Things I Enjoy
Some things cannot be explained in this universe, like why i built this page. Perhaps I did it out of some sick obsession with dirty old men in underwear...
But in any event.
This page, i think, may just be my way of telling anyone-who is no one-who reads it about my life, the points that I feel fit to list. I thankfully know that it is of no importance to anyone what happens in my life, and therefore I may write whatever I want. It is kind of a journal i suppose.
8-04-03: Well it's 4:16 PM...i was supposed to hang out with Kelly Today but she never called...so im a little disappointed. Aside from that I'm trying to convince Bo not to hook Brenna and Burns up. I personally don't think it's a good idea. Besides which that it has been my experiance that working other people's love lives is damaging to everyone involved, and my opinion is that Bo has some prenatural distinction to at first be attracted to Casey and ALL of his ilk, and that she wishes to live vicariously through Brenna, i think it's my own latent attraction to Brenna that keeps me on Bo's bad side. Now shes leaving for the mall, and I find myself a little peeved, a little amused, and a lot of bored.
I think also that Bo and Brenna are also both jealous of the other, feeling that that they each cannot not measure up to the other in turn. I think that this is interesting in that the female psyche is more pronounced in them than any other women i have ever met, however they try and hide their own respective femininity.
Perhaps I'll continue this later.
I decided I will not continue this topic this evening.
8-05-03: We love Killian's. We love Killian's Irish Red, simply beacause of what it is. It smells like puke, it's about as smooth as a handful of gravel, and it's as elegant as my ass is shaved. It makes you throw up and get in fistfights and burp and throw up some more and get naked with the wrong people and finally pass out in a drunken, hazy stupor. It's effects are akin to hitting yourself in the head with a large mining implement so that you can see everything in red as you bleed in your eyes. It dosen't have the greatness of Guiness, the capacity for beer-bonging of Budweiser, the smooth texture of Heinikan, the sensual taste of Sam Adams, the olifactory omnipresence of Old English, the cool, carefree style of Corona, or the allure of Absinthe. What it has going for it is that it dosen't try to be anything besides beer. It dosen't have an image or a swift marketing campaign. It dosen't have a cool box or an expensive cliche of a tag line. It's not an image, its a beer. A regular, good old, irish, eye-watering, bitter, vomit-inducing, promiscuity-indulging, blood-coaxing, delightfully toxic ass-smelling alcohol, used for making yourself into a complete ass who has s-e-x with people they just met and punches their best friends in the face in competition for those SAME women you JUST MET. It's the kind of draught that makes you smoke too much, buy big fat cigars, spit on police officers, drive while intoxicated, and GETS YOU DRUNK.
WE
LOVE
KILLIAN'S
Killian's we salute you!
8-06-03: It's another lazy day. We were supposed to have a band meet today, but due to the fact that not one of us has a car or even a simple ride, I was kind of assuming that this would happen. I don't even really know that I'm all that dissappointed either. To tell you the truth, somethings missing from my band experiance that was once there. I'm not going to lie and say that music is that one thing I want to do with my life. I'm not even going to say that it's near the top of the list. The simple fact, with all of us, is that once you've put yourself into a routine, you can't break it. I never wanted to grow up to be a rock star. I wanted to grow up to be an author. I wanted to write influential and insightful novels, novels that in twenty years would be readfon high-school classrooms as some of the greatest works of the turn of the century. But as soon as I picked up the bass I made a commitment to willfully ignore that part of me, beacause my friends wanted me to grow up and be a rock star with them. I decided that I would pretend that music was an all-consuming passion, with fires that burned brighter beacause they burned the paper that i should have been writing on. I can still write, but now that I've commited myself to music it seems that I've put myself into a routine that would be hard to break after so many years. I wonder what it is about music that so captures the mind. I obsess about music so much that it angers me sometimes, but i still don't understand how those two things are condusive to the same end. It puts a feeling in people that I can relate to but not understand, and I haven't yet found the reason that so much emotion can be heard when no words have been spoken. Yet perhaps therein lies the secret to the demise of my true path (which is truthfully writing). Perhaps I study music in hopes to catagorize it and formulize it and write it into sentances that make sense. Something tells me that this is not possible, that I must simply plod through the muds of an uncertain future, chasing a dream that I know in my heart i do not desire, with the ball and chain of an associate's degree in music around my blistered and chaffed ankle, breathing in toxic gas, and smelling my own body washed with naught but tears. There is a certain poetry to misery, perhaps I am torturing myself with music in hopes of one day being asked to write my memoirs. I'll keep writing as my dirty little secret and just continue on a path to ruin, in effigy of the so many white-collar workers that make up present-day America, so as to relate to those who have direction, direction straight across the river of life, while I flounder and choke, and sputter the reasons why I love music so, all the while being drowned in misery by it.
I hate music. I can freely admit that.
8-07-03: I can hear the rain quietly dripping off of the roof onto the plants in my mother's garden. I can hear strains of Tool playing on my computer. I can hear my parents discussing something in the living room. I can hear the TV whispering laziness into the air and sending out feelers to trip innocent passerby into sitting on the couch and watching commercials for soap and softeners; cars and cartoons; insurance and auto theft. And all I can really do is wonder about why my mood is so very unperturbed and why my head is at peace. Why is it that on this day, the day of reckoning wherein i was discovered by my parents as an alcoholic, all I can think about is that i finally have some peace and quiet, and my brain, resigning itself to it's fate, is no longer pushing me to my normal routine of being spontaneous with my friends. I have no qualms, truthfully, about not going out for once in my life. I actually am content to sit casually and contentedly and read a book or play a video game and not worry so much about why no one has called me to come out and play. I finally have a reason not to think about what everyone is doing in my absence, whether there's a party, or vandalism, or a movie, or who is touching whom. Why is it that I force myself into going out until four-thirty every morning? Is it truly for the fun, or in hopes of finding something to do with my time, or is it simply routine by now? After all these years i still cannot begin to fathom the complexities of the human mind. I can't convince myself to be happy; I am simply not that person. I am essentially a dumb animal who is led by it's own instincts: hang out, eat, sleep, work, f*ck, breathe, sleep again, f*ck again. Our basic instincts are guided by the footsteps of ourselves walking in tiny circles chasing something right on our backs. Stop walking in a circle and you may not ever find whats right on your back, but at least you sure as hell aren't looking like a f*cking merri-go-round. I'm honestly tired of doing the same things over and over and over. I'm tired of looking for a needle in a haystack, instead of just relaxing in the pile and being careful not to let the needle stab me in my ass. I say don't ever find what your looking for, cause it sure as shit isn't going to be as big a deal as you make it out to be. And what if you find the one thing that'll finally make your life complete, the discovery to end all discoveries? You'll look at the road behind you for a while and say "I accomplished something." But eventually you'll have to look forward again. And what's left after you find what you've been searching for your entire life? nothing but the big black sleep that everyone fears. Searching for the meaning of life or whatever you want to call it is just prolonging and ignoring the inevitable, crushing finality of what we all must go through, and whats at the end of all of our walks: Death. The endless somnambulence, the slipping of your soul back into your creator's claws. And we're all sinners, too, remember? Have a good time looking for something, sinner, but never ever find it, cuz you'll realize that there's gonna be hell to pay.
8-09-03: I miss everyone already, and it's just going to get worse and the sun sets each day. I'm missing some more than others, and I don't know whether this is one of those things that is going to make me stronger as time progresses. I don't know whether I'm going to come out of this on top and say "I feel healthier, I learned a lesson, I can see light at the end of the tunnel." I'm frightened that when I come out of what I'm going through I'm going to be a husk of who I was. It's always good to reinvent oneself I suppose, but I don't want to lose what I had, or at least I don't want to lose my GRIP on what I had. I'm finding no reasons right now why I'm not a spectacular failure at everything that I do. I mope around the house except when I can go off to work and pretend that everyone BESIDES Chris-at work, that is-is someone I'm close to. I'm feeling depressed, suicidal, homicidal, apathetic, saddened, bored, un-empathetic, unsympathetic, and nauseated. Sometimes it's as if there's no ground beneath me, but something is there to keep me from just falling forever and never quite touching to bottom, as if I'm in a dream and racing the bottom of the hole I'm in. I feel like it's taunting me, like there's always some new low to look forward to. There's always more and more that's above me, and all that I've gone through isn't helpful because it's all below sea level. I can't be confident or hopeful that something ahead is going to put me back on solid ground. I can't reach the bottom and have a chance to stand on something. If I close my eyes I can feel the wind burning my face at a thousand miles per hour, I can feel my own heart just desperately trying to, for the love of Jesus, stop beating, stop beating right now. I can feel little bits of sand and pebbles jabbing into my lips, making them bleed, making crimson life rush out of my body and defy gravity, flow UPWARDS toward where I was a thousand milliseconds away, leaving little bits of plasma in my wake, marking the walls and mist I fall through, marking it to show those who travel behind where a doomed man has fallen, the places where his body has ripped open on the walls and left parts of his skin in long, prison-tattoo-looking designs to hang and rot. If I open my eyes and look where I'm falling it's worse. It's worse in that I can see the absolute loss of control that has become everything thought in my head. It's killing my body and mind, wracking my very soul with its unending, deadly continuity and subtle predictability. I can do anything while I'm falling, I can spin onto my back and look at all the failure I've fallen through and see just how much bone and sinew I've left behind in my pitch-black journey. There is not a joy in this world that YOU YOURSELF cannot take away, and treasure every moment; you'll never be able to go back to heaven.
Heaven is where you start, I think.
You start your life as a toddler, blissfully unaware that there is a gradually widening chasm right by your feet, and you toddle around in a bee's-dance of decidedly random patterns. Some of us fall in at this point, and learn early that life is descent.
Still others live to learn to walk and talk, and start pacing back and forth, bouncing around without regard to the hole you secretly know is there. Still it grows wider. And if you fall in at this point, at least you're old enough to realize how doomed you are.
Some still evade the hole, and spend most of their time nervously plotting ways to maneuver around it, some taking wide, painful paths to get out of it’s way, some skirting the edge, and some even being so presumptuous as to jump directly OVER it. No one makes the jump. And yet still the hole grows.
In the last phase, people watch with terrified, haunted, wane faces, eyeballs stuck to the front of their brains, and they wait numbly for it to take up all of the space left to walk on. They sit huddled as far away from it as possible, seemingly trying to sink straight back into the wall and become as immobile as the stone they walk on. The hole doesn’t give chase, she doesn’t need to give chase; the fall is uncontrollable at this point.
You could sit knowingly in a church steeple, light spraying warmly from stained-glass windows to bathe you in an aura of red, green, yellow, blue righteousness; you could work endless hours in a paper factory delivering white sheets of information from boss to boss and pretend to become content; you could live life as an adrenaline junkie, flying through clouds and swallowing the atmosphere whole as you open your mouth to scream at the beauty of the world from a billion feet up. You can do anything you want, as long as you are honest.
My advice is just be honest.
Be honest about money (it’s shallow), life (it’ll end), sadness (you’re faking it), and love (you’re faking it).
But most of all, be honest about death. She’s waiting for you. She's waiting patiently. And you can’t outrun her, cuz that bitch; she’s fast as f*cking hell.
8-10-03: It’s getting hard to breathe in my life. I can’t feel what I used to, I suppose. Or something. Just so everyone knows, my writing is always dark and morbid, for the simple reason that I don’t care whether it sounds all that fake. I have always written that way, that’s just what I like to write about. I grew up on Stephen King, Dean Koontz, other people. I just don’t care whether it represents something that you don’t know about me, or that you think that that’s what I’m trying to do. It’s not important to me.
Another thing is that it seems as if a lot of people are reading this journal. A LOT more than I expected to. People I never talk to are talking to me about it. I’m not going to tell you to quit it because, frankly, I like the attention. It’s what I hunger for, live for, feed on. Ahhh well, you kids and your fleeting attention spans.
Anger is something that I’m intrigued by. It represents something that we all fear, respect, and most of all simply feel. It’s one of those universal things that we can all share; yet it seems to be a mildly tawdry subject, something that people don’t feel comfortable with. It upsets people when someone is angry with them, and it embarrasses them when someone makes them upset to the point of anger. It’s hard to define, too.
For example…
I got home today, frustrated from a hard day at work, with the intention of collapsing in front of the TV, watching the roast on comedy central. My brother and his friend were sitting in front of the screen, watching a cartoon. I thought I could perhaps steal the remote away from him with the powers afforded by being the older sibling. My parents then informed me that the TV was his for the night, as he had a friend staying over and they had it first. I understood the situation as an outsider, while meanwhile my outside self was fuming. They had perfect rights to it, I knew that they had nothing else to do, and in the same situation, I would have done the exact same thing. But anger kicked it’s way out of my stomach and all reasonable thought took a backseat to my raging, homicidal, masculine tendencies. I have a personality trait that half of the population shares; it’s called being a man. I have no reason to be ashamed of my anger; I have no reason be ashamed about my reaction to the situation. I don’t even have a reason to be ashamed about how I handled the situation; I didn’t really do anything, I walked away from my brother, his friend, and my parents, respectfully. But the fact that I was angry didn’t do anything to explain why I was angry. It doesn’t really make any sense why I reacted the way I did.
I understand that anger is necessary in our society. I understand how it shapes systems of leadership, builds nations through conflict, and how it shapes the way that we think. If a man were never indignant about a woman’s rejection, there would be no basis for chasing another woman. If crimes of rage were never committed, out population would have more cheating women, more r a p i s t s, more p e d o p h i l e s, more drug addicts, more thieves. Anger dominates the reason that most people murder, and thereby thin the population of all of the elements that would anger someone else. No anger means no one would avenge the r a p e of his sister, or the murder of his brother.
Anger motivates many of our actions. Anger keeps the population of violent criminals in check. Anger simply is something that we love to feel. Without anger and its inherent symbioses (rage, pride, jealousy, hatred, competitiveness, the list goes on), there would be no professional football, no subsequent rematches, no boxing, no basketball, no baseball, none of the sports we know and love, no holocaust (oh shit did I say that?!), and no competition in general. The whole Irish culture would be completely different (Finn McCool decides the fish wasn’t worth the time anyway). There would also have been no wars to change the tides of time.
Cite, for example, World War II and the preceding events that led up to it.
Hold on for a second and let me explain. Some of you may be saying “But wasn’t the war started in the first place because of racial hatred?” And the answer is no, at least from my opinion. Where I stand, Hitler was insane. And in our evolved society, we are quick to point out that the mentally unstable aren’t responsible for their actions. Since Hitler was already insane, then his anger would probably still have been present. However, that is only if anger did indeed fuel his “holy” purging of the Hebrews. He was not motivated by anger, in my opinion. He was motivated by a purely unstable urge to be someone who he was not. His feelings of auto-immortalis were not the result of an over-active testosterone gland or jealousy for the rich Jews. His actions were what we call “insane.” He had a genuine need to be someone who he was not, the leader of a great nation. He played upon the hatreds and prejudices of a scorned nation, but he would have risen to power in any event. It was fear, not pride that motivated the German people to action. Mainly the fear of becoming subservient to greater nations such as ours and that of the USSR. He thought he could achieve his ends by having a gimmick, such as killing off an entire race of people. As a theory of his madness, though, he was trying to become a leader. Not because of what it entailed, but because it was simply what he wanted to be. A leader.
Back to the example at hand.
If the leaders of American society had not interfered out of a sense of indignation at the purely, mathematically, strategy-driven strike upon Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, the world would be swathed in swastikas, and we would be hailing Hitler as a god instead of the flag upon the wall (idiomatic, I know, but work with me). Our flag didn’t slaughter an entire race of people because they weren’t red white and blue, and I say it’s a damn good thing he didn’t win the war. If we hadn’t joined the forces on the ground, in the water, and in the air, we would never have won the war, and we would have been killed in our sleep by robotic nazi soup cans, labels reading “Begrüßen Sie die allmächtige Tomate Paste,” because you know the nazis were researching those goddamn cans before me. But who’s laughing now, Hitler?! The point is that our anger is the thing that kept the French from being destroyed completely, and thus preventing us from ridiculing them for their kowtowing to a racist juggernaut.
I don’t understand anger but I’m sure glad I’ve got it.
Anger motivates what we do, instead of making us lose control, as it is widely regarded. It motivates most of what I, personally, do. And it keeps the Germans in line. It keeps us in good with humor that ridicules the French. The only bad thing is that it keeps Jerry Lewis popular. But a bad comic being popular is a small price to pay to keep us safe from walking can-robots. And that’s a damn good tradeoff.
8-14-03: No one is going to understand anything in this entry. It means something to me, and tonight I don’t care whether you get it or not.
I haven’t written in a while, whether out of necessity or laziness, I’ll never know. It just kind of worked out that way, interestingly enough. I hate writing after I get off, as it’s uncomfortable. I invariably get what I like to call SNS. Ask me in person what it means. Go on and do it. And always remember kids: never sit down and write right after you take care of man’s business. Go change your pants first.
I have a problem. My problem is that I have occasional mood swings, that seem to be generated by how I want to feel for the day I have any particular mood. It’s interesting. Okay so I lied, it’s not interesting at all.
Just forget I ever wrote the preceding paragraph.
Part 1: I sat home alone today. It was storming outside the windows. The thunder was of that peculiar flavor, crackling like wax paper and cellophane, singing the hair on your ears, but never quite giving the ominous and omnipotent rumble of a more threatening thunder. It got dark very fast, and stormed for a long time. After a time, it got quieter and brighter, and I thought the storm was over. It stopped for a while, when the sun shone brightly. Some time after, however, I heard the rumble of thunder shaking the windowpanes, rain slapping the shit out of my roof, and wind playing a whiny opera with detached leaves and old pieces of paper for clarinets and snare drums. I sat for a while in the living room, and not once did I bother to look outside and observe. I watched TV. I sat and watched TV, oblivious to something quite extraordinary going on outside the window. I was disturbed and angered by the storm outside, as I couldn’t hear the television, and the reception was getting the fuzzy look of your mother’s ass.
I looked up and saw a wonderful thing, made all the more amazing by the thunder and rain pounding in my skull and on my house. It made me turn off the TV, shook me out of my angry, apathetic, media-induced stupor.
Sun shone widely and gracefully through the leaves and off of wet grass.
It ricocheted through my eyeballs and out my ears into my drab domicile. Here I was, having been completely in the dark about this sunlight. I had totally missed the awesome beauty of a summer storm illuminated by the sun, made that much more mystical and beautiful. I was criticizing and howling to match the wind about something so beautiful, all because I had failed to just look outside, seduced by a media outlet, controlling my attention span to the point of a totalitarian grip upon my heart, forget my mind.
If we don’t bother to open our eyes, we’ll miss a lot of beauty in between, sometimes because of, the ugliness….
On to part 2…
Part 2: You’ve got a first-hand view from a second-hand pew, stained-glass windows got nothin to lose. Their eyes on the prize, head full of lies, hand full of dollars, ears full with lies, tricks and deception fake out perception, church’s been lyin’ since it’s conception. Revolution was started before the waves were even parted, Jesus was cryin’ even before he was martyred.
I’m the bastard child of two slain races, my parents were paintings with monogram faces…
Think about it. It’s kind of a riddle, kind of not. The only hint is “Don’t hate the game, hate the player.” Well, in so many words, it’s the same shit.
On to part 3…
Part 3: People in general make me happy and unhappy.
I like the father who surprises his son by being right out front of the school the boy is just emerging from. I like when that boy rushes into his father’s waiting arms and is gently enfolded by those hairy arms in a bear-like hug of simple, unadulterated love. I like when that boy comes home to find the same father waiting another day, sitting on the porch waiting for his only son to arrive.
I don’t like it when the father goes off to war, with an uncertain future reigning supreme.
I like it when the father comes home to a waiting family, a joyous reunion, and the boy falls asleep in his father’s lap.
I don’t like when the father is never home, or when the father’s only time at home is spent throwing things and yelling and raging and drinking and sleeping. I don’t like when the mother of the boy throws the father out for being violent. I don’t like when the boy spends his life blaming his mother for his lost time with the father. I don’t like when the boy and the father cry together, and embrace before the father’s departure. I don’t like when the father’s parting gift is taken away at school, or when the boy blames himself for it. I don’t like when a schoolmate rummaging through the boy’s backpack finds the knife.
I don’t like it when the boys only friend abuses the trust placed in him.
I like it when the boy moves with his family to a new house, out of the city, where the birds sing and people play after dark, outside, where the stars can be seen. I like it when the boy’s father comes back to stay with them, and all is right in the world.
I don’t like it when the boy’s father recedes into his former self and is thrown out again, this time with no words of comfort, or a parting gift. I don’t like it how the only words of parting are those uttered by a teary father, that he may not return this time, and that life will be difficult for a long time.
I like it when the father is proven wrong.
I don’t like it when the boy becomes a teenager and takes substance to fill an increasing void in his head. I don’t like it when the teenager drinks and smokes pot and passes out in the shower and fails out of almost all of his classes.
I like it when the teenager gets help and becomes normal. I like it when the teenager can be content, and untroubled.
I don’t like it when the teenager recedes into his former self and starts drinking and smoking dope again, especially since he now has a car.
I like it when the teenager stops himself at an occasional drink and cigarette.
I don’t like it when the boy who is a teenager becomes a boy who is a man. I don’t like it when his parents don’t trust him to be the man inside the boy. I don’t like it when life becomes unbearable, when all the walls close in and the man is stuck on a road to an uncertain future. I don’t like it when the man has doubts about himself, others, his future, and his ability to control his chemical dependencies. I don’t like it when the man becomes increasingly nervous and unsure of himself.
I don’t like it when the story doesn’t have a happy ending.
A fictitious story is what precedes this sentence. Don’t worry, just a story.
Part 4 is coming, watch out for it…
Part 4: Life in general…is odd. People do make me happy. If you dwell on the past you’re just looking at how people used to be. Sometimes you have to look into the past and see how things were, but if you don’t look forward you’re gonna trip.
Women…women make me happy sometimes, but only in circumstances that benefit what and who they are. A coke fiend is still attractive and entertaining, even though she’s a coke fiend. A pothead is still funny and intelligent, though she’s a pothead. A girl with a body still has a body, even though she’s annoying. A knowledgeable girl is still a knowledgeable girl, even though she intimidates me. A smart girl is still smart, even though she over thinks everything to the point of disaster. An easy girl is still an easy girl, though she angers me. A perfect girl is perfect.
Part 5 is the last part, I swear…
Part 5:The list…
This is a couple people I want to say something about, because they mean something to me.
John: John has always been there. He means a great deal to me, and I can’t express how much I love him. The one who’s been with me the longest, he’ll never be anything less than the best friend I have ever had.
Chris: Chris has been a friend, a brother, a man to whom I owe my gratitude. He has listened, has not judged to my face, and has had the courtesy to let me make bad decisions.
Bryan: Bryan is the most honest person I have ever known. He is completely serious when he needs to be, and he is a vital part of my life.
Casey: Casey is the man whom I share the deepest hatred of love with, and I cannot thank him enough for that.
Becky: Becky is on this earth to keep my faith in the opposite sex.
These are the five of my friends who have changed how I think about the world most.
And I’m done confusing the hell out of anyone reading this…don’t worry, the next entry will be a little more intelligible, I promise.
8-15-03: It’s been a long time, happiness, I see you haven’t changed. Bittersweet as always…
Well I’m coming back, but with conditions. Mainly manual labor and a whole lot more doubt about what I’m going to do with myself less than a month from now.
Last night I cried. To be brutally honest, I sobbed. I don’t know why, I think it was a long time coming, and I think it was helpful. Lachrymology teaches us that the only true way to help ourselves is to weep. I agree wholeheartedly. Though I don’t know the reason why, it was kind of awe-inspiring; as if I was just an intent, absorbed observer. My tears dripped like wine onto the sheets of my bed, staining them with an invisible red. There was no light last night, just a golden glow emanating from my cell phone, showing the room as it would be inside the harvest moon. I felt naked and alive, as if one half of my body was hunting the other. As if someone else was in the room with me, and in my haste to evade I had split up into two forms, one of security, and one quite the opposite. To others I try to be as confident and composed as possible, but sometimes I feel as if that’s an act. I like who I am, I like what I do with my life, I rarely regret doing anything, and I have hardly a concern for what others think of me. So why am I insecure sometimes? What is it inside me that doubts, that cannibalizes my living soul, that stabs my brain every thousand thoughts or so? I don’t know what it is, but I wish it would leave me alone, just once, and let me be content in the moment. Perhaps common sense, perhaps a fear of the future, perhaps something undefined as of now, something uncategorized, primal, raw.
I don’t know what it is, but its not bothering me anymore, so I think I killed it.
And on a completely different note…I love Ms. Pac-Man. I miss that game, and that busboy better watch his ass.
I don’t know, I don’t have much to write tonight. I’m off probation on Monday, so I suppose I’m coming back to bask once again in the admiration of the female population. I tell you a story about the other day…
So I was at work, right? So chick comes up to the counter and says to me, “You know, I’m new around here, and I’m looking for a guy to show me around. Would you mind being that guy for me?”
I said, “Honey I would love to show you all the hotspots around here. I really would. But you know I’m on house arrest.”
She says, “Oh well here’s my number, call me when your off it, you big strong intellectual man. I can’t wait to hold on to your muscular arm and have you escort me around town, show me the libraries as well as the nightlife.”
I said, “Baby, that’s tempting, but I got news for you. I don’t sacrifice my self-esteem just to be a toy for you, even though you’re Tara Reid.”
Actually (obviously) none of that happened. But if it did you guys would be so surprised. And isn’t that what Christmas is all about, really?
I’m a little busy with another writing project as of today, so this journal entry is quite short. There’s going to be longer ones, trust me, but for now, just have a good Easter Sunday.
8-17-03: No update today, or for a few days, but trust me I'm working on something. It might take a little while to finish, plus since I'm going back to school soon I need to do things. But whatever, I know you guys can wait, or just forget about it, either you have ADD or you're patient little bastard pet sheep. You assholes.
8-30-03: It’s been so long, web page…how are you…
Well I guess I’m going back to face college on Tuesday. I don’t really even know how I feel about it. Getting up before noon will probably be an obstacle. Dropping 262 dollars on books hurt me. I’m down to about a grand in the bank.
Sleeping is something that I love to do. When you go to bed, it brings finality to the day, and you can just not care about anything anymore. It doesn’t matter how bad your day was; when you go to bed, you are at peace. Nothing has ever interrupted the time right before I sleep, before I drift away and am swallowed up by my sheets and pillows. The covers enfold me and I sink into them, but the moment before is what I treasure most. In bed you can meditate on the day, think about solutions to problems, think about anything you want. And nothing matters. When I sleep it lets me escape from the world. You are not truly alone until you are with yourself, and yourself only.
On another topic…
I’m sitting here right now, at a loss for words, trying to think of a personal experience that inspires me to flow. Sometimes it’s hard to let the words be written. Sometimes the brain is just empty, and there is simply nothing to write. However, if the past does not inspire, sometimes the future will.
Everyone has two futures. That which leads to one’s dream life, and the opposite, mediocrity. Some would say that the opposite of one’s dream life is a nightmare, but I disagree. My dream life is anything but stagnation. I don’t know who dreams about being a normal person making a mid-range income living a boring suburban life with 2.5 kids, a dog, 2 cars and a wife. Everyone who looks towards the future in hope of a perfect life doesn’t dream of a life of routine, but of the hidden surprises within routine. People who dream about being rich dream about the powers afforded by wealth: the ability to fly to Rome or Paris at the drop of a hat, the ability to buy anything that suits their fancy. People who dream of becoming astronauts discovering new worlds dream of constantly changing the human race’s views of our entire existence. People simply do not dream about being the way that they almost always end up. Stagnation is the polarity of augmentation, and augmentation is the same polarity as the dreams in our collective heads. People strive and strive for the formula to a perfect happiness, but the theory of a perfect contentedness is fundamentally flawed: perfection would be routine, therefore a self-defeatist attitude. Life is not about attaining happiness, it’s about the struggle for happiness contained within. If one stops striving for perfection, however, they have already lost. It’s not possible to win the race contained in life, but the only way to lose is to acknowledge this. Strive against mediocrity, battle for a transcending view, and struggle for anything but stagnation.
Stagnation is the enemy of creation; creation is the birth of invention; invention is mothered by necessity; necessity is a struggle to transcend that which stagnates. Life is a race you cannot win, but don’t ever realize this.
8-01-03: It’s always hard to do the thing that you love most. I love writing, but I don’t like feeling obligated to write at all. I think that, perhaps, I like it less than being obligated to do something that I dislike to a great degree. When you do something you dislike, the end is always something to look forward to. But when you do something that you love with the intensity that I love to write, it’s as if there’s nothing to look forward to after the writing is said and done. It’s as if you have to hold on to the writing (or whatever you love doing) as long as possible. But always, always I feel as if I betray myself by stopping. I always feel as if I betray my writing by stopping at all. I stop not because of the constraints imposed by time, or by the environment in write I produce my craft, but because I tire of it. I tire of the constant lines of text, on upon another, thinking over and over about the ramifications of using this word here, or this colloquialism here, or this semicolon here. A lot of thought goes into writing, and it’s not always just about the words; rather, sometimes it’s more about which words should go where. It’s hard to do anything for long periods of time, but I feel myself getting a second wind, and I think I am able to write right now, so write I shall…
I am looking out the window at not a perfect day, nor a halfway decent one. Sometimes it rains all day, sometimes it storms, sometimes it’s sunny and warm and beautiful, and sometimes it’s hazy and too hot. Then there are days like today, where the sun does not shine, the air is of a temperature that is so unrecognizable as to be unnoticeable, the sky is gray and emotionless, as if the entire world is covered in the graying feathers of a dead swan, something once beautiful, now dishearteningly sad and downtrodden. This day calls for introspection, yet all I did was sleep this morning. I went to bed relatively early, and I still got up at twelve-thirty. I kept waking up and sitting upright, and then deciding it wasn’t worth it to rise above the covers, and swam back underneath, to the place from which sleep called me.
Once again…I’ve lost the will to write.
09-28-03: Hello there…I hope you weren’t waiting too long for me to update this site.
…
I had a big plan to write something really cool, but…my compositions teacher has made me afraid to write, I think…
Hopefully this will all be over soon.
10-19-03: It’s hard to live sometimes. It’s hard to go on in a world that you can’t escape, because of the ever-crushing realization that there is no alternative; you have to work with what you have. I have problems with women, money, substance, even now a problem with myself. Up until about an hour ago I had a problem even with my friendships. I don’t know how I feel about anything anymore, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel? What if this is the brightest it’ll ever be? I remember being a scared and confused teenager, whittling my nights and days with a bottle and a dream, I remember being with my friends, driving somewhere, on a circular course straight back to where we started, and passing through no new territory. I remember also, though, feeling as if I’d found what I was looking for, because you can always find what you want searching in the exact same place as before, right where you started. You can’t outrun your own life, for the answer you seek does not lie in another place, it resides at the origin of any problem. You have to never take anything for granted. That’s all you need to know.
My life isn’t as content as it once was. A moment fades and you’re left with nothing that you had before, but that never means that you have nothing at all. I have something, I have friends. I have people I care about, and people that care about me. I can’t fight with them ever, I love them. They are the ones I bare my soul to each and every day.
I’m not sad; life will go on, no matter how terrible it seems right now. Just realize that if I let you into my life, you contribute something, and no matter what I say I will always believe this.
…Enough of my ranting and raving, let’s get down to the business of explaining what’s wrong.
I love my friends, that’s all I really wanted to say.
Last night was a good time and a bad time. We went to a party at Becky’s house, and drinks and smokes were passed around. I was inebriated not only on substance but on life. I was doing what I loved to do, be with my friends and share what every teenager has in common. We were celebrating our youth. I’ll describe it in two parts: what I remember and what I don’t remember saying and doing.
I remember driving there with Kelly, following John and engaging in lively and earnest discussion of the history of the prohibition of marijuana. We listened to a vagrant sampler CD and drove through the darkness in effigy of a sea turtle in the black waters of the arctic sea. We arrived just after my two best friends, walked though the grass to the fire, where people were already lively with drink and good cheer. Opening our bottles we indulged in what I like to call liquid luxury. Later on I remember Chris stabbing me in the face with his lit cigar, and the spiking of my bottle of schnapps by the same young man, with the parting words “I am not knocking over f*cking bottles!” Then I proceeded to spend a few hours getting in a tickle fight with Scotch, being my usual frisky drunken self. Nothing was to happen, however. Much much later I remember going home, first stopping at Bo’s house in hopes that I might reconcile my previous anger towards her. No luck, however, and I returned to my abode, trying in vane to sneak in quietly to my room. During this process I managed to slam the door, knock over a lamp, and fall out of my bed.
Sounds like fun right? Wait, it gets better…
Apparently, sometime between the spiking of my schnapps and the tickle fight with Scotch, I had words with Chris’ ex. Apparently what I said was along the lines of “I always liked you, Chris is the one who started all these fights, the phone call was his idea, too. Also, his heart is broken over you.” All of these things are untrue to a degree that I am reviled that they were to be born from my maw. I am disgusted at myself for saying them, and though Chris denies it, I secretly think that he may be also. We all do stupid things when we’re drunk, but lying to such an extent borders on heretical to everything I stand for. I’ll sleep with your sister, punch you in the face, throw up on your shirt, pass out naked in your yard, and get the cops called on you, but I will never, ever betray either of the two men with whom I share such a great bond with. John and Chris are my brothers, and we’ve exchanged so much bodily fluids (heh) between each other that we could pass for triplets. I would never do anything to hurt either of them, and especially not take a woman’s side against them. They are accounting it to my state of drunkenness (as by that time I had far gone past the point of no return), but I personally don’t think that it matter why I said it, just that I did. I don’t understand it, and I never will. There’s something wrong with my mind.
I am so deeply and sincerely sorry Chris, I don’t know what I have to do to stop myself from doing things that hurt people so close to me, but my mouth needs to stop moving for good.
I don’t know what you are all thinking, reading this. Maybe “Stop beating yourself up over this.” But I don’t know who out there understands how contrary to my nature this event is. But it is a polarity to the extreme. I don’t know who was in my head last night, but get the hell out, before you kill who I am right now. I go to bed feeling as if my whole world is going to collapse. Maybe tomorrow it’ll all be okay. But if I wake up feeling like shit, like this, I don’t know what I’ll do. I dunno…
On another note, I’m so sorry Bo. I don’t know why I made it such a big deal, and I know I already apologized, but I’m in an apologetic mood now, and you deserve an apology also. There’s nothing I can really say, I don’t think I acknowledge how much this girl means to me, and I just want her to know that she’s one of those I’d be lost without. Love you hun.
I end by saying that I love you all, and if I haven't shown that, then there's something deeply wrong with me.
10-29-03: Well I've given up on the big writing project that I've been working on for months now. Actually it's been almost a year. I simply cannot figure out how it ends, so I'm throwing in the towel. I'm happy with what came out so far, but besides that there's really nothing else that I can add to it. So here it is...I hope you like the small pittance my pitiful soul has to offer.
https://www.angelfire.com/ill/phat_schemes/
Also, I recently wrote a report that some of you know about, on the legalization/decriminalization of marijuana, and I was happy with the final product. So here it is.
https://www.angelfire.com/dc2/pot_is_our_friend/
11-25-03:Curveballs aren’t always strikes. I’m a batter and life is the pitcher. Sometimes this guy is going to throw me a curve, or a slow-ball, or a fast one, or he’ll walk me when he’s afraid that I’ll do too well if he throws me a straight pitch. I suppose the only way to do it is to recognize the signs he gives when he’s about to pitch a certain way. I think the oddest things in life are the curveballs. It’s not always going to be a strike, but you don’t know which way it’s going to go. If life throws what seems like a perfect pitch, when it seems like you’re on easy street, it’s probably a curveball. There’s always fine print. There’s always “Okay well I’m going to give you these things, but those things over there? Yeah, those are mine now.” And you don’t know whether he’s going to take good care of your belongings, or sell them, or hide them from you, or even trade them back to you for something else down the road.
Later, when you hit your ball, you’ll be on base, waiting around for your chance to run to the next one. And if you make it all the way, what’s next? You don’t get to retire, that’s for sure. You have to sit down, relax for a few minutes, and get up to sit up at bat again. Hit a home run, and you’re on easy street…for about 5 minutes. Then, after your teammates hug you and give you a pat on the ass, where are you? Up at bat again. Right where you started. Ready for the next curve, fastball, or walk.
Tears are streaming down my cheeks now. A boy like myself has no talent, no motivation, and no foothold. I have nothing in this world, and I will never have anything. I’m going to die alone, poor, restless, and never having seen any of my dreams realized. I will never amount to more than a helpless bag of flesh. I’m going to end myself in a shopping cart, overdosed on life, waiting for death to come for me. And I’ll welcome him with waiting arms, because I have nothing left. I’m half in the grave as I type. I just don’t want to know what I know, that dreams aren’t realized, and being mentally pampered throughout high school amount to shit. Realizing that everything I did in high school didn’t help me at all; that’s about as low a feeling as there is.
If I had a chance, I’d go back and take honors courses, and I’d learn something. As of now I know that the only people that can be bullshitted into giving me an A are high school teachers, and that you can drink more if you eat bread all day. And that chugging kills. And that if you drive your car fast enough into the back of a pickup truck, you become the hero of the day, people love you for a while. What I learned in high school is that being a smart ass is good for your social life, being able to write papers relatively well gets you an A in every class but math, drinking is good for you, how to smoke a cigarette in 30 seconds, and that if your teachers like you, you can get away with anything.
I still don’t totally understand MLA format.
When I walked into college the first day I was ready to do anything the teachers were going to ask me to do. What I assumed was that no matter how hard the topic was, they would never explain how to do it. I assumed incorrectly that the professors were there to pass you, like the teachers in high school, and that an A was simply a matter of saying the right thing at the right time. I assumed that I could walk into English class and the teacher would dote over me for hours because I’d been writing excellent essays my own way since the 7th grade, like the teachers in high school did. I assumed that the teacher would care, even a little bit, about how you were doing. I at least assumed they wouldn’t want to fail me.
I don’t ever get a second chance in college, because failing a class is good for me.
I don’t know if I’ll stick with it. I don’t know if I’ll stay in college for the long haul, or whether ill take my career at the Hut seriously, because if I do that right, I will eventually be on a road to financial security. For now, however, I need to figure out where I’m actually going, instead of where I want to go.
1-1-04: We roam a desolate wasteland, we swim in pools of filth, and we live in dripping, seamless, noxious caves. The air here is poison, and it rains cold sweat upon our bent bodies. There are a thousand bats flying in the air, dripping blood and semen on us from above. There are serial killers lying in wait, their red eyes gleaming in delight. The night surrounds us, and when the sun chooses to show herself, she floats upside-down in a river of murky bile. A haunting scream echoes endlessly off of the cracked walls and down through the dry riverbeds. The sweat of laborers does not pierce the dryness of the earth; sand is thrown up whenever a bead of sweat lands heavily in it’s midst. It dissipates before our eyes, and stings us as we walk with leaden shoes, searching for nothing we will ever find. Hope is dead; murder becomes a slow torture, 5 seconds of pleasure for a devastating return to the horrible reality we choose to look through. Abandoned babies lay coughing and crying on abandoned railroad tracks. Mothers seek their children with blinders on, crying for the spent milk shed like tears from their chests. The rich laugh haughtily, not knowing they rot from the inside. The poor get poorer and poorer, slaving over their food that they will never taste, and fear the moment, coming soon, when they will clamor restlessly and throw their hands up in a final motion of defeat. There are no white flags here; the chains of stars whip us until our cries are made silent once again. We can no longer taste crumbs of bread or cups of stagnant water; we can no longer fool ourselves into believing that the cool breeze from above is real. We are the masters of our own future; we are the only gods here. We are the ones who choose to push lumps of dirt off of cliffs, we are the ones who choose to beat children into quiet, crying submission, and we are the ones who pull the triggers of ancient guns, missing our own skulls and killing innocent passerby.
I talked to a husk of vapid non-creativity tonight, amidst a maelstrom of emotion, and came out on the bottom.
She is beautiful, she is sweet and kind and generous. She harbors the qualities of the skin I strive for, but she is nothing to me, however I may fool myself while trying in vain to sleep at night. She tried to talk to me today about something meaningless, and I was struck deaf by the numb words she exuded, in an effort to prove her own existence. She tried to prove to the world today that she was a part of something; she tried to prove that she was not another creation, as we all do from time to time throughout the day. I was struck deaf; for here were words I could not hear without gagging in revolt. And I loved her for the pain she caused. Why do we delude ourselves that occasionally this pain is pleasure? Why do I do this to my body and mind and soul and heart; pretend that if given the chance I would hold her, and wrap myself in her embrace. And I quipped, in hopes that some undertone in what I would say would search her body from the inside and find her heart and caress into seeing in me more than I saw in her. Breaking through her husk of a skin I could find nothing, save a locked and rusty box, inside of which I could hear a heart beating its dying blood, drowning itself in the steel coffin. And when I withdrew she laughed at what I had said, and ripped my ears forcefully off of my head. I screamed inside as she turned away, and wept as she flounced away. A joke, which I had not said, made her laugh.
I hated her for it, and I still do. I hate the way that she ignores what I truly want to say, and thinks that a careless laugh is indeed the best medicine. I hate the way she makes me feel; I know that these feelings are fake, right down to the very essence of the word. I know that what she says to me can never mean what I want it to. I know that, if given the opportunity, I would hold her forever, and not love her, and be repulsed by what she whispers in my ear, and close my eyes and pretend she is not just a safety blanket. I hate who she is, I hate her vapid non-involvement with the truth of the world, and I hate that box with no lock that I could never open. But I love her skin.
I believe, truly, that I have found god in myself. I believe that you are a piece of god, and I am a piece of god, and that any person on the street is god. We have the opportunity to change the world, each and every day; we have the opportunity to create and destroy, even in the most mundane ways. We all change the world. I will change the world when I walk away from this monotonous piece of garbage I am writing; I will stand up and stretch and turn the key in the ignition and, ultimately, contribute to air pollution. I will contribute to the death of one more dying cancer patient by not being at the hospital giving blood. I will contribute to the death of an unfathomable amount of unborn children by choosing not to impregnate the next woman I bump into; history as it could be known is undone when I choose not to start a whole new genetic strain, plant a whole new family tree. I will alter the fate of the next driver on the road next to me by choosing either to turn the volume up on my radio or observe that I am about to drive headlong into an entire family driving home from the best Christmas vacation of their lives. I will spit on the sidewalk and feed a hive of ants for close to a minute. I will contribute to the breakdown of modern society by choosing not to follow my dreams and make myself heard, and stand up for what I believe in, and fix all that is not 100% right, choosing instead a directionless path towards obscurity at my current job. I will make someone’s day by saying hi tomorrow; I will contribute to the possible suicide of a man just like me, with no dreams or aspirations, when I give him the finger for accidentally cutting me off in traffic. I will inspire each and every one of you who read this to send a surge of electricity into your brain, deciding whether or not you will comment to me about how this entire exercise is a waste of my time. And I will choose whether to look at you and laugh, or to strike with a heavy, open palm, and swelter your face and brain with hate.
I have heard people say that they are against cloning, genetic manipulation, and adulterating meat products, because it’s playing god; I have heard people tell of how they want to change the world, but in order to do that they have to spend time and money schooling themselves on how the world works, shut away from it behind face slabs of concrete, in cold classrooms where they die a little inside. I have heard people tell their own futures, saying that they will never amount to anything. And I have heard people deride themselves by not accepting that, once in a while, they do affect the planet.
I guess we’re all hypocrites in some way...Happy F u c k i n New Year.
2-3-04 (heh heh): Yeah it’s always been my secret wish to take one of these quizzes and post it online…so here it is. By the way, I stole it from my darling Bo…sorry hun.
.you.
name: Josh
do you like it?: Hell yeah, it’s all biblical
nicknames: Uh…well burns calls me “pimp”
screen names: Exodus1080, Furrychester, Assreamer816
birthday: July 28th 1985
sign: Leo
location: thomaston, CT
school: NVCC
status: Swingin single
crush: Of course there’s more than one…right now it’s pam
virgin?: of course
natural hair color: dirty blonde
current hair color: natural
eye color: blue
height: 6'3"
birthplace: La Mesa, California
shoe size: 12 1/2
bra size: 36dd
.family.
parents: Katherine and Glengarth
siblings: my brother J
live with: my family?
favorite relatives: Gram
.favorites.
number: 666! SLAYER RULES!
color: Aqua-blue
day: Friday baby. Hell yeah
month: july
song: So many good ones out there….prolly san fransisco by the trio
movie: Again…favorites are hard…well I think Die Hard is at least in the top 3
food: Meat and Potatoes
band: Metallica/Alkaline Trio/Red Hot Chili Peppers/Tool/etc…
season: Middle of F U C K I N SU M M E R! hell yeah
sport: hockey to play, football to watch
class: Favorite I ever took was prolly sophomore english
teacher: MALO…or Mrs. Norcross
drink: Killian’s or Orange Juice…or even egg nog
veggie: uh…salad?
tv show: Ride with funkmaster flex…hell yeah biotch
radio station: 106.9
store: h&m?
word: bitch
animal: river otters…though it offends my masculinity to say so
flower: oooo ooo so many of them olo…I guess those orange roses
state: SoCal baby
.this or that.
me/you: ME
coke/pepsi: not a fan of cola
day/night: night
aol/aim: aim..aol sux
Cd/cassette: cds, bitch
dvd/vhs: DVDS
jeans/khakis: jeans, the ones I never change out of
car/truck: 95 mtx SHO with a 3.2 block drop, chromed-out full catback exhaust, K&Ns, the works, you know how we do
tall/short: tall
lunch/dinner: lunch
britney/christina: christina
NSYNC/BSB: they’re both so good!
gap/old navy: dunno…last time I tried to go in either, the guard stopped me at the door and was like “you look a little poor to be in here boy” and he wouldn’t let me in
lipstick/lipgloss: Lipgloss, on a girl I mean
silver/gold: GOLD baybee
alcohol/weed: both are good, if you mean which I do more…heh…well everyone knows that so I guess I don’t have to answer
.love and relationships.
do you have a bf/gf?: at least 2 a day
do you have a crush?: of course
how long have you liked him/her?: since I saw her
why do you like this person?: gorgeous, polite, strong-willed, careful, and knows how to hold an interesting convo, plus she’s smarter than anyone thinks
if you're single... why are you single?: things don’t always progress as fast as I would like
how long was your longest relationship?: Dunno
how long was your shortest relationship?: Dunno
who was your first love?: heh…lets not mention names
what do you miss about them?: I don’t need to miss
.the past.
what is the one thing you would change about your past?: nothin
last thing you heard: frank sinatra-I did it my way
last thing you saw: my dog’s head in my crotch
last thing you said: said goodbye to my mom
who is the last person you saw?: besides my brother, bryan and scott
who is the last person you kissed?: uh…heh…I don’t remember? Prolly chris, cuz he’s hot
who is the last person you hugged?: john
who is the last person you fought with?: oh god I don’t know…im a lover, not a fighter
who is the last person you were on the phone with?: mommy
what is the last TV show you saw?: daily show
what is the last song you heard?: my way by sinatra
.the present.
what are you wearing?: boxers, t-shirt, jeans, hoodie, hat
what are you doing?: thinking about getting high
who are you talking to?: you
what song are you listening to?: SINATRA DAMMIT!
where are you?: at home
are you online?: no
how are you feeling?: fine, thinking about getting high
are you in a chatroom?: no
.future.
what day is it tomorrow?: wed
what are you going to do after this?: go to duncan’s
who are you going to talk to?: chris
where are you going to go?: prolly for a drive or something
how old will you be when you graduate?: college? Olo…dunno
what do you wanna be?: either own a restaurant with john chris and eric, or write. Or be rich
what is one of your dreams?: to write a novel about life, and have people still reading it for answers 100 years in the future
where will you be in 25 years?: on a couch doing bong rips with john and chris, no matter how rich or successful, we’re still gonna do that cuz that’s when we’re most relaxed…nothing can take that away from me
.have you ever.
drank?: of course
smoked?: hell yeah
stolen?: what red-blooded American hasn’t?
done anything illegal?: sure
wanted to die?: yah
hit someone?: mmm hmm
.physical appearance.
what do you most like about your body?: my abs, and anyone who dosent know that dosent know me
how many fillings do you have?: 0
do you think you're good looking?: well I’ve never been called unattractive to my face
do other people often tell you that you're good-looking?: not really
do you look like any celebrities?: brad pitt obviously
are you a lefty or a righty?: right
what is your sexual preference?: undetermined
what piercings do you have?: ears
any tattoos?: no
do you have glasses or braces?: glasses
.fashion.
do you wear a watch?: never
how many coats and jackets do you own?: too many
favorite pants/skirt color?: all black
most expensive item of clothing?: any of my silk boxers…only high-priced clothes for the big guy
most treasured?: my “basic” black t-shirt…don’t ask me, cuz I wont tell you
what kind of shoes do you wear?: my big black boots
describe your style in one word: laid-back
You know, halfway through this I realized it was directed towards teenage girls…but that’s who I am on the inside so…peace.
4-28-04: Today I go against the wills of my friends and achieve closure with Pam. In a discussion conducted last night, it was stated that the best way to deal with the issues I’ve been confronting recently is to not talk to her and just not think about it. So today I do the exact opposite and talk to her. We have like an hour before she goes to work so that I can talk to her about all of this. What spawned this insanity? Let me expound…
This morning I woke up and woke my dog up so we could go outside. I lit up a cigarette and we were sitting in a gentle spring breeze while I slowly got my fix. At one point, I took a drag on my cigarette and reached down to scratch my dog’s head and she cringed at the smell of the smoke. Yet, despite the cigarette, she reached her head up for me to scratch her again. I was finished scratching her head and she still craned for more. I could tell she didn’t like the smoke, and I kept the smoke away from her. I thought about my own situation, going back for more even though the circumstances were hurting me.
I think about it still now. I think about the times when I have fostered thoughts of love and companionship, how I wanted someone to scratch my head, even though the person I wanted to scratch it was smoking a cigarette. I think about how I didn’t want to stop smoking, but I did for her. And I think about how there are people out there who are willing to stop smoking their cigarettes to scratch my head as long as I extend a sense of companionship to them. Pam isn’t willing to do that, at least not yet, and never will for me. Unlike my dog, however, I know that there are a million people out there who are willing to not smoke around me.
So I came inside and decided to call Pam. I’m going to meet her and weather the storm to achieve closure. Basically I need to talk to her about how I feel about the situation. I’m not, nor ever will be, one of those guys who can have a relationship and not take it seriously. I simply cannot do it, and I’m done trying to do it. The girl I want is an honest one who cares, is willing sit with my head on her lap, is willing to talk to me without being offended by anything I say, but, most importantly, is willing to stop smoking her cigarette, whatever it is, to be with me. If I find that girl, I’ll be willing to stop smoking as well.
I know everyone is going to read this and decide what I’m going to do is foolish. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my few years on this earth, it’s that you can’t care about what other people think about you, and that sometimes going against what people say, even if they’re the smartest, most beautiful people you’ve ever met, is doing exactly what they wanted you to do, which is be happy. The weather’s on my side anyway. I have a predetermination to be happy when I wake up and the sun’s shining. Closure is what I need, not a new girl, not things to take my mind off of her, and not getting companionship. I’ve lost my self-assurance over the past few months, my security. Once I have closure, I’ll be fine, I promise.
