May 30, 2008

This must be a choice.

I think these things happen in three's. The neck thing was folding clothes, being on bar, and The Cure. The food poisoning came from raw chicken,

questionably old chicken, and drinking a quart of milk in one go.

I like this purging thing. For the first time, I'm able to cruise through the gamut of relics that make up my tangible self and not stop to revisit each

item. Each of these things are more permanent whims, hefty volumes of cloth and pulp, each with their own cosmological weight.

I know a couple of people who purposely put themselves into a hard spot of "I have to do it this way or I completely fail." They make impossible

work-school-sleep schedules that only the inhumane have any realisitic chance of completing without getting sick, stressed out, or completed in solitude.

Living alone scares me. I can't see the advantage of living alone.

Currently I am living at home. I love the free rent & utilities, free groceries. I like seeing people I know. I like the comfort of company. But... I hate

explaining where I am or what I do because I haven't included them in anything up to now, so it opens the floor to long stories about stuff I wish they could

"get," but they (mom, dad & grandmother) don't get it, and I'm impatient. And I don't explain. So talking makes me uncomfortable.

I can't bring girls home. That requires being open about my sexual proclivities. More explanation. I wish I could say I wasn't exbarassed about the women I

date, but... I feel like I'm being myself and my parents and her parents at the same time: no, I don't see myself marrying her. I don't know my intentions

beyond today. I have no plans for my future. Just get off my back, okay?

Home, as it is now, is the place where I keep my stuff. It's 20 minutes away from any person or place I want to visit--or realistically expect any one to

visit me.

Let's not post this to Facebook

This is lousy. I feel so out of sorts.

I left for a weekend of commitment and came back so rejuvenated for coffee. I wanted more of that competition experience: being around other coffee people, drinking it, living it. I came back with the notion that I could diffuse that feeling into my work but I've hit nothing but walls.

I understand my role in this company is explicitly NOT fun. It's rigmarole. It's stuff that has to get done so that other things can get done. My problem is that while I have voiced how much it drains me and takes up my time, I'm either the only one who volunteers to do it, sees it as a necessity, or is best at it. And yes I get how my groundwork allows others to do their work and how it is all for the good of the coffee but I can't help but feel worse than a cog. I feel like an unglorified Atlas. I feel like the bandages keeping his hands from chafing, the thinnest of layers between supporting the globe and protecting the hand that shoulders the weight.

It's sometimes like a shit sandwich in here.

I came back feeling rejuvenated but functionally unnecessary, out of place, and holding everybody back. I'm not even a great barista.

* * *
I know that I write here because I want to share how I feel without actually walking up to someone and saying, "Hey, do you have a minute? I want to tell you how I feel." It's a courage and timing thing; I have neither, and definitely not both at the same time. As of this moment, I'm a big frakking mess.

It's late and that's okay.

I'm being mindless.
I am without thought of what will happen, of what my choices are, and I am just living right now from one moment to the next in as easy and comforting as my previous choice makes it.

Take a break from responsibility.

Firsts / Choppy

For starters, that was the first time I stood up in two hours.

I'm amazed at how distracted I can becomefixated I can get on off-topics. I can imagine myself taking every detour and side street, every location mentioned in an email or billboard. It's so easy for me to get lost finding out about things I never knew I wanted that the real losers are the things I say I'm interested in.

I had wanted to write in length about my previous post, but it wouldn't be much more then lists of places I've been and the women with whom I stayed. I think if I were to take my as-yet unwritten discussion to its end, I would guess that I have an extreme male ego that needs to be surrounded by women only, birthed from a mixture of greed and dislike of men in general.

What's really got me distracted is how much uncategorized stuff is written on post-its in my bag.

Mother Hearth

I've been raised by houses of women, and I find myself constantly attracted by their comfort and open arms.

Forced Out at 1 bar of Pressure / Keeping it to five lines or less

I visited my parents and nothing changed except for my oil.

Singularity (written on Mothers Day 2008).

I wonder why I never posted this.

* * *
Singularity. (Mother's Day)

Playing between my legs is new nine inch nails, the perfect soundtrack to where I am in my life. It's t-minus three years to thirty, that arbitrary number that decides whether or not a twenty year old is on track in his or her life. This music is habit. I haven't enjoyed the last three albums of the band that in the past has been an appropriate, perfect sync for my emotions. Now, it's almost an irony. "The Slip," as it's called--it's annoying. I hope a 16-year old is listening to it now and it's changing his or her life. I hope that that person views the music as a checkpoint in their limited perception of time. That nin is "old school," that what they are listening to is new, and should I ever meet this hypothetical teenager and tell them this, that they correct my musical history as it pertains to a band that I used to really love.

It's 10:09 PM. In my world it's after midnight, but that's because I'm thinking about someone who hasn't been home in two weeks. I call when it's good for her because she's always two hours closer to sleep and all I do is work. Work, and take walks. Is that what lonely people do? I didn't realize how much of a serial dater I've been until the person I've dated has gone the way of milk carton panels and flyers on telephone posts. I have displayed the symptoms of singularity: constantly busy, volunteering for everything, not wanting to go home because when I'm home all I think about is how lonely I am.

It's 10:11 PM. I just ate--a lot. I worked from 6:30 to 10:00 AM, napped, was gonna work but instead hung out with friends till 3:00 PM, then slept. Woke at 5:00 PM, ate, and slept. Then now I awoke, ate, and can't sleep. This days been like my academic career: fun stuff early on and all the "need-to's/have-to's", biological functions later on. Having the sleeping habits of a kitty was something of a goal for me, but now that I've done it, it's not that exciting. And really, I don't get into the kind of trouble that really appreciates that kind of sleeping pattern.

Life is chugging along at a brisk pace. Friends are engaged and I'm finding myself reflecting. 30 is staring back at me and I'm prepping for the worst. Saturn Return; it's the dark days prophecized. Me, I'm the curmudgeonly army-surplus guy with a stockpile of guns and MRE's in his basement waiting to simultaneously fight it off and say, "I told you so!"--but I already said I was curmudgeonly, right? Maybe it's not "waiting" but rather it's "wanting," to prove that I was right all along and all this effort was for something. The reason my last relationship failed is because I felt too domesticisized too soon. Picket fences don't have a lot of pick up and go, and they seemed like too good of a fit for my right-on-schedule, four years of college, Masters Degree by 24, friends. I haven't fucked enough people, y'know? Fucked up enough. I don't believe everyone has to "learn the hard way" to understand life, but the only lessons that have ever stuck are ones gained through failure. If I don't make mistakes I haven't tried often enough. But practice does make perfect.

10:37 PM and I like to reread and write down what I've done. It's gonzo journaling at it's worst... no, that's this... right...now. I realize that this record, this soundtrack has been playing this whole time. Kind of accept it as part of the scenery until it's gone, or sounds like it's gonna be gone. Which it is, now. That record was forgettable.