Kind of a lot going on for me. Id like to make this first entry about silly stuff. about the video game i was playing last night with little sock puppets. or the sex i had this morning. but it doesnt seem important right now.
I feel like life is going a bit crazy.
I never imagined my late-20's to be like this.
I should actually say, I never really imagined my late-20's at all.
I never put any thought into the subtle changes ones social environment could go through over 8 years and the shock to the psyche it would have. I'm freshly single, yet not ready to mingle. Not ready to do anything but get a lot of work done. I am ready to be busy. So fucking busy that I don't have time to notice how strange and terrifying of a time it is right now.
By "right now", I mean, at this point in my life. I also mean "right now" in the global sense. The end of 2011. In my brain, it still feels like 2001 was not too long ago.
Space and Time, always fucking me up.
The movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" has become a very meaningful movie to me lately. For the past month+, I have been trying to hold on to memories that have almost instantly started fading away, much like how Jim Carrey's Joel realizes mid-mind-erase-procedure that he wants to keep his memories of his relationship and spends the rest of the movie in desperation, trying to hold onto them. I now know this despair.
Right now, it feels like I never went to Australia. Or Los Angeles. Or Portland. It feels like I haven't done ANYTHING. I am typing this out on my teenage sister's bed, where I have been sleeping for the last month+. I have been working a minimum wage job. I have been bored as fuck and feeling very uninspired. As how life is in Ashland, Oregon, USA. I have been sick for 3 1/2 weeks now and there are no signs of getting better. I might be getting worse. It feels that way.
So how to get out of this physical, existential, and artistic hole?
Get productive stupid!
I need to learn how to be productive without other people involved to keep me motivated. I need to be someone who is self-reliant. Resourceful. And I need to kill all of this pride I have stored up for no reason. I need to lower my standards. I need to improve my skills. Learn new skills. I need to learn how to say how I really feel without offending people. I need to get a routine. I NEED TO STOP EXPECTING OTHERS TO FEEL AS AMBITIOUS AS I FEEL SOMETIMES. I need to stop expecting others to work as hard or as long as I am willing to work. I need to take others out of the equation. Not out of my life, but out of my process. I have so many things I want to do and/or make and/or accomplish, but almost all of them utilizes someone else in some role to make them happen. And I can't afford that.
BTW-
I could really use a winning lottery ticket also.
A transient dream:
Like two rabbits in the snow,
our tracks disappear
-----
I plead no-contest, but they still charge me the full amount. Rightfully so: I was driving like an asshole. However, as I was >30 mph over the posted limit and had a previous speeding ticket within the last year, I was put into a whole new bracket. On top of the base fine, I also earn a 30 day suspension on my driver's license. How terribly embarrassing.
Clearly, it was a shit-ass day, but there was one tiny silver thread: paying my outrageous fines with official Nascar checks, complete with the phrase "See you at the finish line" above the signature line. Chase bank free checking represent.
With massive amounts of paperwork and phone calls, I worked a deal where I could drive to and from work, but only during specified times, only on specified routes. Beyond that: vast swaths of time, confined to the suburbs. Alone.
I intended it to be a time of reflection, a search for clarity, a vision quest.
In reality, I just ended up running a lot. Faster and further than ever before.
-----
I step off the plane, greeted by a warm Austin evening. The sun barely below the horizon, the sky radiates a warm orange. With little more than a backpack of clothes and a laptop, I make my way across the tarmac to the towncar.
I'm there for an initial client meeting, taking the place of my boss, the owner of the company. It's a lightning trip -- there and back in just two days with nearly 16 hours of meetings in between.
The first day is arduous, and I'm quite nervous, but I kill it.
Later that night, laying in bed, my mind races. Sleep is elusive. Arbitrary long-division in my head, my sure-fire trick for falling asleep, isn't working. I find myself recounting the hotels I've occupied, but I get sidetracked and start thinking about the dwellings I've called "home."
The house. Our apartment. My apartment. Suburban shithole. SE Grant. Laserbeamz. A-frame. Dorms. Homestead.
Except I forgot one: the apartment I shared with my college roommate as an intern. My first taste of what post-collegiate life could be like. Fleeting, nebulous times.
Dreams of the salad days: I pictured exploring the city, the adventure. I pictured an impossibly awesome job. I pictured the nerd-level cash-flow. I imagined my lifestyle. I imagined my friends. I imagined my women. I imagined freedom, sheer possibility.
Suddenly slapped with a moment of perspective, a chuckle escapes: Attempting to patch my broken heart, I'm inadvertently fulfilling the dreams of a younger existence.
-----
Heartbreak makeover:
_ forget to eat for the first six months
_ run until you can't
_ exercise 'til you're limp
_ stop getting haircuts
_ stop shaving
_ get out of your comfort zone
_ new clothing
_ smile more
_ never break eye-contact first
_ don't let the nightmares get to you
Results:
_ 45 pounds lighter
_ +1 stamina
_ a touch of muscle
_ an amazing head of gorgeous hair
_ a beard that gives you sexual powers.
_ new perspective
_ flashin'
_ more smiles
_ new found confidence
_ fading scars
-----
This house is comfortable, but completely haunted.
-----
I finally sold my old car.
The day before the sale is to be made, I take it to the car wash for one last clean-up. It's served me well -- I wanted it looking good for it's final send-off.
Turning the knob to 'wash,' I dig through my pockets, grabbing a handful of quarters. I feed them into the machine with remarkable rhythm. I grab a coin that feels different. I pause to inspect -- a Susan B. Anthony dollar. For a brief moment, I get excited to give it to her, as she loves semi-rare coinage. And then I realize that I can't. And my heart drops, just a little.
Washed and vacuumed, I weave through the deserted backroads that we so frequently traveled. I cant't help but feel a bit overwhelmed. Little moments of longing like splinters, scattered memories like shards of glass.
The next day, watching it drive away, I imagine a 1.5-ton time-capsule slowly rolling out of my life.
Adios.
-----
This new one: I don't know what to do. Completely captivating. I'm uncertain how this will play out, but at least I know I'm not completely dead inside, that I'm still capable of emotion. This is good news.
-----
We're out in the top right corner of Oregon, putting my grandfather in the ground. It's the first time I've seen my last name on a tombstone.
-----
It's 7am and I'm the first one there. I disarm the alarm and hit the lights. Slowly, the 14,000 square foot warehouse illuminates. I pull out my phone, hit some buttons and the entire place fills with music. I set my bag on the ping-pong table, grab a skateboard and roll to the kitchen. Sitting there, french press ready, waiting for water to boil, the sun pours through the windows to a perfect soundtrack.
I get paid to be here. Unreal.
Even better? I'm an integral piece of something I believe in.
-----
Introducing distance is becoming an unsavory trademark.
A shoddy, self-induced excuse for a change of scenery.
-----
I don't like the way we left things. Not necessarily unfinished, yet somehow unresolved. For weeks, I imagined just what I would say, just how I would spill my guts, if I were to see her face. But a year later, the potential of such an occurrence seems nil. And probably unnecessary.
Regardless:
I'm sorry for all the shit-ass things I ever did.
I'm sorry that I couldn't bring you happiness.
I'm sorry that our wonderful story had to end this way.
I'm sorry.
Farewell, babe.
-----
Find stability
casting off what holds you down.
Anchors and Ballast.
I wake early in a stuffy Texas hotel room, the morning sun just beginning to pour over the impossibly flat landscape. Lines of cars already forming on the unknown highway below. I sit up and stretch. It takes just a second for me to realize a new pressure in my forehead. I tap in between my eyes -- jabs of pain. I swallow, my esophagus feeling like a rock tumbler full of glass. I get out of bed and it's immediately obvious: I'm sick as fuck.
I drink a large glass of water and assure myself: only a few more hours of meetings, then a quick trip back to Portland. It'll be fine.
Wrong.
The meetings are arduous. I can barely focus, but I fake it. All I want to do is sleep, but I'm 2,000 miles away from home. Things run long, so there isn't time for lunch.
Next, I find myself in the back of a car, feverishly trying to make it to the airport in time. I get out of the car, grab my backpack and run into the airport, all the while becoming more and more conscious of my fever and increasingly aching body. I'm starving, so I figure I'll grab a quick bite to eat before my plane.
Wrong.
For some reason, security is backed way up. I work my way through security and inevitably get pulled into the bomb-proof glass cage, patted down and asked a million questions. I eventually make it out, but now, there's not much time for food.
Sitting on the plane, awaiting takeoff, I put my headphones on and pull a beanie over my eyes, trying to get some sleep. Eventually, we take off and I feel like my head is going to implode. Every cavity in my skull pulsing. Excruciating. Eventually, I find a few minutes of sleep, but I wake up feeling even worse than before.
My stomach is eating itself and I'm parched. All I can think about is getting some food in my guts and drinking fourteen gallons of water. I have an hour layover in Phoenix, so I'll get some food, drugs and water there.
Wrong.
For some reason, there's a problem with the jetway -- they can't seem to get it connected with the plane. We sit there for 30 minutes while they attempt to situate things. Every time they move the jetway, an incredibly loud bell rings -- like a drill in my face.
Once I'm off the plane, I only have 20 minutes to catch my next flight. The terminal I'm supposed to be on is on the other side of the gigantic airport. I start hustling, my nose quickly becoming a mucus faucet. Additionally, it's Arizona, so it's fucking sweltering, even in the airport. Granted, my fever probably doesn't help.
Okay, so no real food, but maybe I can get some sustenance at one of those awful airport convenience stores.
Wrong.
The peoplemovers are broken. I find myself running. I arrive at my terminal, the last call for boarding already announced. I'm literally the last one on the plane. I find my seat, next to a teen mother and her small child. At this point, nothing surprises me -- I awkwardly crawl to my seat, collapsing into it. I take solace in the fact that in just a few hours, I'll be back in Portland.
Wrong.
There's something amiss with the plane. They don't give us much information, but they promise that we'll be in the air shortly. Then, the air conditioning shuts off.
Thirty minutes later, I'm sweating. No news about our departure. The tension in the cabin is palpable. The child next to me has been crying for 20 minutes solid, obviously overheated, so the mother decides to strip him down to nothing more than a diaper. Sadly, it doesn't stop his crying.
After an agonizing hour, the engines finally start, the slow hiss of conditioned air coming through the vents. I'm overjoyed. Three hours and I'll be back in Portland.
I grab my phone and headphones, intending to curl up into a ball and fall asleep to some music.
Wrong.
Dead battery.