dust looks like stars…

…when your eyes are closed forever.

dja ever have someone online that you knew…or rather that you  didn’t know…and yet you followed them around…or rather just checked in on them from time to time? and not out of affection, but something else. something more complicated. more like loathing. a loathing and yet, a pity. or maybe an empathy. maybe they remind you of what you would be, on some separate path, some alternate world. some world where your faults weren’t balanced as well with gifts. some world where you were twice as obnoxious and half as attractive and half as motivated and a tenth as successful and boring on top of it all.

i knew someone like this. i guess my checking their blog over the years was sort of a revenge element. i never commented. the revenge was reminding myself that he existed and was himself. that was enough. and i wanted that revenge because we met in a way where he really tried to hurt me. cruelly. you see, a girl he liked was into me. and into the sloppy-ass music i made for years. and she excitedly told him about it. yeah, you can see this coming a mile away. he was a DJ. so he decided to write me and pretend that she was there with him and then proceeded to tell me how terrible my music was.

well. of course he was doing this because he was jealous and insecure and miserable in general. i was furious. wounded. i didn’t know what a loser he was, nor that she was not there with him. he made it sound like his opinion was backed up by her. and it all stung deeply for a little bit. and it was my music he was talking about!

but in time i realized that had been a ridiculous reaction. because he was truly pathetic. a sad case.

i guess he thought he was morrisey and that his constant woe-is-me and whining and bellyaching and self pity was somehow akin to morrissey’s clever and poignant self-flaggelation and self-mocking. i think it was that last element he didn’t understand fully. well, “him.” let’s call him “derek.”

plus, it’s just not the same if you don’t have Morrissey’s accent and looks and talent. derek didn’t realize that Morrissey—without good writing skills, catchy music, a pleasant tenor, and dashing looks, is basically just an ugly bum who won’t shut up already. 

anyway, this complicated stew of revulsion and understanding and pity came to a screeching halt one day when i learned that derek had died of one of his epilepsy seizures. i guess he was a little younger than me. maybe 35 or so. and when i found out, i cried. i don’t know why. and then i had this stupid thought that i should have made friends with him. and then i remembered what a piece of slop he was. and then i did something else, it might have been working on one of my blogs, i don’t remember.