This is How We Balk on the Moon

Here’s the conundrum: part of me wants to begin this new blog by mentioning that I feel like I have been down this road before, at least once or twice. But so much of me wants to immediately follow up that statement by saying that it doesn’t matter, because where I’m going, I won’t need roads. And then a sliver of my soul is appalled that any facet of me wants to commence a new blog with consecutive clichés.

I have before typed up my thoughts and placed them in a public setting twice, to varying degrees of success. Both of these could best be described as online journals, and both were integral to my high school life, in various ways. But since arriving at college, I have forsaken these avenues of expression, for no particular reason, other than the fact that I thought that I didn’t care to let the world in on my life in what I thought was a trivial outlet. Recently, though, I returned to view my past journals, and I was filled with a bit of unexpected emotion.

Going back to printed fragments of your five-year-old psyche, replete with sophomore year yearnings and utterly naïve delusions of relative normalcy is, as could be expected, a somewhat painful act. However, I found that being able to look back on a time period, not just through my memories which have been refined and sculpted to my liking with the filter of time, but actually through my own words of that moment led to a much more accurate script to follow. Nostalgia is malleable, but actual written accounts from the past are (by and large) not. Also, it’s a superb way to knock myself off my high stallion of music elitism when there’s proof that there was a time in my life that I championed …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead. And anytime I wish to create my first big screen melodrama, I will likely cite the journal entries circa-me getting dumped junior year alongside Douglas Sirk and Falcon Crest as primary influences.

The point, however backwardly I finally arrive at it, is that by reading journal entries from the past five years of my life, which charted at least a bit of my evolution (which, to be fair, is not anywhere as entertaining or soulful as the Evolution of Robin Thicke), I discovered a reserve of avidity when it came to writing about my life again. Not under the thin guise of a screenplay or short story, but to actually just put my thoughts down and let the world view them- it occurred to me that I wanted to be able to look back at my life a few years from now and be able to read something that I constructed from way back when. If the past is an edifice that we are eternally locked out of, then it’s a benefit if there are at least a few windows to peek through, and I think that’s what makes this a worthwhile endeavor.

To clarify, the title is a reference to “This is How We Walk On The Moon,” a song by
Arthur Russell, one of my favorite musicians. It is, admittedly, not my choice piece by him, but it is one of my best-loved titles; in a way, it’s the titular companion of “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, a fabulously-named short story by one of my most admired authors, Raymond Carver. There’s a very thin line between imitation and homage, and while I aim to fulfill the latter, I in no way intend to place the substance featured here in the same category as these two visionaries- that would just be substance abuse (Sorry, I had a pun in the oven.)

For the guidance of the audience, here’s a breakdown of a few choice words featured in the title:

How — An operative word that leads to a pressing question: How? Likely, by means of substandard syntax where meaning becomes mired in way too many words, shoddy diction worthy of my 12-year-old cousin’s Myspace bulletins, a myriad of pop culture references to convey a trace of relevance, and more cheap gimmicks than the last season of Roseanne- these are a few of my favorite things.

We — See, this could have been changed to a singular term, but I wanted everyone to join in on the fun. So when you read the inevitable “Girls don’t like me, fuck, I should just castrate myself for attention” post (over/under: three entries in), we- you, me and Dupree- can all commiserate by commenting and cheering each other up. When used in conjunction with “how,” it indicates that this is a learning process for not only the creator but the observer, as well- edification for all!

Balk — In all honesty (a trait that you can hopefully expect throughout), this is just me trying to be snarky (a trait that you can sadly expect throughout). This was the main word that had to be changed, in order for it to not just be straight copycattery, and this was the best I could do. There are only so many four-letter words that end in –alk, so it came down to this or “talk,” and while the latter may have proven to be a more appropriate title, I really just find the word “balk” to be an ace of a word. But if I have to force any significance upon this word choice, then let it serve as the first representation of this blog’s unerring effort to consistently bewilder and leave the audience guessing what will come next. Feel free to balk at this suggestion.

Moon — Offers a wonderful vantage point to look at our world, and is not made out of cheese, contrary to popular belief.

Okay, now that a handful of key terms have been haphazardly defined, I feel like it’s time to come clean about this new pursuit of mine. This is, undoubtedly, the embryonic stage of this blog, and I am aiming to try numerous methods and styles of expression. Sometimes it’s going to be a bear to read, as I already notice by looking back and cringing at the list of terms clarified above, but that can be expected with any fresh start. Perhaps these first entries will be nothing like future logs, serving only as a remembrance of an inchoate beginning before undergoing aesthetic transmutation for the better. I don’t think you will just find recounting of my daily doings here, as I have a premonition that there will be features dedicated to pieces of art I marvel at or hold my nose at, and there may even be essays about certain pressing issues. Of course, sometimes it will just be a forum for me to post my Buffy fan-fiction. No, that’s not true at all.

I turned twenty a few days ago, and because I am at home, awaiting to go abroad, very few of my friends, either from high school or college, are anywhere close to me. So after a day of getting a haircut (I aspired to look like Drumline-era Nick Cannon), getting treated to seafood by my parents, and getting a smattering of phone calls from distant friends, I decided to go driving in my pops’ car late at night. The album I listened to was The Queen is Dead, by the Smiths, and as I drove around, I thought that it was ironic that my 20th birthday was not that different from my 16th birthday. For some reason, I thought that this was what I did four years ago, and while it’s not an off-base guess, since Morrissey and Marr were as reliably present in those youthful days as backne and tight tees, it also just isn’t true. I couldn’t drive the day I turned sixteen, and furthermore, I didn’t own The Queen is Dead on CD until senior year. So as much as I would have liked to have experienced a moment of cyclical transcendence on my birthday, the facts proved otherwise. And I had to laugh at this, because it felt comforting that I somehow was able to recapture some truth about an earlier time in my life. The past shouldn’t always be romanticized, because it usually leads to verisimilitude being excised for the sake of wistfulness. Truthfully, I could deal with more moments like that, and that’s where thisishowwebalkonthemoon.wordpress.com comes in. So while I may never exactly remember what I did that September 1st in 2003, I will know what happened that same date in 2007- at least when it comes to musical choices.

In summation: New blog, ever-changing life, Wild n’ Out haircut.

Sincerely,
Drew R.