The Mini-Weekend Begins Now Listening: 'Cause you left me laying there with a broken heart, staring though a deep cold void 'lone in the dark. And I miss your warmth in the morning and your laughter when I can't stop yawning, but the tears on the pillow have dried, my dear. Gonna let it all go 'cause I have no fear.
So... Yeah. I think some of my disgruntled-ness has dissipated. I've had a not so bad week at work. Lunch with people and no unexpected events at work. Some of my time budgeting at work has been messed up to the point where I'm rushed for about a half hour because I procrastinated doing stuff until the last minute when people are yelling at me, I've got three people on IM, someone on the phone and of course a million tiny things to do with work. It's okay though. I've got a little mini-weekend going here.
So, I am taking tomorrow off to hang out with Rebound Girl. She comes in at noon and we iz gonna chill and stuff. I'm excited. We're gonna get the band back together. Rebound Girl, No Legs, Carpenter and Me. The gutter twins will be reunited and I've got the Bailey's chillin' in the fridge. Just like old times, if only for one day. I dunno what we'll do for tomorrow. I think it's just Rebound Girl and I until about five or six. I think that's when Carpenter and No Legs will finish at their respective jobs. Perhaps there'll be dinner. Perhaps some dancing. You never know with us.
As for me in my heart of hearts, I think I took a big step today. I drew some lines and I'm sticking by them. It really is a shame that lines have to be drawn, but they kind of do. It's all in an effort to find a better tomorrow. It by no means makes me think that all is shiny and happy in the world. Far from it. I'm just trying to work through the process and through the issues. It sucks and it hurts, but I'm determined to come out on top (or on the bottom, depending on how she digs it). Someone needs to constantly remind me of this. I know I'll slip back more than a few times, but I really do want to start making things better for myself.
Something else that I realized today was that I am still a good writer. Yeah, yeah. I know... "Don't wrench your arm patting yourself on the back." But aside from my blogging, I don't really do a lot of writing anymore. Blogging has become standard and kind of comfortable and easy for me. Today, I wrote a rather important e-mail to someone that involved a lot of delicacy, and I think I wrote a rockin' e-mail. I said all that I needed to say and I used clear language. I don't know. I was proud of the e-mail. I realize that it's not fiction or anything all that creative, but I felt like I used words and punctuation well. I'm toying with the idea of trying to write more fiction. I wonder if they'll let me bring my laptop to work so that I can just compose on that as opposed to have to do it on my work computer. Who knows?
So, right now it's a quarter to two and I'm just chillin'. My apartment is clean. It feels nice like a clean, warm pillowcase against your face. I pick up Rebound Girl at noon at Logan. I think that means that I have to leave my place at eleven or so. Maybe I'll have time to spin some rekkidz or make myself an omelette. Ahh, leisure activities.
So, that's all I have to say for now. Maybe tomorrow, I'll let Rebound Girl blog. That might be fun. Then again, she may not be up for it. I'm just a journal freak. Hey, but you reap the rewards. You know you love it.
Coming Of Age Listening: Fifteen, there's still time for you. Time to buy and time to lose. Fifteen, there's never a wish better than this, when you only got a hundred years to live.
So, I was thinking about it and there seems to be a theme with a lot of the lit, television shows and movies that I like. Let's start with literature. Some of my favorites are Hemingway's In Our Time, Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Katherine Patterson's Bridge To Terabithia, Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation, and Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. Some of my favorite TV shows of all time are The Wonder Years, the mid to later seasons of Boy Meets World, My So-Called Life (which I have been watching on DVD over the past couple of days), and Gilmore Girls. Some of my favorite movies are Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Swingers,American Beauty, and Eat Drink Man Woman. Garden State gets higher and higher on my list the more I think about it.
Now, if you think about it, all of these stories, shows, and movies have something in common. Most of them are coming of age or growing up stories. There are stories where the characters are going through the process of growing up and figuring out who they are or how better to move about the world as a particpant in its giant butterfly effect. Sure, all of these stories aren't about adolesence, but a lot of the main characters do some personal growing. I think I feel for a lot of the characters, because I believe that I too am growing every day in one shape or form. Maybe I'm not growing in quite the way that I want to, or maybe I'm being run down just as fast as I'm growing, but I'm sure in some way, I'm growing.
In Before Sunset, the character Jesse says something about now that he is older, his problems are deeper, but he's better equipped to handle them. I wonder if that's the case with me. Am I better equipped to handle things? I grow and I grow and I grow, but am I really better equipped to handle the problems that I have? Some people get thicker skinned. Some people find ways around problems. Me, I just get sad and numbed. I have evil, sinister thoughts that I never follow through on which make me feel even more useless. We're not talking going postal or anything. Just mean stuff.
I wonder how I developed this "niceness" that I so despise. I wish I could be the evil, sinister kid sometimes. I think that my situation could be infinitely better if I just didn't give a shit.
Okay, well, I've gotten away from the point. I look at all of these characters and I think to myself, If I crawl through this tunnel of shit, will I come out as clean as most of these characters? Will I learn enough to get me through to a happy ending? The truth of the matter is that I don't know. I hope so, but I doubt a lot. There isn't enough in my life to erase any of my doubt. I see other people having greatness, in my circle of friends and otherwise, but I don't see enough in my own life for me to feel sure that I will look back and be happy. Every day, I see my niceness harden, not into mean spirited-ness, but into, I don't know, jaded-ness? Numbness? What's there to show me that I shouldn't stop and let my niceness harden?
I dunno. It's just the thoughts that run through my little brain.
To tell you the truth, today wasn't all that bad. There weren't too many fires to put out at work. I had lunch with a friend that I IMed at random. I had dinner with some old friends. I just have an overflowing reservior of residual negativity. I think there could be some things that I could parlay into something potentially alright, but I don't know if it's the right thing to be doing. I feel like I'm in this limbo period where there are things I can do, but I don't want to be doing them, but I do want to be doing them. Or maybe that it's more like I want to be doing them, but I would rather be doing something else. It's all very confusing. Such is life.
Okay... It's two in the morning now. I'm on my fourth episode of My So-Called Life and it's time to go to sleep. I'm going to sleep in my waterbed full of negativity. Maybe I'll talk about visual hatred tomorrow. It sounds bad. Well, it is bad, but it's kind of interesting.
Thirty Seconds Of Peace Listening:You are all I'll ever want, but this I am denied. Sometimes in my darkest thoughts, I wish I'd never learned what it is to be in love and have that love returned.
Today was a pretty interesting day. Last night I went to sleep around three in the morning or so, much like I will tonite. At ten in the morning, I got a call from my mother about something or another. I hung up and went back to sleep. The next thing I remember was that my phone was ringing again. This time it was Carpenter and it was already one in the afternoon. He was on Newbury kicking around and wanted to know what I was up to. So I hopped out of bed, showered, made myself an omelette and some toast, changed and went out.
I had planned on getting my hair cut today, but I hadn't made any appointments. I was just gonna walk in, but at the last minute I decided to call and set something up. I got an appointment for a quarter past three and I was set. I walked out the door at two. I get halfway through MIT, because I was gonna walk the bridge with all of the extra time that I had left, but then I realized two things. One was that I was hot wearing jeans and two was that I didn't have my cell with me. So, I go home to change and get my cell. I was so anxious to get my shorts on and to drop stuff off that I forget my cell again. I was halfway to Kendall when I realized this so, I turned back. By the time I got to the Copley T stop, it was already three. It was ridiculous.
Anyways, I got my hair cut by my usual punk rock stylist. Originally, I was thinking about buzzing my head to an eighth of an inch all around my head. I was thinking about doing this as a cleansing thing, but I decided against it. Maybe I'll do it this winter, just before I go to Canada for the holidays. I figure it's only hair and my hair grows FAST. I could have it back to normal in about a month. I also got the idea that I'm gonna dye my whole head some color in March when I make my move either to Europe or towards culinary school.
A couple of words on that situation though. I don't know if I'll make it to March. I just don't know if I can take the mental abuse that it sends me home with every night of the week. I might have to just quit sometime between now and then. I don't know what's going to happen. I really want to go to Europe. If I make it to March and it doesn't happen, I'll be disappointed.
Anyways, after a few hours walking around Newbury, Carpenter dropped me at home so I could make myself some dinner before his birthday excursion. I ended up showering some of the little bits of my hair off of my neck, doing dishes and having a meager dinner of rice and Chinese sausage. I didn't have time to make much more than that and I didn't have much more than that in my fridge. Damn me for not hitting up the Haymarket.
At half past seven, Carpenter, Emeril and Barbie picked me up and we headed off to the South End. Since there was a Soul Revival tonite, we decided for Carpenter's b-day, we would go for drinks at Pho Republique from about eight until ten something and then we would head over to Soul Revival. We had such a big party that it took them forever to seat us. There were between eight and ten of us. People came and left. We were finally seated at around nine thirty. I think I was the only person who ate dinner at home. Everyone else ate dinner there. It was okay. I even rationed myself to only one drink. For all of you who know me, you know I never only have ONE drink unless it's one beer at home.
By the time we got out of there, it was at least eleven o'clock. When we got to Soul Revival, they had already kicked into the house music. The DJ started off pretty strong. Good beats. Good mixes. After a while of dancing up on the stairway overlooking the dance floor, I looked around for people that I knew and when I didn't find anyone, I just danced. I got a good thirty seconds of peace where I let everything go. When I opened my eyes, I found myself dancing with a girl named Dot and what I presume were her lesbian friends. *shrug* I was just there to dance. I ended up seeing one of Special K's friends that I met last Sunday. Overall it was a pretty okay time. For a guy who's pretty damn peeved at the universe, I put on a good showing for my friends this evening.
So, that's all I have to say for tonight. I'm going to finish eating my saltines, drink my water, brush my teeth, read some Banana Yoshimoto and crash. Okay, I lied. It'll probably be half past three before I sleep.
Maddening Shroud Listening: I just don’t know where I should go, so slowly surely, I’ll walk away from self-serving undeserving, constantly hurting me love, deserting me love. You said, I said, we said...
I really meant to write more this week. The problem is that I have nothing to say. Nothing at all. I suppose that I would have more to say if I was excited about, or even was able to tolerate my job, if I had some money to spend to try to forget this god-awful week, or if I wasn't thinking about the girl that I miss, as Tracey Thorn would sing, "like the deserts miss the rain." It seems to be all I think about. Those three things. Professional unhappiness. Lack of fundage. Love that walked away.
The immediate future doesn't look good. It doesn't look good at all. Hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait. I think I've been hurrying up and waiting since I was born. Society has these claws. They're big, nasty talons that hold you down. They're monetary claws and acceptance claws. They make instant freedom an impossibility. You have to hurry up and wait for prices to drop or to save up enough money, energy, want, hunger, will power, love, hate, support, and unbridled lust just to brake through the celophane, let alone be able to taste what you want.
There are so many barriers in the world. There are so many barriers that you want to climb over, but sometimes, when you're a short as I am, you can't reach high enough to get a grip. It's hard being a romantic, when everything in the world tells you to give it up and lose heart. Surrender to the mediocrity that just comes so easy to you. Go blind in cubicle land. Come home. Eat dinner alone out of a jar. Watch MTV. Listen to Britney. Go to sleep. Wake up and do it again. And again. And again.
What sucks the most is when you can see over the barriers for a fraction of a second. You jump up and can see the vibrance on the other side. Maybe you've even slipped a hand over the top and was touched for about five seconds by the possibility of having that vibrance, only to have slid back down the wall tired, sweaty and dirty. Sure, you can get back up and try again, but when is it too much? How many times do you actually have to try and fail? When is eminent heart failure?
I have a hard time waking up every single day. Some may blame it on the fact that I stay up too late. But, I think that the reason that I stay up late and the reason I don't want to get up are one in the same. The later I stay up, the more hours I have that I'm not at work. The later I sleep, the more time I have to myself before work. I guess it doesn't really matter though.
I'm in this strange position where I'm lonely, but I don't really want all that many people around. Everyone knows what I want. I just have to accept that I won't get it. Like a kid walking out of a candy store without a nip of sugar, I pout. Pathetic. Powerless. Nothing to show for. What can I do? Nothing. Ride it out. Argh! It's so damn aggravating.
This week was just so horrible through and through. Work was amped up about thirty more decibles on the "let's fuck with Jason's sanity" level. When I was steamed about work, I was sad. Just sad. I did get to see DJ Krush with The Violent One, but even that wasn't as vivid as I was hoping it to be. It did no good in helping me to escape.
So, tonite, after dinner at the grandparents' and a quick trip to Costco for coffee beans, frozen chicken, frosted mini-wheats and a multi-pack of Orbit chewing gum, I spent the night in. I spent a lot of it just flipping through channels aimlessly. There was absolutely nothing good on, save the Barbara Walters interview of Mary Kay Letourneau (It was just interesting hearing her take on things... weeeeeeeird.).
At a quarter to eleven, I put on Chungking Express. It had been a long time since I had see the movie. It's sat up on my shelf for at least a year. Actually, the last time I watched it was at three in the morning before I had to catch a taxi at five to get to the airport to go to Amsterdam. I watched the movie again, and I can't believe how amazing the movie is. I mean, c'mon, Faye Wong jumping around an apartment wearing pink rubber gloves while her mandarin version of The Cranberries' "Dreams" plays in the background, how can anyone resist? I noticed that there were a lot of interesting lines in the movie, so I'll let you think about this:
He Qiwu (Cop 223): Somehow everything comes with an expiry date. Swordfish expires. Meat sauce expires. Even cling-film expires. Is there anything in the world which doesn't?
I have trouble figuring out if this is good or bad. I guess how we see it is all in our character.
Can I Just Get One Break? Just One? Please? Listening: No one hurt my fragile little mind right now. It's tangled up, and don't you know.
I'm having one of those weeks this week. I could get into the specifics at work, but I won't. I'll just tell you that I've come out looking like an imbicile and nothing seems to work.
I've been distraught all week long and nothing seems to go right. Case and point: I just dropped my lunch, fresh out of the microwave on my way back to my desk. It was the last of my batch of gumbo. I lost all of my rice and about two thirds of my gumbo. I'm so pissed right now. I have no one to really be pissed at but myself though. I want to go up to someone and start a row right now. A kid from the other side of the business was giving me shit today. I really just wanted to pummel him.
All morning long I've been thinking to myself, I'm not doing anything important right now, not important to me, or important to anyone else. Of course there's always something important being done by someone. I mean by the mere fact that you're living in your apartment, paying rent, you're helping someone else to live, but that's not what I really mean by important. I'm not doing anything to make myself a better, happier person. This is mostly in part to not knowing how. All I want to do is feel fulfilled in some way, shape or form. In any way, shape or form.
I'm just really miserable right now and there's no real word that fits what it is. It's a combination of pissed off, sad, depressed, numb... It's all of those and none of those. I don't know how to shake it. Hopefully a night in tonite watching the season premier of Smallville, where they will COMPLETELY fuck up the comic storyline, will help. But I doubt it.
Working On Laughing Listening: Back on a mission and ready to ride. If we don't get you now, gonna get you on the b-side. My mission is to invade your mind and you better believe you're gonna like my kind. Strange voices in my head. Freedom is what they said. Back on a mission and ready to go.
"You laugh, you know? I'm not saying I don't cry, but inbetween, I laugh." --Sam in "Garden State"
I noticed from the hits that people keep checking up on me. I took a step back from the blog for a week for a couple of reasons. The first, and most obvious, was to deal with a bit of the personal drama that has been going on in my life. I have to be honest, the drama is still there and it has left me as blank and as confused as I have ever been. When you stew and think about things like this, you come to conclusions that may or may not be right, but it's all you can do to justify what is happening or what has happened.
The other reason that I took a week's break was because I have found that I do too much bitching about my job. I'm sure you readers have gotten a little bit bored of my mindless dribble about the Corporation and the people that I work with, so I'm going to try to drop it a little bit. From here on out, you are to assume that I had a bad day, that I hate my job, that I don't believe in anything that I do during my eight hours earning a paycheck a day, and that come March, there will be an announcement as to what will be happening to me in regards to career and geography.
So, instead of bitching about my job, I'm going to try to be a little bit more philosophical. I'm going to try to disect myself on the page and see what my blood and guts are really made of. Maybe it won't happen every day, but I'd really like to stop the mental runs and really focus more on things. I know it sounds vague, but I'm sure you'll get the picture. Don't get me wrong though. I'll still be writing a great deal about every day life. It'll just have a little bit more insight as to how I process things and how I want to change. And I want it to begin now.
This past week.... Well, it's obvious that the girl and I are over. The details of which aren't important and continue to baffle me. I'm not too sure what all of this means to me, but I know I'm putting the romantic that is me in chains for a bit. If it's not there now, I don't need to focus on it. Maybe things will change. Maybe it won't. I have a lot on my plate at the moment.
After a week of reflection, I have retracted one of my initial conclusions. I used to believe that if you loved someone, you would make time for them. I've learned that as of late, on all sorts of level, that theory doesn't work. Not only are ones who love me not making the time for me, but I'm not making time for ones that I love. Let's be honest. That sounds pretty damn shitty, but it's the truth. Sometimes there's just so much going on in someone's life that they just sort of have to pick and choose their battles. Not that love is a battlefield as Pat Benetar says. It's just another thing that takes up time and brainpower.
I'd like to say that I make time for people that I love, but I really don't. At the end of the day when I'm exhausted from eight hours of sucking it up, I don't really want to talk to anyone. I think that this has come out especially when it comes to the fam that's in town. So, when my mother and my brother, who I'm sure I love in some way, shape or form (that way, shape or form is to be determined), "drop by" my apartment between the hours of seven thirty and midnight on a worknight, I can't deal with them. I'm not making time for them, and I'm not talking to them when they're there. As far as I'm concerned, they're disturbing the peace. They ask me questions and try to engage me in conversation that I have no interest in being in. They take up my computer and my couch space. I'm sorry, but even though, I'm sure I love them, I can't be bothered to be dealing with them.
Now, I know everyone can identify with something like that and can think that it's somewhat normal, so I'll step it up a notch. Over the past four years since I have left college, my best friends have scattered and come back together and scattered again. People move in and move out. But during these past four years, I really feel that my tight circle of friends has started to grow apart. Right now, my father really only talks to one friend from college on a consistent basis. Coming out of college, I couldn't understand that. I had such a killer circle of friends and we stuck together through everything. Sure, things change in people's lives as they grow up, but I kind of always though that we were the thick and thin types. As I look at myself, I see myself like that less and less. The people that would be first on my list to call about such and such or this and that are no longer. I'm not saying that I don't love these folks anymore. I'm saying that I don't make time to hang out with them or catch up with them on a weekly or even a monthly basis. It just doesn't ride high on my priority list these days.
It's like, I have a hard enough time keeping my own sanity with work, money and the future that I just want to chill out a little bit, which hasn't happened that much these days. I'm always on edge about something these days. I do think I cover it as well as I can when I'm out though. Who knows?
Another thing on my mind has been the question: If I could go back ten years, when I was sixteen, what would I tell myself? Here's what I came up with:
Listen to your parents less: I probably listened to my parents seventy five percent of the time throughout high school and college, up to now. I think that the most important things that I learned from them, I learned when I was a kid. I don't think I've learned much from them at all in the last ten years. They grew up in a different world and though they work in the same world now, it's at a different level and don't understand the struggle at the bottom. Most of what my parents have told me over the past ten years has been warning me this, and warning me that, I was stupid to do this and stupid to do that. It's not really all that constructive. I actually think that my mistakes are ten times more valuable that them just wagging their finger at me.
Don't go to college: I think that if I had to do it all over, I wouldn't have gone to college. I don't think it was worth anything to me. It hasn't gotten me anywhere that I want to be or even on a reasonable track to somewhere I might want to be. I had a long discussion with Japanaphile about this, and he tends to disagree with me. His point is that it puts me at a certain level where I can communicate with people to get the jobs that I want. My point was that I don't want to do anything that would be on the level that my degree would get me, or even a degree higher than my degree would get me. I've been so jaded by corporate American that I want to dig deeper into the underground and the counter cultureI want to get into the art of it all. Even if I wanted to be a professional writer, you don't need to have an English degree. In my opinion, in order to be a good writer, you need to read a lot, write a lot, and have stories to tell. It doesn't matter that you can write a thesis on anything. It doesn't matter if you can compare the literature. It doesn't matter that you canprove your arguements about a piece of literature. It just matters that you can express yourself clearly in the context of your own fiction writing and you are reaching your audience. All in all, I don't see the equity in my bachelor's degree. Half of me wants to set it on fire and give it the finger as it's reduced to ashes. I don't think that I have learned anything in my college courses that I couldn't have picked up on the street.
If you do go to college, work for free during the summers and live poor during the school year: During my summers, I was pushed hard to get a summer job that would pay for my books and my living expenses during the year. In doing that, I sacrificed valuable experience that I could have gotten in my fields of choice. It's just the way things work. All of the good internships are unpaid. But, if you takes these unpaid internships, it'll give you a leg up on what you want to do once you're out of college. Though I'm assuming, since I didn't actually do this, it'll cut down on your quarter-life crisis angst. Sure, you may figure out later that it's not what you want to do in life, but at least you won't be wandering like I am.
Always keep hard copies of contact info: One of the biggest things that I regret is not hanging onto my contact list from back when I was the RPM music director in college. I was a good kid and I left all of the info for the guy who took over for me. To be honest, I don't know if he kept up the relationships that I had built. I should have kept up those relationships.
Move out of your comfort zone: Once you find yourself in a comfort zone, the longer you stay in it, the harder it is to leave that comfort zone. Unless you're planning to put down roots somewhere and you know for sure that it's what you want to do, you need to keep moving. Because once you're in that comfort zone for too long and you realize that it's not really where you want to be, it's hard to uproot yourself from all that's familiar. Move! Do it now while your feet aren't yet attached to the ground.
Anyways, that's just a few of the thoughts that I've had as of late. In other news, I am, going to try to laugh more inbetween the figurative crying. These days it's hard to get a laugh out that's not a superficial dick and fart joke. I think that I need to do some serious life enjoyment and soon. I don't know how to do it at this moment, but I think that it'll either involve Europe, California or somewhere with some warm sunlight and a good sandy beach or maybe even just some good electronic music, a seven foot radius to dance and thousands of people that I don't know. I feel a little bit like Billy Crystal at the beginning of "City Slickers." I need to find my smile again. We're not talking about a superficial smile. We're talking about a real smile. It's not as easy as you think when you think like I do or you feel like I do about what's been going on, but I'm gonna try to fight through it all.
When it comes down to it, I'm tired of ending up. I ended up going to Colby. I ended up in Boston after graduation. I ended up working for the Corporation and I've ended up here for three years. I want to start setting goals so that I'm not ending up working for a company and ending up in a city that I end up buying a status quo house with a girl that I end up marrying because she's convenient and "good enough." That's not what I want. I want the job that I want in the city that I want and I want to get the girl that I want and I want to build a life together that we want. That's a lot of want, huh? I can see the end, but I can't see the middle. I gotta work on seeing the middle. Gotta work on the laughing.
And So It Goes.... Listening:I've ended up part you, part me. Love that we agree, not be ugly and now that we're free to create our own destiny, you will always be a friend to me. My love persists over land and sea, through centuries. I'll fill you up like rice and peas.
Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kindgdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. -Ernest Hemingway "A Clean Well-Lighted Place"
And so it comes to pass that the love that was mine is no longer mine. As bullshit as I think it is, it's the way it is. You can't have a relationship with only on person paricipating, that is, unless porn is involved. This sucks and it's wrong. Bottom line. And there's not a damn thing that I can do about it. Frikkin' A.
I'm surprisingly not as upset (meaning insane, not meaning unaffected) about this as I thought I was going to be. I've been preparing for it since Tuesday night. It has been looming for a little while. Then a conversation with The Violent One. Then a conversation with the girl. Then another conversation with The Violent One and finally another conversation with the girl and the hammer fell.
Luckily, since I had been preparing myself for the last week, I was able to say all that I had to say. That's all I can ask for, right?
Alas, one goes to Vienna. The other can't make it. Belief is gone and so the missing part of the story begins. Will the sequel happen? My heart wants to say yes. But my heart is going to be buried for a while. I'm putting a black velvet cloak around it, tying it up with some high quality bondage rope, shoving it in the wooden chest, padlocking it, shoving it in the basement and surrounding it with ugly moldy boxes up to the ceiling.
It's lame. It's all just lame.
I was asked not to be angry. I debate whether I'm angry or not. I was asked not to be sad. I told her I couldn't promise that.
So I guess you all know what all of the Hemingway quotes are all about now. Re-read the quotes and maybe even re-read the stories. Maybe you'll get more out of it.
I'm sitting here. My chicken and asparagus over rice has gotten cold. It doesn't matter. I'm not really hungry. I haven't been for days. Nothing has tasted right for days. I think I've had two dinners over the past four days. No lunches, unless you count that hotdog and the ice cream bar that I got from the Corporation's flagship building.
I'm sitting here writing thes short spurts of paragraphs and thoughts. They're just coming to my mind. Nothing is really coherent at this time. I just keep thinking, This is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong. as I can see her retract her hand and fall away in the darkness. I can't do anything else for her.
A List For The Weekend Remove 2 pillows from bed and pack away in a box. Launder 2 towels and a pair of windpants. Pack away 2 said towels and return windpants to rightful drawer. Remove 11 files from Desktop Pictures folder. Rotate 1 photo on a stack. Burn 1 CD mix. Pack small box and mail. Re-shelve 3 Hemingway books.
"Can't you see it's easy to know where you went wrong. You forgot you've got oxygen running through your veins. Do you know where we're going to? Do you know what we will do when we arrive? As I wait for you to set sail. Don't you know that I hope you find your Holy Grail." --Badly Drawn Boy "Holy Grail"
Surrah, Surrah Listening: In a long dress one summers day, she said, "Yes". Now every special requests requires another. So many times it feels endless, a big yes branded red on each breast. But she selfless out there doing her best strangest scene. Nobody seemed to be impressed. The more she do for this fool, the more she behind schedule. Had no fun for so long.
I went up to him and found him in exactly the same position that I had left him, white-faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed by the fever, staring still as he had stared, at the foot of the bed. -Ernest Hemingway "A Day's Wait"
I'm feeling a little bit better today, in part to accepting what was coming down the line and in part to talking a bit out. Yeah, so I've accepted what's going to happen and all I can do is say what I need to say. I can't do any more than that.
Today at work wasn't so bad. I got in, got my shit done and chatted with people online. It was much different from yesterday. Yesterday, I barely talked to three people all day, this is including work people. Today I was significantly more social. I talked to a friend about how I got into electronica and DJing. I got involved in a workgroup wide discussion about who the best actor ever is. I even had dinner at my grandparents' place (okay, that was because I was lazy).
I had a couple of meetings today. The first was for my work group. There was a bunch of new stuff handed down for us to do, but the important part of me was the discussion over the change-up of the work. My boss pretty much said, "Let me know what you all want to do, and we'll try to make it happen." So, right after the meeting, I told my boss that I wanted the most broad exposure that I could get. I wanted a piece of everything so that I knew how to do everything. Instantly he knew why. So, I think starting a week from Monday, I'll be working on a bit of everything. I won't just be working on standard stuff. I'll be working on some more interesting stuff. Okay, well, maybe not interesting, but better than what I'm doing.
The second meeting today, my whole group needed to go to as well. They're starting this new online application to try to put reports out on the internet for clients and such. I went to a training module for this application about six to eight months ago and it really didn't mean anything for me. They were rolling out a new version of this application now and so we had to all get trained on it. While being trained, something that I already knew was even more solidified into my brain. That is that instructors, teachers and professors need to have a stage presence. They need to be somewhat dynamic to keep the attention of their audience of students. It's true. I found my mind wandering throughout most of the session. I can't say that I remember any of it.
Now this second meeting was in the Corporation's new building which is about two blocks away from my building. It was the first time that I had ever been in this new building and it is PLUSH. The ID guarded automatic revolving doors that I have in my building are no match for the smooth sliding hip height glass doors. Our "Jazz Fridays" are no match for their "Patriots' Opening Day" free food and ice cream. Yeah. My building is the red-headed bastard step-child of the buildings that the Corporation occupies.
Anyways, that's all I have for today. Tomorrow should be interesting on several levels. For now, it's time to finish up some stuff and hit the sack.
A Numb Day Listening: Do you know what true romance is and could you show me now? Just what would be the chances that I could tell you how? If I new where all the tears were flowing to, I'd guide them to a river where I'd swim with you down stream. This is that old dream I told you about twenty years ago and could you hold me now.
His choice has been to stay in the deep dark water far out beyond all snares and traps and treacheries. My choice was not to go there to find him beyond all people. Beyond all people in the world. Now we are joined together and have been since noon. And no one to help either one of us. -Ernest Hemingway The Old Man And The Sea
I couldn't sleep last night. I slept for a total of two hours and was awake for the entirety of the two hour sleep mix that I usually barely hear seven songs of on a normal night. At several times in the night, I woke up and read bits and pieces of various Hemingway stories. I'm trying to push my way through A Movable Feast again, but last night, after I blogged, the short stories were calling me. I read through a couple of them at four in the morning and then a couple more at six.
At seven thirty, I dragged my ass out of bed, showered, made my coffee and was out the door by eight thirty. See, I had to be at the office an hour early today because I had a class from nine until eleven thirty. I have to say that it was a complete waste of time. The class that I was signed up for was for something that might have been helpful if I was back in my old job. It probably would have been even more helpful if the instructor wasn't a flake and the practice exercises that they set up actually worked. But the bottom line was that it was a training module to introduce workers to a new program, which I would never be using. To top it all off, this application was completely idiot proof, save the guy next to me who didn't know a double click from a return key. I spent ninety percent of the class looking at CNN.com, five percent of the time working through the exercises and the other five percent waiting for the application to catch up with itself. Yeah, a collosal waste of my time.
I ran through the rest of my day pretty numb. I got my work done, and got it done efficiently. I actually was the first person to pass in these new midweek reports. There was nothing good on the internet and I don't know what I did all day. I think I just stared at my screen all day. I brought my lunch, but didn't eat it. I wasn't hungry. Instead, I went to the post office and bought a box. To tell you the truth, I can't remember most of my day. It was all a kind of a blur.
When I got home, I was tired. I faded in and out of consciousness all night. Now, here I am at half past midnight. I'm going to go to sleep soon. Maybe in a half hour or so. I need to get more sleep than I did last night. I'm so tired. Inside and out. And I don't need sleep necessarily. I need some peace and soon. Something needs to give soon. What it'll be, I don't know.
Anyways, that's enough for now. There wasn't much to say for today. Sleep. Must get sleep.
My Clairvoyance Listening: I seem alive somehow. When it’s out of sight, just wait and do your time. You know it’s been on my mind. Could I stand right here, look myself in the eye and say that it’s over now?
"I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and pencil." -Ernest Hemingway A Movable Feast
Today was a rather dreadful day. When I woke up this morning, I was already late. I didn't really care though. It wasn't as if I was so late that I couldn't get all of my mind numbing work done. I had chill music running in my discman when I stepped out the door. Chill house. I heard Shirley Bassey sing to me, "Can love be measured by the hours in a day? I have no answers now, but this much I can say. I'm going to need him till the stars all burn away and he'll be there." It's really the wrong music to be rushing to, but I didn't really care. I wasn't really rushing. I didn't really care if I was late to work. I never really care if I'm late to work. I just go. I do my shit. I leave.
When I finally got to the T station, it looked like business as usual. A few people standing around, enough to make it look like it had been a few minutes since the last train had rumbled through. I sat down on my usual bench next to a girl with a freaky baby pink plaid skirt on and waited. And waited. And waited. It turns out that there was some sort of problem with the T. There was a delay or something or another. I picked out my right earbud just in time to hear them announce that they were starting up again. By that time I had already been at the T station for twenty five or thirty minutes with no cell phone reception, let alone my boss' extension to call in late. Oh well.
I got to work at about a quarter to eleven and told my boss that I had got caught up on the T due to a delay and that I had no cell reception. I neglected to tell him that I didn't even have his number if I did have reception. He said it was cool and that he just noticed that I wasn't there.
Now, when I start up my computer, it takes about an hour and a half to get everything up and running. Okay, I am exaggerating. It's more like fifteen to twenty minutes. First, since I shut down my computer every evening, I cold start when I get in. Of course, that takes some time, then on top of that I have maxed out my hard drive with music that I have ripped and peripheral programs. Then my e-mail and one major work program take up a helluva lot of memory so that takes even more time. So needless to say it was a little past eleven when I actually got cracking, or was it? See, that one major program that I use, well, it was down. It was company wide. That sucked. So we could only do half our work for the day. At half past one, when I went to have lunch with my mother, it was still down. We barely got the program back up and running for the final end all be all deadline of each day. We would hear announcements over the loudspeaker telling us to try to log in one way, and then we would get an e-mail telling us not to try to use the program. It must have happened about six times. It was absolutely ridiculous. Eventually push came to shove and we all rushed to get done what we needed to get done. And that was my eventful day at work.
When I got home, I was bushed. I didn't want to turn on the TV, so I caught up on blogs and I turned on my music. I IMed with a few people and I did some thinking. At eight, I started cooking, and my mother and brother came by. Honestly, I didn't want to deal with them. I just wanted to cook, eat and relax. Alas, no. What's difficult is that they don't know what's cranking in my brain, and I don't really want to enlighten them to it either. I think I just want to be left to stew in what's happening. It's just like I can't get away. We'll see what happens this weekend. Maybe I'll go away for a bit.
Eight Hours In A Car And A Night At Church Listening: Thanks, you've been fuel for thought. Now I'm more lonely than before, but that's okay. I've just ready-made another fucking love song.
It's half past eleven at night and I got back from New Yory just a couple of hours ago. It's been quite an interesting last thirty six hours or so. As you have read, I went to see Paul Van Dyk in the Hamptons. The adventure was in getting there. Now, when I talked to the crew on Saturday, the plan was to get up and get on the road at half past seven in the morning on Sunday. That didn't happen. I woke up at six o'clock and called around to confirm what was going to happen, because I hadn't been give then confirmed plan. So I call and no one picks up. I take a shower and try calling again. Finally, I get someone and they tell me that we're not leaving until later, because they need to go get the rental van and so on and so forth. Seven became ten thirty which became noon which became three.
After a long ordeal/fiasco with getting the van, we started our trek down to the Hamptons. Now, on a normal day, it takes three and a half or four hours to get down to NYC, and another hour or so to get to the Hamptons on Long Island. It took us eight hours. It started out with us not getting off 95 at the right place to catch 495 onto the Long Island Expressway. Instead, we went over the George Washington Brige into New Jersey. When we realized that we were in New Jersey, which started with me saying, "Hey... Are we on the New Jersey Turnpike?" we stopped at a rest stop. We thought we got out bearings and plotted to ride the Lincoln Tunnel to and through midtown to the Queens Midtown Tunnel straight onto 495. That didn't happen either. We ended up taking the turnpike all of the way around the horn, all of the way around Manhattan, to Brooklyn and then to Long Island. We finally got to the Canoe Place Inn at a little past one in the morning.
So, there I was at one thirty in the morning, at church. It has been a long time since I went. It didn't matter the preacher or the sermon, I just needed to make my peace with myself, which I can do at a place like this. As unfortunate as it sounds, for the greater part of the night, I payed very little attention to the friends that I was with and the scattered ass, posers and starphuckers that surrounded me and I just danced. I let the beat penetrate me. I let the music take me away and I emptied my mind of all of the crap that has been floating around in my noggin, if only for a little while. I needed this. I needed to let go a little bit. For a little while, I've been hanging onto the edge really tightly. I've just been strung really tightly.
The set. Well, the set was solid. It wasn't a set where I said at any point in the night, "Well, god DAMN this is good!" But It was a lot better than any other time that I have heard him spin. What I liked best about the night was that there was plenty of room to dance. There were points where I had a full wingspan of space to dance. Yeah, baby! There were some characters in the crowd too. There was this one skank dressed up in kind of a Britney Spears "Hit Me Baby One More Time" get up who glowsticked like she was on crack. She was a COMPLETE spaz. She wore these tall white patent leather boots and danced by just kind of flailing and kicking her feet forward as if she was falling backwards. You know, friends should tell friends when they look ridiculous.
The party ended at five in the morning, so we all headed back into the car and drove to Shaft's place in Battery Park City. We got there and got parked by seven in the morning. At a quarter past seven or so, we were all showering and crashing out. We crashed out until around three in the afternoon. I woke up once during the morning, but then crashed out until three. We ate lunch and were back on the road by five. Luckily our ride back was shorter than our ride there. I was back in my apartment by nine thirty and I was the last one dropped off.
So yeah. It was an adventure and it was something that I really needed as well. I think I need to make time to go out and dance a bit more. I've been so tied up thinking and plotting and worrying and stressing, that I haven't made time or haven't found ways to let it all go. So that's it.
In a completely unrelated statement, it's easy to know what you want. It's getting it that's hard. It's figuring out how to get from where you are to where you want to be that's difficult. It applies to everything, I've discovered. It's also a strange and wonderful thing when you see something that's amazing and you realize that it's not a big deal because it's not really what you want. It's just something independantly amazing. It's not the amazing thing for you.
The Wonder Years Listening: What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?
It's a quarter to one in the morning. I still don't know the complete plan for tomorrow. I think we're leaving tomorrow morning, but I dunno if they're gonna pick me up or if I am in fact going to Digitaldewi's place. Bah, I'll wake up early and I'll figure it out.
Tonite, we went out to have dinner with Stringbean after she stood us up earlier in the week. It was a generally okay time. I was kind of in a mellow mood, much like I have been in over the last couple of weeks. It was dinner at Penang and then dessert at Marche. It was generally a pretty bland experience. I know you're not supposed to say stuff like that about your friend's going away dinner. But it was the truth. It's not like it was a real going away dinner. She's an hour's car ride away. I'm sure we'll still be seeing plenty of her, or at least as much as we saw before.
Right now I'm watching The Wonder Years on the Family Channel. I know that I have said it before, but I love The Wonder Years, especially the more serious episodes. There are some really cheesy comical episodes, but what I really loved was the emotion that they put into the lives of thirteen year olds. It was like the Dawson's Creek of the eighties, but less contrived and with a killer narration by Daniel Stern.
Another thing that I love about The Wonder Years is the relationship between Kevin and Winnie. From the beginning of the series (and I just finished watching the first two episodes), you know that Kevin and Winnie are soul mates. Forget the epilogue narration at the end of the last episode. Everyone knows that Kevin and Winnie are to be together. There are times where they are together and there are times where they're not, but regardless, they have this connection as characters that really comes off in the storylines and in the actual acting. It has been a long time since I have seen a new series with the honesty and freshness that The Wonder Years had without being heavy handed or contrived, without being pompous or pop-culture. It's just good honest storyline with minimal kitsch for a period piece. I think that American Dreams may come close, but I don't quite think it gets the emotional reaction from me.
Anyways, it's late now. I should be getting to sleep. I need to do a couple of things before I hit the sack though. So ta ta for now. Wish me luck and lots of stamina for the party.
And So Begins The Chill Listening: Home boy on the avenue wants love but doesn't have a clue that theres no clue to it. Just love. Just love. Open up your heart and grab it believe that you can have it. Take it. It's yours it's yours.
So, I'm resting up for this weekend. When I got home from work, there was no one in my apartment, so I went and took a nap. Yeah, nap! I haven't done that in quite some time. I have a feeling I should be doing more of that this week if I'm going to make it all night for Paul Van Dyk in the Hamptons. Jeez, it's been so long since I went out partying that late. It's like I'm getting old or something. I've got to be honest, I dunno if I can party all of the way through nine in the morning anymore. I could just crash and burn. I think the last rave I went to was back in 2002 or early 2003. The last time that I went to the afterhours was about six months ago and I only stayed until half past four. What's wrong with me?!?! I used to be up all night. Now I get excited about naps.
Anyways, when I got up from my nap, it was late and I really didn't feel like making dinner, so I just ended up snacking. I really need to cut this out. I need to start eating better and so on and so forth. I had a couple of bowls of gazpatcho, which happened to be the end of the batch. Now I'm having remorse about it because I wish I still had more in my fridge. God damn do I love gazpatcho. It makes me so happy.
So that's all I really have to say for the night. Tomorrow should be easy, because I got all of my month end crap out of the way at work today. I was a bit ahead of the curve this month. I was psyched. Everything was neat and clean and there really isn't even anything more to do. I think that other people are having issues getting their stuff printed out, but since I actually did it all on the last day of the month, I was good to go. Also a lot of the guys at work wait for other people to print stuff for them, whereas I just say fuck the waiting and I do it my damn self to get it all off my desk. Call it my type A personallity.
I also think tomorrow I'm going to head to JP to see my friend's photographs on display at a tea house in JP. I think that should be a good time. I haven't really had time to see her at all lately. I don't even know what time the reception is. Maybe I'll have time for a nap after work before I go.
