I'm A Little Blog...

The Blogging world is an elaborate, complicated and frightening ocean for those of us who barely know how to swim in its established currents. Spend some time pursuing Blogs and you will be dumbfounded with the surplus of terms like: RSS Feeders, Blogshares. NeighBlogMap, Technorati, BlogWise-the list goes on and on. And if you are like me and have no idea what it all means you may feel a bit intimidated. But you take it slow and keep at it, learning as you go.

For starters, I have added my very own Shoutbox, a little goodie I found on CreativeCriminal Blog some guy in India who I found from WoosterCollective, to help me start a little dialogue with my readers. I’ve also added a counter to see if there actually are any readers! This brings me to my request: Although I have been force-feeding my close group of friends for years with my rants, diatribes and random thoughts by sending them reminders to stay tuned and read as I write, I would like to try and connect with the larger cyberworld. Like all Bloggers and most writers for that matter, I guess I have a need to know that someone out there may find what I am writing worth reading, and now as I enter the Blogging Ocean I want to see who is out there and what you have to say. I think writing and in turn Blogging maintains our primordial urge to connect with others, so we can maybe keep the doom and loneliness at bay a bit longer.

If you are a more experienced Blogger, please share your wisdom on how to have as many as people as possible read my blog. And if you are here at IntrepidFlameBlog even for a second, or if you have been at IntrepidFlame the website please drop a quick note in the Shoutbox, or comment on the posts you read, so I can start to gauge exactly who is out there and what you have to say.

Friday Night Live

Since I stopped drinking, my Friday nights, and subsequently my Saturday mornings, have become quite different, especially on the nights when my wife is out. Gone are the nights of staring down a few bottles of wine as the cigarettes melt away into the ashtray. These days I try to record a few songs, get some writing done, and maybe watch a movie. Tonight was no different. I pulled out the ole six-string and recorded the following songs. As always I wish I could actually sing them in a key, but I am patient, so I hope you are as well. Go to Intrepid Flame for a complete list of songs.


roses from my friends

father and son

wild world

where do the children play

these friday nights spent
alone without my crutches
i walk just as well

I Don't Want to Be A Soldier...Mama. I Don't Want to Die.

I was watching the movie Jarhead the other night, when I got to thinking: If we want to stop wars we must stop glorifying the warriors. The film based on the novel of the same name depicts a group of young Marines as they prepare to go to Iraq during the first Gulf War. They are a ragtag crew of undereducated, jingoistic, sometimes homoerotic men so disillusioned by testosterone and exaggerated ideas of patriotism that they appear to be mindless brutes. Watching them run about shirtless, branding each other whilst cursing made me appreciate the hell that the military must be. It also got me questioning, what kind of person signs up for this type of work? These are the troops we are asked to support? These are the few, the proud, the Marines.

Now before you start disagreeing that not all military men and women are like these caricatures and that there must be educated sensitive soldiers, let me say that I am sure you are right. Although, I am not sure if there can be a better example of an oxymoron than educated sensitive soldiers. I think it is safe to assume that a movie based on a novel written by a Marine, one that follows the patterns we have seen many times in movies that depict military life, should be considered somewhat accurate. I mean how many times have we seen films or read books about military life where a group[ of diverse young men try and figure out why they are so angry. I would also like to submit my own personal interaction with a few military people I have met. In college, I lived with a guy in the Navy, and watching the people he dealt with on a daily basis made me count my blessings that I was not under the same sentence as him. The people I met from his ship reaffirmed every stereotype I have ever heard about military personnel.

But this has been an inaccurate introduction. I am not here to declare that the military is made up of a violent breed of idiots, even if that may be the case. I am here to question why we, as a society, honor such men. Why do we take people from our poorest neighborhoods, who are young, impressionable, lacking low-self esteem, out of options, ignorant of world affairs and history, and fill them with hatred and violence. And then when they murder fellow human beings, or are killed themselves do we award them with badges and salute them. It seems absurd.

I can already see flag waving fists pumping as their owners curse me for my blasphemy. Shouting slogans like, They are fighting for your freedom. You little faggot.(Super patriotic people have a very highly charged homophobia, that leads one to believe that maybe the inability to come to terms with ones sexuality, may lead to violent behavior and the need to be around many other strong and violent men sharing stories about who is the least gay and who is the most.) But back to our flag wavers who say that without our soldiers we would be exposed to the wrath of Nazis, terrorists or worse communists. My idea, however, goes beyond that logic. I am asking why we honor soldiers of any nation? Have we, as a species, not evolved from the Vikings or the Knights of the Round Table? Are we still so enthralled with violent victories that we must debase our sensitivities and ourselves every time a man in uniform spills blood on some battlefield. Why not simply criminalize violent behavior and make being a soldier close to a criminal act. Again I don’t mean only the US, but all nations that have armies or soldiers will be considered unlawful. I am not to naïve to believe that we can start to disarm the world today, but can we not simply start to devalue violent behavior. Can’t we stop idolizing the soldiers? Can’t we find something else for small boys to want to be?

Before you accuse me of being unrealistic or worse idealistic. Think about it. I am simply saying imagine a world where we don’t buy toy guns for our kids, we don’t play war games, we don’t salute men who kill other men, we don’t applaud violence, the fact that three generations of men have died defending a nation could be considered sad not honorable. How about a nation that gives young men who lack opportunity, opportunity, we give men who lack self-esteem, confidence, not by becoming mindless rage filled drones, but by understanding themselves and making better choices. We do not support the troops-any of them, any where in the world, we tear down barracks, fire drill-instructors and rip apart uniforms, flags, and discard badges. We cancel parades and disassemble tanks. We stop making guns and destroy the ones we have. Okay, okay I am entering fairyland, where we all run around wearing only leaves and eating fresh fruit.

I am trying to be realistic. After watching Jarhead, I felt such pity for people in the military. It seems like such a cop-out. Here are men who are so weak that they find strength through violence. They are so scared that they hide behind walls of false unity. They actually look forward to killing other men they know nothing about. I see no honor in this type of behavior. There is no honor in teaching a man to become a killing machine, no matter what the cause. I am not blaming the individual men; I am blaming the type of society that demands men sacrifice themselves as cannon fodder. I am criticizing a society that stands up at sporting events to watch jets fly over stadiums, the same jets that rain death and destruction miles across the sea. I am criticizing a society that sells military clothing in children’s sizes. I am criticizing a society that loves to fight, even when it has no idea who it is fighting or why. I am criticizing a society that is obsessed with winning, with violence. I am criticizing a society that is not evolving.

This is not a critique of the Untied States. This is a comment on all our societies. Isn’t it time that we disarm the warriors and stop treating them with reverence? Isn’t it time that we help cure our warriors, help them to curb their violence not reward it? Isn’t it time that we move passed a system of warfare that has done nothing but fail since it’s outset? So what is my suggestion? This is often the ultimatum given us idealist by the realists of the world. Yeah, well what are we gonna do? Everything is so fucked up. My answer is a simple one; do not support violence, in any form. If you want to support the troops support them before they become troops.

Yes. I too feel the violence in my words.
I am also trying to rid myself of this menace.


(I am not sure how many people read this blog or who you are if you do stop by, but I would love some comments, especially from any military personnel. Please try and be original and don’t send a slew of expletive filled diatribes. If you were insulted by anything I said, please try and prove me wrong.)

How To Stop A War

Three years ago today, I was sitting in an apartment on 108th Street, watching the beginnings of an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation by the global imperial bully. The world, apparently, was under threat from a rogue state and their stockpile of WMDs. We were told that they might have even had a nuclear bomb. Then without much fanfare, a war started right there on my TV in my living room.

Three years ago, I was full of piss and vinegar. I was constantly attending demonstrations, socialist meetings, anything to try and find a way to stop the blatant injustice, the hypocrisy and the crime that was underway. Now three years later, every one of the lies we exposed are out in the open but nothing changes. There were no weapons of mass destruction, no links to Al Queda. Nothing. Today the US war machine is building permanent bases in the deserts of Iraq and saber rattling for Iran. Here they come again with a new batch of lies. Actually, they are eerily similar to their old lies. Iran is a nuclear threat; they are dangerous to the world and so on.

Meanwhile, Iraq has been transformed into hell on earth. The headlines are so outrageous that one is dumfounded trying to make sense of them. This war could cost over a trillion dollars. 18, 34, 56, 122, 6 dead every day. Men , women, children. And for what? What has been the result?

I have grown tired during the last three years. I have heard that we cannot bring about peace in the world until we find peace in ourselves. So I guess that is what I have been doing. The tempest in my heart has subsided a bit, and I breathe much easier these days, but I am left wondering how this fragile newly found peace I have fostered will spread.

I am weary not to allow my anger to control my behavior, but I have been left with a gapping hole. Not sure what to fill it with, I simply read the news and shake my head. I don’t know what to do anymore. The frustration and anguish are too much to bear. I remember as a child, I would study footage of the Vietnam protests, and I swore that if I had the chance, I would swarm the streets. I looked at the people with such admiration. But what am I doing now? This war will not stop on it’s own accord. And what do I do? I sit alone in this room, typing away my guilt and feeling ineffectual. My anger substituted with hopelessness…If you have any suggestions on how to stop a war, please comment on this page with your ideas. I am waiting anxiously.

In the meantime here are two great articles to get you thinking.

America's Blinders by Howard Zinn
The Logic of Withdrawl by Anthony Arnove

Carpe Diem Actually Means Something

It’s eight o’clock on a Friday night and I have had a crazy week at school. One that included the aforementioned poetry reading, correcting and turning in quarter three grades, and the selling of a photograph for $60, I grab my guitar and walk down in the rain looking for a cab. My iPod is blasting Untitled by Interpol as I sit in traffic watching the rain. I am on my way to an audition.

Yes, I am a 31-year-old American teacher going to the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Center and yes I am auditioning for a musical. Last week in our acting class the teacher, who by the way I found out is married to the “first lady” of acting in Malaysia, told us that he is directing a new Musical that will be playing in late August. He said that we should all think about coming, if for no other reason than to experience an audition. And because my name is not Jeff Enos, and because I showed my students Dead Poet Society this week and the phrase Carpe Diem actually means something to me, I decided that I would audition no matter what. So what if I can’t really sing, or dance, or act and I would have no time to do this even if I did get the part, seeing that I am teaching and having a baby, but why not at least say yes to the chance to see what it is like.

So as it drizzled outside, I was sitting in a studio with Joe, the director, a woman choreographer and some woman on the piano. I played the opening chords of Forever by Ben Harper and off I went. I fucked it up pretty bad. Nerves. He asked me to play something a bit more up tempo and seeing that The Times Are A Changin is the only other songs I can just play and sing, I belted into that. Vocally, I was trying to not be shy, but the guitar playing suffered and I butchered the chords. After that he asked me to go to the piano and the woman wanted to test my range. I knew what that meant in theory, but I had no idea what to do when she pounded a key and asked me to sing the note. I did my best. Sing the lowest note you can. Now the highest. I laughed inside about all the things I have to learn.

Next, the choreographer asked me to follow some basic steps. I fumbled through them and got a few of them right. I sat down and we all laughed a bit about my performance. We all knew that I was not there to be in this play, but that I just want to try and say yes. I wanted the experience and this, from the way he looked at me, seemed to please the director. “I like you Jabiz. You got guts.” You don’t know the half of it Joe. He said that the auditions will go through next week and if there is a short list he would call me. We both knew that he wouldn’t be calling. But that is okay. I didn’t go there to get the part. I went there because most people when given a flier advertising auditions for a musical would not think of going. I am not most people. I can now add auditioned for a musical to my resume. I walked to get a cab in the thick humid air, listening the song Say Something by James. A stray dog trotted by my side, than it ran off into the darkness.

An Interactive Poetic Experience

We began the poetry unit four weeks ago. I started by writing the following four bullets on the board:

I hate poetry and make fun of it every chance I get. It is the last thing I would choose to do. Me write poetry, get real!

I don’t know anything about poetry, but it sounds boring and not something I want to get involved with. I would only write poetry if I were forced to at school.

I think poetry is okay. I liked it when I was little, but I am not very good at it. I would write poetry if someone showed me how, but never on my own.

I love poetry and I write it often. I would love for someone to teach me how to get better so my poems don’t all sound like, “roses are red…”

I asked my students to show me where they see themselves on my list by a show of hands. Most of the students fell either in the first or second category. This didn’t surprise me. I remembered my thoughts on poetry in eighth grade, and they were either negative in nature or non-existent, and I didn’t have ultra-violent video games, cell-phones and iPods to waste my time with. This was going to be a challenge. I told them that my goal was to move everyone up a box or two. My goal was to make poetry cool.

Last Wednesday night was the end of our poetry unit. Here is what happened:

As a group, we planned what we called An Interactive Poetic Experience. This was an opportunity to share our work with friends, other teachers and parents. We organized committees to bring food. There was sushi, quiches, cakes, pies, pastas, Caesar Salad, cookies, soda, juice, coffee, tea, apple cider- it was an amazing spread, all organized by the students. We also had exhibits. One was the haiku mobiles. Each student had created a haiku-mobile ( a creation of mine to illustrate the delicacy, balance, structure and freedom of the form.) Some were made from tennis rackets others included stuffed animal cows. Parents walked through a maze of mobiles while nibbling on an hors d'oeuvre. Other exhibits included a wall painting of color poems; there was also a table where students taught their parents the basics of writing haiku or using figurative language. We had a string quintet to play in the background. The students had come after school to help decorate the bland white room. We had borrowed color lights used for dances and strung Christmas lights to the ceiling. We had also lined up over three hundred tea-light candles on the floors and counter tops. The self-published books were the centerpiece of the room. All forty-six of my students had written and self-published a book of poetry containing at least twenty poems. They wrote free-verse, haiku, cinquains, even a sonnet. Each book was illustrated with photographs, drawings and other artwork that brought each book to life. We had also been practicing reading our poems everyday in class. Some days we stood on chairs, to really feel the power of owning the room, other days we bowed and chanted as we read haikus. Some days we let the sunlight fill the room as we listened to Miles Davis, some days we sat in the courtyard watching the ants and listened to the birds for inspiration. It was one of the most rewarding units I have ever taught. I watched students slowly come out of their shells. I watched them learn to manipulate language to work for them, rather than being controlled by words. I watched them start to understand and recognize the poems in their lives. Surrounded by couches and chairs, parents sat drinking their coffee while they read their children’s poems.

I walked the room like a gracious host talking with everyone. “This is so great. I can’t believe you got so-and-so so excited about poetry. This is all he has been talking about for a week. The kids all seem so excited. This is great. She worked on her book all day on Saturday. I have never seen him so excited about English before. You have done a remarkable job.” I walked through the room and watched people feeling good. Not about myself necessarily, though I was proud of the work I had done, but I was happy to see that poetry had brought us all together. It gave me faith in words and ideas. I had not made the event mandatory, nor had I ever said that it would affect their grades, but all forty-six kids showed up. Most were dressed up and looked anxious and excited. We are all alive together in a dimly lit room. Brought there to share and experience poetry: The art of self-expression.

The microphone and podium beckoned so we started the reading. Each student waited for his or her turn to stand in the red spotlight and read his or her poem. Every single one read, even the ones who came to me earlier and begged to be let off the hook. “Listen, I told them, I know you are scared. It takes a lot of courage to open up and expose yourself, but you can do it. Remember, I never said this is mandatory, so you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but trust me if you do it, tonight, as you lie waiting to fall asleep, you will feel better if you read. I promise.” They all read, so did other teachers, the principal, a mom, and a little six year old sister.

After the last reader, I thanked everyone for coming and said goodnight, but one of my students came to the microphone and said that he wanted to thank me on behalf of all the eight graders for making poetry fun. I smiled and waved, and I knew that at least for those two hours, poetry was cooler than anything else those kids could have been doing. And now we move on to Shakespeare and The Tempest.

Discover Banksy

If you have never heard the name Banksy, have some fun at his site

Clockin' Ten Hour Days

People often give teachers grief. They say: that we have summers off, and that we only work till three and so on. I am sure there is a litany of other comments people make about the easiness of teaching, but I am not here to rewrite a Hallmark poster detailing the difficulties of teaching, nor am I here to make the profession I have chosen seem more important than it is. I am simply here to regroup, sort through, reflect and celebrate some things that happened to me today.

I started teaching in Africa several years ago. I didn’t know what I was doing and so it was exciting. Next, I moved to the Bronx. Riding the train home in tears everyday not so exciting. The reason I am sharing my resume is because after, wow, has it been six years, I am getting the hang of it. The days, even the long ones like today, leave me feeling satisfied, complete. I clocked a ten-hour day today that went a little like this:

It was due day. The 7th graders had projects based on the novel The Giver due today, and the 8th graders had their Poetry books. I decided to show some movies. Both to reward the students for two weeks of hard work, and also, to give myself a little break to correct the projects and get grades ready by Tuesday. The seventh graders watched Pleasantville, because it shares some themes with The Giver and the 8th graders watched Dead Poet Society. The reason should be obvious.

I sat and watched their faces as Mr, Keating talked about Carpe Diem. I thought back to the first time I saw the movie in my English class with the same goosebumps on my arm. I was in tenth grade, and my entire future suddenly was laid out in front of me. The play goes on what will be your verse, the teacher asks? Some of my students had tuned out after the opening credits, I guess they will be the executives and bankers, but a few of them, the same ones that have been passing me poems to read for the last few weeks, sat watching enthralled. I could see the thrill reflected off their faces as they watched the boys in the film living deliberately. I thought to myself teaching is simple, all you have to do is show children that we have to keep cynicism at bay and believe in magic. All we have to show them is that life is to be lived. I couldn’t correct because I was too engrossed in the film.

Later. One of the options for the assignment for The Giver projects was to write a song and perform it in front of the class. I took my class to the theater and we sat backstage at a piano, as one of the girls sang and played an amazing piece she had written herself. She had handwritten the music and lyrics, and she sang as she played one of the prettiest melodies I have ever heard. I grabbed the whole class and we gave her a group hug. We laughed and talked about how great her project was as we walked back to the room to watch Pleasantville. I sat and watched uncomfortably as the sexually explicit material passed. How would I explain to a parent that I had shown their twelve year old a movie with a woman masturbating until a tree caught fire?

Later. I start reading the poetry books. If you allow people, especially young people to explore themselves and create, they will always surprise and impress you every time. Some of the books are breathtaking.

Later. I tutor an ESL kid after school and so, we worked on getting him more computer literate. After an hour, he skipped out of class because he learned how to create a word document with boxes and arrows.

I spent the next few hours listening to music and entering individual comments for seventy-six kids into the report card program. It was laborious but necessary I suppose.

I arrived home around six thirty. Exhausted. In two days we are having a poetry reading with food, music, and candles details coming soon, but I felt the need to document this day. There have been so many that have disappeared, but watching that girl play the piano today needed to be documented and shared. I am just thankful that I don’t do anything besides teaching because how many other people can say they watched a twelve year-old sing a song they wrote today.

And tomorrow I go back again for more. The beauty of it is that I have no idea what to expect.

...and now some poems.

it is worrisome to consider

we are no more than these words.
beyond their meanings
animated flesh
failing
evaporating dusk
becoming night

within this verse
we smolder
ready to burn

New Music

It’s always exciting when old favorites put out new music. So, it was doubly as exciting when I realized today that two of my favorite artists not only have new singles out now, but that they have full length CDs due out soon.

Ben Harper will release Both Sides Of A Gun on March 21st and you can listen to his new single “Better Way” .



And Pearl Jam will release their first album on J records; their eighth album will be self titled and released on May 2nd. You can listen to their first single “WorldWide Suicide” .

Stressed Out?

These pictures are used by psychologists in the USA to
assess the level of stress a person can handle. The slower the
pictures move, the better your ability of handling stress.

Criminals, with Psychotic tendencies, were tested with the same
images & they noticed the images were spinning around madly.

The best results came from senior citizens, who have little or
no history of stress related illnesses and children under five fed
on a natural, non additive diet. Both groups saw them standing
still.

None of these images are animated - they are perfectly static.

Acting Lesson #2

Today was a long day at the actor’s studio, so once again this post may be abridged. I arrived at the studio a little after eleven to practice my two scenes with the two different groups I have been assigned to. Eight hours later, I made my way home through a torrential thunderstorm. Starving and exhausted. My Sunday’s have become very intensive, introspective, emotional, internal bouts. Maybe bouts is too violent a word. Maybe dance would be a better choice. Although I know I shouldn’t be, I am pleasantly surprised by how much fundamental acting skills resemble the skills necessary for good writing and mediating: principally, honesty with oneself, attention to one’s senses and the ability to expose oneself. All done to better understand our fellow men and women. But unfortunately, I am still a novice writer and meditatetor, so my mind tends to drift when it should be focusing. During our breathing exercises my thoughts floated. This is where they occasionally landed:

Human beings were meant to be closer.

Strangers seldom touch. Even the most passing grazes have been removed from our societal norms.

We may sometimes awkwardly hug, but every caress, hand on a shoulder, or held hand has been labeled intimate, sinful, or erotic and so we pass each other trapped in our bodies. Disconnected. Our skin the prison door.

Acting allows you to live in multiple realities simultaneously.

Once we stop judging our own behavior, it becomes easier to not judge others.

Why have I been so scared to embarrass myself?

We each have our own methods to free ourselves. Our own speeds, enthusiasms, abilities, and reasons.

Truly expressing emotions validates life. Acting allows you to express emotions. We suppress our emotions in our everyday lives and so that is why we look to art to help us fulfill what they could be.

I said this would be short and here I still am. My mind is comfortably tired, and so now, I will crawl into bed with my pregnant wife and hold them tight. Someone I am allowed to touch. Someone who will touch me back.

Maybe This Is Who I am?

The first time I did it:

I am twenty years old and very drunk. It is past midnight and a gust of my second wind forces me into action. Ever since I was a child, whenever an idea enters my consciousness, no matter how absurd or impractical it may seem, it must at least be attempted. This impulsiveness has plagued me for as long as I can remember. Sometimes my actions result in favorable outcomes, and other times they lead to results that may not be impressive years later…

Living within skating distance of a twenty-four hour Safeway grocery store that somehow sells alcohol hours after midnight is not conducive to responsible behavior. I need bleach. Twenty minutes, a bruised knee, and several bits of gravel embedded in my palms later I am home, filling a bucket with water and the toxic liquid. One-to-one seems like a good ratio. Open another beer and turn up the music. Most people in the house are asleep, and I am far too drunk to notice if there are others still awake. For if they are awake, they sit quietly and watch in awe as I proceed to fulfill my goal to be blond before dawn.

I am attentive enough to keep the Clorox out of my eyes, but don’t think that soaking my scalp in a bucket of liquid, designed to clean bathtubs, is bad idea. I scream and run around the room like a lunatic as it burns. I repeat the process for about an hour and eventually pass out somewhere in the house. I awake in the morning completely ignorant of what I had intended to do, and am mildly surprised to find my scalp soar, red, and my hair a dull shade of copper orange. A thin red line of pain circles my scalp.

I am not writing this post to embarrass myself, although I am sure I have done so thoroughly. But rather, I want to explore the internal forces that made me act that way for several years. After that initial episode, I became the master of transformations. Every day a different worm would be distorted into a quickly fading butterfly. I learned the nuisances of peroxide, hair dyes and the clout of a set of hair clippers. A friend once said to me, “You look different every time I see you.” Magenta, orange, fire, blood, platinum, blond, plum, green, aqua, short, long, unkempt, tight, my hair had a life of its own. But it wasn’t only the hair, the tattoos spread and various appendages were pierced only to be unpierced; ears, tongues, nipples.

The only constant was that I never wanted to see the same person in the mirror. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t one of those people who hate themselves so much that they are constantly trying to erase who they are behind a series of mask. Or maybe I was. I am no psychiatrist. I feel, however, that I didn’t know myself well enough to hate myself. All I knew was that I didn’t believe that one look was enough to show the world what was going on inside my psyche. I wanted to be different. All the time. But living in San Francisco the more I tried to be different, the more I was looking like everyone else. I was trying to be myself, but since I had no idea who I was, my look constantly changed. Day by day, I never felt the same, so why should I look the same. I have always been awed by the fact that actors, and musicians can constantly reinvent themselves. Why should we be denied this freedom? Besides the drugs were opening parts of my mind to sides of my consciousness that I had kept locked up since I was a child. The shame, the joy. the rage, the confusion, the blame all spilled out through the latest hair color and alcohol binge. It was fun.

Years later I am starting to realize that we send mixed signals to our children. You are unique. Be yourself. We are all the same on the inside. Well which is it? Are we all the same or are we all unique dewdrops. Be an individual. Be a team player. Years later the tattoos are still here, thank god, as reminders of the struggle this soul has been through. The piercings have been reduced to one signal ring that still feels true. The metal has grown into the flesh and has become a part of who I am. Just as the ink has tanned and tanned again and again. But I am no closer to understanding if I want to nurture my ego, or to set it free. If we are all the same than why do I feel so different? And if we are all unique than why do I feel so much like you?

While the inner turmoil may have quieted considerably since alcohol is no longer there to taunt it, the questions still remains: Are we unique? And if so, does it matter? Who cares if you are an individual? Who cares if you are special? The older I get the more I am realizing that maybe it is more important to focus on how much more a like we are than trying to separate ourselves by clinging to our individuality. The ego rattles in its cage, waiting to be set free. Like Walt Whitman said, if every atom in me is the same as every atom in you, than why was I sitting in a hair salon an hour ago drinking a Cappuccino with tin foil in my hair getting highlights.

maybe the storm inside still rages... maybe I am still obsessed with wanting attention... maybe I still like to go against…I don’t even know what anymore… maybe I don’t want to be the type of person who looks exactly the same for years…maybe I am still bored…maybe the shy child inside still needs to act out…maybe I am still love playing dress-up…maybe I like sitting in a salon drinking coffee and reading magazines on Saturday afternoons…maybe I am glad I am not bald, wearing kaki Dockers and tucked in shirts…maybe I like the idea of people saying, “oh Jabiz!”…maybe I don’t think you need to be famous to act like you are…maybe I am holding on to my youth and think that a hairstyle will help me stay hip… maybe I am controlled by something inside that I cannot control…maybe I really am vain…maybe I just need to be told I am loved…maybe I just need to have someone tell me they understand…maybe I need to not feel so isolated..,maybe I need you to agree…maybe this is who I am...maybe none of this matters...there's no maybe about it.