Why live
in the world when you can live in your head?
It was all a case
of bad timing.
Haven't been back
to drink sangria in awhile. I wonder why?
(Sarcasm, sorry)
That job came at the
wrong time. Too much pettiness, too many insinuations, too much scapegoating
and gossip. He put it best, " they belittled you and undermined your confidence."
How true.
Is that why it allures
me, despite the knowledge that it's mind numbingly dull and kind of isolated?
Is it the need to
conquer it?
Is it the privilige
of sitting at a computer screen, the comfort of a cubicle and the ability
to put my self behind the work and to somehow feel this aura of respectability?
Before then, I listened
to Pulp every morning. I would twirl to this is hardcore with shots of
chartreuse in my system wanting something self expressive, feeling the
heat pour into the apartment and display tattoos from tank tops proudly.
It would tear
at me wanting something to convert book knowledge into practicality, to
feel they paid me for my mind, and wanting something out of bar italia
despite the number on the birth certificate because, after all, you're
only as old as you act.
Then the phone rang
and that day came and well you know the story but I felt myself age a few
years in one night and even more in the weeks and months to follow.
The chill of
the words, the shock of not being as tough as I thought, the terror that
back in the day, how would I have afforded a plane ticket, unintentionally
revealing how much more I could have done if only...
(tonight I thought
how much she always admired my fearlessness, and wondered how fearlessness
could get replaced with such terror, but they buried it with her...)
Going through the
motions and it took awhile to find those motions even, and the job and
everything that came with it and I think there's still hate in there I
think if I dig deep enough I can spit in their face instead of analysing
the spit they aimed at me, I think...
And reactions
as it all comes to a head. let's have a lesson in corporate 101 Chicago
style and I felt oddly free as I went to the coffeehouse down the street...
I felt oddly free
for the time being...
Days spent being filled
with people, and with the pretense of friends, too quick as if it could
ever be the way it was back in old Philly, as if it could ever replace
those club friends in Tucson who were some of the best I ever had, it reminded
me of then and that should have been the warning sign right there...
Days and subtleties
come into play and drunken haze feels good
(when I re-read the
entries about Tony and Wuggins and Tammy and all of them, I realized I
missed quoting conversations...I could almost see the strobe lights for
a second there...)
Well I would never
tell them the past but I thought I could feel the present for a minute...
Then it creeps in...
The seed of doubt
by example, a few indications through gossip and harsh criticisms of those
I've never met and I wonder if that's the modus operandis
A few words of honesty
but god forbid a friendship should endure anything but the happy shiny
times...
And so it goes...
And then those days,
people who keep me chained to my past
Oh but there is good
will in those eyes
Don't you think I
know it?
And how often I wanted
to find the time to sit down and talk about it
But it's elusive,
inappropriate and...
Hearing the past strife
echoed around me
Held to that for every
favor
Every time that I
might prattle on senselessly and there it is, those bad memories...
(They're almost dim
now, almost dissipated it seems so silly now in retrospect)
Getting out feels
good.
For the most part.
Well the people come
and go and I guess the saddest part is wondering if I'll be here exactly
like I am now, five years from now, drinking to fight insomnia and think
of the same people I described and think "wow, I wonder what they're doing
now?"
And I don't think
I will.
Last time we went
out with him. I had just had the tattoo and I was a bit sour on the whole
town and I felt it all floating around me without ever really touching
me. I wanted to cut through all the obscure references, talk of film and
music and pointless, self indulgent mockery of our surroundings. I plunged
into the core, the grittiness of it all, but the silence waned and led
to more intellectualism.
Well.
This one was my fault.
But look at it all
and can you blame me?
Then there was the
job, we joked tonight that it was post traumatic stress. If I could decide
whether it was that or mere boredom, and anxiety that I may have grabbed
a commitment that would numb my mind and dull the senses, that would strangle
all creativity...was the terror that or was the terror that it might become
what I had rather recently escaped?
(In office space he
gets the solution, I think I know what that solution is but the tests
aren't back from the lab yet, I'll let you know...)
And now it's all a
matter of time.
Scrape up cash. When
you are completely in charge of getting money on a whim, it feels kind
of creative and kind of karmic.
When you feel the
lights casting shadows, and you feel the song in your head so powerful
that your legs have to move and you realize after the fact that you made
a lot of money, did a good job, that feels good too.
When you look
at the painting and realize a piece of your soul suddenly, inexplicably,
is there for everyone to see, words like "good" "technique" or "talent"
seem ridiculous.
You've done the only
thing you can. The only thing that keeps you sane. It's really you and
it feels damned good.
Well.
Somehow the signs
are dusty but have they ever been neon?
The animation program.
And something for a job. I don't know what it will be I don't know how
this will play itself out.
I do know this.
It's going to be my
dream. The dream program. I want to learn what I've aspired to since I
was ten years out and I want anyone who tells me how to do it to go fuck
themselves. There's no point to it if it isn't satisfying.
And money? Well a
job is a job is a job. Give me money to buy coffee and booze and a warm
comfy spot and enough left over that worry trickles down the drain, but
above and beyond that, it's got to be fun. Fuck the rest, fuck the resumes
and fuck what looks good on a credit card application. I'll make it up
as I go along.
I might be turning
thirty, but I'm not turning fifty...
february
pontifications