Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Drommar

You invaded my dreams last night, for no reason that conscious me can ascertain or is willing to admit.  However, unconscious me, the asleep me, the one that I have no real control over got a full blown sighting of you last night. It was not a snippet of a dream, not some cameo appearance where you walk onto, and off of stage leaving only the merest trace of your existence. No, this was a full blown starring role, a central role, a main character in some odd drama that played out while conscious me was asleep at the switch (literally and figuratively).

The details of the dream are not overly important, and to relate them here would probably just make it that much worse. Suffice to say that dream you, and unconscious me were getting along like a house on fire, as friendly as friendly can be. The bible was discovered and read with some vigor, and I hate you for it. Or, at least I think I should hate you for it. Truth be told I think the correct feeling I should be experiencing is self-loathing. I go out of my way to NOT think about you on a daily basis, that task is one I set for myself when you 'set sail for Singapore' as it were, and it has become easier and easier to accomplish the further you sailed from my shores. However, it seems that some part of my unconscious just hasn't read the memo that conscious me has been circulating around the office of my mind on a daily basis, and decided to dredge you up from the depths that I cannot fathom, or more worryingly control.  A dreamboat that comes sailing back into the port of my mind without any conscious thought on my part, and certain without the proper authorization. 

The barrier reef that conscious me erected to attempt to forestall this dreamboat sailing back into the port of me was overcome as easily as a fat man's willpower as he trundles past a bakery in the early morning mists of what has become an all too familiar day.  This dreamboat that represents you, plows over my sad attempts to stop it as easy as a hot knife slices through butter. It is not a pleasant experience, at least to conscious me. Unconscious me, that turncoat of Benedict Arnold like proportions, thinks your sailing back into its 'life' is just peachy. Unconscious me is a complete bastard, he doesn't have to struggle to forget your existence on a daily basis. He doesn't have to wonder if he is going to accidentally bump into whilst rounding the next corner. He has it made, and worse is he knows it.

Unconscious me knows that in any spat that he and I have, he is ALWAYS going to win. I can't stop him, I can't really even hope to contain him. It is a very similar feeling that Verbal Kent expressed in the Usual Suspects, 'how do you shoot  the devil in the back? What if you miss?"  How do you stop unconscious me? Not sleeping? Eventually that attempt is going to be fruitless after about 48 hours, you are going to sleep, whether you want to or not, and then unconscious me is going to wreck havoc like Sherman marching through Georgia.  Unconscious me is not a man who likes to be denied his play time.  Therefore, not sleeping is not really an option, it merely makes unconscious me angry, and I don't think I want to make him angry, after all, he conjures up you to punish me when he is just in, what for him, is a 'good' mood. I would hate to see what demons, and you are I am sad to inform  you, a demon, he would terrorize me with if he was angry. Visions of my disappointed 2nd grade teacher flash through my mind and I shudder with horror.

The other option, and it is one that I've tried once or twice when unconscious me gets rowdy, is the little pink pill. Or actually 2 pink pills, since one them isn't quite enough to knock me as far out as I need to be. Once again, a bad option, and a slippery slope that I do not want to start sliding down on a too frequent basis. Once other option is available but it is beyond the pale for the moment. Therefore, the only two options are bad, and worse, leaving me at the mercy of you and unconscious me. An alliance that I never thought I would see, and yet one that you (even if you don't realize it) and unconscious me are lording over me like Cambridge does when they beat Oxford in the Great Race. There is no real way to stop this unholy alliance from having its own little reign of terror over me on a nightly basis, and for that I resent you both. There is fuck all I can do about it, and I am not a fellow that like feeling helpless, but helpless I am. Crushed between the Scylla that is you and the Charybdis that is unconscious me.

There is no lock that conscious me can construct that unconscious me does not have the key for, no plan that awake me can concoct that asleep me can't foil. This must be what the fucking Joker feels like all the damn time. All of these wonderful schemes and plans that are just destined to fail, to falter like an overly tired horse in the last furlong before the finish line of life.  As the lids droop, and the last vestiges of conscious thought start to fade to black, conscious me shudders at the thought of a pissed off again unconscious me unleashing hell in our shared psyche.  Fais de beaux reves!




Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Lakonisk

The other night I came to a major life decision, which for once was more than just figuring out whether to get Wendy's or Burger King for dinner. It was (as most major decisions are) a very tough decision, and I pondered over it for quite a while. There were only three options available in this decision, and all three of them had some major drawbacks. The options aren't really important, and the decision probably isn't either, but it was my decision, and I suppose I shall have to stick with it.

The actual decision, and the reasons behind it need not overly concern us here, nor should the other two options detain us overlong. The outcome of all this mighty struggle is that, after two years of trying, I am going to become laconic, even if it kills me (which would make at least 3 people I know quite happy, those being the 3 people this month that have told me they wished serious bodily harm upon my person).  Gone are the days of regaling my boon companions, and anyone else who will listen, with the tales of my 'exploits'. No longer will I share the details of my nights of debauchery aloud with my group of friends. Words are precious, and I am going to begin to treat them as such.

Like water in a desert, I will use words sparingly. I will have to adjust to this new theory, and I am quite sure I will get asked the 'what's wrong with you' question a lot, but the decision has been made, and for better or worse it must be enforced.  I had hopes that I would not have to make this tough decision, but factors quite beyond my control forced my hand. It is not something that I necessarily want to do, but something that I have to do in order to maintain a sort of control over my life. Or, at least the appearance of control. How much control any of us have over our lives is open to debate.  This control has to be enforced by me, because of the actions of others. Some of them probably haven't a clue that they are forcing me into this decision, and some of them probably don't give a fuck, and will celebrate my laconic-ness with a high tea party, to which I shall not be invited.

Truth is I am fairly certain my exploits and my debauchery are a bit overinflated, and that really, and truly no one wants to hear about them anyway. Which, from now on, is just perfect because they won't, they shouldn't, and they can't. The foolishness in which I engage shall be solely the province of myself, and perhaps the one other person with with I engage in aforementioned foolishness. Get used to being answered in three words or fewer when you pose me any questions, and if you persist in asking questions, be prepared to get only two words in reply. I am quite certain this decision will not distress anyone in my 'inner circle' and will probably make quite a number of people quite happy (and we all know how much I like making my fellow human beings 'happy'). 

The adjustment period will be difficult, but as with most things worth doing, a little difficulty is to be expected. It is just a simple fact that this has to happen for the betterment of, well the betterment of me, the rest of you lot, with a few minor exceptions, I could give a shit less about. The ones who are the exceptions know who they are, and the others can sod off for all I care. It is a decision born of self-preservation, and one that I do not take lightly.  I can only hope that all the words I save myself from speaking can, with the proper adjustment, turn into words I write with aplomb. I doubt it will work, but the goal of this decision is to turn myself from a talker into a writer. Wish me luck, I've a feeling I am going to need it. 

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Bon Fromage

Someone that I used to know, said that 'The GI is like Limburger cheese, it takes a while to get used to him, but when you do, and you like him, you really like him. He is an acquired taste." I replied that I had wished they had used a different, not quite so stinky type of cheese in their analogy, but that, the in the main, they were probably right. I am an acquired taste, and one that takes a while to acquire.

Limburger cheese has an aging time of between 2 and 3 months, and it, like us humans ages daily, to acquire me probably takes a bit longer, mainly because everyday contact with me is not something that very many people either want, or can stomach.  The bacteria that, after three months, gives Limburger cheese its pungent aroma is the same bacteria that is responsible for foot odour, so you can see why I wished the person in the quote above had picked a different type of cheese to use. However, they picked Limburger, and I have to be faithful to the quote, even if the quoted is no longer a fan of Limburger cheese. I am not sure if you can just 'go off' of a certain type of food that you've acquired a taste for or not, an expectant mother I know has said that she had gone off of avocados, but then again her body is a hormonal battlefield, and I figure once she births that baby her love of avocado will return.

I suppose once you go off of Limburger is it probably at least a semi-permanent type of thing. I suspect that even if you, after 6-8 months of no Limburger, could probably only return to it in small doses, and even then it probably isn't ever going to taste quite the same, or quite as good. These are just my random guesses, because proof of this is as thin on the ground as nuns in Chinese whorehouses. I also suspect that unlike cheese or any other type of food, I have a small say so in the matter of if you can return to the cheese you used to love.

And therein, dear readers, lies the rub. I am not Limburger cheese, sadly I am a human being. Not a particularly good example of the species, and a fairly rotten person, but a human nonetheless. With all the attending problems that a human poses and possesses.  Those tricky little things that you lot like to call feelings, I still possess. I have, after a fashion, been stripping my feelings away like a man peeling an onion (which is the other main component of a Limburger cheese sandwich), and have tried my best, (which is rarely good enough) to dispossess myself of having those troublesome things called emotions. It has been a struggle, and overall I have probably failed (as I do a lot), but I like to think that I am as emotionless as I can be, and still be human.

The problem is the few emotions that remain, are the survivors. The hard to reach, the hard to root out, types that just won't go gentle into that good night. Even after considerable effort, and a lot of willpower on my part. These emotions are the diehards, the fanatics that just won't admit defeat, and remain in the citadel of their creation defying the siege of my army of the unemotional. These emotions are the ones that generally only come out at night. The ones that like to wreak havoc, like Lawrence of Arabia blowing up a train track to annoy the Turks. These emotions are the ones that make my inner self a battleground, much like the mother ship I know, though for her at least the end is in sight, and there is a pay off at that end. For me, well not so much. There is no end in sight in this daily relentless battle between the powers of emotion, and the armies of the unemotional. They are not compatible, and realize that the success of one depends on the complete eradication of the other.

It makes for some wild times, and it makes me realize that while I have stripped away a lot of feelings from my make up, and it is hard to hurt my feelings, that when you do hurt my feelings two things happen. First, they HURT, badly, like a wound that just won't heal, won't even scab over, it is a constant source of pain, and one of the reasons that it just doesn't pay to be a thinking man.  Secondly, once my feelings are hurt they stay hurt. They just don't hurt for a couple of days, or months, but they go on hurting like a bad tooth that you just cannot afford to have pulled. That exposed nerve that just keeps throbbing like a disco ball in your head, that makes a lot of other things seem way less important. When my feelings are hurt, it takes a lot of effort, (and beer) to dull them enough to become functional, if I ever managed to be functional in the first place.

Entire seasons come, go, and come again, and my feelings remain hurt, the memory just refuses to fade, the pain decides that 'hey I think I like it here, and will stick around'.  The emotions have won, and they are not generous winners. When they realize that they have found a home, they generally make it an armed camp that would make a Roman proud. Throwing up battlements, and setting traps worthy of the name in order to keep what they have so dearly won. The armies of the unemotional are relentless, but sometimes they are just quite simply over matched.  Like a Swedish basketball team against the dream team of '92, the armies of the unemotional are going to get their clocks cleaned, and it is not going to be pretty to watch. The emotions will do anything to stick around, they are a resilient lot, and are not above using any type of weapon that comes to hand. Chemical warfare is one of their favorite toys, but instead of mustard gas, they just merely bring out a well aged Limburger cheese, and the battle is won.

Saturday, August 04, 2012

Omgiven

Since G in NC misses me, I felt the need to get off my lazy bum and actually try to write again. The truth of the matter is that lately I have felt a bit indifferent as to my 'writing' such as it is. I wonder if I shouldn't just throw it over, and go silent for good. I ponder the meaning of anything that I write having any real value at all, and I think that perhaps I am in a rut. A rut of writing what appears to be the same 'story' over and over again just using slightly different words. An overarching fear that I am so out of ideas, and words that it would be best to stop deluding myself.  For I do some times feel (if I feel anything at all now days) that I am deluding myself into thinking that anything I have written, can write, or will try to write will not make one little difference to the world, or more importantly to myself.

And therein lies the rub. The 'world' as a concept can slag right on off as far as I am concerned, but when I start to wonder if this dribble I befoul the internet with is even making a difference to ME, then I start to despair. Despair and I have quite long standing relationship with one another, and I do not need one more thing to encourage despair to stick around. If this writing thing begins to fail, and odds are that it is, then perhaps I should return to the silent, mindless drudgery that constitutes my everyday life. However, before that (perhaps blessed) event occurs, if it occurs, I have managed to trap one of the many ideas that float through my otherwise empty head on a daily basis, and the result follows. To G in NC for missing me.



I have you surrounded, surrounded by a group of agents and people that while not exactly my minions, are at least on my side enough to help me surround you. They are not your friends, not matter what some of them may tell you. They are not people you should trust with your secrets, hopes, dreams, fears and all the other nonsense of everyday life. Though you already have shared some of those with certain members of this group. I know because after you unburdened yourself to them, they reported it back to me. It was all very touching, at least parts of it, some of it was sad, a bit was funny, and quite a lot of it was pathetic. However, being a faithful group of agents, they report it all the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I get to hear it all and decide what, if any, use I can get out of the information.

The beauty of this, and the thing I am quite proud of, is the fact that these agents of mine are people you would never suspect. People from all walks of your life that you would hardly believe that I even know, and certainly would not think they would be an agent of mine.  Even I am not sure of what motivates them to be on my rather than your 'side' in this little war we are waging, but I've learned not to ask too many questions as to people's motives.  All I am concerned about is the result, not with the why. The why these people do what could be considered betrayal is not something I am overly worried about. The good thing is they do it, and some of them do it with a certain amount of glee that makes me wonder how they have fooled you into thinking they are even remotely to be considered your friend.

They are quite aware of the fact that you and I are at daggers drawn, and as far as I can tell, they seem to want my dagger in your back more than they want your dagger in mine. Of course, I don't really trust all of them. I am certain that since you are not a complete idiot, you might have sent me a couple of double agents. People who report back to you the same things I get to hear about you. Though worming a way into my confidences takes slightly more effort that one would think. You, as we both know from experience, are much more of an open book. It is one of the things you take pride in, and one of the reasons for our current state of affairs. You were open, I was closed, why we thought that would be a good match boggles the imagination, and I am pretty certain we both got exactly what we deserved from our time as 'friends'.

There is little point in trying to guess the identity of these people, one of them might be your barber or, one might be the homeless guy you pass everyday on your way to work, or your best friend, or they might not. They might not even really exist, and this little tale is exactly that a tale. A fable drawn from the (shallow) well of my imagination just to see if I still have an imagination. Or it might just be a figment of that imagination I might be delusional enough to think that I have each doorway you go into and out of covered with an agent of (dubious) loyalty to me and my cause. All of this babble might just be that babble, the ravings of a madman, or it might be the gospel truth draped in the cloak of a fairytale by a man who is just mad. Mad as in angry, angry at you for being who and what you are, angry at himself for not realizing that sooner rather than later, and feeling like a damn fool for that mistake. Angry at the both of us for being alive and on the same planet at the same time.

 If this is that gospel truth, and if you really do exist then you should not feel too bad, you aren't the only one that is surrounded. In many ways we are all surrounded. Surrounded by agents of (dubious) loyalty to all sorts of other people besides ourselves. You, me, and the other seven billion people on this planet all have our own agenda, and rarely do two agendas fit perfectly together. When they do, I'm told, it is a thing of rare beauty, sort of like seeing a unicorn on a perfect spring day. However, most of the time they don't that is why they (the nameless bastards that are always saying shit) that unicorns do not exist. The wonderful news, and the final bit of news that I have for today is that neither do you.

For G in NC, I don't know anything about you other that you are G in NC, but this post is for you with my thanks for the inspiration to write it. I certainly hope you exist.