Last night I wrote a poem about sitting in a coffee shop that doesn't exist. It was brief, I don't like the ending, and writing it took the last of my pen's ink. Until I get a new one, I will be writing here.
Tonight is an abbreviated meeting with The Council because Kevin got a job and has work early tomorrow morning, and I'm going to see the Avengers at midnight with Dick, Steve Ryan, and Danny Cao. I'm especially excited to see the new trailer for the Dark Knight Rises, which is a terrible way to justify spending $11 on a movie.
Tomorrow is some kind of a poetry reading over at Stella. I may attend, unless I decide to play basketball with Dave or watch the Bulls game. Saturday will probably consist of watching a Serbian movie (which Ian described to Kevin with a word that I don't remember, other than that it was synonymous with "traumatizing"... Actually, maybe it was "traumatizing")
I've been pretty out-of-it all day today and I'm not sure why. It could be the heat and the humidity that should be washed away by a storm tonight. Or maybe because I didn't feed my body soon enough after exercising this morning (there was a good two hour window). I could have contracted a cold from Will, who always seems to be sick.
What else do people talk about? Uh... kiwi skins, those are tasty. Oh, I washed my face with coffee grounds this morning and it was refreshing. Basically, I took moist, used grounds and put them on my face and let it stay there for about 15 minutes. I looked like a monster, or a 24 year old with a face covered in coffee grounds. What else? It's been about a week and a half since I've washed my hair. That's nothing compared to the three months I did before I got my haircut. Well, actually before Erika wanted to say she was the one who washed it, so she did the day before I had it cut.
I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I feel like that line is on every page of writing I've ever written. There are constant reminders, though. Like now: I want to do this two week intensive creative writing program at Northeastern over the summer... for what? I'm not the least creative person I know, but I'm not far above run-of-the-mill. So what's the point? Well, to answer my own question, I'd say the point is to do something that I like. Kevin told me to get a finance degree so I can make some money. Hell no. I'll use that definitive answer as motivation against walking down a ridiculous career path that will insure my bank account and allow me to buy a few cool things while I hate my life.
I should try to bring things into focus, though. Like, will I ever be a musician? Playing with other people has taught me a few things: I'm better at creating when I'm by myself; I'm much lazier when I'm by myself; playing music is fun. The first two cancel each other out, leaving a self-indulgent, self-gratifying denominator. Writing comes much more naturally because it can only be done alone. The problem is that I feel the most comfortable writing at night, which is in direct conflict with having a girlfriend. As I spend lots of nights with her, my nights alone are spent trying to do as much as possible that I'd normally miss out on. I suppose the only remedy is to learn how to enjoy writing at, say 8 at night. Or at 2 in the afternoon. Or 9 in the morning.
I think people are only supposed to love once per lifetime. Unless there's a trick to evicting these memories from my head.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
This is the Dance of the Doomed
This may be the summer of my discontent.
I may have jumped the gun a little over a month ago, or maybe it was on Valentine's day, when I tried to assign meaning to something I could never get along with. You might say that my current circumstances are jumping the shark. Maybe.
For the first time in my life, I have received an anonymous letter. "Love" may be the topic, but I'm open to it being a hoax. I very well could be falling for some elaborate joke, probably performed out of malice if my considered-suspect is correct.
Or maybe it's real.
Regardless, it's taken my mind and my head to places I didn't mean to go. It's made me re-open past files of relationships that had dissolved from my recent memory.
See, back when I was about 19, I told myself she would be the last I chased... I have better things to do than waste my time worrying over girls I won't marry. And one day I decided I wouldn't get married after all, so that could be where I back-tracked. But the previous sentence is a bit off-topic. I had that girl figured out, in refreshing way that would not have quickly worn off its novelty (redo this sentence, it sucks). But one day, not so out of the blue, so to say, she wrote me telling of another she had gone for, someone who didn't appreciate her for who she was, but that she didn't deserve someone who did appreciate who she was because she didn't ask for that person, nor did she strive to maintain the company of that person (this sentence also sucks). The point is, she went for someone who didn't "get" her and she did it because that was the compensation she felt she earned from life. Is this what I'm doing? Have I not held out for a girl who would show me her favorite poem because I'd rather be with the kind of girl who offers an easy out(in the sense that there are no deep emotional ties, so what will hurt?)?
I've met that girl; I've met the one with real interests and a growing brain and standards of living that aren't lost in the living room. I've met plenty of girls who care about me, because that's easy. If I like someone and hang out with them enough, I'll care about them. Affection tends to be reciprocated when it's displayed properly. But what about that girl who "gets me"? Does she exist? Because part of "getting me" is being able to hang out with my friends, and understanding my I like the shitty music I listen to so much. And those bases aren't hard to cover, but it gets more complicated when other elements are thrown in, like literacy and healthy living, and knowing that I'm mostly lazy when I'm unhappy. And knowing why I sleep so much.
Here's what gets me the most: I was uncharacteristically happy last summer-- I was hanging out with friends, exercising, meeting pretty ladies but not tying myself down; I was reading and writing and drinking and eating and sleeping-- I was living my ideal life. Now? Tied down, wasting my days watching bullshit television and sleeping in late, drinking my nights away and living too timid to touch my guitar or tap into the vast abyss that lives inside of my head. I'm becoming a hollow human being and I'm afraid it's because I came back to Chicago. And because I had to drift with the tide and be an accomplice to "fate," which is what happens when you don't take control of things that are capable of being manipulated.
So now I'm stuck daydreaming about a girl that may be a fictitious persona of a bitter acquaintance. And I'm wondering why I didn't wait for her in the first place if I was so happy by my lonesome. And why I came back to Chicago when I was about to reach the tipping point in Denver. And why don't I write every day if it's the only thing I'm comfortable doing? And why do I date a girl with absolutely no interest in literature and grammar and pairing my personality with a poem? And why am I using this girl to rehash a past that was fun while it lasted but couldn't go on? And is it worth the physical pain to commemorate another interpretation of my awkward indecisiveness with a needle that pokes my ribs over a hundred times per second? Is anything worth it? Can't I just revert back to my mindset of "do whatever makes sense" without worrying about people's feelings? Am I that worried about being hated when I have a long enough list of people who currently do hate me?
I may have jumped the gun a little over a month ago, or maybe it was on Valentine's day, when I tried to assign meaning to something I could never get along with. You might say that my current circumstances are jumping the shark. Maybe.
For the first time in my life, I have received an anonymous letter. "Love" may be the topic, but I'm open to it being a hoax. I very well could be falling for some elaborate joke, probably performed out of malice if my considered-suspect is correct.
Or maybe it's real.
Regardless, it's taken my mind and my head to places I didn't mean to go. It's made me re-open past files of relationships that had dissolved from my recent memory.
See, back when I was about 19, I told myself she would be the last I chased... I have better things to do than waste my time worrying over girls I won't marry. And one day I decided I wouldn't get married after all, so that could be where I back-tracked. But the previous sentence is a bit off-topic. I had that girl figured out, in refreshing way that would not have quickly worn off its novelty (redo this sentence, it sucks). But one day, not so out of the blue, so to say, she wrote me telling of another she had gone for, someone who didn't appreciate her for who she was, but that she didn't deserve someone who did appreciate who she was because she didn't ask for that person, nor did she strive to maintain the company of that person (this sentence also sucks). The point is, she went for someone who didn't "get" her and she did it because that was the compensation she felt she earned from life. Is this what I'm doing? Have I not held out for a girl who would show me her favorite poem because I'd rather be with the kind of girl who offers an easy out(in the sense that there are no deep emotional ties, so what will hurt?)?
I've met that girl; I've met the one with real interests and a growing brain and standards of living that aren't lost in the living room. I've met plenty of girls who care about me, because that's easy. If I like someone and hang out with them enough, I'll care about them. Affection tends to be reciprocated when it's displayed properly. But what about that girl who "gets me"? Does she exist? Because part of "getting me" is being able to hang out with my friends, and understanding my I like the shitty music I listen to so much. And those bases aren't hard to cover, but it gets more complicated when other elements are thrown in, like literacy and healthy living, and knowing that I'm mostly lazy when I'm unhappy. And knowing why I sleep so much.
Here's what gets me the most: I was uncharacteristically happy last summer-- I was hanging out with friends, exercising, meeting pretty ladies but not tying myself down; I was reading and writing and drinking and eating and sleeping-- I was living my ideal life. Now? Tied down, wasting my days watching bullshit television and sleeping in late, drinking my nights away and living too timid to touch my guitar or tap into the vast abyss that lives inside of my head. I'm becoming a hollow human being and I'm afraid it's because I came back to Chicago. And because I had to drift with the tide and be an accomplice to "fate," which is what happens when you don't take control of things that are capable of being manipulated.
So now I'm stuck daydreaming about a girl that may be a fictitious persona of a bitter acquaintance. And I'm wondering why I didn't wait for her in the first place if I was so happy by my lonesome. And why I came back to Chicago when I was about to reach the tipping point in Denver. And why don't I write every day if it's the only thing I'm comfortable doing? And why do I date a girl with absolutely no interest in literature and grammar and pairing my personality with a poem? And why am I using this girl to rehash a past that was fun while it lasted but couldn't go on? And is it worth the physical pain to commemorate another interpretation of my awkward indecisiveness with a needle that pokes my ribs over a hundred times per second? Is anything worth it? Can't I just revert back to my mindset of "do whatever makes sense" without worrying about people's feelings? Am I that worried about being hated when I have a long enough list of people who currently do hate me?
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