangerous. Poetry is lethal. The truth is a toothless trailer park whore who tells you she loves you while she bangs your pal Kenny on the side. She tells Kenny she loves him too. Does she love you both? Yes. And no. She digs through both your pockets while you sleep. Oh truth! You meth addled whore! I love you. I hate you. Who could count your faces?
This morning, Jack slammed my Gatorade on the counter and yelled “When are you gonna drink this Gatorade?!? And make some room for other people in the house who use the fridge too?!?” and I, of course, thought about smacking his mouth. I also wondered who the fuck he thought he was talking to. I am a monster. But, there, you see? This moment of fantasy 11-year-old beating, when dwelled upon in isolation, tells a true story that isn’t altogether true.
Truth, in order to remain true to it, needs larger contexts to endure its contradictions. She loves you. She loves Kenny too. But use a condom! Truth is a disease. If you’re not a hypocrite, you’re doing it wrong. The trouble with writing anything at all is that it immediately implies its opposite. Indeed, it’s upheld by its opposite. I want to beat my son cradled in the arms of loving him.
I used to love this girl, Kerri, and she didn’t love me back in the right way, so I wanted to kill her. The severity of these feelings produced a high pitched need inside me. I just wanted her to understand me. You know? Don’t you ever feel like that? Like, fucking understand me, God, please! My best writing is motivated by misunderstood love.
I still hate being misunderstood. Writing should open things up and make you wonder. That’s all. Writing should tip toe. You know? It shouldn’t know what it is until it is what it is. And then it should move on. But the more I write on the internet, the more I keep bumping up against people who don’t want to wonder and move. They want to stand still in the simplicity of knowing it all.
The truth is a mess of lies and broken bones. First it’s this. Then it’s that. And then it’s gone. Is that bleak and negative and hopeless and ugly? What’s the alternative? If I bring up Haiti (or Auschwitz), it’s not like I’m TRYING to be hopeless and ugly. It just fucking is hopeless and ugly. That’s what it is, man, when people fly planes into buildings and the earth swallows 200,000 people. No one gets out alive. That makes ME a bummer?
If you think I’m a bummer, then I feel misunderstood. Because I still kiss my wife on the mouth. Nothing I’ve ever written is an argument against making out. I love making out. The earth is made of death. It’s filled with corpses. You’re made of death. You’re filled with corpses. We’re all floating on a life raft made of bones on an ocean of blood and, yeah, maybe that’s bleak but it’s the only life we’ve got and plus there’s kissing.
Think of all the screams heard throughout Haiti. Find someone to love and make out like crazy. Be torn to pieces.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Reader Comments (42)
I so want to make out with you right now.
It was Kenny that gave me the genital warts.
Afraid to comment. Yeah, that's my comment.
I love kissing, too. I highly recommend it. I read one blog that I love that tells me beautiful simple truth and I read this blog that tells me beautifully ugly simply complicated truth. I really liked the line "If you’re not a hypocrite, you’re doing it wrong." Thanks - I feel less concerned about being authentic in my writing. Because no one really cares.
Love your blog. (I'm so not cool enough to read it tho)
You are most emphatically NOT a bummer. And also? On today's topic? No shit. Doesn't it piss you off that you even have to write this? It pisses me off. Amy.
And yet another post where I only get glimmerings of understanding and just KNOW I'm going to have to read it five more times before my puny brain allows me an "Aha!" moment.
God I love how you write.
I love you. And not in a creepy weirdo way. Although professing love for a total stranger is ceepy and weird, please be assured this love is based on admiration and not sexual at all. I mean how could it be? I have never seen you. You could be a troll. Plus I am happily married to an amazing man who also kisses me on the mouth (and other places) quite often. Anyhoots, your writing is inspiring. Amazing. Real. I appreciate it as a parent, a spouse, a human being. And if someone can't see this as a creative and cathartic outlet for you, then frankly that person is an asshole. Write for you. Not for us or them. And if anyone reading this doesn't like what they see on this blog, STOP READING IT or stop being an asshole. The world wide web is a big place. Find some place else to waste time and be negative.
Amen. So be it.
Do you want us to move on on our own? Or should you just eliminate the comment section? I enjoy hearing what people have to say about my posts and yours. Some of it is external validation which I'm sure even you get off on sometimes. Some of it is wanting to hear what the writing has inspired in someone else. If I am moved or entertained, I typically want to say as much to the author. I think I'm not alone in that. A comment section is for...comments. That said, 'd still get shivers when I see your name pop up in my reader even if you didn't allow commnets.
Shit. Of course if your comment section didn't exist, I wouldn't have transposed "commnets" up there.
Damn it. I knew it. I don't know shit.
I am SO GLAD you finally wrote this. I've been holding my breath for almost two years now, waiting for you to do so. I wasn't exactly sure how it would be worded, or how I anticipated it should be worded, but I knew it was waiting in the wings.
Now then, put the URL in a convenient spot. This is your Pat Rebuttal. Good job.
you're not a bummer.
the world is sometimes an asshole.
but you're not a bummer at all.
Ack, I love it. But then again, I love really gnarly, nasty truths. I kind of get off on them, to be honest.
And because I am not THAT Amy, I will not sign off by telling you to think happy thoughts.
bummer? you are the opposite of that, to me.
im standing next to April, nodding
I think you rock.
Reading your twisted, dark, enlightened, hopeful, funny, scary, how'd he read my mind? and always original blog is the highlight of my day.
Well, when you post something new, that is.
Rock on, BHJ!
Amy ima letchu finish but BHJ just wrote THE GREATEST BLOG POST OF ALL TIME.
The only thing wrong with it is that I didn't write it.
Fucking awesome.
I got carried away. I've been thinking about those things recently, and your post reminded me of that and shuffled some things around for me. Thus, the pontificating. Looking back, I guess those ideas do seem like pop psychology. They worry me, though.
That said, are you sure? Are you sure your blog is your personal space? I've always thought of this web address as a place where your community of readers can talk with you, exchange their stories, reflect back what they think you've said.
But, maybe I'm misunderstanding you right now. At this moment. Ok.
you give me hope.
Lucy. The personal space stuff is joking around - so is all the expression of my truth. And I didn't read your comments like pop psychology.
The hardest thing for me to endure is a certain kind of comment that interprets me (and solves me) via simplistic, watered down ideas, as if figuring ourselves out and solving all our puzzles quick and easy is the goal.
Because then what? Yup. Then you can go make some money.
your posts give me goosebumps. is that weird?
it's always the last lines in your posts that get me most. you're a brilliant writer.
Holy shit. That was amazing. As always.
your command of language is inspiring.
Fuck the "people"! Write on writer!
But I love money, BHJ. I can't get rollerblades or Tang without it. What would I do on Thursday mornings?
Tang. It's a good thing I'm immune to diabetes.
Your usage of the phrase "truthiest truth" should have been clue one. I was feeling vulnerable. Thanks.
It's so much easier to stand still in the simplicity of knowing it all, feeling smug and patting yourself on the back. It's so much harder, and more frightening, to move with the ever-shifting truth. And that's the case when you're just trying to figure yourself out. When you're watching someone else's life unfold on a screen from the safety of your living room, it's so very easy to diagnose all the myriad ways in which they're messing up. My favorite thing about your blog is the constant ambiguity, and the pairing of opposites. But a lot of people are very uncomfortable with ambiguity. I find myself uncomfortable with certainty. But then sometimes that makes me feel like I possess a simple omniscience (the only constant is change, I tell myself, oh-so-faux-wisely), leaving me smug and alone in my living room with my just own arm for company, patting myself on the back. Do you think we could all live in ambiguity, all the time? Or would that just be chaos? But then again, don't we live in chaos now, amidst all our smug simplicity? In any case, I like the questions you raise, even though they inevitably lead me to more questions. Thanks.
Second week in therapy. Not sure I'm going to make it. Your words help. Going to run a tempo 5 tomorrow. Hope your back is better.
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Two-timing meth-head truth-whores are just my type. Thanks for giving them their due and getting me all hot and bothered to make out.
I'm with Jodi. Only I would have said fuck the "sheeple!" You are an explosion of greatness and they are mediocrity and simplicity and conformity!
Writing should always have the option of stomping.
Making out should be mandatory for life.
That is the truthiest truth I've read in quite a while, BHJ. My dude likes to say we're all the children of dead or dying stars; same diff, but somehow not as real and painful and honest as the way you put it.
Great post. I get really fucking tired of just writing, "Dur, great post" on your entries, but goddamn, there's nothing else I could add.
Ew. Yucky corpsy stuff and swearing invalidates everything you have to say. Like Kerri, I can't combine death and making out.
;-)
everything you write is the truth and everything you write is a lie.
I love you.
I love Kenny.
Two thumbs up, my friend. Mind, duly fucked.
I love your writing. I envy your writing. I read you when I'm light enough to bear the darkness. I read you when I'm low enough to need a lift. I missed your writing when you disappeared off the blogs and when I found the new blog, I waited for days before I tried to catch up.
My only complaint with your blog, not your writing, your blog ~ is that I sometimes wish you didn't pay so much attention to what we say here in the comments. I wish you were a more self centered writer because what I want is for all your writing to gather enough momentum, enough notice, enough velocity to just sweep me away. Fuck Amy and all the anti-Amys too because I think they distract you from what I want. I just want you to write.
"But the more I write on the internet, the more I keep bumping up against people who don’t want to wonder and move. They want to stand still in the simplicity of knowing it all."
i was just discussing this concept today WRT suburbia, and the people who decide to live there.
and all these other things - that whole Keats "beauty is truth, truthbeauty" thing - i call bullshit. sometimes there is nothing beautiful about it.
i think about this a lot, really, and i also hate that some people think i'm a downer because these are the things that fill my brain - these things i didn't create, and sometimes i need to talk about them. thank you for putting this little bit into words.
"I still hate being misunderstood. Writing should open things up and make you wonder. That’s all. Writing should tip toe. You know? It shouldn’t know what it is until it is what it is. And then it should move on. But the more I write on the internet, the more I keep bumping up against people who don’t want to wonder and move. They want to stand still in the simplicity of knowing it all."
Dude. Thanks. Most of us just want to be understood. But understanding is far too complex, I am not the same person I was three minutes ago. How could you possibly keep up? And those who are confused but unwilling to admit they are so, choose to stand still in the simplicity of "KNOWING IT ALL". I'll just admit I'm confused. So thanks again. Another brilliant post.
god i love bhj so much!!!
This post read like a poem . . . a brilliant, bittersweet poem.
i will be forever thankful that i found your blog. i consistently want to shout "fuck yeah!" after each entry. this one, especially, resonates with me right now and you've no idea how much i needed that.
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