He woke up, drank some coffee, and immediately began. The juices or whatever they are flowed and he caused trouble and generally acted as an annoyance. Frankly it was the only thing that he knew how to do. It was his thing.
A starter’s pistol in the hands of an arrested 31 year-old. Developed arrestment, that is. The days are almost at their fewest. Two more nights counting this, which makes time short and funny-feeling. It is a very good funny, in case you were wondering.
“That’s my thing. My thing that I do. That I spend the majority of my time here doing.” The unconscious inclusion of ‘here’ presupposes the existence of an elsewhere, of which there exists no certain knowledge. Stay the course then, but play the odds that this it. It would be absolutely ridiculous not to. There is an argument for a wasted 9 years. Though that depends on one’s definition of ‘wasted’. And you see, the argument falls in on itself in an intractable heap of sorrowness. The depressing strings gain sound, becoming louder and happier than any normal Tuesday evening.
A litany of open doors and literally no doors closed. I invite more and more to the shindig without the slightest concern for capacity. I then ruminate about the process after it is far too late, and I continue again, acting as if cognition never occurred. A filthy cycle.
The king of non-sequitors strolled down the hallway of lascivious charms, batting an eyelash here and waving a pinky there, all in service of the greater great, which coincidentally is better than the greater good. footnote 1 He swaddled through the tight spaces, made so by post-modern paintings the size of an average American hallway. The post-modernity of the art was a gripping thing to behold. I wish I had a longer span. Goodness, it would make things so much easier. The test is scientific in nature. I even used the method to investigate the phenomenon. It does not work as well as one would hope, for there are too many unknown factors. That is the Achilles’s heel of the entire enterprise: the vastness of the unknowns.
footnote 1 I had my fact checkers fact check it and everything. They have notes.
There it is. A communal experience strikes again. That’s what the headlines would read at least. I watch as the interruptions get louder and louder, and one can’t help but notice them and then inevitably engage with them, in a pseudo-epic battle, one that would make the hipsters stop and watch for 24 hours of their existence, until they moved on to something new of course. I keep stopping myself because I descend into cliche too easily. Again, something that comes with time. Time. Albatross. Back. There should be no other things to read. You should only read the LJ text. But continue to write, day in and day out. And for all that is holy in the life of a street vendor, be good.
I refuse to digress into music criticism. It is a slippery slope and no one ends up happy or satiated. I will continue on a path of nonsense for a while longer, until I find a “voice” (which is importantly in quotation marks because I am on the far-end of the self-awareness continuum, 99th percentile easily). I try to dissociate but, again, the knowledge of self consumes my every experience and behavior, down to thinking about thinking about thinking about writing. And seeing where that leads. What roads it opens up and what doors it closes, in a neverending haze of self-loathing selfy self selferson. Solipsism binds us. Now did Foster Wallace write that or did some NPR employee pithily break down his entire oeuvre in a way that even a D-III student can understand after they have taken English II? Perhaps I will choose the third person and just report on the proceedings with my own unique, learned take, impressing the semi-educated and pandering to the medium-well. The well would not buy one ounce of this tea-induced Kerouac wanna-be-ing. But at least let me do it. And press Create post and write another 200 or so words that come into my mind, some in order, others completely unaware of their own birthplace. They just arrive.
I will say that asking creativity out on a date has proved worthwhile, inasmuchas it has. Sometimes the words come easily and other times they are strained, a forcing out process being the best way to describe it. But the pattern has been nice. What, 11 out of 16? Not too bad at all. I very much need to proceed in a new direction soon. I don’t need to wed a voice or angle, I just need to do one all of the way through, maybe for five days. Stories beget stories beget better ones until you might have something good. Or maybe you’ll find out it is terrible. Either way, you’ll be told something and that is what is most important.
I just opened a heap of windows and the house is so cold that I can barely breathe. Literally: the temperature is having an effect on my lungs’ ability to do whatever they do with oxygen to keep me alive and in existence. What is the most logical next step? Close the windows, of course. And put on a comfortable and reasonable winter outfit before concentrating on one thing to do, with direction and intensity and performance. I still lack an imaginative vocabulary. Stephen King claims that it increases with increased writing and increased reading. I do neither. Perhaps that explains the unimagination. I’m just… Wow, a tidal wave of blank smashed across the horizon and there was a heavenly lack of everything for that brief moment when you can hear the cat’s collar jingle under your window and you still have the room light on, despite liking it but simultaneously disliking it for its lack of intimacy, its dull sky orange a refuge from reality.
I will take one step closer to the other side in a moment, after I give you the necessary attention and disgrace. Huh? Oh, “Why?” you ask. Because Freudian defense mechanisms rule all. It is a scientific fact, plain and simple. A relief really.
I don’t know why I play the game. The same thing happens over and over and over until the ad nauseumness of the experience becomes dull. Yet here I am, in all of my wasted December glory, playing the ephemeral game. It has me by its hooks and I am truly unable to penetrate toward anything even resembling productivity. I enjoy its morsely bits, so tempting and calorieless: “air” as the wife so lovingly calls it. I have actually done good for something approaching 9 or 10 days. That is of course something to scoff at, but give me my moment in the spotlight anyway. I matter, universe! (and other trivialities) That will be the title of my second book. The first, of course, being called A Brief Respite for Hedonism. Trying far too hard. Sad in too many respects. But I’m keeping it. There is no true sense of accomplishment associated with using a stream-of-consciousnessed title. If you would like an example of the banalification of art, you would have come to the right place. And I do not want to be associated with that or anything approaching it, even from 15 yards and an e-book publisher who somehow owns all of the rights to your masterpiece of solipsism and projection. An all-girls high school sophomore’s first cigarette and sexual experience. Something to reach for while I bide my time.
I have decided to go back 28 years, to a simpler time and a simpler place and the invention of jangle pop. footnote 1 Approximately 30 seconds to suss out what to say, so he just rambles and jumbles and dreams of Mondays. It all starts with ‘Radio Free Europe’. I didn’t even know that. Holy shit. This is one of the greatest “hello world” moments I have ever considered. The sheer catchiness of every single aspect of the tune is distracting.
He had never heard the song ‘Pilgrimage’ by R.E.M. In 31 years on the planet. To his knowledge. And his knowledge was most certainly correct. So this is why they’re beloved? Huh. A lot of wasted time and years lost. Might as well make Murmur your album. My Morning Jacket will be listened to, but Murmur wins. Only two songs in even. A new land speed record.
footnote 1 Not the technical invention. I’m being hyperbolic.
Readers Anonymous met on Tuesday evenings at 8:30pm in the Unitarian Church down the street from his third floor walkup. He took the trolley there every other Tuesday. He walked when he didn’t trolley. He still enjoyed a cigarette now and again, so there was always a pack in his breast pocket. He thought it made him look cool, like James Franco or Ryan Gosling. Or at least the Hollywood characterization of them. His contemporaries. footnote 1 On a particular Tuesday in December he decided it was time to speak, to give his first monologue to the helpless. He wore his scarf in a way that stated in no uncertain terms that he noticed minutiae and preferred life as such. The value of this character trait is still being discussed by a jury somewhere in Utah.
footnote 1 I could get technical and say that our narrator is incorrectly using the word ‘contemporary.’ But I won’t.
