i feel like i'm back where i was in my first semester, when i first got here to this city back in the fall of 2004. really. i feel on my own again. i've been trying to understand that. maybe i've always been on my own here but just been trying to fool myself into thinking otherwise. maybe all of this, this past semester and how things have turned out, maybe it's just someone's way of getting me ready for whatever's next, where i'll have to start over to a certain degree, after i get a certain degree. maybe it's just supposed to be getting me ready for what comes next, to starting over again, to relying on myself and not on anyone else. to remember how to spend time alone. all of my time. and learning to cope with that and be okay with that. either way, whatever the reason, i really do feel like i did back when i first moved here. i spend days on my own. when i don't have school i really don't interact with people. the only people who call me are back in new york.
last night, after spending the day researching and doing stuff for my next essay, when i was finished, i realized that i could still catch the 5:10 show of a guide to recognizing your saints. it was playing down at E street. i love that movie theater. although, i realized two things when i went back down there. one, it's a good movie theater to go to alone. there's actually a lot of people who go to that theater on their own to check out a movie. at least during the day. as i left and the 7pm shows were coming in there were people in groups. it's harder to see a movie alone at night, i've learned. but yeah. e street is like this really awesome, small, theater that shows only indie stuff. it's amazing. like all the best movies are always there. the ones that show in only LA and NYC usually end up there after a while. anyway. i wanted to see a guide to recognizing your saints, it's about astoria in the 80s and it was an amazing movie. although, i did remember the type of people who go to movies and why i've grown frustrated with going to the movies. i mean, don't get me wrong, it was a good crowd. it's just that the guy sitting in front of me kept shaking his leg. first he was tapping his foot. then he crossed his legs and was shaking one so there was this constant swishing sound for the last 20 minutes of the movie. i even did the cough and "oh im sorry did i kick your chair?" he was with another guy and the other guy didn't even say anything. if i was with anyone who was doing that during the fucking end of this emotional movie i'd be like "stop. please god. stop shaking." but yeah. i was trying to watch the movie. and he had a haircut that signified that he was either the biggest loser in dc, or a marine, or insane. whatever. it was still an amazing movie.
i walked around, made my way home. picked up some coffee. i was sitting around staring at my computer thinking about the work i should be getting done and i realized that again, it was just like i was living in this city and didn't know anyone. i realized i could just sit in my apartment, watch snl eventually, try to do work. i was planning on doing laundry on a saturday night. i quickly realized that that's not what i wanted to be doing. i just would've felt sorry for myself, i would've felt really alone. so i kept thinking about what i use to do when i first moved here and i decided to go to georgetown and check out flags of our fathers.
when i first moved to d.c. i didn't know anyone. i use to walk around georgetown every night. on the weekends, i'd walk and find somewhere to eat, i'd hole up in barnes and noble for a few hours and write, i'd buy books, i'd buy cds, i'd walk on the crowded streets behind people who didn't know the first thing about how to walk on city sidewalks, i'd go down to the potomac and stand there along the boardwalk and watch the water, i'd stare at how amazingly huge the kennedy center looked lit up at night. i'd walk down sidestreets and past the giant townhouses. the thing i always had though, even when i knew i had nothing else to do, was that i always had the gtown movie theater on K. seriously, living down there i became a master at seeing a movie alone. it'd be great. i knew what time to go and buy tickets on the first night a movie came out. i'd go early in the afternoon, sometimes it'd be the first thing i did when i woke up and left the house. i'd carry around the ticket the entire day. i knew where to sit in the theaters in order to make sure that no one stared at you and so that i wouldn't imagine people staring at me wondering who the loser is seeing a movie alone on a saturday or friday night. i knew how to get in quick, so that the people who worked there wouldn't stare at me as they realized it was the second night in a row that i was there. i knew when to leave the theater right when the movie ended so that i wouldn't have to walk out with all the people in groups talking about the movie and laughing and planning where they were going next, together.
georgetown kept me company. i'd stand over the little bridge over the canal and smoke my cigarettes. watch the cars stopped in traffic going up wisconsin. watch the drunk preppy boys and their all american girlfriends walking up the hills in heels and loafers, a lot of times drunk.
so last night i realized where i was. i was back there. all i have left here is the city to keep me company. and after spending the day all around d.c. for the sake of my essay, i realized that there was no better date on a saturday night than gtown. so i bought a ticket to flags of our fathers online and headed down there. i took the bus and got off up on wisconsin so i could enjoy the walk down to K. surrounded by people and lights and traffic and life and drunks and the homeless begging for money and the rich eating expensive dinners in the windows of the restaurants all the way down. i walked in silence, i didn't bring my nano. i wanted to enjoy the sounds of georgetown, the sounds of the city. i wanted to remember how you can't feel alone when you're in a city, because there's people all around you, some of them in groups, or in couples, but you occassionally walk by someone else alone and realize you're not the only one. and it's comforting. i walked down wisconsin and for the first time in a long time, i really missed living in georgetown. i missed it. maybe i even realized that it could've been a mistake to leave, but that really i didn't have a choice. regardless, it made me wish i was back there. back there alone. and okay.
i watched flags and it was really great. except for the fact that the douche sitting next to me, with his girl, kept laughing at the funny lines that were in the movie. now, mind you, they were funny, sure sure, but i mean, there were these small lines just scattered in there for the sake of showing these characters and who they were and for other reasons, anyway, i still hated the shit out of this guy because he would just crack up at them, at these small moments that were usually put in during these incredibly heavy larger moments. and it was just rude and annoying. i mean i really wanted to lean over at one point and be like, "you do realize what we're watching here? guys dying? ww2? an intensely amazing movie? guys dying? i mean. dude. it wasn't THAT funny. and even if it was i would think that the fact that we're now seeing these guys get killed would cause you to tone it down a notch." oh. and even more annoying was how he kept kissing his girlfriend throughout the movie. and at one point she like leans on him and they stay like that, all cuddled together. again. i wanted to be like "dude. you do realize what it is we're watching here? ww2? guys dying? could you tone down the pda and the smooching? i mean. come on you disrespectful assholes."
anyway.
i walked up wisconsin after. this one guy, with his two buddies there, asked me if i knew where to find the good coke. i said no. sorry. and as i walked away he said, "what's with the scarf?" i kept walking. i had my brown scarf wrapped around me. i love it. it's huge. it's warm. i like to wrap it around my neck and i love how it covers the back of my head, and my earlobes, and how if i wrap it right i can have it cover the lower part of my face, but still look really good while i'm warm. i love that scarf. so i kept walking.
i'm pretty sure he was drunk and some gtown undergrad. which makes it only appropriate. because really, who's really from this city. i think about it now and realize that i went down to gtown to find some comfort on the streets of an old friend, after all my other friends here have completely forgotten about me, and, i feel like here's this guy who fucks with my scarf. and i wonder now what it means. i wonder if it means that maybe i don't fit in this city. maybe this city is trying to tell me to get out of here. maybe the people here are telling me to get out and leave. maybe i can't even be here anymore because even in gtown i can't just be alone without someone making me feel like i can't even blend in to the background here and just get by.
what's left for me here?
all i have is this city. because everyone else have already written me off and hurt me while doing it.
so what the fuck is left besides a guy making fun of my scarf.
it's just a scarf.
but it's me.
it's all i have left.
me.
and this city. this city that i'm starting to think is as sick of me as everyone in it is.
but it was there for me yesterday. when all i had was myself. all day. it kept me company. for better and for worse. it was there. it was there when no one else was. it was there.
filming for the last season of the show started. december series finale is getting here quick. mostly so far it's been a lot of me freaking out over my thesis, trying to get it done. getting my wallet stolen. realizing that sometimes even your best is not enough for some people. coming to terms with the fact that i'm still broken. but piecing myself together and wondering how to get out of where i was. asking a lot of questions about what's next. a cold. quitting amys (two more shifts left). trying to figure out where i'm at now and where i was 2.5 years ago. where i'm going. all that.
anyway.
last night i had a dream with him. it's been a few months since he's showed up. but there he was. from what i can remember, i was out to dinner in the city with a bunch of people from back home and there he was sitting at the table when i walk to the back of the restaurant to see everyone there. what always surprises me is the fact that if i sit and try to think about him, about what he looks like, all the little specifics that i spent years just staring at, that i can hardly remember them all. he's a blur really. but in my dreams, it's always clear. so clear. i can see him. and it's like every little thing that i have stored up in my head somewhere, in some far off hallway hidden behind some locked door marked "a ghost is in here. don't open." and everything in there sort of comes out in my dreams and i see him so fucking clearly. his arms. his hands. his smile. his hair. those eyes. all of him, its always right there in my dreams like i'm actually standing in front of him again. i always wake up and wonder where those specifics go when i'm awake, why i can never pull them up when i want to.
i can't remember the entire dream at this point, but i do know that at one point we lost his softball. he had a softball that he was bouncing around. and we borrowed it and lost it down some rocks, like on a mountain, it fell into this crevase and we looked down and it was at the bottom, a little waterfall going down the side of the side of the crevase into a small pool at the dark bottom of it. we eventually found him a new softball and i gave it to him. he thanked me.
i eventually wake up and realize that it was all a dream. it hits me that after all these years, he's still up there. all the details. he's still haunting me. and when i'm awake i usually can keep all of that at bay, any thoughts of him, i keep them away. but i wonder what it means when i wake up on mornings like today and he's still there. that i still have a dream with him showing up every couple of months. that i constantly find myself whispering his name when i'm alone and not even realizing what i just said until it leaves my lips and i have to sit back and be like, "where'd that come from?" to myself, alone in my apartment, walking down the street, smoking a cigarette in the middle of the night outside.
i wonder what it means that he shows up in my dreams when i'm wondering about why it is that i'm still alone. when i'm trying to figure out my life, what i'll be doing next, where i'll be going next, and the reality that i'll be moving on to something new on my own again. i wonder what it is in my head that makes me think of him in those moments. i wonder why he shows up every couple of months, years after our moment, our time together has come and gone.
i admitted this to richard once. i told him all about it, the dream visits, the way i say his name out loud sometimes without realizing it. i told richard about this and it was while talking about the idea of hope. the hope we carry for things, for people. and how hope always stays, it's always there, even when we try to get rid of it, even when we believe we've gotten rid of it. i mean, a part of me thinks that when i'm dreaming, there's something up in my head that allows me to let go of thinking logically about everything, and it's in those moments that my head allows itself to give in to that hope that's still there, that maybe someday he'll be the one to show up and bring me back home. that he'll show up. that maybe after all is said and done i am able to believe in those moments that he's going to come back for me. when really, i know where he is, and i know that he's gone, probably forever, and all we've maybe got left is the occassional run in between years of not seeing each other.
i sometimes wonder if he hears me when i say his name in those moments i sigh it out. that i call it out. i wonder if he's where he's at in the country and stops, stops from the dinner table he's sitting at with her and sits back, looks around, "did you say something?" he might ask her, and she'd just stare at him with a piece of chicken on the end of a fork as she leans over the table to put it on his plate, raising an eyebrow. or maybe he just thinks its her.
when i was younger i always said it, about him, "he's the one person in this world that if he ever asked me to drop everything and go with him to wherever he wanted, that i'd go. in a heartbeat. i'd drop it all. and i'd go with him." i use to say it all the time, it was something i knew, that if he ever came to me and said he was ready, that he was ready to be with me, that i'd go with him. and i guess i sometimes wonder, even though i've never said that statement and don't believe that i believe in it anymore, i wonder though, would i go?
or maybe i wonder why it is that he's never come back for me. that he's never come to get me.
and in those moments, that's when i realize that i'd still go with him if he came here today. that maybe everyone along the way, much like i also admitted to myself, and to richard, that everyone along the way has just been my attempt to get him, or a version of him, so that maybe, i'd eventually find the version of him that would be the one to stay, or that would be the one to love me back. but i've never found him in these other guys that have been nothing more than different versions of him, different versions of something that i can never have, that will never want me back.
i know what some would say if i admitted last night's dream to them.
"mike, he's not even there anymore."
and i know that. he hasn't been anywhere near me for years.
but still.
he's in my head. maybe back then during that time i gave him a piece of me, i gave him a piece of myself, thinking that it was wanted, or that i'd get it back when i got him. but instead, now it's just out there, and he has it and i've been wanting it back. instead of just letting it go. and i have, i've lived without whatever i gave away to him but it's like, i know it's still out there. and maybe he threw it into the bottom of some lake somewhere. and if that's the case i wish i knew where that lake was, just so i could drive there, take off my shirt, my shoes, and spend however long i have to feeling the floor of that lake, however big it is, and just feel around until i find what it is i gave away, what i lost, what keeps me dreaming of him, that i'd find it under the surface of that lake, lodged between rocks, pebbles, sand. just tell me where that lake is so i can spend my days swimming to the bottom, holding my breath, hoping that maybe this time under will be the time i get it back.
or maybe, we all have those lakes in our lives that we'd like to find, but that we never will. because really, the first person we love will always have that piece of us with them, because in our youth we gave away that first piece of ourselves without any hesitation, without knowing what it will do to us later on in life. maybe i'm asking for something that will never happen. our first loves will always have a piece of us, perhaps. i just hate to think that that piece of me is in some taped up box in some closet in some apartment somewhere across the country, gathering dust, next to old t-shirts, scratched cds, a small stack of bent photographs, a high school yearbook.
* * *
this is what living like this does. this is what hope does when you try and deny it.
it comes to you in your dreams to say to you, "you're still waiting for the day." and all you can after that is just try and close that door again, try to believe that dreams don't mean a thing, that it doesn't mean a damn thing. you just try and move away from that reminder until days later you find yourself eating chinese leftovers alone in your apartment, staring at a phone that never rings, watching tv, thinking about how it'd be nice to have someone around, how no one is around, and like a sigh of exhaustion, a call for help, a regret, a name leaves your lips and you sit there and wonder where it came from, or where it went.
that. or you'll sleep and dream of a face that you haven't seen for years, standing in front of you. standing there for you to place both hands on those cheeks, to be together again for that moment, as you remember the birthmarks on his cheek, the brown of those eyes, the way earlobes feel against your thumb and forefinger. and in that moment, you'll get to believe that you can stand that close to a ghost.
i'm so stressed out from work. actually, i'm gonna go to bed tonight and have one of those nights/days where you just wait for a potential kick in the face to happen. i think i fucked up at work and really if i get called out on it all i'll be able to say it "yes. i am a dumbass. that's right." good times. i hate work. like while i was there tonight i checked myself at one point and realized just how stressed out i was and i hated it.
anyway. pretty much tomorrow is gonna be one of those days where i walk into work and just wait and see if i get called out, and, then deal with that, or, even worse is gonna be the fact that i'm gonna spend the entire day up until that point stressed out about what's gonna happen when i get to work and if i'll get called out or whatever.
and. to make it all a fantastic ending to my night, guess who's back in town. yes. my next door neighbor. the douchebag. and guess who's blasting some annoying techno bass beat through the wall and has people over and who talks really loud. yes. my neighbor. i can at least thank the heavens that his fucking stupid girlfriend isn't back in town. not that it's that much better without her. it's still annoying as shit. since he's the world's biggest douchebag.
which makes it a perfect ending to a fucking annoying night.
and now i get to go and try and enjoy myself and relax until 4ish tomorrow when i walk to work and i get to see what happens. good shit. i loved getting yelled at. score mike.
---
on a less self pitying/annoying note, i was looking around itunes, checking out the new james figurine album, started with the new sufjan which i'm praying the worst best buy ever (aka ttown best buy) has a copy tomorrow, and somehow ended up bumping back into the magnetic fields somehow. not sure. can't really backtrack at this point. but anyway. i found this song which i somehow never really took much notice of. but for whatever reason, tonight, it caught me.
i need to write.
* * *
your eyes are long vermont roads. with a tacky song on the radio. and your eyes are toothless young men in tennessee in the rain again. and the fireflies never go to sleep. and the country songs never help you sleep.
but after all those trains, and all those breakdown lanes, the roads don't love you and they still won't pretend to. after all those days on godforsaken highways, the roads don't love you and they still won't pretend to.
your eyes are the mesa verde, big and brown and far away. and your eyes are kansas city. in kansas. and in missouri...
but after all this time, and after all your crying, the roads don't love you and they still won't pretend to. the roads are dark and long and all those country songs, well, they don't love you and they still won't pretend to.
the fourth of july. the first time i spent it off of LI. i wanted despereately to see the fireworks. i even considered the idea of just headed down to the mall on my own if i had to. no one really has spoken about plans. i had to work until 7. started at 10. it was a pain in the ass. i got yelled at once. i got a break, at whatever pizza was left downstairs and smoked a cigarette. called. texted. figured out something to do.
headed to jean's. she's got a kickass rooftop. i realized how badly i wanted to see the fireworks. how much i really wanted to. met up with steve, swung by osman and joe's steak and egg diner. kevin told me about it back in the day, it was my first time there. met up with hot ryan and sheila. went to jeans. nick and jean were there. lara and laura came up. we had a corner of the roof with seats. virginia, or what i think was the general direction of virginia, already started fireworks. the fireworks over the mall started at 9ish. there was lightning too to the right. there was a moment where i looked around and to the left, center, and for a brief moment the right skyline was filled with fireworks in the distance and lightning on the right. without the lightning there was a moment where the whole skyline was just fireworks. you couldn't really hear them. but the quiet was nice too. just an entire roof of people standing there on connecticut ave watching from the distance the skyline of fireworks going off.
we sat around and just bullshitted for a while. jean kept cracking me up. arrested development quotes. at one point she goes, "it smells like bigfoot's dick!" and i'm just laughing at her and she then goes into the anchorman reference and just goes on and ends up cracking steve and i up. there were a couple of other moments too where she had me going. we sat up there for a while and just talked, about everything, and we laughed.
at some point in the car ride home, it was pointed out how the whole lot of us are really sad. how we're just a group of depressed people deep down, and that we try and pretend like we're all okay. and i understood that, i did, but at the same time, i look at all of us more like we're all a little broken, we're all in recovery from something, we all feel alone in different variations of it. but it's like, we're all there. and true, it was said how even though we're all there for each other, we can't even help each other in making us feel not alone or not down or whatever. and i dunno. maybe i don't believe that. we need each other. we have to have each other there in order to make it through and get somewhere i think. if we didn't have each other, we'd all be fucked, i think.
i can't help but think, as i kneeled on the lounge chair next to jean, both of us leaning over the wooden ledge and staring out into the exploding fireworks all around us in the distance, that i knelt there in that moment next to her, with steve behind me, with sheila behind me, and hot ryan and lara and laura and nick there. that i knelt there with my chin on my hands and maybe a smile on my face as i pointed out the different kinds of fireworks to jean and at the big red ones that changed color and the weeping willows and how it was the first time in a while where i felt okay. where i didn't feel alone. where i felt like i was okay and i felt like smiling. of course, throw a firecracker in front of me and i smile, blame my love of all things fireworks, but still, in that moment i can only remember that i wasn't thinking about anything else but being there. being right there and being completely in love with how people all over the city were looking up at the sky, on their rooftops, on the streets, on the spanning green grass that covers the national mall, in virginia, and that for once, instead of looking down, all of us, together, were looking up at the fireworks in the sky.
maybe we take comfort in being able to see explosions happen in front of us, rather than any emotional explosion that we can only attempt to describe, being able to see fireworks go off, it's like this moment we get to look up at the sky and smile and point and look over at someone and say, "that's what it feels like to smile, to be happy, to love, to run free, to come home, to not worry, to not be afraid, to be alive." and i guess i like the image of all of us there on that rooftop staring off in the same direction, towards these explosions, and seeing what those explosions in the sky meant to everyone in their own head, and i'd like to think that it would've been a great shot of all of us, with the faint reds and greens and yellows of the fireworks going on and tinting the faces of everyone in the city, and of the sky, of all of us there on that roof.
maybe i love fireworks, and i wanted to so desperately see them last night, because i wanted to see something being shot into the air, flying as high as it can get and in front of everyone just exploding into a burst of color and light as everyone looked on and smiled in awe. maybe when i look at fireworks i see in them what it's like to be happy, or to find a moment in time and in life where you feel the way those fireworks explode, be it in a horrible way of exploding and falling apart or in some amazing way of exploding with the feeling of wanting to do nothing more than smile and realize you're alive, in that amazing way you sometimes, for some rarely, feel so alive that you just want to dance and hop around and scream out loud with a smile and a roman candle in your hand as you dance in circles and circles waving around that sparkler as the fireworks go off over your head or in the distant skyline and how it captures for a moment, for only a moment, the moment it lasts a sparkler to burn out, or for a fireworks show to shoot their last round, that for that short moment in time you get to explode with the feeling of being okay. and that maybe you want to share that with people, so they can see that it can happen in that moment, for that moment, maybe for only a moment, and that you want them all to see that sparkler dance under the exploding skyline and realize that those fireworks are how you feel inside sometimes, or how you want to feel, and how we should look up with nothing short of awe in our eyes for something so beautiful as the physical embodiment at the way a heart looks when it falls in love or skips a beat, or what it looks like when a heart explodes after you break it or have it broken, or what a mind looks like when falls apart, or what a mind looks like when the synapses go off and explode with life and the way the synsapses and little electric bursts go off all together in our heads in order to deliver that smile to our faces in those moments we feel okay enough to want to smile, in those moments where you're laughing with a friend, in those moments where you're surrounded by a group of people who keep you alive and a city who's there alongside you fighting for whatever it is we fight for in life and how in that moment you just want nothing more than to revel in the fact that you feel like a 9 year old with no a worry in the world, with not a scar to hide.
i knelt there, and stood there, and i couldn't help but think that that's how i felt, as i looked at the fireworks go off all around the skyline, that that's how i felt in that moment. that that's how we should feel. i felt like i was there. like i was celebrating that i was alive. and that the only way to celebrate the feeling of wanting to be nowhere else, or of feeling okay for that moment, is to have a huge fucking fireworks show over an entire city, over an entire skyline, in order to show everyone. maybe to show even yourself what it looks like to be okay.
i'm still smoking cigarettes. now, thanks to work, i can't just say that it's a couple of packs. i have one in the morning, or afternoon, when i walk down mass. sometimes i light another one on macomb. i carry one around in one of my wristbands or leave it in my folded up apron as i do the morning ritual, take down the chairs, put out the silverware, and so on. i usually smoke that cigarette right before 11. i go out back and unlock the gate and stand there, usually alone, smoking a cigarette. it becomes the few minutes before i spend those next hours on the hectic floor.
i smoke a cigarette at the end of my day. usually on my walk back to the berks. sometimes it's at night, others it's during the day and the sun is still out, at least on the days when it's not raining and grey as i huddle under my umbrella and try to keep any drops from landing on my cigarette as i walk through the rain.
i go from two extremes in my days. from the loud restuarant, where voices all mesh together and create this constant white noise, the people yelling orders in the kitchen, to the bar, people yelling at me to remember prices of wine. i run around constantly at work and i don't stop the entire time i'm there, really. i get home and my apartment is quiet. it's just me and my tv which i turn on and leave on most of the time whenever i get back from work. sometimes my music. i leave on my IMer all the time too, which has more to do with this fear of being reached. being able to be reached. and what would happen if i wasn't able to be reached, especially when and if someone finally needed to reach me. i make sure i'm always there, even if i'm not.
on my days off i'm tired. i allow myself to sleep in. i take a nap sometime in the late afternoon which brings me into the night hours. i spend my days in between sleeping walking around, doing errands, spending money on things to entertain myself when i'm at home, things to eat, things i need for work like a wine bottle opener that cost me 13.99. i walk around on my own a lot on my days off, which tend to fall during the middle of the week when most people are working. my weekends tend to fall on weekdays now.
i went out before, like i do regularly when it gets into the 11 oclock hour to smoke a cigarette. no one was outside at the side entrance and i saw that the ground was wet, a darker shade with puddles from the rain. i went outside and stood under the awning thing and smoked my cigarette. i looked up at the cloudy sky that was a shade of dark purple and orange and grey mixed together. the side entrance looks like this: |_| where the entrance is in the middle of apartments on both sides and behind you. i look up at the sky from that spot a lot and wait for a sign that maybe that maybe there's hope for the broken ones. instead patchy comes outside and i stand awkwardly as he sits on one of the benches and lights up a cigarette. i hear him muffle a hack behind me. i stare down at the flowers that have at some point grown in the giant flowerpots near the entrance. i walk inside and the air conditioner is always way too cold in the hallways. so much so that everytime i leave my apartment late at night to smoke a cigarette i debate the logic in putting on one of my zip up hoodies for the walk from my door to one of the exits.
i like to go out back sometimes and smoke, i actually prefer it now, i get to stare at the trees behind the berkshire and no one really ever comes out there. i just get to sit there or stand and realize that this entire apartment building is filled with people doing different things and if i stop to listen hard enough i can hear them all. at least the ones with the open windows. either way, i run into less people in the back, less people at 11pm, or 12am, or 2am, who walk by alone, or in a small group, and look over at me briefly and make me wonder what i look like to them, about what they think my story is.
before i went inside, i stood out from under the awning and let some of the drizzling raindrops hit me so i could feel them and get a better look of the sky. a white jeep cherokee, an older model, with a wrack on top of it that at one moment looked like police lights, sort of the kind you see on mall security cars, but it was just a wrack and i saw the vague image of a blond haired girl driving it. as she turned the corner towards the light i saw that the car looked to be filled with a lot of stuff. i thought to myself that maybe she was moving out, at 10pm on the 5th of july. i saw the car from the back and it looked like you couldn't see out of the back window due to the stuff she had in there. the car had bigger wheels than most cherokees and was lifted higher off the ground. it made a left at the light and drove away. a part of me wondered where she was going, another part of me thought that i'd like to own a jeep like that, nothing new, just an older model cherokee jeep, white, with enough room to carry everything i need in it. i wondered if that's how you leave.
my glasses fog up when i go indoors. something to do with the humidity and the rain and the cold air inside mixing together. i took off my glasses and wiped them off and realized how blind i am without them. my right arm itched and still does. i looked down the hallway and towards the middle, right by the lobby i swear i saw a man in an orange shirt standing there next to a woman in a wheelchair. i put my glasses back on and realized it was only a column, painted orange, and the reflection of the overhead hallway light orb next to it against the black tiled floor by the main lobby. i walked by them both and realized that there are three orange columns in the lobby and mirrors and a giant orange wall if you keep walking towards the vending machines in order to get a bag of famous amos chocolate chip cookies and a pack of starbursts. i smiled thinking about what steve said, about how we could probably fit a mini cooper into the hallways, since the hallways are so wide. i wondered if the two guys either above me, below me, or on either side of me, both who sounded like apu from the simpsons, and who spoke incredibly loud, would still be talking loud by the time i got back to my apartment.
and now i can't help but think about that white older model cherokee and about the way people leave sometimes, in the middle of the night, with their car packed up with their belongings, driving somewhere knowing they're leaving behind a moment in their life. i wonder now if maybe she was driving all her stuff to a new apartment somewhere else in D.C. and how maybe it's a better apartment, or it's an apartment shared with someone who she can't wait to move in with, or maybe it's an apartment with a view of the potomac. i still can't help but think that regardless of where that white cherokee is going, that it still has to get there, over rain covered streets and roads and highways in the middle of the night when the rest of the city winds down in their apartments or houses, watching tv, reading, talking about their long long days. i can't help but picture that white cherokee on the road as the city gets ready for bed and a new morning, and it coasts under the orange streetlights or highway lights, under the orange purple grey night sky and the drops of rain that fall on the windsheild as it drives on the roads alone with only music and someone's thoughts of where they're going and where they've been to steer the wheel and get them to wherever they're going.
i can't help but think about the inevitablilty of that lonely car ride at night that takes you from one place to another and what it's like to drive that alone, and how long that ride will last, how many different streets, how many highways, how many towns, how many night skies, will be passed with only the headlights and streetlights to light the way home, to light the way to wherever it is that white jeep is going. and how comforting it must be to at least know you've got something to carry you, and the collective backseat and trunk filled with your shit, to wherever it is you've gotta get to.
i use to have a notion i could swim the length of the ocean if i knew you were waiting for me.
i use to have a notion i could swim the length of the ocean i'd plumb the depths of every sea for you. i'd escape from my chains and i'd reach out for you. baby, i'm in love with you. baby, baby, i'm in love with you. i had to contact you. found out i was in love with you. i had to contact... that it, that's the law that's the whole of the law the whole of the law the whole of the law.
(the whole of the law. yo la tengo.)
* * *
"i wish the world was flat like the old days so i could travel just by folding the map. no more airplanes or speed trains or freeways. there'd be no distance that could hold us back."
home for a baby. home for an island. i feel anxious. i didn't think i'd feel anxious. or maybe i did. either way. i'm headed back to LI. but i'll be back. i'll be right back.
"i'll come back to you. it'll be brand new."
i just need to head back there to meet up with someone somewhere on those shores and have a talk together.
but i promise, i'll be back soon.
i want a few days spent behind the wheel and on those roads blasting music and spending hours alone on the road and feeling alive with the wind beating against my face.
i want to run into the ocean as fast as i can and just dive in headfirst and feel the water surrounding me and eventually come up for air, feeling like i just woke up and wanting nothing more than to feel warmth.
i want, i want, i want. i need, i need, i need. i have, i have, i have. i am, i am, i am.
i'm going back home to welcome in summer the only way i know how. on that island. and after i welcome summer and that baby boy into my life, then i'll be ready to come back. i just need to mark the beginning of something new.
so yeah.
i'm gonna go do that.
and i'll be right back.
(and i think this anxiousness is coming from the fact that i feel like i'll miss this place more than i ever realized, and that feeling, that feeling of missing a place, and people, that feeling is something that i'm so grateful to be feeling right now, because really, it shows that i want to be here. and that i realize that there are reasons to be here. here in d.c., here in life. and it's a good feeling.)
what happens next?
who knows. i said earlier that this last semester/season of the show really went a little overboard with kicking the crap out of everyone. and so i think that the summer season can only really be a little lighter in tone, just because too much drama and kicking the shit out of characters could get old without any relief. so i dunno. i think it'll be interesting. i for one know that i'll be tuning in to see what comes. but then again, kinda hard not to tune in when you're one of the character's in the show. at the very least i can just hope for the best and realize that i made it to the end of this season and that a whole new season is upon me and who knows where we'll all go next. i can only be hopeful. i can only hope for the best.
anyway.
i'll be right back...
* * *
when the gas in my tank feels like money in the bank i'm gonna blow it all this time, take me one last ride. the lights of the city, they only look good when I'm speeding i wanna leave 'em all behind me because this time i'm gone gone, going for it all this time, gone.
i didn't drink tonight. it was a test. i wanted to see if i could do it. and i did. and i think what's next won't be that hard. it made me think back to the time i spent sober in undergrad. to those times. i realized how much more aware i was back then how tonight i felt that again like i was a watcher, just watching it's not a bad feeling, really maybe not that of a good one either, some might say but i realized tonight that it's the price i have to pay now that it's what i have to do now i have to regain control of everything again. and this is one of those things. the price i pay is the looks i get from people as i drink my orange juice and the feeling like i'm watching but tonight i thought back to the time i spent sober back in the day and i remembered how i use to look out for people and how i'd use that sobriety to make sure everyone was alright and that everyone was laughing. and that was a good feeling, to realize that maybe i can give myself a role the role of the one who takes care of everyone and makes sure at the very least, they all can drink and laugh and enjoy a night like that. i just have to remind myself, when i start, that i can't do that. i can't drink and be in complete control to have the control i need to have at all times over myself.
some might say that it's wrong to live like that with that control. that fear of losing it. that energy to keep it there.
and i remember back to when i first tried this and remembered how hard it was sometimes, to just stand by and watch, and feel like i was watching everyone, but then i remember how it felt good to see the people around me laughing and having a good time, and through doing that and taking care of them i was able to be happy like that on those nights.
i'm tired.
i'm going home. and i plan to get a lot of stuff straight while i'm there. but i keep wanting to balk at it. perhaps it has something to do with that line i always go back to. it has been in so many of my stories.
"it's easier to leave than to be left behind."
i keep trying to tell myself that i'm not doing that again. really, i've never told anyone this, but i think one of the reasons i didn't go back to new york after graduation was because of that idea, that it's easier to leave than to stay somewhere and stand there as everyone leaves you behind. i knew then that i'd go back home and that it wouldn't be the same anymore. i knew that people would start jobs and move into the city and have new friends from college and from work and from all over and that people would be moving on into the next step in their lives and perhaps i questioned where i would be when all this happened and instead of imagining myself moving forward to my own life back there, i just imagined myself standing there while everyone left me behind for their new definition of their lives now. and i'd wonder what about the life i left, about what it use to be like, and i guess the thought scared me that if i was there i'd just stand there and watch everyone moving forward and away from me, without having a place for me there in their lives. so instead, i chose to leave, and not stand there, and not be present for it, and not have to face the idea of being left behind by my friends, by the people i hold closest because they've always been my family, and instead i ran from that and i came here to d.c. in order to allow everyone to move on into their new lives without me there wondering why i didn't have a place. instead i gave myself this new place and opted to let all of them move forward without me, and i did my own moving forward, or perhaps, after the last month of my life, i've moved backwards, but either way, i didn't want ot be present and maybe realize that they had all left me behind.
now take that feeling and put it into my going home for the next week or two. which is how i justified it to myself. it's two weeks max. and at the end of those two weeks i'd stop and ask myself what felt right. where do i want to be? what feels right? and i'd base it off of that. and maybe my biggest worry is that if i go back, that i'd realize that maybe i left because i was afraid of being left behind here, after all my shit that i've gone through, and people continuing to move forward while i maybe was still way back lying on the ground, trying to find a reason to get up, and maybe i got up and realized that everyone was still ahead of me, and maybe i'm going home because i'm afraid that i'll be left behind by them all, because of my shit, who wants to deal with my shit and my drama? seriously. it's a lot. and i keep trying to tell myself that this isn't the reason why i'm going back, that i'm not leaving because my fear of being left behind is trying to creep up on me again. but it's there. and i'm trying to just tell myself to breathe, and that the baby is coming in the next week or so and that i wanted to be home for that. and i that right now all i need is a vacation away from everything, time on my own where i can just drive and drive and drive for hours and walk on the beach. i keep thinking about how i want to wait until there's a really nice day, and on that day i want to pack a towel or two and drive to the beach and just spread out my towel and use the other as a pillow and just sleep there. i guess i'm just wondering if i'd close my eyes in that moment and realize that i did it to myself. like james dean use to say, "for someone who's so afraid of losing me, you sure are trying your best to push me away." and i told him that it might just be true, that maybe it's easier to know that i was the one who left, that i was the one who ended it, i was the one who ran, so that i'd never have to live with the fact that maybe someone else would be the one to do that to me, so that i wouldn't ever be left standing there on my own and watching someone walking away, and that instead i'd be the one running or walking away and i'd know that i chose this, that i didn't put myself through the reality that maybe i'm not worth taking along, and instead, i chose to leave, i chose to not be the one watching there, standing there, and instead to be the one to run away as fast as i could, only being able to see what's in front of me and not what i've left standing back there.
i'm not sure if that makes any sense.
but it's that feeling that i'm trying to sit down with myself and sort of say, "look. you're not doing that. you've done that. and this time, you're not gonna do it again. this time, you're gonna stand there, and maybe instead of just freezing, allowing everyone to keep walking as you stop, instead maybe you'll go and catch up with them, or maybe walk to catch up with them, but eventually you'll catch up with them however far ahead they get in this race, and you'll do that now instead of thinking you'll just stand there, or instead of leaving all together. you're not doing that. you're not. what you're doing now is going home for a baby, an amazing blessing that's come into your life, you're going home to lay down the seeds in the front yard of that house that you should've years ago but couldn't then, but can and want to now. you're going to go back there and really just look at your family and start to tell them who you are, start whatever it is that needs to be started so that someday, you'll be able to walk around knowing that you have your friends, yeah, always, but, that you also have your family there. that they're there.
maybe i'm going home to just get some time to myself, which i've needed, just time with myself outside of all of this to regroup and breathe. so that when i get back here, that i'll be able to look open my eyes and see myself standing there and that one of two things will happen. either i will open my eyes, and realize that yes, people continue to move, and, so, i have to also, and that i won't let any fear cripple me of maybe fitting into their lives, and instead hold on to the fact that yes, i do, and with that i'll start walking, jogging, running to catch up until i do and i can stand there next to them and realize that we're all walking our own path, with our own two legs, alongside each other, and that we're all there together.
or, maybe, maybe i'll open my eyes and look around and see that everyone around me was waiting for me to catch my breathe so that we could all start running again towards whatever's next. and maybe someone will say, "you ready to go again?" "you catch your breathe, you okay to go another leg of the race?" and with that, i'll take a hand that's outstretched to me and stand up and wipe the sweat off and we'll all start jogging.
the second is a nice idea, a nice thought, the first is prolly more believable since the world doesn't stop spinning and people will keep on moving.
but at the very least, i can think of a nice middle ground to hold onto where i'll maybe catch up at some point to the horde of racers in that pack and they'll look over at me and welcome me back, perhaps feeling relieved, having believed they had lost me, that i'd given up and that i wasn't going to finish the race with them. maybe someone will offer me some water and we'll all run like that in a pack until we all get to wherever each of us is going.
i'm not leaving because i'm afraid of being left behind.
i'm not leaving because i'm afraid of being left behind.
i'm not leaving because i'm afraid of how i had to stop and watch everyone keep moving as i tried to catch my breathe and crawled on the ground trying to find a reason to keep running in this race, to keep going, to not just lay there on my hands and knees watching everyone still running and leaving me there, leaving me there alone and behind.
i'm going to go greet my new nephew into the world and to let him know that ben and jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough is the best ice cream and that he won't ever be alone in the world. and to go for a walk with my father. and dance with my mother. and talk to my brother. and to laugh with my little brother. and to drive on those island roads for hours. and to see my friends. and to jump up and down on the beach and run into the water. or maybe i'll just sleep and eat and drive. but i'll laugh. i'll laugh because these last few days i've just had this overconsuming feeling of wanting to do nothing else with my life but laugh.
i have to trust that the people in my life that are there are there for a reason.
i have to believe that i'm worth something.
i have to believe that i'm not running away from the fear of being left behind. because of how people can't deal with my inability to keep up without losing my breathe sometimes.
i'm not leaving because i'm afraid of being left behind.
i just realized that that one line has driven so much of my life up to this point.
it's a weird realization.
that one line can put into words what exactly i've been doing with certain aspects of my life.
maybe i haven't loved because i'm afraid of ever really having it and realizing that i'm not worth it, that i'm not worth sticking around for, and, because of that, i've only gone after these impossible people who could never show me whether or not i was worth sticking around for. perhaps even in my persuit of love, or whatever it is, my longing for it, that that one line, "its easier to leave than be left behind, also ties into the idea of how i never really have ever gone for real love, and i've ran away from it because of my fear that it would perhaps run away from me instead.
fuck.
ain't that some shit.
geez.
well, at least i can sit here and laugh at all of that.
there's this feeling i've had all day. which i've been trying to put a handle on. to describe to myself. it's a cross between these two.
the first is a picture of different versions of myself, and me in the middle, and we've all been fighting, for days without sun, just fighting 24 hours under a night sky filled with clouds and turrential downpour, and for days, weeks, months, i've been standing there in the middle as they've attacked me and come at me as i've grown tired and they've knocked me down and i've beaten them back enough to retreat and to stand up and grab whatever weapon or to reclench bloody fists and prepare for the next attack. some of those nights they've just come all night long, not stopping, all together. that's what it's felt like. but now. it's like i woke up and opened my eyes and sat up, with my head against the sand, and the sound of the ocean and the sky parting in two, the clouds above me but the clear sky in the distance, being allowed to show itself again as the storm moves off into the ocean. and it's like i sat up and looked around and realized that all the different versions of myself were still there, as bloody and beaten as i am, and they too are tired of this war, of this battle, and they just lie there on the sand, scattered, exhausted, and unable to stand. but i get up in the middle of them and one by one, i walk to and i help them sit up. i feel like i sit there with them helping them back up, wanting to show them that i'm tired of fighting, in an attempt to make peace. and they all look at me as i help them stand and they look relieved. and someone asks, "what now?" and i look around at all the different versions of myself, and i can only say, "now. now we make peace." "but there's so many of us, how can you make peace with us all?" and i just say, "one at a time." and i make my way back to that center where i laid and awoke and sit. and they just sit there where they're all at on that beach and stare back at me. and eventually, one of them gets up and walks over and sits cross legged across from me and i look at him and ask, "which one are you?" "the one who's afraid of loss." and from the back comes running one of the others and he stands in front of us and says, "i think i should join you. i'm the one who carried the casket." and another comes and says, "me too. i'm the one who's always been afraid of never finding love while everyone else around me does. i'm the one who's afraid of dying alone." and i can only hold up my hands and say, "i'll get to you all. but join us if you know each other. but it's okay. i've got the time." and they sit crossed legged there, inching themselves close enough to surround me as i grab the hand of the one directly in front of me and say, "let's start from the beginning..."
the second consists of having been living in a storm shelter, the kind you see in old movies, the kind you picture in kansas, built into the back of some old farmhouse and in there, deep down in the ground with only a dim lamp that faded after days, i sat and waited out the storms outside, the tornados passing, and i sat there hugging my legs and waiting until the screaming winds and beating rain against the doors ceased and only the silence remained. and it's like i opened my eyes after days of shutting them tight to keep the dark out and to keep the sound of the storm outside trying to burst in, and it's like i finally saw a line of light creeping in between the doors and i crawled my way to them and slid my finger down the crack between the doors and somehow found the strength, after having ran out of food and not having slept for days from the mere sound of the storms outside, and the fear of falling asleep and having the doors ripped open and those tornado winds suck me out and not even knowing that it had happened, not even being able to put up a fight. and i push those doors open and run outside and fall down to the ground, gasping for breath and my eyes hurt and i have trouble opening them and finally i open them and realize that it's the sun that's taking some getting use to, the sun that my eyes aren't use to. and i look around at everything. at the damage that the storms inflicted upon this land. i turn and see what's left of that house, it's missing parts of the roof but the shutters on the windows held for the most part and from the outside it still stands with the exception of a few scars on the outside from the debris that scraped against it as the tornados past. i walk around to the front and see that the entire front of the house is missing. i walk back around and look across the flat land and see cars sticking out from the ground, having been driven into the earth headfirst, and at the trees ripped in two, the collapsed barns and the wandering horses. and i feel like i sat there for a day or two or three and just watched the sun coming out and lighting up the mess that was left behind. and i stared at all of it and spent those days wondering how to clean it up, where to start, how do i rebuild a home that's been ripped in two. and it feels like, today, it feels like today i finally stood up and picked up a wooden piece of wood on the ground and started to pace around the house, and one by one i used that board to open the shutters from the windows, and i went out to the barn and found a bent ladder that still stretched far enough to get me on that roof and i looked around to see that all over people were rebuilding their homes, rebuilding from the storms, from the tornados that ripped apart this green land, and i realized that we're all rebuilding. i'm not the only one. and throughout my day i'd picture this, and i'd see myself there on that roof, patching the holes, having used that piece of wood that i found to help me cover the holes. and i kept picturing myself all day long walking around and cleaning up the yard, trying to get the horses back into the fence i rebuilt, shirtless trying to hammer together a wall frame on the front lawn, dragging a lightning struck tree limb that had fallen on the dirt road away from it, so that cars could pass, so that people could get to where they were going, and i threw it in a ditch. and if i close my eyes and look at myself there, it's still a mess, and there's a lot of cleaning up to do, a lot of rebuilding to do, but i sit there in the backyard in front of a small fire surrounded by rocks that i dragged over myself. and i sit there with an old blanket i found and in a hoody that i stole from a friend years ago, and i sing some song to myself, and as i kick dirt over the fire to put it out and walk under the moon lit sky filled with stars and stars, i look around see all the small fires from the houses off in the distance in all directions, and i smile at how everyone is finally glad to have a night outside, sitting by the fire to keep warm, enjoying the fact that we lived through this. and that there's a lot to be done. but at the very least, we can rest assured that it'll all get done in due time. and until then we can take moments to enjoy the small fires and kansas night sky. and i think of that as i walk on my rickety and broken porch, as i walk through the frame of my front door and carefully walk upstairs to my bedroom, realizing that it's time to rest, to sleep, because tomorrow there'll be more cleaning, more rebuilding, and that i can sleep now knowing that the storms have passed.
and i just have to remind myself on those mornings or nights or mid afternoons when i wake up from sleeping, or hear a crash and freeze in panic, or wake up gasping for breathe at the dream that i just had about being back in that storm shelter underground, i have to get up and look around and realize that it's just the sound of a barn wall collapsing, or that i'm sitting in bed with the sun hitting my face and that i'm safe now.
that's the best way to describe where i'm at right now. like a storm has passed. the fight is over. and now all i have left to do is rebuild. all i have to do is make peace.
* * *
as the sun is sinking low and the evening's tucked in tow on the horizon, my true love i see...
he's my bandit... laying beneath the moon in a bandit cave, a blanket laid for two if i could find a way to your hideaway by the sea o bandit... steal away to me.
somewhere on a mountain, by a starry water fountain in an alcove hid by some trees amidst a pile of treasure, reclining at his leisure, my ...love sniffs as the breeze.
and sitting up... takes another swig from a bottle of bourbon and listening to the whistling of a train at station odds are it will never reach its destination.
'cause the bandit... astride his steed will ride o let me be the one to lay within your theivin' arms tonight.
he's my bandit... laying beneath the moon in a bandit cave, there's a blanket laid for two if i could find a way to your hideaway by the sea o bandit... steal away to me.
i was reading the new new yorker and once again read m. night's and scorcese's answers to these and thought that i'd answer them myself, you know, so when amex calls and asks me if i want to do an ad for them i can be like, "way ahead of you on that one. already filled out my answers." and really, i figure they should be calling aannyy day now. any day. of course, for all i know they'll be calling to say, "ok. look. we made a mistake. we shouldn't have given you a credit card. now give it back." but whatever. either way. i wanted to see how i'd answer them.
---
my name..... mike.
childhood ambition..... to be a superhero who saves the day.
fondest memory..... jones beach, field six, walking for miles, for hours, with the bluest sky and the greenest eyes i have ever seen. and later, running to the top of a dune to catch the setting sun against a pink horizon, and eventually turning around and walking back under the stars and the moon, with the sound of the night tide, while holding onto someone's backpack straps. (...and not wanting to have been anywhere else but right there the entire time.)
retreat..... different names for the same thing: the atlantic ocean, the shores of long island, the beach, summer.
wildest dream..... to be in love.
proudest moment..... getting up after having fallen down.
biggest challenge..... living in the moment.
alarm clock..... the past.
perfect day..... is a day spent at the beach, laughing, talking, swimming, and walking, followed by a night spent driving on those island roads while taking the long way home with a new cd or a friend who knows when i need to feel the air rushing by with my arm out the window in silence, like i want nothing more than to believe that i can fly, or that i'm home.
first job..... a host at bennigans.
indulgence..... cds.
last purchase...... an m & m mcflurry.
favorite movie..... a toss up between lost in translation and the empire strikes back.
inspiration..... my friends.
my life..... has been spent running away from myself.
my card..... is maxed out.
* * *
"i saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the... streets at dawn."
(from howl. ginsberg. what an enviable line. it captivates me.)
if i were to make a mix-cd right now, this would be it.
title: My "After a tornado, as you emerge from taking shelter in the storm cellar and survey the damage, of what's left standing, and where to start rebuilding" Mix.
1. honey don't think. by grant lee buffalo. because it's the best advice i've heard in a while. mike, don't think, don't think so much. and jb shouted out the line and i totally agree, "do you read in the dark?" perfectly sums up the deal upstairs.
something wrong in my stars could you look at my chart help me healing these scars could you learn to read minds in the case of mine do you read in the dark?
honey don't think about it too long now honey don't think...
2. shelter from the storm by bob dylan. because it makes me think of the people who have given me shelter lately, and how i've needed it. because it makes me think of the day when someone will say that to me in three words, and how i'll say that to someone someday, i'll be ready for it, ready to say, "come in." and because it reminds me to always make sure that everyone in my life has shelter, and that when needed, i will give them shelter just like my friends have given me.
'twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood when blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud i came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form. "come in," you said, "i'll give you shelter from the storm."
and if i pass this way again, you can rest assured i'll always do my best for you, on that i give my word. in a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm, "come in," you said, "i'll give you shelter from the storm."
3. take me with you (when you go) by the jayhawks. jb introduced me to this song and i love the idea behind it, that they're gonna leave someday, be they people or moments, and that you're left standing there there wondering "when" is it gonna happen, and that the only thing you can do it pray that you're not left behind.
each night when I go to bed i pray take me with you when you go each night when I go to bed i pray take me with you when you go each night when I go to bed i pray
4. beginning to see the light. by the velvet underground. because it sums up how i'm feeling today.
i wanna tell all you people, now. now, now, baby, i'm beginning to see the light. hey, now, baby, i'm beginning to see the light...
i met myself in a dream, and i just want to tell you, everything was alright. hey, now, baby, i'm beginning to see the light.
5. happy by jenny lewis. because i could be happy. i'm sure.
they warn you about killers and thieves in night i worry about cancer and living right but my mama never warned me about my own destructive appetite
or the pitfalls of control how it locks you in your grave looking for someone to be saved under my restraint so i could be happy, happy oh so happy, happy oh so happy, happy so happy, so happy
i'm as sure as the moon rolls around...
6. it was love. by the elected. this verse tells such a great story. a story that makes me smile reflectively about the closest i've come, for now. it makes me think about someday being able to run away with someone in the passenger seat, or maybe behind the wheel as i look over and smile at that profile against the passing towns, states, skies.
when san diego got too unkind we just picked up and left him behind and we had some love and some hope a full tank of gas and a wide open road it was love to us, it was all that we had and there's days when you just break the best thing you had and i still call it love for now, it's the closest i've come
7. my slumbering heart. rilo kiley. because it makes me think back to memories of two different people and their twin beds. and i love how simply put it is, but how yeah, it just fucking feels good when we're waking up.
i see you asleep on a twin bed, the covers pulled over your head. am i asleep or awake? it just feels good when we're waking up. it just feels good when you're next to me. it just feels good when you're coming home. it just feels good when it's waking up. my slumbering heart.
8. sun, sun, sun. by the elected. i love how blake sings this, like he's totally broken, but if i ever got the chance to sing it i'd scream it towards the sky, like a full on bright eyes breakdown broken cracked voice teary eyed chris carraba howl that leaves the audience in awe of just having watched someone vacate his heart and lungs of everything trapped inside, in a desperate plea to have it echo off the walls and bounce right back at me, at everyone around me, at the sun, because i want everyone to know that we all have to be patient, and that i swear, i swear, i swear it, i'll come through.
sun, sun, sun, stay with me don't go behind the clouds i know that you'll go down but while it's day, let your light hit me cause if i lose you now i fear i could bow out and i don't know where I'm going to when i get there, i'll send for you and i'll know when i see it, but be patient, i swear i'll come through.
EF: you had no control. control. first to last, that's the thing...
SS: i'll fail you. i can't control it...
EF: ...everything you are, and everything you aren't, hinges on this moment. the world is a terrifying place for some children. that lack of control, that fear of abandon, it was always in you. the only way to be sure you would always, always hold yourself together... was to make it impossible not to. what is that boy doing, my love?
SS: deciding.
EF: you can let go now... the decision to not to try to control [yourself], you let it be your demon. too shameful to remember, so you let it eat your life up instead. but you're past it now... and all you had to defeat, all you had to let go of... was you. you're free, my love. you're free.
i woke up early, big was set to call earlish to set up when we were gonna meet up. i eventually started walking to the metro because i figured i needed to head that way anyway since i had to hit up the bank in adams morgan. big calls when i'm walking and i get us both to the starbucks next door to guapos. i wait around on the corner and eventually i see big waving at me from the car and big snags a spot right in front of guapos. we hug. we look at each other. big says, "so you really did shave your head, huh." and i look down at big's legs, wearing shorts, and realize that it's probably the second or third time i've seen them. the last time was senior year when we went clothes shopping together for big. and i hung out in the dressing room, since it was only the two of us in there. big wore shorts that day too, we went to get pizza on the way back, i remember. i took pictures of big's legs and feet and kept joking about how i had no clue that he had legs or feet since at work big would always be wearing pants and shoes.
so we stand in line and i kept joking, i kept watching big there, remembered he curves of that back, those arms, that smile, those eyes. big asks about what's the story behind the head. i tell it. big laughs. big order the giantest cup of tea, and it comforted me, the familiarity of who big is, the consistency, and i order my vanilla latte. we find a table and i wait for big to get the right amount of milk to tea ratio. big sits and we look at each other and laugh. i run fingers on big's chin. "yeah, it's all grey." big says. i smile. we talk about work, big tells me about classes and about teaching and invites me to the conference in october that he's in charge of. we talk about how big put on his syllabus that none of his students can kill off characters or have sex scenes. he tells me about the house. about his little brother and the direction he's gone in, and it's not a good one, and i saw how it bothered big, and i didn't realize that that was going on, and i listen to him tell me about it, about how his little brother probably won't even get to go to the wedding. i talk about my own little brother. it realize how alike we are, big and i. we talk about how we're getting older. about living in tenleytown. about kids. about how big will be having kids in the coming years. at least that's the plan. we go into the wedding and how that's coming as well. i look at big a lot throughout this. i touch big's arm at one point, just to feel them there. big smiles. big was all self conscious at how no one else was wearing shorts. it was a chillier morning here. and i tell big not to worry. big says he wants to go to whole foods and pick up some stuff for the drive. we walk over and i tell him about where my head's been at lately. where i've been at and how it's not a good place. he asks me about the whole situation and how that's panning out, how i'm doing with all of that. i tell him.
we walk into whole foods and i get this weird flashback to the two of us every weekend, on a friday or saturday night, driving to ithaca or cuse and doing our usuall rounds. dinner. bookstore. cds. walking around. wegman's or that health food supermarket in ithaca that big loved. we'd walk around and i'd watch big buy ortitch (sp?) burgers and nuts and all this healthy stuff and i'd spend the whole time talking and laughing. sometimes i'd push the cart around, allowing big to just run around and take in all the health food he could. i remember back to those nights spent like that, my senior year, and how at some moment on those night's i'd think about how everyone else i knew was back in cortland drinking, partying, going crazy, and how i was standing there pushing around a cart on my saturday night, in wegman's, after having just browsed every aisle of borders or barnes and noble, including the cd sections, and how before that i went out to a nice quiet dinner, and i remember the smile that'd come across my face at how there was nowhere else i'd rather have been than standing there on my friday night pushing that cart full of health food and watching the little kid in front of me enjoy the candy store. it was a feeling i have rarely felt since, those nights, that feeling of realizing that there was nowhere else i'd rather be than right there with this one person, and how it made me feel not alone, and how nothing else mattered, not knowing that everyone else was back drinking and partying and doing what maybe i should've been doing, at how some people would look at me and be like "you were at wegman's on friday night pushing a cart around?" and i'd just be like, "yeah. i was. i really was. i was there."
as we walked around whole foods i got that same feeling. it made me think back to the days and nights big and i have spent together over the time we had in cortland together. big and i were having our usual banter in between laughing, and much like i use to notice up there, people around us would be watching us. and they'd smile at the sight of the two of us making each other laugh and arguing over the importance of having nuts in your diet, or at watching big explain to me what the appeal of sushi without the rice or anything, just the fish, and how good it is while i was like, "so it's just the fish?" and at how we walked by a whole thing of ice and fish and i looked over at this huge one and looked at big and just said, "you know, i really want to just grab it and smack you against the head with it. i don't know why. but whenever i see a huge fish that i just want to pick it up and smack someone with it for the sake of comedy." and how big cracked up at that. and how i didn't second guess saying it out loud i just did and big just cracked up at it.
at some point i'm waiting for big to try and decide what to get for his lunch on the road. and again, we're laughing and i keep staring at big when big's not looking, and i keep rubbing big's back, just to feel it there while i have it there, and i notice this woman is watching us. looking at us. and i smile at that. i think it was during our "wait... so it's just the fish without the rice? and there's a name? it's just fish then." and i see her smiling at us. that use to happen all the time whenever we were out, upstate. the way people use to look at us like we were something special, together, and how i always imagined that that would make them feel good, just at seeing two people alone together, and how the two of them were entertained by each other completely, at how much fun and how nice it was to see two people who are there to make each other laugh and smile and to look at each other when the other isn't looking and be enthralled by each other. i always imagined people looking at big and i like that whenever we were at a dinner table in alto cinco eating and bantering with the waitress, making her laugh, and how much fun we'd be having with each other. i always imagined that's what those people who walked by us and who would smile, that they'd feel something good, a sense of comfort that maybe sometimes people find each other, that people manage to be so lucky to bump into another person who captivates them and entertains them completely, making the whole idea of living a little easier to handle. it's what i use to think, and still do, i did today, whenever i take a minute to picture big and i together. i want people to feel that comfort of realizing that sometimes you find a person who makes living a little easier. and just admire that moment. and not the bigger picture specifics. just the reality of those two people who captivate each other.
at one point big is standing in front of me and facing me and i reach up and brush my fingers against his hair, near the temple, and i laugh. "the grey." at some point i said to him, "we're getting older." there was another moment where big was ordering a bean quesadilla and a chicken quesadilla and there was a shopping cart with a tiny little girl sitting in the seat and her father was looking around for something, ordering something, and i start making faces at the little girl, trying to make her laugh and she does, and she watches me. i took a step back, interupted by big asking if i wanted anything, and i say no, but then i look back at the shopping cart and i get this weird flash, this weird realization, that that's going to be big's shopping cart someday. someday soon perhaps. and i looked at it and at the smiling little girl and how she kept watching me watch her and i realized then that that was going to be big's shopping cart. and i guess there was a certain sense of comfort at thinking about how i'll be there to push that cart too, wanting nothing more than to make the kid in that seat smile. big turns around and starts telling me something, doesn't see the kid, i motion with my head over at the little girl and big looks and keeps talking. there was a certain sense of comfort in knowing that i was able to be okay with the sight of that and that the idea of that kid in that cart makes big weary for the future.
while we're shopping around i tell big more about where i've been at. at one point he picks up candy bars from one of the aisles. the same woman who was watching us before comes up and asks big if the bars he was holding were free trade bars. big didn't know but made conversation and smiled, made her smile, and i stood back, partly feeling an admiration for how big captivates people, how he's so friendly and everywhere we've been he's always just talked to people, while i stood back and just watched. and for a moment i was thought, as i watched the two of them there, "yeah. he's pretty amazing, isn't he. you don't want to turn away. or be away from him." and i smiled at the fact that big was there with me, and after picking up four chocolate bars and talking to that woman, that he came back to me.
we're paying and i'm hating the reality that big'll be gone soon. big goes back to get another odwalla drink thing that we stopped about when we first got in there and joked about, the b monster, the c monster, and he picks another one up and pays. we walk outside and we're talking and walking to the car. i give big the cd i was carrying with me for him. big takes out the monster cd case and shows me his new cds, we talk about music for a bit. big takes out the soft cooler thing and puts in the quesadillas and hands me one of the drinks, mango tango, and two chocolate bars. "you have to eat." i smile. we hug. we start saying goodbye. talk about calling. we will. we hug one last time and big gets into the car. i start to walk away and i light up a cigarette and wait until i see big pull off.
i gave big a cd i've been trying to fall in love with but haven't been able to because it reminds me of the person who gave it to me. so i gave it to big. and now i can love that album. because it won't be tied into that person anymore. it'll be tied into the idea of big having it. and listening to it on the drive to new york, then to mass, and eventually to vermont so they can spend the month of may in the mountains together. i was glad to have a new definition, a new connection made to that cd, because now i'll always listen to it and picture big driving on the way north, backseat filled with a month's worth of crap, thrown in shirts on hangers, a box of books to read, and a trunk filled to the brink, a giant case of cds in the passenger seat and my cd in its skinny black case lying on the edge of the seat. i'll listen to it now and picture big on those long highways and expressways and thruways and interstates, listening to it, driving, looking exactly how we saw each other today, and just driving to new york, to mass, to vermont, driving himself home or to some destination where he'll be loved. i can now listen to that cd again because it'll always remind me of big. of big today. of big driving to get to the love of his life, to get to the place he belongs.
after i stood on the corner smoking a cigarette waiting for big to pull out and drive off again, and i had to watch big go, had to watch the car drive out of sight, just to be clear, to be perfectly clear that big wasn't here, that there was no mistaking that, that big wasn't staying here, and i stood there and watched the back of the car disappear down wisconin ave and i took a moment to lean against one of the newspaper box things and i felt like breaking down, and i was close, i just realized at that moment how we had just finished talking about big's wedding, how it's coming, and how we had spoken about kids, about the reality of how in a few years time, it'll be real. i stood upright and started walking down to the metro. i put on the album i gave big and listened to it now knowing it was mine and big's now.
i thought about something richard said to me yesterday. "if you can't find a reason, just think to yourself that richard can think of a reason, and make that your reason." and i thought about that since, and i thought about the people in my life, about big, and i though, "i can't find a reason, but richard can, and big, in giving me that drink and chocolate bars, and what big said to me, that, big can find a reason, that last night when i was over at steve's for a smoke break, and after i told him i hadn't eaten all day he dragged me to the gtown diner to get some grub, i just kept going over people in my head, and big, i thought of big and thought about how big finds a reason where i haven't, and i thought that that means something, and i took comfort in that.
i decided to spent the morning hunting down cds. and going to the bank. after big left. i was thinking about how i'm on my own, how big isn't here, and how i really need to get back to the basics, of being able to be alone with myself, to be okay with that again, and i was thinking about how there's this entire huge city here and that i'm in it, and have to realize that i'm in it and that i'm alone, just me, and i had to remember back to that idea and how i lived like that. i was thinking this as i found a seat on the crowded train car and just as i sat down i looked up across the car and saw david there on the other end facing me. i waved and smiled and the car was filled and there were no seats over there or by me so i kinda just hung out where i was. but i kinda laughed in my head, at how i was trying to convince myself that i'm on my own here, like when i first got here, and that there's this whole big city to get lost in, and how i'm one out of who knows how many, and i sit down and see someone i know.
and i realized that i'm not back where i started from. i'm not where i was when i first moved here and sat on metro cars and realized i knew no one here. how it was just me. and i looked up at david over there and kinda felt a comfort in the fact that i knew someone there, that i wasn't this stranger, this one guy in this new city.
i got out in adams morgan and i dunno. i went up the escalator, listening to my big album, and i felt okay for the first time in a while. which i was surprised about because big coming and going usually leaves me in this weird place. i remember that big called me while i was underground and i look and see big left me a message. i opt to check it outside, and i sort of start entertaining the idea that today is a good day. and i start to think about all the things that make it a good day. and i start to think about how big is in my life. and how happy big is, how some people get everything they deserve and it comforts me that big is getting it all. a marriage. kids. a house. a job. and i get to the top of the escalator, the giant first one, and start walking towards the second one and the sun is beating down on the metal halfway up and is sort of blinding and i can't really look right at it but i keep walking towards it and i get on the escalator and it's kinda cool to see that brightness of the sun against the metal on the two metal middles of the escalator and i sort of just ride it up until the halfway mark where the sun meets the underground and it hits me and it warms and i stick my face up in the air and close my eyes and feel it there, the sun beating down on me, and it overtakes me and my shoulders feel warm, and i open my eyes and a girl is watching me from across the escalators on her way down.
i get inside and i look for the check that i was supposed to cash that was planned for buying cds and feeding me and i can't find it. and for a minute i empty my bag on the counter in the bank, and i take everything out of my wallet. and i groan at the idea that i have to go all the way back to get that damn check and that by the time i get back i won't want to bother then heading all the way back to where i am, the bank, and that if i have to go back to get it that i'll probably just not bother doing anything, and i really wanted at the very least to pick up the new taking back sunday. and start to freak out because i don't want to go back, because i know i won't come back, i won't leave again, and finally i look at everything in my wallet and in there, folded up into fourths, which i never really fold checks into, is the check. and unfold it and it's there and i look at it. i realize that i was so worried that i would have to go back to my apartment, and force myself to head back here to the bank, and all along this thing i thought i had left behind was with me the whole time. i just didn't give myself enough time to stop and relax and see it there.
i ride to dupont. i go back underground and i feel okay. i realize that you gotta go down to get back up. i hit up olsons, and headed to gtown when i couldnt find two of my cds, and i went back to thinking about how i do need to get back to a certain mindset of where i was at one point here. where i was okay with my being on my own. i told steve last night about what i use to be like when i lived in gtown. how i'd spend entire weekends without leaving gtown, without seeing anyone i knew, without going out with friends or whatever, i'd just spend the weekend with myself and be okay with that. i'd spend days on my own walking around the streets of gtown, in barnes and noble, going to check out a movie, eating on my own, i'd spend days like that and be alright. and how that isn't the case anymore. and i was thinking about how i have to get back there, to that place with myself, and like, i boarded the blue bus to gtown thinking about how i have to get back there and the lady driver is like, "1.50." and i look down and realize they raised it 50 cents and again, i laughed and just paid another dollar and sat down. but i just sat there as we waited until it was time to go and it was like another reminder that i can't go back to that place necessarily. that i can't go back to where i was september of 04. that things have changed. even without me knowing it. and that i can go back, but it's different now. maybe it means that it'll cost me 50 cents more to get there.
i get to gtown and head into my cd shop wondering if i'd see my cd guy who wasn't there the last time i treked down to hunt down a cd. and he was. and he saw me and like gasped at seeing me. it's been a while. i haven't really been down since i moved up to ttown. and he was happy to see me. and he commented on my shaved head and we caught up. i told him where i'm at now and what i've been up to. i end up only picking up the new taking back sunday but i'm alright with that. i think all i need right now is taking back sunday. i tell him that i'll be around more, and i meant it too. he's totally awesome and i love supporting small cd stores. and he's been there since i moved to dc. i love that he knows me now.
i walk around gtown and on those streets i use to walk alone all day long whenever i needed some air or something from cvs or lunch from chipotle. i head to the shops to see if maybe just maybe fye has either the arctic monkeys or decemberists eps and on my way there, i'm remembering at how a part of me was okay with walking alone, and i get to the corner and i see ray against nathan's wall with the camera and boom mic stuff and he's there with two other guys from work but i see him and he sees me and he waves and smiles. we talk quickly, i didn't want to bug him when he was working, but he tells me he digs my tshirt, and he comments on the hair, we laugh and i wave as i cross the street. i was listening to such great heights, the iron and wine version and i kept playing it over and over for a while. i didn't have any luck at fye and completely forgot to go visit mr. chen and pick up some cookies, maybe i just realized that it's been a while and i'd feel bad being like "yeaaah. i moved." i went up and picked up astonishing xmen #14 and opted to pick up the rest of my books after i get my first paycheck since i seem to have stacked up another months worth of my titles.
i head back up to ttown, read the tbs lyrics on my way up, i get off on mass ave and walk up to the berk. i think about stuff. i walk by the front of this huge truck and i wonder what it'd be like if it was coming at me real fast on the road and i look under it to see that i'd totally be able to survive if i stayed right in the middle of the axle, it was high enough up off the ground, i imagine it happening and how my bag would get hooked on something and i'd have to john woo the strap off of me and how my headphones would be the last things to get pulled away with the truck as i lied there under it. then i imagined the truck not stopping, that it'd keep going. and i'd stand up and watch it go after fucking running me over and getting slammed by the front of it and i imagined myself running after it and like peter parker, climbing on the back of it and then on top of it until i reached the cab of the truck, i'd lose my flip flops and i'd be barefoot and people would be like "mike what are you doing!" and i'd only be mumbling to myself, "he can't get away with this. he can't get away with this." and i pictured myself leaning over the driver's side window while holding onto the railing above and telling the driver to pull the fuck over, "you just ran me over you fucker." and he's slam on his breaks because he'd have no clue i had climbed up on the thing and i'd grab the rail and fly forward enough to pull a spidey and spin back and barefooted kick through his windsheild and land in the front seat and i'd knock him out and we'd slam to a stop. i'm not sure what it all means really. i think it means that i might've paged through a couple too many spidey comics in gtown, or, it means that maybe i'm starting to believe that you can't just run me over and drive away. not without me trying to stop you. or trying to get you to face what you've done. maybe it means that i don't want to believe anymore that i'd just lie there on the ground and let it get away. maybe i want to start believing that i shouldn't be run over, and that maybe i was, and that maybe i'm starting to believe that it's time to get up.
i walked down mass and i look up and see this green shirt walking at the other end of the block and i realize that i recognize that swagger but i'm not sure if it's steve so i don't wave until i'm sure. and i see his shaved head. and i wave. and he asks me if i want a ride home. that he was on his way to work. so i say sure and get in and he drives me up. he asks about breakfast with big and i tell him that it was good. it was really good. and that sometimes its really good to see someone. he dropped me off a the berk and i peace out and head up. and i kinda shake my head at how funny life is sometimes. how i again was walking down my new neighborhood, well, two month old neighborhood, and how again, i had just been thinking about how i had left gtown and everything down there and how i was now back up here, back in this place on my own, away from what i was down there, and just thinking about how i need to really get to a place where i'm as okay being on my own up here as i was down there. and like i thought all this and then i see steve. and he offers me a ride home. and it was like something was trying to tell me that i'm not as alone as i think. and maybe that i'm not supposed to get myself to a place where i believe i want and only spend days upon days on my own, and to be okay with that, but that maybe i have to be okay with where i'm at now, not try to get back to me just moved here mike, but a mike here now mike. and a mike here now i guess isn't as alone as he thinks. and that now, which is something i didn't have back then, i know people, and people know me, and that i even have a friend that i can bump into on the street in my two month old neighborhood who offers to give me a ride and help out with all the walking i'm doing, to maybe remind me that i'm not where i was, and that where i'm at now is full of things and people to prove that.
i ate some of big's chocolate before i left the apartment to head here to the library to write. and while i didn't work on my submission for tomorrow, which is all there, just has to be made to look nice, that i just spent the last however long realizing that today was a good day. and earlier in the day, somewhere on the metro, it hit me, this realization that "okay, today is a good day, but what happens when a bad day comes around. and it will. what then? will you remember how you're feeling right now? will remembering this, where you're at now, the things you're realizing, will all these things be enough to fight off the things that are trying to kill you, the things that are killing you, will you allow the bad to overwhelm the things you feel right now?"
and i don't know the answer to that. i feel like for every moment where i feel the sun beating down on my shaved head, and for every moment where i feel the weight lifted, that there is always the looming reality that up to now, it hasn't been enough to keep that giant wave from crashing and pulling me back out into that ocean where i'll just tread and try to swim back. maybe i feel like i finally got to the shore, to the place where if you stand, the water just reaches your ankles as it rolls in and back out to be another wave crashing and unfolding. and i feel like maybe, today, i feel like i swam far enough, or, maybe i've had enough people the last couple of days helping me, dragging me to the shore, swimming besides me, and that i lie there now watching shovels and buckets being dragged in and out besides me.
i guess i'm wondering what happens now. do i get up and stand? or am i gonna lie here for a while and try to catch my breathe? and if i try to catch my breathe, will there then be the possiblity of another wave building up behind me and being so large and full of force that it'll crash around me and on its way back out, will the water drag me back out with it? or will i pump my fists into the sand and dig my arms in and try to hold on with all i can from being dragged out again? can you really fight against the force of anything tidal?
i feel like i've been waiting for a day like today since i got back here in march. and here it is. and now i'm left wondering what to do next. i told richard yesterday, i know that i can fight, i know i can stand, whether i have it in me or not anymore is another question, but i know i can, whether it's true who knows at this point, who's to say how much i've lost of myself in all of this, but again, it's like i said to richard, i know what it'll take, to stand, but the question that i keep going back to is why stand? what am i getting up for? for what i had before i fell? or that tidal wave hit me? what was there before this? do i really want to save myself only to realize that i'm saving myself to be right back where i was. where i am. i'm supposed to stand up to face the continous reality that no matter how many people tell me they're in my life, that i know that, that i still don't feel that. and there's a difference. and that i'm only going to go through the fight to put myself back together to realize that the thing that was missing all along is still not there. and the reality that i no longer believe that it ever will be there. the idea that 24 (almost) years spent like this and how if i stand, that i'll have to prepare myself for the idea of spending another 24 and living like that. it's like i don't want to spend another 24, or 48, or 2 years with that missing piece. and i've existed without it for so long. and i got to the point where i was completely okay living without it. but now, i look at where i was, and i realize that i'd be picking myself up and going through the hell of standing only to be right back at that place. that loneliness is still there. that desire for love is still there. and the reality that i've never felt love, or been in love, will be there. and it's like, "mike, go through all this work to be right back at that spot where you were okay." and i just don't want to, i don't want to go back to convincing myself that that's okay. that it's not forever. and that i just need to wait. that it'll come to me. put myself back together to end up in that place where i wasn't okay, where i wasn't happy, where i was just existing with this hope that it'll come, or even to that place where i came to terms with being alright on my own, it's that place, that place i keep questioning, why fight to get there. it obviously wasn't enough to keep me standing after everything happened, after everything that's happened after, it's like, "okay. i did it. i'm back together. i did it. okay... ::looks around:: ...and here i am. back to where i started from. right. great. because this was such a great place to be." and it's like, the lesser of two evils. do i stay where i am now. or. do i go back to that place where i was functioning and together but still not feeling like i'll ever get what's missing.
i know the answer to that one. today made me realize that at the very least i have to get back to functioning and that i have to try and go through the hell that is pulling myself together. as much as that will leave me demolished in its own way. and i'll do it all to go back to where i was at. or maybe there's a third option in here that i'm unable to imagine. where i'll be in a whole new place. how the fuck do i know. i just feel like this fight is awaiting me and at the end, when my boxing glove is thrust into the air and someone throws a belt at me and the crowd goes wild, and the flashes go off and capture me there with broken ribs and black eyes and covered in blood and sweat, i just keep wondering what it's all worth, knowing that i'll have the belt, i'll have the audience cheering, i'll have the satisfaction that i beat an opponent that was impossible to beat, and i'll be there, in that moment, and everyone will be waiting for me to yell out a name, unable to see clearly due to my eyes being so bruised, and everyone will be waiting for that epic moment where at the end of the fight rocky screams out that name, and i'll just be there in that ring alone, with a fist in the air and a championship belt in the other, bruised and broken but the winner, and i'll just spin in circles trying to find a name to call out, someone to call out to.
if it counts for anything, i guess after today, i realize that i need to jump in the ring. at the very least i can walk away from today with that. and when the waves come crashing in and the tide tries to pull me back out, and it will, the tides don't stop, only calm for moments, i'll have to just tell myself that i weigh more than a plastic bucket and shovel. and i'll have to tell myself that waves can't catch you when you're inland and away from that rolling shore, and the only way to leave that shore is to walk, and keep walking until you get to a place where you can sit on the roof of a car facing that ocean and think back to the days spent trying to remember how to swim, how to turn the bad in you into good again.
and if anything, if i can't find a reason to get in that ring, i at least know that big would want me to get in that ring. and i can make that my reason. it's a good reason to go through the jabs and uppercuts, it's a big reason.
i sat in the library and i couldn't write. i tried to start something new, the thing richard wanted, the story i started yesterday, i even went back to work on TX, and then some story i had started during winter break and nothing.
i got nothing.
and it's due tuesday. and i have work tomorrow. so it needs to be done today.
back in the library. nowhere near closer to finishing either the short story ode to 2046 that i was conjuring up yesterday and now i'm gonna try and start the piece richard has been asking me to write all semester long. although, i tried to start it yesterday and got nothing, really. but i thought about it this morning and realized that there's an angle to it that would be interesting to see how it comes out. again. easy in theory, but fingers to keyboard and who knows what'll happen.
i'm madly in love with paul banks and interpol. and 2046. but interpol more.
anyway.
once again i'm using this craptrap to get my head all relaxed, much like yesterday's ramble explosion did, and so i can actually just write for a change. not sure what there is to talk about today though. my neighbor's woke me up yesterday fucking. as in they were banging. loudly. i heard them both. then last night i passed out at some point, around 9, for a nap or something, and my eyes opened to the sound of them fucking. again. and i was just like, "what the fuck."
they're the beating heart under my floorboard of the thing i tried to bury and forget yet there it beats. there it haunts me.
i have work on monday. not sure if i'm gonna go. also got work friday and saturday. it was my week off and working two nights this weekend so i can get my two submissions done during the week. whatever. either way, we'll see if i bother waking up tomorrow or bother not walking out. this is my last week of school work though. i thought about that. what it's gonna be like when the semester is over and all i have to do is go to work and write and hang out. it seems like it'll be pretty cool.
spoke to kat last night about where our shows have taken us. she's got a series finale coming up and i remember mine and what that was like. it was kinda crazy. maybe a part of me wishes i was back there so i can do it all over again. i wouldn't change a thing though. those last few episodes were pretty amazing. except my birthday. but even then i can remember big being there. but of those last few episodes i can remember all of us getting dressed at 72, ryan losing something, i think it was like his ticket to get in or something and how we all just ran around the house looking for it. i remember all our families were in. paul and kelly slept in my room the night before graduation and that night, as i spoke with them in the kitchen, carl walked in and was totally drunk and i remember just laughing at him as he spoke to my brother and kelly and he was so drunk. and i was just like, "yeah. that's carl. i think he might've just said his balls itch. he'll pass out soon. don't worry." and i remember that carl slept on the couch and i slept on the other one that night and we both woke up around the same time the morning of graduation and sort of laughed there for a while and took in the reality of the day together. and i just remembered that carl stayed with us for a couple of days that week since he didn't have his place anymore. they all went on a bender too if i remember correctly. i remember all our families coming in and being there. calling the rusty nail to make sure everything was a go for our last last supper. graduation was filled with people, and we all sat next to each other. we all walked up together. we all stood up together and realized we had made it through, and i did at the time, and maybe the guys did too, but i realized that i wouldn't have been standing there i don't think if it wasn't for them. i remember this feeling washing over me that we were the reasons we had gotten to that point. by being there for each other during the last four years.
i remember my goodbye scene with big. and how crazy it was. i remember saying goodbye to ry and carl and bob at 72. adam was already gone. i remember the last drive i took in the pathfinder, packed up with my entire life, i remember driving up to campus and past the library and i took a picture and i drove down to 82 and as i waited in the traffic jam to get there i started to choke up and i remember laughing at myself as i sat there a blubbering mess amongst all these cars that i was slowly passing and i might've looked over at one point and seen a girl in a packed car of her own blubbering away too. and i realized that we're all blubbering messes waiting to get on the road to get us out of there.
i remember that i listened to the stills album and the song that played me onto the onramp and onto 82 was "yesterday never tomorrows" and i remember i saw people driving by me crying also and i remember taking a deep breathe and taking in the mountains and the open green fields and the small highway towns and the barns and the farms and this place that i was leaving and i played that song again i remember, after it was over, and i listened to it and felt what it was like to leave, what it felt like to live through an ending and drive myself into whatever was coming next.
i knew a summer on LI was coming. i knew DC was coming. i didn't know it'd be the last time i ever saw carl. i didn't know that the next time i drove by those mountains and on 82 and drove through a deserted summer cortland, past 72, parked to walk around campus, i never realized that i'd be back up there so soon, a little over a month and a half later, and that i'd be passing by to drive up to rochester to carl's funeral, to carry his casket with the other guys to and from the altar as we sat in the front row and allowed ourselves to knowledge that we had no clue what an ending was like until that moment. i remember walking the casket back outside and how none of us had a dry eye and how a part of me realized that everyone was watching us and there was a small part of me that wanted to be strong about it because everyone was watching but i couldn't be, and i didn't want to be, i just wanted to feel it all, feel my hand on that casket. i think that was the real season finale for that show. because i believe it was when i realized that that moment of our lives was over.
ryan was here the other weekend and we both got drunk and were sitting on my couch and emily went to the bathroom and we just sat there and i leaned over and told him that i think that after carl passed away, that my fear of losing everything got worse, that it was there before he died, it maybe was always there, but that afterwards, it just grew and consumed me. i wondered out loud how what it's done to us. what it's done to me. that we lived through that. he let me lean my head against his shoulder and stay like that for a while. maybe to prove to me that he hasn''t gone anywhere, that i haven't lost him, that he's there.
---
annnnywaaaayyy.
not sure where that came from.
my head's been a mess as of late. with all my defenses destroyed, these days, it's like i stay still for too long and things that i haven't thought about in a while just come up out of nowhere.
i was looking at the arc, and talking to kat about this too, of the current show. i was looking at where i started at and where i'm at now. we both spoke of the idea of december being the series finale for mine and i said that it's hard to imagine that they leave the show off without a sense of hope for the future, for the audience, that they have to really, it's what you do in season finales. but then i think about the arc and where i've been left, and with this season finale coming up soon and then the extended summer season, which really at this point i have no clue if it's going to happen since for all i know contract negotiations went awry and they're not doing the summer season and just chucking me back to LI, but, either way, with the season finale coming up in may and summer too and then the last season of the show, i've gotta sit back and wonder two things. first, can there really be a light at the end of the tunnel in december, at the end, and if there is and i convince myself of that, i mean, how do i possibly get myself to a point b that seems so fucking far away. and second, who's to say that the entire arc of the show all along hasn't been just this; my demolition. who's to say when the story ends. but all i know is that the ratings get better the lower they take me and i don't know how much more of this i can handle before i gotta quit the show completely or at least stop and ask if the writers are finished shitting on me, as fun and as amazing as people find that to be compellingly good tv, that really, there's only so much one guy can get shit on before be can't take it anymore.
i'm waiting for some sun. that's all i want. sun, sun, sun.
because it's gotten way too dark. and i'm ready for a new storyline to start up. and i'm tired of shaking at the thought of where the current storyline is leading me. and i'm sick of this place i'm in. but for whatever reason, can't see my way out of it, i can't see and end to it. and how much am i expected to be put through for the sake of ratings?
i realized this morning that i don't want it to be like this. and then i wondered about how maybe i've always been like this.
[warning: moreso than most of my entries, this one might cause total brain explosion due to the length of my ramblings. so say i didn't warn you. i mean this is mike from the future here long after i finished this thing and went back to look at it and hold geez this fucker is long. again. just had to put out a disclaimer on that in case anyone sues me for it later.]
yeah.
in the library. i figure if i write the majority of my fic submission i'll today i can do my workshop work for the week tomorrow. i have work on monday. note to self: wait until the semester is over until you start a job. i figure my nonfic for thursday is this big mess that i can just fix up as much as i can during the week after or before work/class. and yeah. pretty much i gotta get through this week and i'm pretty much over with school work. minus a couple of more writeups. but really, next week is the end. after that, summer. summer. summer. it's summer. seriously, it doesn't seem like it's gonna be here. same goes with my birthday. i guess i'm so caught up in where i'm at i keep looking around and realizing that time is moving forward and that april is nearing the end and may is here. it's like i have no concept that somehow i'm still moving, that regardless of whether i stay crawled in a ball on my bed trying not to move in slow-mo that the world around me is still moving forward and taking it with it.
it's strange. it's going to be a different summer. truthfully, i'm not sure what to do at this point. i got halfway through work on thursday and realized i didn't want to be there. i seriously had to control my breathing and just try to get a handle on my head because i just wanted to punch out and leave and just cut and run. i thought about what it'd be like if i went back to LI. sheila put it best that i'd only be going back there to escape. which isn't way off. and which i have trouble seeing how that could be a bad thing. what's wrong with escaping. i can look around and see what my life has been here this last semester and where i've ended up and i guess there's this huge fear in me that it'll just remain as this, or, the weight will be too great and i won't be able to carry it all and it'll just get worse.
i love talking in vagueries. anyway. home. i called rob about seeing if he could hook me up with a job. i thought about what it'd be like being back there and not working at LSC and how much i'd hate that. knowing that it was going on while i was back there and not being there. either way, wherever i am i gotta work. which sucks. but at least i'd have my family around to drive me nuts and focus on that. at least i'd have a car to drive around in for hours and hours until i realize that i have to turn around and head back, and that you can only drive so far before you realize that you gotta turn around. the baby would be there. which would be nice. i'd get to hang out with it. i keep getting these flashes of being the absent uncle, kinda like my uncles have been. i mean, understandably considering they're all in colombia. but still. that's not what i want for the kid. at least that's not what i want to be. that's not to say i can't make it home whenever i have a weekend off during the summer. but it's weird, the fact that i got to this point and i'm considering the possiblity of this. of li for the summer. and really, if you would've asked me in january if that would've been the case, i would've laughed in your face. but now, i look around and i just keep wondering what it'll be like here, staying here for the summer, and i weigh that against going back to LI and i wonder which of the two is the lesser evils. well. LI would be the lesser evil. or not. i don't know. all i know is that i'm afraid of what's going to happen to me if things don't get better and if my head doesn't get right.
i keep getting two images in my head.
the first is of that scene from amazing spiderman where spidey is holding up something, it's usually this big machine, but then sometimes it's a mountain, and it's the scene where spidey holds it up because aunt may is underneath it. and i really am blending together two comic book moments i think, because i'm pretty sure that it was hulk that held up the mountain, during secret wars, but either way, that's the image, except i'm spidey, and i'm holding up this mountain, or this weight because half the time i'm underneath it, and it's like i keep telling everyone to get out, and i'm busy yelling at people, and i'm trying to tell people scurrying to get out from underneath this thing i'm holding up and that's making my knees buckle all the things that i wanted to always tell them, it's like, i feel as if in my life i meet people and with certain people i keep close there are things i want to leave them with, that when we leave each other i can know that at the very least i made this small impact on them and i try to do it in however many lines i can as they try to get out. and in the end everyone is out except one who refuses to move and i keep looking down at him and i keep telling him to get up. "get up, you fool. run. i can't hold this thing up for much longer." and i look down and realize that the guy on the ground not moving, refusing to get up, unable to or not wanting to, that the guy is me. and i see myself for a split second and i don't recognize myself. i look tired, bags under my eyes, a shaved head, cuts on my arms, i've lost weight, there's a huge hole in my chest like a shotgun blew my heart out of my ribcage and i'm not moving. and i look down at myself, the me that's holding the mountain, and i see the same gunshot wound through the chest and the blood pouring out and i can only look at the me on the ground, struggling to get up and out in time, "come on, one of us has to get out. or at the very least help me hold this up." but so far, the me on the ground hasn't gotten up. and the me holding up that mountain is barely keeping it up. the me holding up the mountain thinks about how much longer can he really hold this mountain up. and he shakes all day long, his legs, his arms, his whole body just shakes from this weight trying to crush him, and he spends his days debating the worth of it all, the worth of the body on the ground struggling to get up and the body breaking under the weight of this mountain, and with each passing moment he runs out of excuses to save the two of them knowing that neither one of them will get out. but he spends his days shaking under the weight of that mountain anyway. and he's not sure why. maybe he believes that if the guy on the ground gets up and helps out that together they'll be able to hold it up, to get out even. maybe he believes that someone will send for help, the ones who got out, and that they'll come back with someone, or everyone to help lift this thing enough so that the one holding the mountain can scoop up the one on the ground and run out in time. or perhaps, in the end, the one on the ground is done and there's no hope for him, and the one holding up the mountain, trying to give himself the reasons to keep holding it up, that really, in the end, he's just afraid of what will happen if he lets go. even though he knows he won't feel a thing compared to the feeling of his body being crushed, and the gaping hole in his chest and the pain it brings will be over, and the breaking bones and shaking will stop. in the end, he realizes that his fear of the dark is enough to keep him there under that weight. but still, there's only so much holding up one can do of a weight before, regardless of the willpower of one, the body betrays you and it gives out, no body can hold up that weight forever. i guess i wonder after i picture this image and it plays out in my head, i guess i wonder which one of me is lying on the ground, my mind or my body, and which one is still it all up. i wonder how long my mind can hold up without its heart. i wonder how long a body can hold up without its heart.
the second image i get is a room, it's dark and only moonlight comes in through a window on my left and i'm holding a door closed and the room is filled with people and they're all escaping and i'm telling them to fucking run before i can no longer hold the door closed and i say all the things i've always wanted to say to each one of them as they escape and save themselves and i see each one of them one by one go until i'm alone in that room and there's no longer an exit or entrance and the only door is the one behind me with that force trying to get in and i'm there, using all my force to keep it closed and i keep looking around at the room i'm trying to protect from whatever's on the other side of that door, i look and see that there's no one left in that room to protect, to hold it closed for, that it's empty and i'm the only one left in there, and i start to wonder under the strain why hold it closed anymore, and whether the pain of it all is worth sparing myself. and that there's no way out of the room. and that if i let go that i'll be the only one it gets. and i hold the door closed regardless, and i slowly slide down the door until i'm on the ground with my back against it, trying to keep it closed. and i stay there. i sit there. staring at that room, my body aching, my mind giving up, my heart wishing i wasn't alone in the room but too bruised and broken to be any help other than that of wishing there was hope. and i haven't moved yet but i'm running out of reasons to.
and at the end of entertaining this though, i think two things. the first, i wonder what would happen if i got up and stood against the wall, faced the door, and waited until whatever was on the other side of that door finally just broke in. i wonder if i'd feel like i'd given up, or if i'd feel like i wasn't enough of a reason to stay there against that door. i wonder what this room is. what it means. and whether all i have left in the end is this room. that this is what's left in my life, an empty room with no exit and a window with moonlight and the night sky coming through. i wonder what it is on the other side of that door that's about to break in. and there's a moment i have as i stand against that wall where the banging and shaking of the door is still going on and nothing comes through, so instead i walk over and i open the door to get it over with. and i open it and there's nothing on the other side, just a hallway that i look down and see that there's nothing there. and i step back from that doorway and i just stare at the force behind the door that i was so afraid of letting come in and i realize that nothing was there all along. and i look around at the room i'm in and i realize that maybe it already got in. and that it took everything i had with it. leaving me there alone in the dark. the struggle to keep the door closed was futile i realize, that i was trying to hold a door closed for so long and there was no point to it really. that all my force and my will pressed against that door, keeping me there, that it didn't count for anyhthing, and that ultimately it got in anyway and took everything i had with it. maybe what i was trying to keep out of that room was just that; the moment where i'd look around and realize that i was alone.
there's a second conclusion that alternates with the first. this one leaves me in a different place. i'm still against the wall and there's still banging and shaking of that door from the other side, and as i stand against that wall, nothing comes in. and i'm alone there in that room with that window looking out into only the night and the moonlight coming through and i stand against that wall and i'm scared of what's on the other side of that and there's banging and shaking of the doorknob but i stand there and i wonder what's worse, standing there alone with the anticipation of wondering when whatever's on the other side of that door will finally get through and take me, and not knowing how long i'll have to live like that, if i'll grow old against that wall forever staring at that door and waiting for something to get through, or, if it'd be worse to just walk over and get it over with and voluntarily be the one who choses to open that door and forever know that i welcomed whatever was on that side of the door into this empty room and i called upon myself whatever fate it delivers. do i grow old waiting for the day it breaks through, wondering when it'll happen, or, be the one who brings it upon myself to let it in and let in whatever it will do to me? i walk up to the door and i open it, realizing that i can't grow old like this, i can't grow old forever staring at a door waiting for it to be broken down. i open the door and step back, walk backwards to the wall and press myself against it and the door slowly swings open and i stand there and see what is on the other side of the door. i see everyone i know. the entire hallway in this one goes back as far as i can see, there's another window far off in the back, and i stand there and look at everyone i've ever known and loved and bumped into and cared for and i see them all there, not saying anything, just staring at me, filling up that hallway, wall to wall people, all of them trying to look into the room. and i stand there against that wall on the inside, pressed against it i slide down until i'm on the floor, leaning against it, and i press my head back against the wall as they all watch me go down, the ones in the back leaning on their toes to get a look. and i sit there in a slump and i realize what it all means. i realize that i cleared out the room and left myself alone in there. i realize that i'm the room. and the thing i was trying to keep out was everyone who was trying to save me. and i realize that the entire time i was afraid of what was on the other side of the door and that perhaps it still rings true. perhaps i'm scared of the people who will save me, because what if i open that door and no one is there, but really, i did open the door and everyone was there, but still, i sit there against that wall and i realize that all along i was fighting and struggling and pressing myself against that door and busting muscles and straining and doing everything i could to keep that door closed, i was doing all i could to keep myself alone in that room and the help i wanted, i was the one keeping them all out and refusing to let anyone else in. i was the one keeping myself alone in that room and refusing to let anyone else in, that all along i was fighting to keep myself in there alone and to keep any sense of hope or help out. and they just stand there and they all stare at me there on the ground, perhaps allowing me to come to this realization before they come into the room, afraid that i've gotten use to being in a room alone and that the reality of realizing that other people can be in that room, that they all want into that room, they're afraid of changing what i had gotten use to out of fear, the idea of dying in that empty room alone, an old man forever alone in there, and they'd take their time coming in, until they'd surround me and make me realize that other people can be in the room with me. they'll take their time and in a sea of people surrounding me there against that wall, they''ll all lean their arms over one another and in semi-circle rows of people who were out there banging to get in, they'll outstretch their hands and reach for me, the ones in the front reaching me, and the ones in the back reaching to let me know they're there reaching to touch me, to let me know that they're there reaching. and i'd look up and see this sea of hands on me, above me, reaching to hold me, to touch me, to feel me there, and i'd close my eyes and feel them all there around me, those people who want nothing more than to feel me there. but instead i open my eyes and i'm still there against that wall, on the ground, and they're all out there in the hallway staring down at me from that doorway. and i lay on my side. and stare sideways at their sea of legs that look like a forest of limbs stretching for miles to any ant that might crawl by. and i stay there with my head against the ground. and i hear someone say, "can we come in?" but i can't answer. or i don't. maybe i'm just exhausted at that point. or relieved. but either way, drained and depletd. "can we come in?" "let us come in." "you let us know when we can." "we're here, mike." "take your time." "you're alright now, mike." "don't let go, mike." "you're tired, rest, we'll be here watching." "it's about time...ouch... what? someone had to say it. we've been out here forever knocking on that damn door trying to get him to open it, and my feet hurt... ouch! hey that hurt." "we won't let anything come in there." "we're all here watching you." "we love you mike." "we're not going anywhere." "can we come in?" and i just lay there and listen to everything they say and i wonder why i don't answer them, why i still stay there in that room alone, exhausted, on the ground, not knowing what to do or say next, only knowing that this empty room is all i've come to know and all i've become. i wonder if i kept the room closed off for a reason, to protect them all from it, and i lay there and think about closing the door on them to spare them this room, no one should have to be in this room, i wonder what would happen if i slid my body around and used my foot to close the door on them. i wonder if they'd keep knocking, if i'd try again to hold it closed, if i'd just lay there and perhaps realize that my fate is this room, alone. and why would i want to bring anyone else into this place knowing that i might never leave it. i wonder if i'd close the door on them all and accept my fate. and i wonder if i did, if there'd be one that would push through the rest, through all of them, like moses parting some red sea of people, and i wonder while the rest of them stood there banging on that door and trying to get back in, that this one person would be the one to make their way to the front of the pack and dropkick that door open until we both were there on the ground staring at each other. and maybe we'd both laugh. maybe i'm waiting for the one who will dropkick the door and leave themself on the ground inside the room on top of the shards of that wooden door, sitting up and looking over at me. i'm waiting for the one who will barge in regardless of whether the door is open or closed. who i'll look at and say, "you can't fix this." and that person sitting there on top of that dropkicked door will look at me and say, "i know that. but i'm in here with you now. for whatever that's worth." and i'd slide my hand over the floor and we'd touch hands. "i'm here," i'd hear.
* * *
knock loud, i'm home just sleeping to past the time wondering if you'll come by to visit me
ten years have passed since you walked out of my life but late last night, in the pharmacy you were in the line in front of me so i ran away to hide
"knock loud, i'm home" i wrote in black felt pen took that sign and taped it to the door
if you come in, to see how i have been, make sure the door is closed behind you. stand above me when i'm poised do plunge through my heart attack kills the worst of me said i was sorry drink to forget i wake up alone knock loud i'm home.
1. "when you don't take 'no' for an answer, there is still a chance you'll get what you want."
2. "i have a secret to tell you. will you leave with me?"
3. "he didn't turn back. it's as if he boarded a very long train headed for a drowsy future through the unfathomable night."
4. "take care. maybe one day you'll escape your past. if you do, look for me."
5. "do you remember you asked me if there was anything i wouldn't lend? i've given it a lot of thought and now i know there is one thing i'll never lend to anyone."
6. "love is all a matter of timing. it's no good meeting the right person too soon or too late. if i'd live in another time or place, my story might have had a very different ending."
* * *
lines like that make me want to write. and not stop. until i write something remotely close to being that amazing.
i'm sitting here in the library. grad student quiet room. i have workshop at 5:30. i haven't done writeups, i still need to read one of the subs, my short story is behind this page. i could probably finish it all by 5:30. but i'm not sure if i want to. i'm tired. i think i decided to stop drinking again. i mean, really, i think all along i've been fooling myself into thinking that i have enough control over myself. i didn't drink for a few years. and if i did i'd only have one beer and that's it. everyone knew that too. just one. and that's it. if i even had any. a lot of that was because i knew where my head was at. i always kept that in check. i knew when my head wasn't right, and when i knew that, i'd know that the last thing an addictive personality and borderline alcoholic like myself needs is something to use as an escape from everything. i knew then what i would do if i realized how easy it was to just give in and drink myself numb. drink it all away. it'd be so easy. just to let go like that.
and now here i am, all these years later, drinking consistently, realizing that my head is not in the right place for it. when i moved here to d.c. i started drinking again. i'm not sure how i justified it, maybe that everyone here who i went out with went out to have fun with a couple of drinks and not to drink as much as they can and then see who they could fight. which i hated about cortland. i use to go out, whenever i did go out, and just watch each hour pass by and more and more i'd get more and more anxious knowing that people were getting drunker and drunker and being assholes and like on the verge of getting into fights or just all around being assholes to people. i hated it. that's why i never stuck around. that's why i opted to go back to the house or my room and just spend the rest of the night alone in my room writing or watching movies.
but here. i justified it to myself that the people i drink with here, that they drink to have a good time. and not ruin other people's good times. and it's like, i convinced myself that i could drink here. and i completely forgot about the idea that i can't drink when my head's not right. that i should know when i'm in a place where an excuse to escape like that could easily just break through my defenses and take over.
take my smoking for example. i've allowed that to progress to a ridiculous rate. and that's knowing that my head is not in a good place, regardless, i didn't stop myself and now look at me. a pack a day.
and drinking? i've noticed that, as mitch puts it, i go to the bad place moreso on those nights that i drink. it's like, i just give up and let go and i try to just numb myself and i realized this morning what i did last night and i just realize that maybe i shouldn't drink. i had my last anxiety/panic attack two weeks ago, and i drank that night. last night i had another one.
the hard part is gonna be to stop. the harder part is living with myself knowing that i need to stop. and the hardest part is gonna be giving myself a reason to stop. because it's so easy. it's so easy to feel nothing. and maybe that's all i want to feel right now and i'd be taking that ability to feel numb away from myself. the hardest part is giving myself a justifiable excuse to stop.
i've ended up in the hospital twice because of drinking when my head wasn't right. i've woken up in a hospital bed strapped down, unable to move, and having no idea about what i might've done or what happened.
i should know better.
but really, i read somewhere this semester that it's the bad stuff in our lives that people frown upon, and how they're looked down on by society and whoever, and like, regardless of how they're bad things, like drinking, or smoking, whatever, regardless, the things that are bad for us also make us feel better. feel alright. help us live. help us get by. help us function. they help when nothing else is making us right.
so what's it gonna be then?
go back to being the guy who sits there drinking juice or nursing one beer for however many hours while people sit and wonder why would someone be out at a bar watching other people drink, when really, what other option for companionship do some people have when all their friends either sit around in there respective apartments or end up going out to a bar to get together. and it's like, people telling you that a couple of drinks won't hurt and you just have to sit there and smile and nod and debate whether they'll even remember talking to you, if anything they're saying to you is actually genuine or just a filtered drunk version of them, and you just have to sit there and remind yourself that a couple of drinks is all it'll take to let go and not stop.
do i go back to that? i'm remembering how annoying that got to be around so many drunk people while being sober and how not fun it is, to put it simply. it made me feel even more isolated and on the outside. and the paranoia that the looks i'd get from the people at 40 homer, my own house, people who i didn't even know, when they'd see me walking around and they'd look over at me and realize that i wasn't at all drunk or drinking.
i love bob, ry, carl, and adam. and the girls. because really, they made it so bearable. the way they guys would all drink out of my cup whenever they saw me against some wall at whichever house party we were at, or the way they'd pour out some of their beers into my cup so it looked like i was refilling and drinking just like everyone else. i'll always love them for that.
i should stop on my birthday.
maybe sooner but for my birthday. and go the entire year sober just to prove to myself that i can do it.
i should.
but again.
that's the hardest part. especially now. knowing how it's become essential to being a reason to go out. and how it's become essential to finding a break in between falling apart.
but then again i think back to last night and lying on my closet floor with the phone against the floor and unable to move and having to be told how to breathe and that feeling of not being able to stand up. or not wanting to stand up.
i think about last night and i think i realize what i need to do.
but the question is do i want to?
do i even give a fuck anymore?
i've been searching for reasons that i haven't been finding anywhere, about so much in my life right now, i've been trying to find reasons and i haven't been able to find one.
i just thought about high school.
about that week where i spent a couple of days drinking, and finishing, a bottle of johnny walker red and whatever else i found in the house. i'd drive to school, park, and then drink. and just spend my time wandering around. falling into my english class wearing a burger king crown and not realizing what it means to be subtle.
i remember standing out in the parking lot, after my friend's had once again driven my car home and i was with dave, he was going to bring me to nish's to sleep, or to my house, i don't remember which day i did what, but i remember standing out there in that parking lot and dave was yelling at me. he was just so angry at me. and he was yelling loudly. and i remember looking at his face and how angry he was, at how scared he was.
he asked me, "mike, going on? what's wrong?" he yelled it though.
and i tried to fight it, but couldn't, and it was at that moment that i broke down, and i fell into him and i just let go and felt everything i had been trying to drown, and it's something i'll never forget, just the way he took me into his arms and, being bigger than i was, he just held me there as i fell apart for the first time that week. i just remember the feeling of being engulfed by him and my face against his chest and his arms around me and i remember how protected i felt.
i don't remember the answer i gave him. to what was wrong. before i broke down and fell into him. it might've just been, "i don't know." but if i think about it, it could've been, "i'm just feel so alone."
one of these days i'm going to ask dave, if i ever see him again anytime soon, if he remembers that day. and what i said. and if i did in fact say that it was my loneliness at the time that i was trying to escape from. and i want to ask him if how he felt seeing me there like that, and whether he wished i could've just stood from afar and seen the scared drunk kid with all the arms around him.
i sit here now and i think about whether i'm still that scared drunk teenager who feels so fucking alone, who's always felt alone, who's always felt like his loneliness is killing him, who's convinced himself that he's older now and no longer the wreck he use to be, who's waiting for someone to fall into.
...we're quiet on the ride, we're all just waiting to get home. another week away, my greatest fear. i need the smell of summer, i need its noises in my ears. if looks could really kill, then my profession would be staring. know we do this cause we care and not for the thrill. collect calls to home to tell them that i realize that everyone who lives will someday die and die alone...
i wrote more postcards than hooks. i read more maps than books. feel like every chance to leave is another chance i should have took. every minute is a mile. i've never felt so hollow. i'm an old abandoned church with broken pews and empty aisles. my secrets for a buck. watch me as i cut myself wide open on this stage. yes, i am paid to spill my guts. i won't see home till spring. oh, i would kill for the atlantic, but i am paid to make girls panic while i sing...
and the coastline is quiet. while we're quietly losing control. and we're silent but sure we invented the cure that will wash out my memories of [you]. "the harpoon is loaded. the cage is lowered. the water is red." like you, like you.
and we won't let you in. though we're down and out. no we won't let you in. and we won't let you in. we don't want what isn't ours. we won't let you in. you win, you win, you win.
(i will play my game beneath the spin light. brand new.)
"tell you what. the truth is... sometimes i miss you so much i can hardly stand it."
* * *
i was just sitting here and i thought about K.
"K." i find myself saying it out loud, just randomly, not really realizing that it's on the tip of my tongue and i say it. i say that name out loud. and then it's like i stop whatever i'm doing, i look down at my slice of easter sunday pizza.
but tonight was different.
instead of letting the name float back to wherever it stays hidden and dormant until those moment it slips out like that, tonight i ended up sitting with that thought. i'm not sure why. i think the last few days i've been sitting around a lot thinking about the idea of hope. and how we sometimes hold on to hope. why we hold on to hope. for so long. and how do we lose that hope?
this all started with big calling me and telling me about stopping in DC next week. how we need to see each other. and it's like, from that, i realized how that made me feel. to see each other again. and like, i felt this sense of comfort at how that episode that comes up every season, with the special guest appearance of big, that how it's coming around and i don't know. it made me think about what hope i have left there. even knowing that life big has now. and at the idea of how in the end, i have the comfort of knowing that big has been the one who's stayed, who i haven't lost, who comes back. something can be said about having that consistency and not having lost it. that special guest appearance ever season. but regardless, i think it's from something i had spoken with richard about in march, about this idea of how hope is there sometimes, even if we didn't realize it, that hope is there.
anyway. if anything, K is a constant reminder that we can't kill hope. even if we believe we have. and that scares me i guess, the idea of carrying around this futile sense of hope, what's the point of it? what's the point of it?
K. i said the name out loud. and again, i usually escapes my lips like a breathe, a sigh, just really unconsciously until i hear it, until i hear the name and i realize that i've just said it again. i don't do it often, but i do it. and there it is. and tonight i actually let myself sit back and think about K.
and i pictured K walking in on dinner, here in DC, at some restuarant, dimly lit, with lots of tables, and all my friends would be around our large circular table, and we'd all be laughing and talking and eating and i'd look up and see K there. "what are you doing here?" i'd say. "i came for you." "why?" "because i realized that i was wrong. that maybe i've always been imagining that you'd be the one to come for me, and it hit me that maybe i was the one who was supposed to come and get you all along." i'd sit there looking at K. and K would say, "you said you'd always drop everything for me. that if i ever came back, if i ever were to ask you to come with me, that you would. that all it would take was for me to ask, to ask you to come with me." "that's back when i knew you. and you knew me. i have a life here." "you know me. you always have. you've always known me." "what do you want from me." "you said if i ever got the guts to ask you, that you'd drop it all, that nothing would matter but this. so here i am, i'm here asking you to come with me."
and then it stopped. and i snapped out of it. and i looked around. and i shook my head. i was a little annoyed, a little down about the very idea of entertaining that scenario in my head, allowing it to play out without ripping down the scenery and the lighting and kicking everyone off the soundstage. but i thought about it. i realized that that scenario would never happen. i'd be lucky to ever see K again, and, when we do meet up again someday, we'll both be two different people, and i don't know what we'd say to each other. if we would even say anything. i wonder sometimes if i would ever look up at K on that occassion and ask, "why didn't you ever come back for me?" but that wouldn't be fair for either one of us. K has been running from me since the day i said those 7 words. and hasn't stopped. running from me.
all of this brings me back to the idea of hope. how i am not conscious of it all the time, perhaps it's my subconscious that lets out that name from my vocal chords every time, but if i stop long enough instead of letting the name spoken disappear into the background, i realize that there is still that hope there for that day when maybe, just maybe, K will show up. and i'd like to say that that hope is only there for K, and not for all the others, but i think that if i stopped and thought about it, that deep down i'd know that there might be that hope for each of the epics in my life that have come and gone. and i hate it. i hate knowing that there is still that sense of hope there, because it's futile. it shouldn't be there. it shouldn't be there anymore. not after all this time. of knowing that people have moved on and have lived lives apart for so long from me that it'd be impossible for any of us to know each other anymore. or maybe the hope shapes that too. the idea that deep down, heart may be bruised and scarred over time and distance, but, that ultimately, the heart is still the same, that no matter how much it gets beat up and demolished and section off and auctioned off and thrown into lakes away from us causing us to go in after them once we've gotten the strength to get up, that perhaps the hearts we've loved once still exist out there somewhere underneath the scars of time and heartbreak.
does hope make us? or does hope kill us?
and how do you let go of it? i have no clue. i think maybe the trick is to ignore it. to deny it. to bury it.
the hope of someone coming back, of bumping into someone who smiles at you and watches you walk away, of finally meeting someone who will take you knowing that you're the most broken person out there, nothing more than a pile of bones on the ground, and the hope that they will love you anyway. the hope that you'd be able to be loved in return, knowing full well that no one deserves to settle for someone as broken as i am.
do we ever get rid of all these futlile hopes that stay buried in the back of our heads, escaping only in those moments when you find yourself alone in your apartment sitting between piles of laundry waiting to be folded on easter sunday eating pizza, that escape in those moments when you find yourself standing across the room from someone who you can't keep your eyes off or stop yourself from thinking how they're the most beautiful person in the world, that you can't help but think will be nothing more than a name whispered years from now and hurt at knowing how people shouldn't have to wait for something right to go wrong, to leave, or to end.
---
i just went up to the rooftop with steve to drink a beer and chain smoke cigarettes while staring at the lightning in the distance and we even went over to the other side, through the candyman lair, and as i was looking over towards virginia and at the lightning striking in the distance, the bolts appearing and lighting up the sky out of nowhere, the cathedral in sight, along with the moon behind the clouds, i dunno, it was just kinda one of those moments where i realized that i was here right now. "be here now." and i was standing up there and thinking about work tomorrow and about the story needing revising and about the summer that's like almost here, and how it's gonna be my first summer off of long island, away from those beaches, and just here in dc without school to worry about, and just work and writing my thesis. and i guess i sort of stood up there and for that moment i sort of realized that all the ghosts, and all those buried hopes, that really, they get pushed back by the fact that maybe sometimes just being here now is enough. and a bunch of cigarettes and a heineken on a roof with a view kinda makes you realize that we got no control of what comes, and no control anymore of what's past, but at the very least, here, now, i can at least give myself the time to stand up on a roof and enjoy where i am. and maybe by doing that, that i won't spend so much time worrying about who has come and who has gone, about what will come, and who will go.
and maybe, who knows, while i'm busy staring off at the view of lightning bolts from a rooftop, someone will show up and kiss me in a style that clark gable would've admired.