Below are the 6 most recent journal entries recorded in Chris' LiveJournal:

Monday, May 23rd, 2005
12:48 am	moving i have decided my creative output would be better utilized without all the silly menus, so i'm prostrating myself to my faithful audience of two people, and moving to www.myspace.com/freakprince00 that's me. if you have problems with it, tough. :P neener Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: alkaline trio - good mourning - "this could be love" (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 5th, 2005
2:27 pm	Starbucks ish good... I begin my entry with an observation. Caffeine is good. Even when you're thousands of miles from home, you can still feel at home in a familiar spot. Funny though, because the way "Starbucks" looks in farsi, it looks like a drunk person tried to write "justieeL" without lifting their quill from the parchment. Either way, they still make caramel frappuccinos with the same panache, albeit they're more generous with the caramel in third world countries. The sugar doesn't come in little packets of "sugar in the raw" nor do they give you little popsicle sticks to stir your beverage. I much prefer these quaint plastic swizzle sticks to that splint of wood. Yesterday, I had a cup of hot chocolate as my companions and i conversed over how stupid our pets are. I learned that a dog can take three attemps to learn that a glass door is closed. I learned that anything that requires a helmet is not pre-ordained by nature. And most importantly, i learned that everyone from california has the same outlook on life. We're all hamsters in a giant alien experiment. (The NASA program is actually a ploy to get more money out of taxpayers.) Other than that, life on the boat is standard. the moldy cheddar color has grown on me, and the taste of salt has gotten tolerable. Maybe i just need someone to send me booze. mmm booze. Thus, i complete this entry and abandon this website for another 6 weeks. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 28th, 2004
8:55 pm	The smell of memory... The smell of her hair in my memory is light, and incomprehensible. I'd like to imagine the fragrance of her hair being something along the lines of rose petals and honey. I'd like to think that the scent would make me swoon, light-headed and dizzy with the pleasure of inhaling her scent. Perhaps not roses. Maybe that nonexistent hybrid fruit that pollutes the shampoo aisle in the groceries across the nation, such as orange-mango or the ever-elusive cucumber-melon. Nonetheless, I can't describe the scent in my mind. I'd like to say that the reason for my blank memory is just that; a faulty memory. A memory clouded with the sands of time, blowing and billowing like a storm in the Gobi. A melange of buildings and flowers and events that faded slowly over the years. A fragment here, the falling petals of some long-forgotten flower, landing upon the rich granite of some likewise long-forgotten tomb. Another fragment, herbs tumbling from a jar, into a cloud of steam and mixing gently with the other spices populating the air of my mother's kitchen. I'd like to say that the reason I can't place the fragrance is because I have never smelled anything like it. The kerosene and citrus smell of glue, holding together that cherished model airplane I spent 7 months building with painstaking care. The same model airplane that was destroyed in my luggage as the handlers threw it from the cargo hold of a 747 into the San Francisco-bound jet upon which I sat, reading the latest book by Aaron Allston or perhaps Neil Gaiman. Agatha Christie would be started on this flight, but she would be left in my cupboard, alone and unloved, until I decided to start packing for the greener pastures of Arizona. It may seem laughable, but the smallest patch of green in that barren (one might think wasteland, despite it being anything but.) area of the southwest can lighten your day, allowing you to remember that which you left behind. The glue odor is nothing like it, but I illustrate my point. Smell is the most underrated sense we possess. Each scent you encounter can trigger a deep forgotten memory. I'd like to state any number of reasons, but my mind always comes back to the same conclusion. I simply haven't been close enough to her to inhale her scent. I haven't been near enough to initiate a conversation. Even if I had been, it's doubtful I'd take the chance. Someone like that wouldn't feel flattery at being approached by a bespectacled little man with acne scarred skin and bad hair. She wouldn't give a second glance. I know. It's happened in the past. Mexico was lovely, but I can't say I was ever into the night scene. Mind you, I didn't say I disliked the darkness. I merely can't appreciate that which others think is entertainment. The dark being punctured by neon creations, hollow light shining (if you can call it shining) upon the gutters full of soiled paper and the random disposed condom. Prophylactics just don't belong there in my mind. Perhaps it's the filth of being used by a stranger in a dark alley, a metaphor for the piece of yourself you give up, only to be dropped and kicked and eventually ignored by the jaded population. The night followed me into the smoky interior of the bar, which was rather full, and bodies gyrated and writhed within the strobing light. The group of friends I had embarked with had found other companionship, but I couldn't blame them. The worst part of it all, I must admit, was that I was not hoping for anything to come of my approach. I had just wanted to dance, and sidling up next to her, I uttered a hello. The look of disgust on her face will stay with me forever. It wasn't more than two years ago, and I can't remember what her face actually looked like, but the revulsion was apparent, and will stay with me like a kick to the gut of my fragile ego. I digress. For now, I shall place my pen to the paper and for the next few pages, worship the beauty of an anonymous goddess. She had the thing parisians call jé né sais quoi. The beauty that can't be described. Or perhaps I just liked the way she looked. Her hair reminded me of the way chocolate looks at midnight, on the night of a new moon. The strands drew your eyes to her jaw, ivory and sculpted, but not sharp or severe in any way. Her cheekbones not striking or pronounced. They only served to accent her eyes, framed by what the kids call "emo" glasses. If given a choice, she looked like she would wear tiny rhinestones on the horns of her frames, reaching up and adjusting them with hot pink nails, fluorescent rubber bangles swinging around her wrists. The kind of girl who would introduce herself as Trixy or Candy, but would later admit (with more than a little self consciousness) that ner name was Patricia or Candace. It must be something about the image. I've always found myself attracted to the same type of woman, and she was each of those things that drive me mad, wrapped in a petite frame swathed in flimsy blue cloth, most likely cotton, with a romance novel in her back pocket. Her lips can be described as rosy, but in my mind I can picture them rimmed with dark red wax, shinier than nature could bestow upon anyone. Deep colors and contrast. Whites next to reds and near-blacks. Dark stitching the light areas, creating a strange harmony that you could try forever but never create on purpose. I stopped myself today, watching her. I felt dirty. I felt guilty. I felt as though I would offend her if she knew that I had ever paid her mind. I came within two paces of approaching a friend of hers, thinking to myself of what I would say. "Hi, I don't know you, but can you do me a favor? That girl you were just talking to, can you just tell me she's married? I don't want to know if it's true. I don't want to know if it would be a lie. I just want you to tell me that she is married." "Why?" And to that I would have no answer. Perhaps, if given a few days, I could explain the ideas in my head. The ideas about how married women might be attractive to me, but the boundaries I set for myself are stronger than any fear of rejection could ever be. You might say I'm rather honorable. Honest and beyond corruption. But then again, I might have been lying to myself, and in the end would have made the forbidden fruit look that much jucier. The sweetness of the red berries that were her lips. The verdant and organic aroma of her hair. How I could lose myself to those. But in the end, I can't do it. I have to live with the torment of my fantasy for a while longer. Within a month, I will forget the face. I will get over it. I will forget the fragrance I have made in my thoughts. I will lose the conversations that didn't happen. And I will abandon the affair that I had made up in my mind and allow myself to remember the only the emotions, without the complications of faces or names. I will abandon what might have been and revel in everything that is. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
8:46 pm	An update I wrote while on the USS Bonhomme Richard... Seawater: I tasted salt. Not the kind of salt you put in little frosted glass jars, with holes in the top, shaped vaguely like chess pieces. This was the kind of salt that corrodes the sides of your home. It eats through your flooring and turns the walls the color of molded cheddar. A bright orange with flecks of greenish grey, lined with a dusting of powder you dare not taste, but can't avoid smelling. Granted, this salt would only eat through your home if it was made of metal, and if mixed with generous amounts of water. It actually tastes nothing like the sea water on the sandy beaches of my memory. It tastes more like insecticide. Insecticide diluted in water, then misted on your face with one of those plant sprayers sold so often on late night infomercials. My mother bought one for the ferns in the den, but my brothers and I ruined it while pretending to be firemen. Perhaps we weren't destined to work as firefighters. Then again, perhaps firefighters have a stronger stream in their hoses than we could create with that overpriced piece of packaged tubing. But at least that water didn't taste like insecticide.... We were at sea for one day before the first person got sick. Luck was on my side when my companion Cameron began purging his overcooked fajita chunks onto the rough surface of the boat's deck. Luck smiled upon my boots and my trousers that day. I say that because Cameron's digestive expulsion landed a dime's breadth away from my toes. It may sound trite, but I dodged the proverbial bullet. Heading back to berthing was uneventful, but once again I was accosted by the various smells, (not all of them pleasant) that told me I was sharing my personal touch bubble with nearly 300 other men. This might have been alright if the showers weren't coated with the film of grime that accumulates with every use. The stainless steel walls of the shower stalls did not comfort me, as stainless steel doesn't necessarily mean sterile steel. Furthermore, not every one of the men in the area even used the showers. This might have been alright if there was the possibility of solitude. Anywhere. But there wasn't. Other scents, aftershave, cologne, fabric deodorizing spray, and air fresheners, were wafting in the air. Another trite observation, but the pungent mixture hung in the air like a fog, suffocating you each day. It chokes you enough for it to bother you, but not enough for you to notice it. This can be seen from two points of view. You can assume that the smell won't have an effect on those around you, nor will your scent (because only the most naive and inconsiderate are not worried about the way they smell, or worse, are convinced that they don't have one) be the subtle mixture of sweat and shampoo that it normally is. Or you can acknowledge the cloying aroma of human emotions and ignore them. Either way, it begins to wear away at your patience. Not only that, but it wears so slowly, yet so constantly, that eventually something in your mind snaps, but there is no escape. It begins with the annoyance at never being alone. The constant company drives you insane in the worst way. You stop thinking. You stop concentrating. Eventually, you don't notice you're never alone, but it still eats at you. Second, you begin to imagine ways of removing that which annoys you. You find the rusty shower nozzle and unclog it. You pick the bones from the dry chicken breast you're given, and chew and swallow and chew some more. Then you throw the bones away and hope you don't have chicken for the next two days afloat. What do you do with people? You imagine all the delightful ways they can have accidents. You think of things that are dangerous; might cause injury, maiming or perhaps killing those in the area. Fantasizing isn't the right word, but it's the first one that comes to mind. I sit alone (or as close to that state as one can be here) and begin to daydream. The thought of taking a shiny blade to the bulging obscene veins of a person's neck are strangely comforting. As are thoughts of leaping across a table and grasping the hair of someone across the way, dragging their face into the vacu-formed plastic and metal that masquerades as a dining set. The thought of bringing their lips to kiss the surface of the wall repeatedly brings a smile to my face. My eyes open suddenly and I don't really recall how it all happened. The leering eyes meet mine and that hysterical smile of a stranger greets me as I regain awareness. Perhaps I thought I was still in my imagination. The blade was out and past before I could stop myself, and then I found my face splattered with a warm sticky gush of blood. I should have felt horror. I should have felt remorse. I should have felt something other than what I did. As I pushed the corpse overboard, I felt a smile spread across my face. I licked my lips, not minding the red fluid on my face. I tasted salt. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 16th, 2004
12:24 am	Goodbye Cruel World... Sometimes we take the time we have on Earth for granted. Once upon a time, I would relish the fact that a Taco Bell resided 4 blocks away. No longer. Tomorrow, I shall receive my first infusion of Anthrax, then it's off to the briny deep for me. (Does that sound as melancholy as I hoped it would? No? Drat.) In fact, for a glorious 11 days, I shall be sitting on the steel beach of the Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) wondering why the stars only hide when the city looms overhead. (This is supposed to make it sound as though i look forward to the Carrier Qualification Exercise... believe me, this is as facetious as i can be when not in real time text forums...) Those of you who know me, Goodbye. Those of you who don't... Don't worry. I shall return soon to berate and abuse you as i would my own bastard step-children. (Not that i would abuse my children, just that i treat all strangers like children... Damn, I'm jaded. LoL) For the two thousand and forty-seventh time, Humans are stupid. Crowley's Quote this post: "Some people chase their dreams. Others hunt them down and beat them senseless..." (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 12th, 2004
5:51 pm	Every journey begins with a single step Hopefully this step isn't washed away by the sands of time too quickly. This will be an experience, for those of you who care to read. I understand that many of you are illiterate fools, but those of you who aren't will appreciate the beauty of my prose. *laughs* or not. You have been warned. This is the beginning... (1 Comment |Comment on this)