She is asleep, or passed out depending on how one defines the term. She should be, I poured enough booze into her to knock out a bull moose, and she is happily unconscious. Lying next to me and snoring ever so gently, and in sole possession of the only blanket. She is a blanket thief, an accusation that I will level at her when she wakes up in the morning, but for now I will lie here sans blanket. Her blanket theft would be cute in a way, after all she's half my size and almost a foot shorter than I am so you would think I'd be able to fend the thieving off, but it is cold as fuck in here, and without a blanket (or clothes) it is an unpleasant way to spend the night. She also seems to find lying cross ways in the middle of the bed the most comfortable way to sleep, and who am I to argue? Dead weight which in the strictest sense of the word she is at this point, is really hard to move, and I decide to accept my cold, restricted space fate for the night. After all, it pays to be a gentleman even if they are unconscious, wrapped in your only blanket, and in the middle of your bed.
She is correct in her assessment of my lack of sleeping, it seems that as Coleridge tells us "sleep the wide blessing, seemed to me distemper's worst calamity. They (whomever they are) tell us you can sleep when you're dead, well that is not the most warm fuzzy thought to have running through your head at 2 am on a random Tuesday, as you watch the numbers of your life slowly change on the clock next to your bed. Dead is not something I've ever been, and in spite of what some people think, it is not something I'm in a hurry to be. It seems, as far as I can tell, to be a rather permanent condition, and I have enough conditions already, even if they are almost all temporary. One would think that with all this "extra" conscious time on my hands, I would finally achieve something in my life, well one would be wrong. I have recently been told that "you are very intelligent, too much for your own good, and it is a pity that you've not accomplished nearly as much as you should have with that intelligence." The cliche of damning with faint praise sprang to mind when I heard that assessment of the waste of my lungs that I call my life, but in fairness it is correct. I have squandered my youth, wasted my prime, pissed away my middle age, and am aimless in my pending old age. I am not sure which is worse the doing of it, or the hearing about it from people.
However, it is not Tuesday at 2 a.m., the days of me celebrating Tuesday like a Roman Emperor have passed, and it is better that way. It is Saturday, the day that we all get a little tipsy, and listen to bad bands play terrible music in a bar that has seen better days. Which, according to some people, is part of my problem, one of many that I possess, and the only one they were right to complain about. Even though they never offered me an alternative. My day to day life is as predictable as Arsenal losing soccer matches in the most embarrassing way possible, and it doesn't take a troop of Boy Scouts, or a bloodhound to find me on any given day. The bulk of my life is spent in one of eight places all in the same city, and within about 4 miles of each other. My whereabouts, if they are important enough for anyone to want to know, are easily ascertained. I am not skulking in some alley with a weighted cosh in hand, and evil intent in my heart against anyone. It's not that I don't have evil intent, for a lot of things/people I do, it's just that alleys aren't the place to express it.
When I kissed her, I didn't lose my St. Christopher, my St. Christopher lost me. More than likely she will leave me high and dry when someone with a steadier paycheck comes along. That is not a large R Romantic idea,but rather one posited by the small r rationalist, and the rationalist, as much as we hate him, is usually right when he starts placing his money down on people and how they will act. She knows about the death of the Romantic, she heard him state his fears that the rationalist was going to kill him, and she may have been an eye witness to the actual killing, but none of that seems to have bothered her overmuch. Which is good, because as far as I can tell, the only good Romantic is a dead Romantic, and his overdue demise is not something that anyone should mourn.
When tomorrow makes its awful entrance, I will wake her up (too early for her tastes), and send her on her way to face her day. My predictable day starts early, and the three things I do every Sunday are best done early. She won't like it, she never likes it, but we all do things we don't like on a daily basis. Some we have to in order to keep body and soul together, some we are forced to by the conventions of society, and some we do in order to keep the peace. It is said that peace starts at home, that is a lovely idea, but I've found it to be generally untrue. How many fights start over whose turn it is to take out the dog/trash? How many screaming matches begin with the toilet seat being left in the upright position? Home is not exactly the peaceful fortress of solitude that it is made out to be. It is a war zone that, on occasion, has sporadic moments of peace that keep the entire company from being slaughtered. Her Sunday is also predictable, or so she has told me. It consists of something that I do not particularly like her doing, but it is not my place to either tell her that, or stop her from the doing of it. She tells me she loves me (as a person, not sure what exactly that means guess it beats being loved as a kumquat), and her body does (when she's not stealing the fucking blanket) keep me warm, but she does what she does, and I am not in the position to stop it, even if I wanted to try, which I am not sure that I do.
She is also correct that I get lost in my own head a lot, and usually at some awkward times. It is not a pleasant lost. Not the purposeful lost of the man who is a thousand miles from nowhere, and to whom time no longer matters. Not the lost of a fellow who has managed to postpone his duties to the human race for a while, and is now looking up at a mountain with the grim determination to climb it no matter the cost, but the fear that he will have a damn heart attack on the way up. Only to discover that the view from the top shows him the easier path to the summit that a 80 year old woman could make with ease. The tallest mountains are the most fun to climb, and heights (if you have the fear of them) are to be conquered, not avoided. Certainly, there is a war going on inside my head, and it is also certain that there can only be one real casualty, me. I understand this, I know this just like I know that Salem is the capitol of Oregon. It is also all too true that I can do the square root of fuck all about either one of these things. Oregon doesn't seem inclined to move its capitol to Portland or Eugene, and the war inside my head continues to rage with no end in sight.
It is my one attempt at kindness to the world, a world that I don't think has enough kindness in it, and a world that doesn't really deserve much kindness, that I keep this war on the inside of my head. There need not be any other casualties, one is enough. Even if they may or may not deserve it, no one else on this rock that is circling the Sun needs to be collateral damage to the war in my head. It might be a war that never ends, this latest campaign might just be one of many in the long term war that is going to rage up there for the rest of my life. I don't know, I can't know, and the not knowing of things (as many people can tell you) is only making the war worse. I don't know if that is irony or not, because I am not that clever, but it sure as fuck smarts a bit when I realize it. Like all wars, things will get blown up, bridge will be built, and then burnt, and things will need to be buried in the graveyard(s) that will be created.
But for the nonce, I will lie here shivering from the cold, and listen to her breathing next to me, while I construct bridges in my head that I know I will have to burn down later. Bridges that lead to nowhere, but will burn just as merrily despite that problem. No one likes to be the backing vocals in a two man band, and I will lie here and wonder what song is to be sung in the morning that will make everything good enough for a return engagement. Songs of farewell and departure are generally my specialty, but maybe one should try to sing a different tune for a change it can't really be that complicated can it? Wish me luck, I've a feeling I am going to need it.
Monday, December 16, 2019
Thursday, December 05, 2019
35 degrees 8'34" N 89 degrees 59'49" W
The clutter, and the gloom are familiar this time thankfully. It also helps that I am not blackout drunk, memories and locations are much easier to store when one is sober(ish). I am awake, alive, and mostly sober in my own bed in the coffin I call my apartment, and things are going fairly well for a change. Considering that I've had 3 months of unmitigated disasters, fairly well is a relative term, but nothing is on fire, no one has punched me in the face, I haven't (yet) sexted my boss, and no one has texted me that they want me to die in a fire.With all these things going for me, I figure it is time to get moving, fortune favors the brave after all. These good times can't and won't last, because that's just not how the world works. Never get too high up the greasy pole, there are a whole horde of people who would like nothing better than to see you fall off of it onto your ass. They might not actively participate in attempting to bring you down, but they sure as fuck will be happy when you fall. Make no mistake, you will fall. It is just what we do, we stumble, we stagger, and we fall. It is called life, and if you're not, on occasion, failing at it then you aren't trying hard enough. Again, there will be (always) a number of those carbon based life forms that we call humans rooting for you to fail, and will gloat when you do. Some will actively try to facilitate your failure without understanding that if they just left you to your own devices, you'd probably fail all on your own, and probably in more spectacular fashion. Failure is an option, always has been and always will be. Michael Jordan failed, Albert Einstein failed, all of us fail, it's just the scope that makes the difference, that and the stage upon which you do it.
Those ignorant men who have been taught most violent ways that want you to fail, lack the fundamental understanding that by wishing you to fail they make it more unlikely. Left to your own devices you'll fail but in your own time. When people are rooting for you to fail, well fuck them, you start to try not to fail (which could be considered succeeding), and therefore they have prolonged the shameful joy they want to revel in when you fail. The odds are still against you, and you're a proper idiot, so failure is still waiting in the wings off stage to make its grand appearance in the passion play you call your life, but when faced with opposition, you start to engage and pay attention. Few things are more unwelcome than a person who has been challenged than their undivided attention. Whilst there are more of them than there are of you, and odds are still odds and can't exactly be evened out, or beaten on a regular basis, sometimes the solo performer, the lead actor, the virtuoso, can win (or at least prolong losing for a long time) because they have fewer weak points. A group of people is exactly that a group they generally aren't anything special. Sure they have their strengths (in numbers for one), collectively they are probably smarter than you, sleep less than you do, and can be in more than one place at once, but they aren't gods. They aren't all-knowing, all-seeing beings that know your every move before you make it. They are humans, using the term loosely, and they are also encumbered with their weaknesses. Each one of them have separate,distinct weaknesses that can be exploited. They also have the collective weakness that they are only as strong as their weakest member, and whichever one of them that is, the others can't really do much about screwing that one's courage up to the sticking point. They just have to try to gloss over that indivudual weakness, and hope other people don't notice. Wagons may be easier to circle when there is a group of them, but there was only one Alamo.
Life isn't a stroll through the park, and those groups of people who want you to fail are here to make sure of that. Life is, for the most part, a zero sum game. The sooner you realize that, the better off you will be. One man's loss is another man's gain, most of the time it is just that simple. The loss/gain is usually proportional, and evens out on the scale of life, but sometimes the fellow losing doesn't see it that way, and wanders off down a path that leads to even further loss. It is the equivalent of throwing good money after bad in a casino, sometimes they just have better cards, and doubling your bet is just a way to lose more than you lost in the first place. Knowing when to hold them, and when to fold them is an extremely difficult thing to do, we all want to play the hand out to the end both in the hopes that it gets better (it has to get better right?), and quitting just goes against our nature. Mama may have raised a fool, but she didn't raise a quitter, or so you like to tell yourself. Sometimes that is a lesson that is hard to learn, harder than trying to catch a falling, wind-blown leaf on your way through the park, but it is a lesson that must be learned. All lessons don't have to be learned the hard way.
Once outside the physical clutter and metaphysical gloom, you might find a bright side, some summer sun of York may banish the winter of your discontent if you are lucky. It isn't a bad chance to take, and eventually you should take it. Barricading yourself behind walls of solitude isn't the healthiest choice in the long run, and you are in this for the long run. After all, it is the only run you've got. Exile is something that happens to almost of us at some point in life, things change, people change (I used to think they didn't now...), and eventually we change in response. Today's salad is tomorrow's steak, and it is important for you (and us all) to realize that. The slings and arrows you are suffering today, are just as likely to be accolades, and apologies tomorrow. If you happen to be the forgiving type, maybe all of it will even out (back to our zero sum game), and maybe if you are lucky you will be able to rely on your own good intentions.
Those ignorant men who have been taught most violent ways that want you to fail, lack the fundamental understanding that by wishing you to fail they make it more unlikely. Left to your own devices you'll fail but in your own time. When people are rooting for you to fail, well fuck them, you start to try not to fail (which could be considered succeeding), and therefore they have prolonged the shameful joy they want to revel in when you fail. The odds are still against you, and you're a proper idiot, so failure is still waiting in the wings off stage to make its grand appearance in the passion play you call your life, but when faced with opposition, you start to engage and pay attention. Few things are more unwelcome than a person who has been challenged than their undivided attention. Whilst there are more of them than there are of you, and odds are still odds and can't exactly be evened out, or beaten on a regular basis, sometimes the solo performer, the lead actor, the virtuoso, can win (or at least prolong losing for a long time) because they have fewer weak points. A group of people is exactly that a group they generally aren't anything special. Sure they have their strengths (in numbers for one), collectively they are probably smarter than you, sleep less than you do, and can be in more than one place at once, but they aren't gods. They aren't all-knowing, all-seeing beings that know your every move before you make it. They are humans, using the term loosely, and they are also encumbered with their weaknesses. Each one of them have separate,distinct weaknesses that can be exploited. They also have the collective weakness that they are only as strong as their weakest member, and whichever one of them that is, the others can't really do much about screwing that one's courage up to the sticking point. They just have to try to gloss over that indivudual weakness, and hope other people don't notice. Wagons may be easier to circle when there is a group of them, but there was only one Alamo.
Life isn't a stroll through the park, and those groups of people who want you to fail are here to make sure of that. Life is, for the most part, a zero sum game. The sooner you realize that, the better off you will be. One man's loss is another man's gain, most of the time it is just that simple. The loss/gain is usually proportional, and evens out on the scale of life, but sometimes the fellow losing doesn't see it that way, and wanders off down a path that leads to even further loss. It is the equivalent of throwing good money after bad in a casino, sometimes they just have better cards, and doubling your bet is just a way to lose more than you lost in the first place. Knowing when to hold them, and when to fold them is an extremely difficult thing to do, we all want to play the hand out to the end both in the hopes that it gets better (it has to get better right?), and quitting just goes against our nature. Mama may have raised a fool, but she didn't raise a quitter, or so you like to tell yourself. Sometimes that is a lesson that is hard to learn, harder than trying to catch a falling, wind-blown leaf on your way through the park, but it is a lesson that must be learned. All lessons don't have to be learned the hard way.
Once outside the physical clutter and metaphysical gloom, you might find a bright side, some summer sun of York may banish the winter of your discontent if you are lucky. It isn't a bad chance to take, and eventually you should take it. Barricading yourself behind walls of solitude isn't the healthiest choice in the long run, and you are in this for the long run. After all, it is the only run you've got. Exile is something that happens to almost of us at some point in life, things change, people change (I used to think they didn't now...), and eventually we change in response. Today's salad is tomorrow's steak, and it is important for you (and us all) to realize that. The slings and arrows you are suffering today, are just as likely to be accolades, and apologies tomorrow. If you happen to be the forgiving type, maybe all of it will even out (back to our zero sum game), and maybe if you are lucky you will be able to rely on your own good intentions.
Tuesday, December 03, 2019
35 degrees 8' 56 N 90 degrees 2' 10 W
Taking a look around the room, I notice the clutter and the gloom. I also notice that it isn't my room or my clutter, which is a bit disturbing. Waking up with the mother of all hangovers is bad enough when you are doing it in your own bed, but doing it in an as yet undetermined location makes things much, much more complicated. I have vague memories of the night before, something to do with peanut butter and whiskey, always a dangerous idea, and it might have been some one's birthday, or maybe we were celebrating the battle of Austerlitz? Fuck if I remember, and at the moment the why I am here seems less important than the where is here exactly? This becomes more imperative as I heard a soft snore next to me. Which at first blush is somewhat good news, at least I didn't just break into some other person's house and sleep in the bed, or did I? I suppose I will have to wait till my co-occupant of the bed wakes up and ask the awkward questions like do I know you? Do you know me? How do we know each other? Though that last bit is probably answered by the lack of clothing that we are both sporting. It would appear "in the biblical sense" would answer that particular question.
These questions only give me pause for a brief few seconds, I could do all of that, and get some answers that might distress me, or I could just quietly exit stage left, and let those questions remain unanswered. It is a remarkably caddish thing to do, but then again if I weren't a cad, I would probably be home alone in me own bed now wouldn't I? Exiting stage left is both a science and an art form, it also wouldn't be the first time I've attempted it. This time I do have enough memory to piece together this exit will be different than the last one I tried, but that doesn't mean it will be either easy or successful. I will have to remind myself to begin to ask the most important question of co-occupants which is "are you a light or heavy sleeper?" Try working that into the conversion over peanut butter and whiskey. Making that mental note to myself, I begin to take stock of my current situation, the only situation that matters at the moment. We can worry about the future of my investment in Chinese pork bellies tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow. For the nonce, I have to figure out how to get out of this particular mess with the least amount of disturbance to my otherwise ordered life.
Easier said than done considering my current state of undress. I gently take a look around the cluttered room, and offer a prayer to the wolf god that my cloths, or at least enough of them are close at hand to allow me to cover enough of myself to keep me from getting arrested for public indecency if I get lucky enough to make it outside without waking my latest playmate. Thankfully, one of us is a somewhat ordered drunk, and I notice my clothes in a neat bundle on a conveniently located chair. This might be easier than I had thought, clothes close by, playmate deeply sleeping, and sunlight crashing the party to light me the way out of the room. Perhaps gods (even the one of wolves) do smile on fools and children. Graceful exits are for movie stars, and ballet dancers I pose no threat to either of those professions, and I will settle for quiet rather than graceful. Shoes seem to be an unnecessary risk so this exit will have to be sans shoes. Now just to figure out the least clumsy way to exit the bed, get myself clothed, and the hell out of Dodge before the owner of aforementioned bed wakes up. I mean denying someone the glorious sight of my Adonis like body in the buff is a cruel thing to do to anyone, but sometimes we have to be cruel in order to be kind. I am sure they will thank me later for not waking them to see the "show".
Just for my records, I take a look at my latest "conquest" or am I the conquered one? I guess that is a question that can be answered later, when I am safely home tucked into my own bed like a good, little boy should be at this time of day. All things considered, even though I haven't had time to consider them I am rather pleased. It would seem drunk me hasn't quite fallen all the way to single "A" ball yet. "Easy on the eyes" would be one term to describe the owner of the bed, which is nice. At least one of us had all that fun with someone pretty. At least I hope it was fun for us both, even if most of my fun seems to have escaped my current recollection. Perhaps it will come to me later, once I make my furtive, but dignified exit from this foreign territory. I can't imagine what came over me to decide to play "an away game." Well, other than the obvious. Smiling at a memory that I can't quite place, but am sure would be pleasant, I roll ever so gently out of the bed, and begin the sad process of getting dressed. I wonder about the name of my playmate, and if I was clever enough to put it in my phone as just the name, or was I too clever for my own good, and gave them a nickname that will leave me pondering who the fuck is this for days after? Again, another question that the answer can wait for me to relocate before it needs a solid answer.
Not being the actual monster that I have been made out to be, I ponder leaving a note, but what to write? I had fun, even if most of it is hazy? I'll call you later, even though I'm not sure of your name? By the time you read this I'll be gone, and don't bother to look for me? All these things are true, some more so than others, but none of them seem to strike the balance between rationalism and romanticism that is required (at least in my thinking) for this moment. Hallmark certainly doesn't make a card for this type of situation, and therefore I decide a wordless exit is the best exit. We all want something beautiful to say, but this isn't exactly the time or place for that. Especially since I've yet to determine my exact place in the world. I can't even tell if I am lost because the bedroom really gives no clues as to its location on the planet. It would seem location will have to be (hopefully) determined when one makes it to the street, if one makes it to the street. The previously mentioned phone, once located, has been found to be a dead as a door nail, and will not provide me (or anyone else) a clue as to my present whereabouts. Pity that, I would really like to know where I am, it helps a great deal in order to determine where I need to be.
I whisper a somewhat fond, farewell to my host for the night, and tread ever so lightly out of the room, down some hallway, and in the direction that I hope leads to my freedom. Front door, back door, garage door, or dog door at this point any of them will suit my purpose which is to get the hell out of there before my host's slumber is terminated. After a few tense minutes, I locate the back door (of course), and make my way out onto the street. Funny thing about streets, a lot of them look the same, and by looking the same they look familiar. It isn't until you find the sign post that gives you the name of the street that you begin to realize fuck I've no idea where I am or fuck I'm within a mile of home. This particular street's name need not detain us, I knew it vaguely. And vaguely was enough for me to know it was not a street I had any (other) business occupying. Whiskey and peanut butter work in mysterious ways, and ours is not exactly the reason to try to unpack those reasons. It was sufficient for me to get the laugh (at my own expense) to notice that the corner upon which I had stumbled was the one where we (yes that is an unattached pronoun) had went our separate ways.
These questions only give me pause for a brief few seconds, I could do all of that, and get some answers that might distress me, or I could just quietly exit stage left, and let those questions remain unanswered. It is a remarkably caddish thing to do, but then again if I weren't a cad, I would probably be home alone in me own bed now wouldn't I? Exiting stage left is both a science and an art form, it also wouldn't be the first time I've attempted it. This time I do have enough memory to piece together this exit will be different than the last one I tried, but that doesn't mean it will be either easy or successful. I will have to remind myself to begin to ask the most important question of co-occupants which is "are you a light or heavy sleeper?" Try working that into the conversion over peanut butter and whiskey. Making that mental note to myself, I begin to take stock of my current situation, the only situation that matters at the moment. We can worry about the future of my investment in Chinese pork bellies tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow. For the nonce, I have to figure out how to get out of this particular mess with the least amount of disturbance to my otherwise ordered life.
Easier said than done considering my current state of undress. I gently take a look around the cluttered room, and offer a prayer to the wolf god that my cloths, or at least enough of them are close at hand to allow me to cover enough of myself to keep me from getting arrested for public indecency if I get lucky enough to make it outside without waking my latest playmate. Thankfully, one of us is a somewhat ordered drunk, and I notice my clothes in a neat bundle on a conveniently located chair. This might be easier than I had thought, clothes close by, playmate deeply sleeping, and sunlight crashing the party to light me the way out of the room. Perhaps gods (even the one of wolves) do smile on fools and children. Graceful exits are for movie stars, and ballet dancers I pose no threat to either of those professions, and I will settle for quiet rather than graceful. Shoes seem to be an unnecessary risk so this exit will have to be sans shoes. Now just to figure out the least clumsy way to exit the bed, get myself clothed, and the hell out of Dodge before the owner of aforementioned bed wakes up. I mean denying someone the glorious sight of my Adonis like body in the buff is a cruel thing to do to anyone, but sometimes we have to be cruel in order to be kind. I am sure they will thank me later for not waking them to see the "show".
Just for my records, I take a look at my latest "conquest" or am I the conquered one? I guess that is a question that can be answered later, when I am safely home tucked into my own bed like a good, little boy should be at this time of day. All things considered, even though I haven't had time to consider them I am rather pleased. It would seem drunk me hasn't quite fallen all the way to single "A" ball yet. "Easy on the eyes" would be one term to describe the owner of the bed, which is nice. At least one of us had all that fun with someone pretty. At least I hope it was fun for us both, even if most of my fun seems to have escaped my current recollection. Perhaps it will come to me later, once I make my furtive, but dignified exit from this foreign territory. I can't imagine what came over me to decide to play "an away game." Well, other than the obvious. Smiling at a memory that I can't quite place, but am sure would be pleasant, I roll ever so gently out of the bed, and begin the sad process of getting dressed. I wonder about the name of my playmate, and if I was clever enough to put it in my phone as just the name, or was I too clever for my own good, and gave them a nickname that will leave me pondering who the fuck is this for days after? Again, another question that the answer can wait for me to relocate before it needs a solid answer.
Not being the actual monster that I have been made out to be, I ponder leaving a note, but what to write? I had fun, even if most of it is hazy? I'll call you later, even though I'm not sure of your name? By the time you read this I'll be gone, and don't bother to look for me? All these things are true, some more so than others, but none of them seem to strike the balance between rationalism and romanticism that is required (at least in my thinking) for this moment. Hallmark certainly doesn't make a card for this type of situation, and therefore I decide a wordless exit is the best exit. We all want something beautiful to say, but this isn't exactly the time or place for that. Especially since I've yet to determine my exact place in the world. I can't even tell if I am lost because the bedroom really gives no clues as to its location on the planet. It would seem location will have to be (hopefully) determined when one makes it to the street, if one makes it to the street. The previously mentioned phone, once located, has been found to be a dead as a door nail, and will not provide me (or anyone else) a clue as to my present whereabouts. Pity that, I would really like to know where I am, it helps a great deal in order to determine where I need to be.
I whisper a somewhat fond, farewell to my host for the night, and tread ever so lightly out of the room, down some hallway, and in the direction that I hope leads to my freedom. Front door, back door, garage door, or dog door at this point any of them will suit my purpose which is to get the hell out of there before my host's slumber is terminated. After a few tense minutes, I locate the back door (of course), and make my way out onto the street. Funny thing about streets, a lot of them look the same, and by looking the same they look familiar. It isn't until you find the sign post that gives you the name of the street that you begin to realize fuck I've no idea where I am or fuck I'm within a mile of home. This particular street's name need not detain us, I knew it vaguely. And vaguely was enough for me to know it was not a street I had any (other) business occupying. Whiskey and peanut butter work in mysterious ways, and ours is not exactly the reason to try to unpack those reasons. It was sufficient for me to get the laugh (at my own expense) to notice that the corner upon which I had stumbled was the one where we (yes that is an unattached pronoun) had went our separate ways.
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