I bounce around from one conversation to the other, my head’s starting to sweat. I have a glass of bitters and soda to fight off the dawn. A song from 4 years before I was born is stuck in my head and Karen keeps talking, incessantly, and to no one in particular.

I want a real drink, but I gave those up for lent. I can’t believe how long she can talk in one go, without response. I should start a radio show, I think, one of those internet ones that no one listens to, but everyone recommends. I wonder if getting high breaks a lent? I should ask someone one if they can look it up on their smartphone.

I just nodded. I think she bought it. Good god things are boring with a sober head and paradoxically inclined friends. She’s smiling, and I respond.

This was a lot easier with a head full of booze and the morning full of regret. A head full of regret and bitters is no way to find home.

We walk towards an eastern star in the clear winters night. Hand in hand with regret, I move with clear eyes, waiting for the inevitable dawn.

So, my book, the void sutras, is now available for the Kindle. You should buy one!

I chugged a can of some fancy soda pop I picked up at Whole Foods. It costs $2.14 and tastes like fading cherry lip gloss. It’s supposed to stimulate your brain, but all I can think about is how uncomfortable I am with the word “Chugging” and how many calories this thing is attaching to my face.

I can’t really find any honor in this thing. There is no win. Oh, I should tell you that “this thing” is a reference to being a famous writer amongst my friends. It’s gross, all the compliments and fawning. I like it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s so slimy. I feel like I’m cheating on the muse when I let a female friend’s hand linger on my back for longer than friendship allows. I feel like a fraud when another friend talks to me about how I made him feel when reading a specific piece. I wrote that piece in 5 minutes between playing facebook scrabble and sipping coffee. It’s too bad, I think.

I just finished some fancy can of soda pop and I’m waiting for my brain to reveal miracles. Another friend of mine told me she didn’t want to read my book because she was told about its contents. She said that it wasn’t me, that I was supposed to be a “bad ass”, or some other phrase like that. I told her she didn’t know me that well… but I think she’s the only one I trust, going out on a drunken limb like that. Not that she’s right, but that she’s true to her vision of reality. And, to be honest,it was nice to think of myself as a bad ass, at least for one drunken second, one drunken distraction from being a world famous writer, at least in the minds of 3/4ths of my friends.

This is definitely worth a watch. Trust me.

The Romantic – The Animated Feature Film from Michael P. Heneghan on Vimeo.

Dearest Portland drivers I just encountered on my ride home,

I realize how confusing this “shiny road” phenomenon can be… I know big sky father is sending magic spots to make car glass not see good. But, big sky father also gave you two magic wands with which to defend yourself. With only intermittent swipes with these magical wards, car glass will be granted perfect clarity.. illuminated by the magic eyes of the big sky father and his intermittently cleansing touch. Now, please use these heavenly gifts from the all father to not fucking run me off the fucking road.

thanks for your patience in this important matter, sincerely
A Portland Bicyclist.

I don’t want to friend SweetLeaf brand stevia on Facebook. I can’t even begin to imagine the loneliness of having a sugar substitute as a friend.

The collection has officially sold enough copies to reach my arbitrary “not embarrassing” level I set before the printing. It’s a strange thing to release that into the world. The reviews have been really great so far. A few people I’d go so far as to say gushed over it. A fine thing indeed. So, why is it not enough? Why do I feel the compulsion to sell more, to garner more praise? Am I not capable of comfort, of allowing a moment to feel accomplished? Probably.

I started writing the novel again, probably another method of producing discomfort, avoid the elephant in the room that is lack of confidence. Aside from all that I met what I guess I’d call a fan. She was nice… it was weird. I wonder if I’ll always feel like a fraud with this writing gimmick? Maybe it’s a good thing, after all, to feel compelled to press on, to never feel comfort. Maybe that’s the only way I get things done, through torture and tumbling nervous stomach. Through self medication and self flagellation the works of Mr. A. M. Bollen are created. I don’t know where I’m going with all of this, save to save that I thought I should pop in and tell you guys how it’s going.

No one writes me back lately, and it’s starting to get to me. Thank god google isn’t self aware yet, or I’d really feel insulted after this rambling missive to the void is left in silence.

Hey guys and gals, you can now buy my book, the void sutras, at lulu.com! This is a very good idea! Purchase many! Have a book burning! Tell your friends!

Folks in PDX should find me in person, for it is slightly cheaper that way.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-void-sutras/14606708

So, the collection is done… sort of. A proof copy arrives on Tuesday. I’m nervous, I’ll admit. I keep imagining that I’ll sell 4 copies and feel like an asshole; simultaneously I feel like it’ll catch on and sell a bunch of copies. I don’t know which one I’m more afraid of.
There’s this girl who I know will think a poem is about her, and I’m not sure if I can tell her the truth. I’m not sure if I know the truth.
The weird thing with writing, I’ve found, is that its meaning is so often changed and decided after the writing is finished. I write things with a light touch which have cause heavy emotion in my readers. I’ve written heavy pieces torn in full from my still open wounds, and garnered a smile. I should be happy, I think, that a book will be published bearing my name, and words I’ve written. I should be happy just to have that proof copy arrive, knowing I did it mostly on my own. But, I’m nervous, I’ll admit it.
I’m nervous because a girl will think a piece of writing is about her, and another will think it her. I’m nervous because old friends will read it and gain some insight into the depths previously kept hidden under bad jokes and mixed drinks.
I keep thinking that when it’s available something will be changed… and I know that’s not true. I’ll just be lighter of words for a moment, left with only a novel to slave over, which will never be finished it seems. Or, maybe it will change things, I hold that thought simultaneously with the other.
Or, maybe, I’ll sell 4 copies and feel like shit, give up on writing for a few weeks, then go back to the novel… that seems likely. Anyway, I finished the collection; the proof is in the mail; and I’m very nervous about the fact.

Sorry if I’m complaining too much here, but the good news is that the whiskey still works, and I have ego enough left to feel shame at the goings on of the night previous. Sorry if this sounds all-together familiar because: yet again I’m hung up on a girl; again it’s small drinks against the coldness of the night; again it’s long conversations and the hope that something will go right this time.

Ritual, and ritual again, but at least the coffee is warm and I’ve slept enough to last me the week. Of course the words would fail right now; of course I’d walk for miles to find no relief; and of course she calls me when it’s too late to do anything better than attempt to avoid saying anything which will be regretted in the morning. Sorry, this has all happened before, at least this time the booze still works, and she still calls at the wrong moments.

I know this has all happened before, and it comes across as complaining, but I’m at a loss for words; hung up on a girl; and have no way out of it. Good news is coffee still works and I’ve money enough to make it to tomorrow.

A house of monastic landscapes, books piled up from ground, scattered randomly from tripping feet and tossing searches. A house made from the wilderness, made from the spiraling cosmos which can only be observed from within itself. It is a place left for narration, for observation, and for eventual transformation, by means of outside observers.

This landscape of quantum elements, as viewed from a fractured mirror at its core, is the only way to watch the descent, to watch the piles grow. So grows the worship of the void; the void as perspective, the void as a place of garnering new truth as the previous iterations freeze as they move from here to memory. Move from genuflection to words scribbled in yet another rambling notebook which sit in shifting towers like sandstone in wind: the perpetual movement from structure to chaos and back again.

A house like monastic landscapes, teetering from use and overuse as the viewer gains momentum towards to the void, towards itself. Books strewn in open defiance of the void. The order imposed by a static observer sit as statuary, as idols, to the over-thinking, and overuse as implied by their own existence. The user, the architect of the towers and of their toppled sisters, must be seen as both creator and destroyer of the various orders of the observable held within this place.

The designer, and by that the viewer, is over-used, is over-thinking the system, is toppling half formed towers, is letting the quantum nature of observation maim the order that has been imposed; is letting entropy leak from the stacks haphazardly, insulting the void with their poorly designed sacrifice.