I'm standing on the front porch of Java Joe's with one of our regular customers, a fun little stoner kid with a full beard and an ever-present cup of coffee. He's marvelling at the amazing presence of some enormous snow-shoveling equipment across the street. I'm drone-screeching, for no good reason, in true Roger Water's style, a little excerpt from "The Wall": Oooohhhh, babe... Why are you running away-ay-ay-ayyyyyyy?
I'm cooking a steak in my kitchen, reading a letter, doing dishes, kicking at the cat, and accidentally burning the steak a little bit on one side because I wasn't really paying much attention to anything.
I'm at somebody's house where a little get-together is going on; everybody's drinking a few beers and giggling and gossiping, and I, who have been drinking cup after cup of black tea all day, am uncontrollably hyper, can't really keep my mouth shut no matter how hard I try, and am rambling on about an irritating goth chick we all know who finds it absolutely necessary to wear skin-tight black mesh clothing over her enormous bulk of flesh. Somebody is asking me if I need a ride home, because they don't think I should be driving in my condition. They think I'm absolutely trashed, although I haven't even had a whole beer. I find this amusing, and tell her I don't drive anyway.
I'm sitting on my bed, whispering "hello, baby..." to my bird, and numbly listening to an ancient Indigo Girls tape. That song "Ghost," always makes me want to cry. A lot of Indigo Girls songs make me want to cry.
I'm walking across the South Washington Street Bridge, just staring at the water, and the lights, and breathing and being intensely alive and aware.
I'm lying on Norman's futon clutching a pillow, watching Norman make fun of Rush, calling "Closer to the Heart," their "faggy song," and falling asleep as he changes the tape to Yngwie Malmsteen and begins wildly thrashing... As my eyes are involuntarily closing, I muse that Norman is an amazing contradiction most of the time, and it takes one hell of an open mind to reconcile his happy "take-me-to-hell" thrashing with his usual head-in-a-book, fingers-on-a-cigarette serenity. I congratulate myself for having at least some idea of what he's all about, and I congratulate him for being so unceasingly interesting.
I'm sitting in my living room chopping up the last remaining love letters I wrote to Peter when I was fifteen. I'm slicing them into ribbons and gluing them back together to form the bars of a cage. I'm silently debating whether or not I really despise Peter... I remember that he left the rest of my letters, literally YEARS' worth of hand-written letters on hand-made cards and pretty stationary, for our old landlord to bring to the dump, because he couldn't be bothered with them. I decide I really do despise him, and continue chopping.
I'm furiously copying pages from "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge" to send to my once-upon-a-time almost-lover Aengus, and sipping a praline latté at Lost Dog, wondering exactly what New Orleans looks like, anyway...
I'm jamming out in the kitchen of Sharkey's to some lame-ass Styx song, chowing down on fried clams with buffalo wing sauce.
I'm laughing my ass off at someone who compares Jack Nance's hair in "Eraserhead" to David's sometimes-unruly mop, and silently sending him long-distance best wishes and poking at his hair.
I'm eating pear halves out of a can, because washing dishes is completely fucking pointless. I'm returning to the kitchen, still hungry, and preparing a can of Van Camp's pork and beans on the stove, which I eat out of the pan, because minimalizing dishes is always okay when you live alone.
I'm instant-messaging Aaron because Jethro Tull is on the radio and Jethro Tull almost always reminds me of getting lost in any of a number of various hills, almost dying in some strange fashion, and discussing anal sex in all its gorey details, because no matter how intimate I ever get to ANYONE, Aaron always seems to have the best insights into the matter.
I'm wandering down the street thinking about drugs, wondering if I'm too closed-minded about them, and then remembering that one scene from Pulp Fiction again.......
I'm dreamingly thinking about Las Vegas, trying to remember everything about it with sparkling clarity, and not coming up with more than a few vague mental souvenirs: a Slurpee, a security guard, Brian's skateboard with the butterflies on it, and snatching a nickel out of a fountain because I'd just lost on in a slot machine and I wanted to say I broke even. I'm angry with myself for being so tired that day that I could barely focus on anything, leaving myself without much at all to remember.
I'm debating slaughtering Chris, just because he's been pissing me off a lot lately, and I'm trying to figure out if I know anyone who will do it for me so I don't have to get in trouble. I'm grudgingly recalling Norman's comment that Chris seems like a nice kid, and realizing that Chris IS a nice kid, and I'd probably feel bad if I actually did slaughter him.
I'm thinking about Norman's promise to learn any song I wanted and play it for me if I'd promise to sing... I'm shakily thinking of all the beautiful songs I know, and dreading the horror of actually singing again with anybody watching me...
I'm reading the Bible and bemoaning the fact that, at such a young age -- seventeen -- all of my religious beliefs were challenged and destroyed all at once, leaving me with almost nothing. I'm setting the Bible down and slurping down a bag of potato chips, thanking the higher powers for my amazing metabolism and general good health.
I'm writing what ends up being a sixteen page letter to an 18-year-old girl in Colorado, who found my name listed on some penpal site online. She sent me a letter of introduction that was basically a form letter: a two-page typed thing with my name filled in in her handwriting. She also enclosed, with her letter, a 3x5 index card requesting some not-so-vital statistics about me: my name, address, date of birth, favorite color, favorite actor and actress, and the names of my family members. Fucking DUH. I was so pissed off! As though you could fit the entirety of my life onto an index card? As though I was just part of her little collection, to be filed away and referenced when she writes me. As though all of the little moments of my life, the little random scenes, mean nothing at all. I was horrified at this chick's objectification of me. Instead of tearing up her letter though, I wrote her this ridiculously long letter, describing tiny little details of my life, explaining their relevence to my identity, and concluding that I could not possibly be her penpal because I didn't fit onto her index card.
I wish SO much that I could take this little chick and have her watch me for a day or two, just watch. I'm sure she'd think I'm an incurable dork, but even that's better than thinking I'm nobody -- or at least so small of a person, so irrelevent, that I fit onto a fucking 3x5 card... I wish I could send her all my little moments, send her all my little thoughts, explain to her that...
"...There are no such things as still lifes..." --Erica Jong
~Helena*