no one has read or commented on my journal entries on like the last 4... and I have been writing a book. So I am gonna post what I have on the book so far and no one is going to read it... and that makes me mad.
...Fucking alarm... What I wouldn't give to abandon all responsibility... turn into a fucking child, hand over all these thoughts, worries, stresses... this horrible need to validate myself through another person. I would be blessed with people who would tell me how to live without insinuating and emphasizing my iniquities. To be washed of every regret, to be rinsed of this distaste for myself, the person that I have become, a filthy and clouded version, left with the same wishes, aspirations, ambitions that I clutched as a child, and now despise but can not release my grip on as an adult. And now I am just clouded, jaded, and fragmented, shades of gray of the vibrant colors I radiated as that child... and yet all my memories... play like scarred film on a faded old projector... and I question... is it less or more beautiful? Would every recollection truly shine in omnicolor? Or does the black and white framework of my youth simply shape and outline the man I am today? A cutout? Paper doll. Photographic or photocopy? Just hidden in the proper position for prayer, in the sanctuary, the catacombs of my thoughts... making love to the idea of what could be if only fantasies made love to me, but fantasies are delicate, so frail, but damn near impossible to kill. The ceiling is lightly stained and completely blurred by the drunkenness that sleep inspires. I roll onto my stomach, exhaling heavily, and pull a cigarette from it's pack, draw it to my lips, and now my lighter, rolling back onto my back...light it, inhale... the cloud of smoke... it seems to clarify, like so many aspects of my life, strands of this smoke, crowding together, and fleeing from other strands... running untamed, but at the mercy of the air, and the breeze, making it's anti-climactic exit from my slightly opened window. And the smoke disperses, goes home, cooks itself dinner, and crawls into bed again... alone. Or on the weekends, the local pub, or a rowdy club, or concert, and a girl draped in dim lighting in the smokey pub, or rowdy club, or random concert... and into bed with her, and in the morning, coffee and cigarettes, and she's off to her life, and I am left in mine... cooking myself dinner, and crawling into bed again... alone. My eyes slide shut and I am overcome with an intense sensation... the drive to just rot here. God how enticing that sounds, to do nothing, offer no part of myself to anything, and just keep all of me for me. Oh well, time to get up... cursing mindlessly at the consequences of taking on the challenge of time... and growing into one's adulthood. And older gents clutch hollow chests at the end of these days, and preach of their regrets, and their loves, and the great and terrible times in their life... but what of times like this? Sad because their boring, desperate because they're routine, but no story to tell, no grace, no heroes, nothing to overcome, except time. But young men live it, thick and thin, the only villian is the main character, the only protagonist? the heart, the will, the inability to drain one's life from the body, and the antagonist? He exists inside the same flesh, that which is the wandering mind, grasping desperately and distraughtly for anything like the anxious outstretched fingers of an infant. Pulling my comforter from chest, and drawing every ounce of aquirable energy to remove myself from the womb of my bed...wet with cold sweats and tossled from rolling in my sleep. Stumbling to the kitchen I prepare the coffee, which would definately need to be "irished" up this morning, and begin to draw a bath. Slumping onto the tiles of the kitchen floor and resting my sunken eyes into hands still weak from sleep, my back resting gently against the chipped cabinets, I ponder nothing, just curse the forthcoming day, grab my coffee, toss in a little bourbon (all that's left in the pantry) and crawl out to my porch for a cigarette. The stale taste in my mouth mirroring the even staler feeling lingering in my mind... Return to the warmth of indoors and remove my clothes... scratching my chest, but curing not itch, I return the the bath that awaits me and gently slump into the warm and welcoming water...floating... sinking... just existing between the two, in limbo, a lifeless stalemate... it is a few minutes before beginning the normal bathing rituals... fuck it, who cares if I am late to work...
No, this is not chapter 2, life rarely comes in chapters so why try to explain something like this in chapters rather than realistically. Life just floods over us, in a systerm of time, so inconsistent and yet so structured, no means for repair, no allowance for mending or repentance, just consequences while continuing on.
A pretty, small-framed, fair-haired girl, with kind eyes, and a lightly carved smirk passed by my home today and glanced in from the street, I saw her, but I don't know if she saw me, due to the glare of the sun on my windows... figures. And I was left questioning who was more real, her, or I... both silent and inconsequential characters on the center stage of each other's lives... both serving little purpose... and I concluded only this, she was not thinking of me... the man behind the glare, sloppily dressed and dancing to silence with cigarette smoke, and yet, here I was, I was thinking of her. But what the fuck do I know?
Catching the morning train to the used book store I work in near Russel Square, I thought of little more than what I might have for lunch, or if my cigarettes would last the day. Walking from the train stop to my store, I though of nothing more than whether that lunch would last the day, and how many cigarettes I would have for lunch. Only when unlocking the door did my thoughts then return to the young fair-haired passerby from earlier this morning, reshaping the memory in my mind, I could see her darting eyes, and then them fixing on my window, and her pace slowing every so slighty, I believe she did notice me, I believe I could have caught her eye. And with that, my day began. Blindly sending my fingertips to explore the rough surface of the wall in search of the lightswitch, and once discovering my destination, a quick flip and the landscape for my unfulfilling daily routine takes shape from under the blanket of shadows. Here in my element I felt my soul beginning to stretch out, beginning to awaken and stir within me, preparing for another day of elitist conversations and assuring myself that I am above yer average, uncultured arse.
Born in California, and raised there, and even spent a few years living on my own there, I found the only place I could really live was somewhere that my past could not follow in any packaging but that of my own mind. And after months of barely deliberating... I kind of just wound up in London. Coming out of a country of senseless idealism and trying to play the picturesque fragments of the all-american dream... while stirring beneath the shell of composure. Americans have this undying sense of restlessness, imprisoned firmly by expectation and lack of real ambition. Defeated before ever declaring war on our own insecurities, and yet never at ease with such things. And it's not that brits are void of such faults... they just hide it much more stylishly. A collected people, not as frantic, and still not as painted up, comprised of shades of gray, rather than such brilliant overacted colors. Less searching, more sitting, and that is what makes me feel more comfortable here. That... and everyone is completely void of and yet overflowing with class, and I love the contradiction. Not to mention the endless sense that everyone emits that they are better than you, and yet they do not contest when you burn brilliantly of the same aura.
I've had this fucking song stuck in my head all day, a song from high school. Even then I was quite the elitist, listening only to music that had not graced mainstream ears, the song "does it show" by mock orange... and I dig through the stack of compilations I have scattered in drawers in the back of the store... trying to quench the thirst of my ears. Finding what I think could be it, I slip it into the CD player... press the skip button some random amount of times... carelessly, little thought involved... wrong song... but still nostalgic, a songwriter from seattle... "The Professor" by Damien Rice. So, I skip back a few tracks... and as if giving in, my song clicked into place, and I could begin my day how I felt I must.
As today's heartbeart slowly fades, the carousel of my thoughts makes me a little sick once again. Work was mediocre, and everything felt routine as usual, all day I missed my guitar, and my cigarettes... and most of all... the feeling of a routine woman, rather than fucking these ghosts that haunt me for a night and crawl back into the shadows, only to return through awkward glances upon busses and trains, or overpopulated sidewalks, pretending not to meet eyes, but wanting so bad to be recognized. And before I knew it, I was lost in a crowd... a sea of faces, not a one turning an eye towards me. Gently, but indifferently pushing people from my path... a few rude responses I could barely make out as they faded into the background, I just needed a pint. and then... nearly plowing into someone, I lift my eyes and discover, inches from my face... the fair haired girl. And then, as she lifted her eyes, my eyes sank down her shirt... Now, I know that is far too macho and immature and I should have a little more self control... but fuck... it happens. As my eyes drift, I notice the curves that her skirt and blouse gently accent... and I feel my zipper press gently against my crotch. She smirks a bit, noticing me noticing her... and I shamefully, and quickly draw my eyes away... and continue walking. I can see her grinning face following me through the corner of my eye, and it only arouses me more... sensing it my be quite detectable now to anyone around me, i shift my bag to the front and lower my eyes once again... hoping that muscle memory would guide me to my train stop. Rushing through the flood, bumping shoulders with what seems to be everyone on earth, I can feel the blood rush to my cheeks as I blush, quite embaressed, and still I feel my bag rubbing gently against the prominent bulge, and it does nothing but make it more of a problem...God if only I could get to... and suddenly I was there... looking up for only a split second to stop myself from walking out in front of the train I intended to get on. The doors his open and people crowd in, I plop down with my bag upon my lap and stare aimlessly at the floor, and try not to look like a horny man, on a train with a raging boner. I sat silently for the next few minutes, darting my eyes across the train hoping no one had any inkling of what was surfacing from my hips. After what seemed it should have been enough time for my erection to subside, but clearly wasn't, I reached my stop and climbed off the train as quickly as possible, rushing towards my flat... seeing her body in my mind the entire way. God, what a terrible person I am. But Jesus... humanity... nature... all of this... overwhelming me at the thought of a simple pair of breasts, and everything that came with it. And as I finally reach my flat and tear the door open, and slam it shut tight behind me... I drop my bag to the floor and stare without purpose up the stairs... and then I knew it... I had to settle this problem now... I had to get this done with... wage war on my erection... intervene and let it know who was in charge in this situation, I had to stand before my penis and show it that I was the man, and it was the prick, and dammit, I have the final say... and so quickly and in big powerful strides I ran up the stares and into the bathroom. The next few minutes do not need to be explained. I think it is quite clear what was done in there... but the thoughts of taking that woman... on the street in front of hundreds of people... was enough to get me through the rest of the evening in quite a better mood than normal, and by 8 o'clock, I had decided that heading down to the pub would be nice... and so I put on my large overcoat and scarf, and headed to that pub with a stride of confidence... though I had conquered nothing... but that night I just felt sexier.
The pub was a bit crowded, which I had hoped for, plenty of young women, to at least introduce myself to and hope for the best, if not a girl meant for long term, maybe a fuck on the fly. So I proceeded to the bar, and picked up a pint... a few more and maybe I would be swimming through enough "liquid courage" to take someone home for the night. Another fuzzy memory, another temporary validation, and onward, the adventure of routine, a losing battle, who can outlast who... me entrenched in battle with 9-5, so pencil in the random drunken sex with a strange girl, make a little room in my pouty existence. And here enters the echo of my conscience, barely noticed, a voice screaming through the static and dischordant hum of the abrasive mixture of alcohol and male hormones. And though the gentle whispers of that conscience, made it's presence known, I made it clear to myself, that tonight... like so many other nights, that voice was to be checked at the door, and only to find it's way home again, in the rush of reality, after sex, bringing many bedfellows such as guilt, fear, and self-loathing... but for now the adrenaline would carry me through any misguided and uncalculated decisions. Oh the roles we play in youth, and are so hesitant to give up when converting to the horrible cult of adulthood, so coy and naive... so painted up and seemingly careless, while breathlessly desperate for something so primal, and often degrading... a fucking good fuck. As I think this, as I realize this, in a crowded pub, I smirk, my eyes slimming, and I turn tail and walk straight out of the door, lighting a cigarette as I do, reaching the bitter London air, and plop down upon the curb, sliding my fingers into my hair, gripping it, and giving it a reasonable tug, only enhancing the sense of inner frustration, thinly veiled, and surfacing quickly, tearing a hole through me, an exit wound, and it is so refreshing. Returning the stale tasting cigarette to my lips, and taking a drag so long it burns my insides and causes my eyes to irrigate themselves, I exhale through clenched teeth... and let every thought flee from the cage of my mind... darting in all directions, across the asphalt, into storm drains and behind trash cans, under cars, and into alley ways, through cracked windows, and even into the heads of people I have never spoken with... and I stand again... and return to the club...reinvented. A redheaded girl, scantily clad glances over at me from a group of friends... and smiles... and one of her friends turns to see what she is smiling at... notices me and smiles as well... and then... the second girl's smile turns to a lifeless gaze as she vomits all over a third friend's blouse. She runs to the restroom, and friend #3 friends darts after her, cursing endlessly... only one girl left... the catalyst, girl #1... and as soon as she rose from her stool at the bar... i knew... I was getting laid.
Morning came long after I did. And her, who knows if she did, I didn't ask. I had a cigarette, she smiled as I crawled into bed, and we slept. And when morning made it's presence known through poorly drawn curtains, she was merely another shadow cast by streetlights and the dim glow of the moon through the same curtains... she disappeared at dawn like all of us affection hungry vampires usually do. People like myself are a constant disappearing act, all melting candles... we fade into darkness... drift with a cloud of smoke, and then we're gone, entirely unnoticeable... a real Rosencrantz and Guildenstern existence... minor characters in other people's major stories, and we all pity ourselves for it when the spot light even glints off of us. It is truly the recluse that shifts so easily from a loathing of his own condition, to an elitist for his endless sense of self-awareness and independence. We are a crumbling people... we are weak, but hard to kill... because in the end... everyone is too indifferent towards us anyway.
So anyway... another cigarette, some stale cereal in some milk that tasted awfully watery, and a bleak and blurry shower. Bored, I waltzed to the bookshelf lined with my collection of vinyls and CD's, even a few tapes (haven't reached the vintage cool yet, and too old to be respected), and my books... my eyes, strangely locked on hamlet... a book I had not read since high school, but had always been intrigued by and kind of just purchased in a pile of books from another used book store... and now... I remembered the character of hamlet... the beginning apathy... and in such a sudden and dramatic way... a completely different man, a desperate and determined idiot... and yet, something I respected and longed for. Seated between the shelves of this bookcase was a mirror, and when locking eyes with myself, taking in my reflection... I felt the hangover a little harder, and saw it even more... I looked like a cadaver, braced to stand like a doll... and I hated myself... and everything about my life... so I went to my bedroom, masturbated again, and went back to sleep.
"These baby secrets have grown into children, through dirty adolescence, and now into manhood. I locked the basement door and broke off the skeleton key but it made no difference, still they travel with me even though I killed them they haunt me and they help me, remember the lies in the shadows, the practiced charades. the arrow is thrown into your back, nothing has ever been so distant and weak. Dreaded words whispered under her breath, 'your just like your father, and your ocean is a drop of water.'"- Rocky Votolato- Secrets of a Salesman
My understanding of the rest of humanity is limited, but there are things that I am quite certain of. These being as such:
1. We are a cocky stupid people, who dance around the conceptions of our insecurities and try to romance our charms and benefits and exploit them, figuring that someone is always looking our way, checking us out, and when we get someone to admit that they like what they see, we immediately attempt two steps:
a. fuck them
b. turn them into a hamper for all of our emotional dirty laundry
2. Almost everyone (especially women) would rather forgo love for some sense of personal safety... again justifying the statement that we are a stupid people... and time is only fortifying these ideas.
3. It's always best to give an impression of wealth, no matter how much debt and filth is stirring beneath the surface, we have to keep our faces stylishly smirking and our fingernails clean.
4. Everyone's out to sell themselves, out to make a commission of self-confidence, and if yer not buying, then leave the sidewalk stage of their traveling salesman routine... because this is the slickest marketing they can offer... so buy...... or simply fuck off.
Think I am cynical? Fuck off for that too.
I was awoken by nothing around by around noon, checking the answering machine I discovered only a message from one of my employees... a younger man... 18, I think. His name was Marcus, his message only to let me know that a gentleman had came in and sold back a copy of "Glamorama", a Bret Easton Ellis novel, a book I had mistakenly showed mild interest in, and now he was following up with the ass kissing routine. Maybe I would stop by the shop later and pick it up.
...Fucking alarm... What I wouldn't give to abandon all responsibility... turn into a fucking child, hand over all these thoughts, worries, stresses... this horrible need to validate myself through another person. I would be blessed with people who would tell me how to live without insinuating and emphasizing my iniquities. To be washed of every regret, to be rinsed of this distaste for myself, the person that I have become, a filthy and clouded version, left with the same wishes, aspirations, ambitions that I clutched as a child, and now despise but can not release my grip on as an adult. And now I am just clouded, jaded, and fragmented, shades of gray of the vibrant colors I radiated as that child... and yet all my memories... play like scarred film on a faded old projector... and I question... is it less or more beautiful? Would every recollection truly shine in omnicolor? Or does the black and white framework of my youth simply shape and outline the man I am today? A cutout? Paper doll. Photographic or photocopy? Just hidden in the proper position for prayer, in the sanctuary, the catacombs of my thoughts... making love to the idea of what could be if only fantasies made love to me, but fantasies are delicate, so frail, but damn near impossible to kill. The ceiling is lightly stained and completely blurred by the drunkenness that sleep inspires. I roll onto my stomach, exhaling heavily, and pull a cigarette from it's pack, draw it to my lips, and now my lighter, rolling back onto my back...light it, inhale... the cloud of smoke... it seems to clarify, like so many aspects of my life, strands of this smoke, crowding together, and fleeing from other strands... running untamed, but at the mercy of the air, and the breeze, making it's anti-climactic exit from my slightly opened window. And the smoke disperses, goes home, cooks itself dinner, and crawls into bed again... alone. Or on the weekends, the local pub, or a rowdy club, or concert, and a girl draped in dim lighting in the smokey pub, or rowdy club, or random concert... and into bed with her, and in the morning, coffee and cigarettes, and she's off to her life, and I am left in mine... cooking myself dinner, and crawling into bed again... alone. My eyes slide shut and I am overcome with an intense sensation... the drive to just rot here. God how enticing that sounds, to do nothing, offer no part of myself to anything, and just keep all of me for me. Oh well, time to get up... cursing mindlessly at the consequences of taking on the challenge of time... and growing into one's adulthood. And older gents clutch hollow chests at the end of these days, and preach of their regrets, and their loves, and the great and terrible times in their life... but what of times like this? Sad because their boring, desperate because they're routine, but no story to tell, no grace, no heroes, nothing to overcome, except time. But young men live it, thick and thin, the only villian is the main character, the only protagonist? the heart, the will, the inability to drain one's life from the body, and the antagonist? He exists inside the same flesh, that which is the wandering mind, grasping desperately and distraughtly for anything like the anxious outstretched fingers of an infant. Pulling my comforter from chest, and drawing every ounce of aquirable energy to remove myself from the womb of my bed...wet with cold sweats and tossled from rolling in my sleep. Stumbling to the kitchen I prepare the coffee, which would definately need to be "irished" up this morning, and begin to draw a bath. Slumping onto the tiles of the kitchen floor and resting my sunken eyes into hands still weak from sleep, my back resting gently against the chipped cabinets, I ponder nothing, just curse the forthcoming day, grab my coffee, toss in a little bourbon (all that's left in the pantry) and crawl out to my porch for a cigarette. The stale taste in my mouth mirroring the even staler feeling lingering in my mind... Return to the warmth of indoors and remove my clothes... scratching my chest, but curing not itch, I return the the bath that awaits me and gently slump into the warm and welcoming water...floating... sinking... just existing between the two, in limbo, a lifeless stalemate... it is a few minutes before beginning the normal bathing rituals... fuck it, who cares if I am late to work...
No, this is not chapter 2, life rarely comes in chapters so why try to explain something like this in chapters rather than realistically. Life just floods over us, in a systerm of time, so inconsistent and yet so structured, no means for repair, no allowance for mending or repentance, just consequences while continuing on.
A pretty, small-framed, fair-haired girl, with kind eyes, and a lightly carved smirk passed by my home today and glanced in from the street, I saw her, but I don't know if she saw me, due to the glare of the sun on my windows... figures. And I was left questioning who was more real, her, or I... both silent and inconsequential characters on the center stage of each other's lives... both serving little purpose... and I concluded only this, she was not thinking of me... the man behind the glare, sloppily dressed and dancing to silence with cigarette smoke, and yet, here I was, I was thinking of her. But what the fuck do I know?
Catching the morning train to the used book store I work in near Russel Square, I thought of little more than what I might have for lunch, or if my cigarettes would last the day. Walking from the train stop to my store, I though of nothing more than whether that lunch would last the day, and how many cigarettes I would have for lunch. Only when unlocking the door did my thoughts then return to the young fair-haired passerby from earlier this morning, reshaping the memory in my mind, I could see her darting eyes, and then them fixing on my window, and her pace slowing every so slighty, I believe she did notice me, I believe I could have caught her eye. And with that, my day began. Blindly sending my fingertips to explore the rough surface of the wall in search of the lightswitch, and once discovering my destination, a quick flip and the landscape for my unfulfilling daily routine takes shape from under the blanket of shadows. Here in my element I felt my soul beginning to stretch out, beginning to awaken and stir within me, preparing for another day of elitist conversations and assuring myself that I am above yer average, uncultured arse.
Born in California, and raised there, and even spent a few years living on my own there, I found the only place I could really live was somewhere that my past could not follow in any packaging but that of my own mind. And after months of barely deliberating... I kind of just wound up in London. Coming out of a country of senseless idealism and trying to play the picturesque fragments of the all-american dream... while stirring beneath the shell of composure. Americans have this undying sense of restlessness, imprisoned firmly by expectation and lack of real ambition. Defeated before ever declaring war on our own insecurities, and yet never at ease with such things. And it's not that brits are void of such faults... they just hide it much more stylishly. A collected people, not as frantic, and still not as painted up, comprised of shades of gray, rather than such brilliant overacted colors. Less searching, more sitting, and that is what makes me feel more comfortable here. That... and everyone is completely void of and yet overflowing with class, and I love the contradiction. Not to mention the endless sense that everyone emits that they are better than you, and yet they do not contest when you burn brilliantly of the same aura.
I've had this fucking song stuck in my head all day, a song from high school. Even then I was quite the elitist, listening only to music that had not graced mainstream ears, the song "does it show" by mock orange... and I dig through the stack of compilations I have scattered in drawers in the back of the store... trying to quench the thirst of my ears. Finding what I think could be it, I slip it into the CD player... press the skip button some random amount of times... carelessly, little thought involved... wrong song... but still nostalgic, a songwriter from seattle... "The Professor" by Damien Rice. So, I skip back a few tracks... and as if giving in, my song clicked into place, and I could begin my day how I felt I must.
As today's heartbeart slowly fades, the carousel of my thoughts makes me a little sick once again. Work was mediocre, and everything felt routine as usual, all day I missed my guitar, and my cigarettes... and most of all... the feeling of a routine woman, rather than fucking these ghosts that haunt me for a night and crawl back into the shadows, only to return through awkward glances upon busses and trains, or overpopulated sidewalks, pretending not to meet eyes, but wanting so bad to be recognized. And before I knew it, I was lost in a crowd... a sea of faces, not a one turning an eye towards me. Gently, but indifferently pushing people from my path... a few rude responses I could barely make out as they faded into the background, I just needed a pint. and then... nearly plowing into someone, I lift my eyes and discover, inches from my face... the fair haired girl. And then, as she lifted her eyes, my eyes sank down her shirt... Now, I know that is far too macho and immature and I should have a little more self control... but fuck... it happens. As my eyes drift, I notice the curves that her skirt and blouse gently accent... and I feel my zipper press gently against my crotch. She smirks a bit, noticing me noticing her... and I shamefully, and quickly draw my eyes away... and continue walking. I can see her grinning face following me through the corner of my eye, and it only arouses me more... sensing it my be quite detectable now to anyone around me, i shift my bag to the front and lower my eyes once again... hoping that muscle memory would guide me to my train stop. Rushing through the flood, bumping shoulders with what seems to be everyone on earth, I can feel the blood rush to my cheeks as I blush, quite embaressed, and still I feel my bag rubbing gently against the prominent bulge, and it does nothing but make it more of a problem...God if only I could get to... and suddenly I was there... looking up for only a split second to stop myself from walking out in front of the train I intended to get on. The doors his open and people crowd in, I plop down with my bag upon my lap and stare aimlessly at the floor, and try not to look like a horny man, on a train with a raging boner. I sat silently for the next few minutes, darting my eyes across the train hoping no one had any inkling of what was surfacing from my hips. After what seemed it should have been enough time for my erection to subside, but clearly wasn't, I reached my stop and climbed off the train as quickly as possible, rushing towards my flat... seeing her body in my mind the entire way. God, what a terrible person I am. But Jesus... humanity... nature... all of this... overwhelming me at the thought of a simple pair of breasts, and everything that came with it. And as I finally reach my flat and tear the door open, and slam it shut tight behind me... I drop my bag to the floor and stare without purpose up the stairs... and then I knew it... I had to settle this problem now... I had to get this done with... wage war on my erection... intervene and let it know who was in charge in this situation, I had to stand before my penis and show it that I was the man, and it was the prick, and dammit, I have the final say... and so quickly and in big powerful strides I ran up the stares and into the bathroom. The next few minutes do not need to be explained. I think it is quite clear what was done in there... but the thoughts of taking that woman... on the street in front of hundreds of people... was enough to get me through the rest of the evening in quite a better mood than normal, and by 8 o'clock, I had decided that heading down to the pub would be nice... and so I put on my large overcoat and scarf, and headed to that pub with a stride of confidence... though I had conquered nothing... but that night I just felt sexier.
The pub was a bit crowded, which I had hoped for, plenty of young women, to at least introduce myself to and hope for the best, if not a girl meant for long term, maybe a fuck on the fly. So I proceeded to the bar, and picked up a pint... a few more and maybe I would be swimming through enough "liquid courage" to take someone home for the night. Another fuzzy memory, another temporary validation, and onward, the adventure of routine, a losing battle, who can outlast who... me entrenched in battle with 9-5, so pencil in the random drunken sex with a strange girl, make a little room in my pouty existence. And here enters the echo of my conscience, barely noticed, a voice screaming through the static and dischordant hum of the abrasive mixture of alcohol and male hormones. And though the gentle whispers of that conscience, made it's presence known, I made it clear to myself, that tonight... like so many other nights, that voice was to be checked at the door, and only to find it's way home again, in the rush of reality, after sex, bringing many bedfellows such as guilt, fear, and self-loathing... but for now the adrenaline would carry me through any misguided and uncalculated decisions. Oh the roles we play in youth, and are so hesitant to give up when converting to the horrible cult of adulthood, so coy and naive... so painted up and seemingly careless, while breathlessly desperate for something so primal, and often degrading... a fucking good fuck. As I think this, as I realize this, in a crowded pub, I smirk, my eyes slimming, and I turn tail and walk straight out of the door, lighting a cigarette as I do, reaching the bitter London air, and plop down upon the curb, sliding my fingers into my hair, gripping it, and giving it a reasonable tug, only enhancing the sense of inner frustration, thinly veiled, and surfacing quickly, tearing a hole through me, an exit wound, and it is so refreshing. Returning the stale tasting cigarette to my lips, and taking a drag so long it burns my insides and causes my eyes to irrigate themselves, I exhale through clenched teeth... and let every thought flee from the cage of my mind... darting in all directions, across the asphalt, into storm drains and behind trash cans, under cars, and into alley ways, through cracked windows, and even into the heads of people I have never spoken with... and I stand again... and return to the club...reinvented. A redheaded girl, scantily clad glances over at me from a group of friends... and smiles... and one of her friends turns to see what she is smiling at... notices me and smiles as well... and then... the second girl's smile turns to a lifeless gaze as she vomits all over a third friend's blouse. She runs to the restroom, and friend #3 friends darts after her, cursing endlessly... only one girl left... the catalyst, girl #1... and as soon as she rose from her stool at the bar... i knew... I was getting laid.
Morning came long after I did. And her, who knows if she did, I didn't ask. I had a cigarette, she smiled as I crawled into bed, and we slept. And when morning made it's presence known through poorly drawn curtains, she was merely another shadow cast by streetlights and the dim glow of the moon through the same curtains... she disappeared at dawn like all of us affection hungry vampires usually do. People like myself are a constant disappearing act, all melting candles... we fade into darkness... drift with a cloud of smoke, and then we're gone, entirely unnoticeable... a real Rosencrantz and Guildenstern existence... minor characters in other people's major stories, and we all pity ourselves for it when the spot light even glints off of us. It is truly the recluse that shifts so easily from a loathing of his own condition, to an elitist for his endless sense of self-awareness and independence. We are a crumbling people... we are weak, but hard to kill... because in the end... everyone is too indifferent towards us anyway.
So anyway... another cigarette, some stale cereal in some milk that tasted awfully watery, and a bleak and blurry shower. Bored, I waltzed to the bookshelf lined with my collection of vinyls and CD's, even a few tapes (haven't reached the vintage cool yet, and too old to be respected), and my books... my eyes, strangely locked on hamlet... a book I had not read since high school, but had always been intrigued by and kind of just purchased in a pile of books from another used book store... and now... I remembered the character of hamlet... the beginning apathy... and in such a sudden and dramatic way... a completely different man, a desperate and determined idiot... and yet, something I respected and longed for. Seated between the shelves of this bookcase was a mirror, and when locking eyes with myself, taking in my reflection... I felt the hangover a little harder, and saw it even more... I looked like a cadaver, braced to stand like a doll... and I hated myself... and everything about my life... so I went to my bedroom, masturbated again, and went back to sleep.
"These baby secrets have grown into children, through dirty adolescence, and now into manhood. I locked the basement door and broke off the skeleton key but it made no difference, still they travel with me even though I killed them they haunt me and they help me, remember the lies in the shadows, the practiced charades. the arrow is thrown into your back, nothing has ever been so distant and weak. Dreaded words whispered under her breath, 'your just like your father, and your ocean is a drop of water.'"- Rocky Votolato- Secrets of a Salesman
My understanding of the rest of humanity is limited, but there are things that I am quite certain of. These being as such:
1. We are a cocky stupid people, who dance around the conceptions of our insecurities and try to romance our charms and benefits and exploit them, figuring that someone is always looking our way, checking us out, and when we get someone to admit that they like what they see, we immediately attempt two steps:
a. fuck them
b. turn them into a hamper for all of our emotional dirty laundry
2. Almost everyone (especially women) would rather forgo love for some sense of personal safety... again justifying the statement that we are a stupid people... and time is only fortifying these ideas.
3. It's always best to give an impression of wealth, no matter how much debt and filth is stirring beneath the surface, we have to keep our faces stylishly smirking and our fingernails clean.
4. Everyone's out to sell themselves, out to make a commission of self-confidence, and if yer not buying, then leave the sidewalk stage of their traveling salesman routine... because this is the slickest marketing they can offer... so buy...... or simply fuck off.
Think I am cynical? Fuck off for that too.
I was awoken by nothing around by around noon, checking the answering machine I discovered only a message from one of my employees... a younger man... 18, I think. His name was Marcus, his message only to let me know that a gentleman had came in and sold back a copy of "Glamorama", a Bret Easton Ellis novel, a book I had mistakenly showed mild interest in, and now he was following up with the ass kissing routine. Maybe I would stop by the shop later and pick it up.
Lily