One Year After Leaving NY (9 months after returning)

38 Years and what have I to show for it?

Massive credit card debt and student loans for an education

I am currently unable to use for bills I am unable to pay --

Clearly my life has written checks my self-worth can't cash.

Nearly 40 and working a shit warehouse job

Meant for someone 20 years younger and in better shape than I

Wake up in the morning feeling like I got run over

By a truck, by life, the life passing me by?

I own mountains of other people's work --

books, records, movies --

But have released almost none of my own.

I get anxious, I get nervous, I get blocked.

I get distracted...

I medicate with alcohol, I sedate with TV.

I make grand plans and pronouncements

then make excuses and curl up in a ball.

I go out and party, I come home and hide.

If I don't finish it, I can't submit and get rejected.

Why do I care as long as it's out there?

Finally out of my head, maybe then I could sleep

Perchance to dream the unthinkable dream --

In which I wake up in a world where my talent gets recognized

Where my words get respect

Where my bills get paid merely by being me...

Or will I collapse before 40?

Under the weight of this debt ceiling?

Under the rubble of our crumbling Republic?

From the burden of mixing metaphors?

If there is a G-d out there, I am sure he is more Loki than Odin.

 5/2/12

Rock N' Roll Heaven

Rock N' Roll Heaven                                                 
                                                    

I've been meaning to write this piece for several years, but now it seems I must, with Thurston and Kim splitting up after 30 years together.  It feels almost like my own parents splitting up, since Kim and my mom are the same age (!).  Sonic Youth was the first band on the indie scene that made me feel like it was okay to be adventurous, musically.  I mean, R.E.M. and U2 led me down the path, but SY blew the gates of my mind off the hinges.  I had always been trying weird things with guitars and pedals, but I had no clue.  To see that these ADULTS were doing it meant that it was okay.  And then, when I was 17, I saw the video for "Dirty Boots."

In the video, a guy who looked like my skater friends and dressed like me spots this cute brunette chick across the room, also decked out in flannel made before 1991 - and they lock eyes, in that magical way they do on the silver screen, as if the heavens themselves made it happen.  They spend several minutes making Goo eyes at each other while the band is playing "Dirty Boots," blissfully unaware of the young love blossoming like the multiple feedback squalls before our very eyes via Tamra Davis's camera.  Their burgeoning romance culminates in their shared stagedive, holding hands as they jump, only to get pulled apart by the crowd.

I've spent twenty years looking for my stagediving diva in flannel with eyes like stars.  I've even dated a girl or two with the same hairstyle.  Not her.  Nowhere have I found this grunge princess.  The amount of shows I've gone to since then is ridiclous.  Even more ridiculous is that at almost all of these shows, I scan the crowd trying to find her.  I've gotten a number exactly once.  We sort of dated for three months, but I was 28 and she was 18.  Was it a bad idea?  You betcha!  I excel at bad ideas.  Or at least, I'm better at executing the bad ideas than the good ones.  Good ideas take a lifetime to build into something.  Bad ideas manifest themselves before the little blue man in the closet can yell "MISTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!"  Caitlin from Connecticut, however, might have been a better choice.  I met her at the Dismemberment Plan/John Vanderslice show.  She was a big JV fan but had never heard of Dismemberment Plan.  I was the reverse.  I think we would have been a good match.  Alas, I was too afraid to ask for her number.  Also, she didn't look the part.

They (those anonymous, insufferable They, who seem to always be saying something...problem is, these days it's all a blur as to what is a cliché and what is a sales pitch, although lately, everything seems to be a sales pitch) say that life is a journey (but yet a singer who has nothing to do with Journey sang "Life Is A Highway" - curious, isn't it?) and that getting there is half the fun -- so I guess that means I'm only having half the fun so far in my life.  So thank you, Sonic Youth, for sending me on this snipe hunt for love.

Mistled'oh!

Mistled'oh!

Christmastime 2008 was particularly rough for me, for some reason.  I suppose it was just the season itself.  They always say that it's the most depressing time of year for lonely souls, although I still haven't a clue as to who "they" are.  They never introduce themselves at parties.  Maybe those mysterious, amorphous they are right.  I was feeling particularly down in the dumps when the blizzard hit that December evening.  I blew off plans to see a show in Long Island because of the snow.  I didn't need that grief.  So I went off in search of some other, unknown, grief instead.

My buddy Chris was throwing a party.  There was mistletoe, food, egg nog and ladies were present.  I'd never been to a party with mistletoe as an adult and was infused with the holiday spirit, amongst other spirits, by night's end.  I had been going through some stuff emotionally, and hadn't really been touched voluntarily by another human being in longer than I'd cared to remember accurately.  At the end of the apartment part of the party, as we were clearing out to take the party elsewhere, I was feeling impish and impulsive (and drunk).  I smiled at B and  gestured to the mistletoe above our heads.  She smiled that smile that we know all too well (those among us who have been passed over for taller, thinner, or god forbid, better looking folks know it well, at any rate), and actually followed it up with the excuse.  You know the one.  The tried and true chestnut "You're awesome, but really, I'm just looking for a buddy right now."  A buddy.  Because that is what I'm best at - being a freaking buddy.

I tried to play it cool, letting the drunken bravura act as a shield.  "Thanks for not laughing, at least.  It was a stupid idea."  I tried to let go of the awkward taste in my mouth - the taste of an attempted light-hearted gesture stillborn.  We partied some more and I acted as normal as I could muster.  Later on, I made the mistake of attempting to explain myself, though it was more like shoveling shit on an open wound than it was applying salve.  I sent her a message via Facebook that read like this:

I'm sorry...i've been going through a ridiculous patch and the whole mistletoe thing (which I've never tried and only did on you because i figured you wouldn't laugh at me, and you didn't, so thank you) was just me being weird. It's been a particularly ridiculous year and I didn't mean to be too nuts. You're awesome and I meant it when I said that it was okay coming from you when you said I was "awesome...but."  Seriously, though, I've heard "you're awesome...but" from way too many people lately and most of them I don't believe, but you're not one of them.

Sometimes I can be such a toolbox.  I wasn't really trying to be more awkward.  Somehow I managed it.  I'm good like that.  So, the next time I saw her, at her birthday gathering, at a bar I don't particularly enjoy, I asked her if she got the message.  She said "Yeah, I got it.  Case closed.  You don't have to say anything else about it." And then she kissed me on the cheek.  Shortly thereafter, I made my way back to my apartment because I wasn't feeling like being out.  I just wanted to get some writing done and go to bed.  Of course, this was not to be the case.

I walk the fifteen minutes or so back to my apartment, all excited to salvage my night with some writerly productivity (some nights are exploring for material (drinking is research), some nights you write about these (mis)adventures).  After all, if I'm not in the mood to be out, I should capitalize on it as best I can.  So I go to turn the key in the wrought iron pre-door door, and - snap!  The key breaks in half and I can't get in.  I call up both roommates on my cell.  No answer.  I cannot reach the ladder for the fire escape.  In panic mode, I decide to do some crazy building climbing that would make Peter Parker, The Amazing Spider-Man himself, proud. 

The door to the adjacent building had this diamond-pattern metal grate to keep out trespassers, so i used it as a sort-of-ladder to then grab a hold of a piece of metal jutting out from my building's roof.  Despite everything being covered in ice and snow, I manage to get onto the roof and immediately wonder why i have done this.  My downstairs neighbor is not only not in her bedroom, but if she had been, would she not freak out when someone knocked on her bedroom window?  Instead of letting me in, she might have maced me.  Still nowhere near the fire escape, and about a story below my bathroom window, surrounded by drifts of snow and spots of ice, eight feet above the frozen sidewalk.  How the hell am I getting down?

I call my best friend, who is more than 50 miles away, and can clearly help me at this juncture.  I suppose this is the returned favor for the summer previous, when she called me while I was sitting on a bench in the park with a lady friend, to tell me that she has gotten her car stuck on the side of a pond.  Clearly I was in a position to help her from the other end of the phone on the other end of our barely shared sandbar.  But that was then, this is (s)now.  From the warm confines of her double-wide, she asks how I got up there in the first place.  "Sheer force of will and a recessive monkey gene" I say, feeling more akin to a cat up a tree than a gorilla in the mist.

Somehow I survived the climb back down without landing prone on my back, concussed, as I had pictured myself winding up moments earlier.  However, I still was no closer to entering my fortress of attitude.  I called my buddy Davecat, and he said I could camp out on his couch.  Of course, it meant trekking back from the way I came, since my car keys were in the apartment I couldn't get into.  Not that I was a stranger to walking to Greenpoint and back.

I went to sleep on the couch, watching "Zoolander" on DVD.  I think I absorbed some weirdness from the film, because I was dreaming I was dancing in a supermarket, drinking with a European pop duo of some sort.  It was kind of like those "Do you wanna Fanta" commercials, but with Eastern European ladies instead of tropical ones.  And the Fanta was most likely vodka in one hand and cranberry juice in the other.  The details are fuzzy, you know from all the dream partying.

So, i'm drinking with these two girls who are pop stars from Europe and I've got a beer in my left hand and a piña colada in the right when Davecat wakes me up.  Startled, I say "Davecat, there better be a REALLY good reason to wake me up -- I was dreaming about drinking and dancing with a hot European pop duo in the supermarket!"

This is when he says the weirdest sentence I've ever been told with a straight face -- "Wake up, we're going to Harrington's bar and surgery."

"...And surgery?" I inquire, and he says, "Yes, Jon '...and surgery.'  It's the hottest new place in town, according to Time Out..."

Just then Davecat wakes me up for real (apparently the previous wake-up was part of my "Zoolander" fever dream) and I get to tell him about the dream within a dream, where he woke me up to tell me about Harrington's Bar and Surgery.

"...And surgery?"  he asks.  And I said "Yes, Dave '...and surgery.'"

To Do List For The Fifteen Or So Months I've Been Unemployed

Hey there people who might not even realize that I still post stuff here.  The purpose of this blog was to be a repository for my more-stylized/formal pieces, whereas J-Ro's Syntax Eros was created for my more extemporaneous rants.  I guess this qualifies as the former.  I want to thank McSweeneys.net for rejecting this piece.  I figure maybe it was too close in theme to Erica Reder's Recession Resumé to be published.  I wonder if she spent four months writing it, since I started mine two months before hers was even published.  Oh well.  I think maybe it's time for me to start submitting my essay pieces to magazines.  Because those still exist.  So, without any more whining, here it is...

To Do List For The Fifteen Or So Months I've Been Unemployed

• Finish the paperwork HR gave you that would provide an extra eight weeks of severance pay at full salary (of course, HR could have returned your calls and/or emails, but then they'd have had to pay you).
• Drink through the twelve weeks of severance pay that they had to give you, regardless of whether you filled out aforementioned paperwork.
• Finish that novel you started writing in 2002, when you freaked out that you were turning 30 in a year and needed to accomplish something.
• Take a sketch comedy writing class with a member of The State.  Stop writing sketches immediately after class ends and you've made the teacher snort from laughing so hard.
• Finish (or actually record) any of the songs you've started writing since 2003.
• Break up with your girlfriend via text message (accidentally).
• Manage to go on a second date from an OK Cupid encounter.
• Go out of town five days after breaking up with your girlfriend via text message with plans to meet up with a single lady you met on the internet at a major music festival.  Never meet that single lady (it will later be revealed that she came down with a case of swine flu).  Sleep with the friend of your friend you haven't seen in ten years that he's had a crush on since high school instead.  Repeatedly.
• Find a missed connections post on craigslist that is actually meant for you.
• Get broken up with by out-of-town girl a week before your birthday.  Celebrate said birthday alone at the bar with a Guinness while upbeat 80s music plays in the background.  Use the fly you find in the bottom of said Guinness to score a free Guinness without a fly (just barely).
• Wake up before noon two days in a row.  Three if you're feeling jaunty.
• Move back in with your mom and dad to the house you've left five times previously.
• Update at least one of your three blogs (four if you count the record label) on a weekly monthly semi-annual basis.
• Sing "Round Here" by the Counting Crows at a karaoke bar in Asheville, NC in front of complete strangers while in the midst of a road trip to relocate your best friend/lesbian sidekick and her three cats to Florida.  Your 17-year personal moratorium on entering the state of Florida is now ruined.  Upon returning home on the first flight out of Tampa, have Facebook inform you that out-of-town girl is now "in a relationship" not with you.
• Go on a third date with anyone since being dumped by out-of-town girl.
• Go on a road trip to Punxsutawney, PA for Groundhog's Day.  Try to sleep on a movie theater seat.  Freeze your tokhes off.  Realize you and your friend are the only humans over 18 who aren't drunk at 4am while gathered at Gobbler's Knob.  Attempt to eat a 2 pound hamburger on the way home.  Fail to eat a 2 pound hamburger.  After enduring long hours subjected to Sugarland and Lonestar, arrive home and check Facebook.  The day before was out-of-town girl's birthday.  She is apparently now ENGAGED to the fellow she was heretofore "in a relationship" with.  Your mutual friend will ask if she's spoken to you.  You will say she hasn't, but that Facebook has.
• Transfer all your old VHS tapes to DVD.
• When  one of your closest friend's step-father dies, leave a Facebook comment on his sister's page that, though heartfelt, comes off flippant at best, racist at worst.
• Write your cousin who wrote the book "Doc Hollywood" to ask for advice on finishing/shopping your novel.
• Have sex with your ex-girlfriend you broke up with 5 years ago because you were both too neurotic.  After all, they did that on Seinfeld and it worked out just fine.
• Sacrifice your vague financial stability to follow your dreams instead of stressing out over being "comfortable" but unhappy.
• Get job in retail doing commission-based sales in attempt to finance your dreams later by being miserable now.
  

My Mind Is a Virus

Well, while I'm dredging up the past, why don't I give you this? It is related to http://chickenwaffles.blogspot.com/2004/09/storyteller-they-say-devil-is-in.html thematically, if not incidentally.   I found it in my livejournal, and it has the uplifting title of "My Mind Is a Virus."  I love the references contained within, though.  The girl in question is married now, like every other girl all of these things are about, pretty much.  If you're looking for new content, you've not come to the right place.   I am looking back on a variety of my outlets, and am in the midst of archiving messages sent and received on myspace, which isn't easy, because myspace deletes all the sent mail.   I have several one-sided conversations from the past, with no clue what the hell I said in return. I want to know why I suddenly stopped talking that girl from Hicksville who said that my brother's karaoke project reminded her of Wesley Willis, which is awesome.  I'm guessing it was sometime before I started a year-long relationship, which makes sense.  Just like the answer to the question of how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know...

04:15am 04/05/2004
mood: anxious
music: Imaginary Baseball League - "Posing For Stills"

To those of you still tuned in to the yawningly boring and overwrought saga that is my life, welcome back. It's been a while, as you no doubt already know, but things have pretty much been on the status quo until this past weekend. My days have consisted of: work and sleep; when not working - drinking at saints and sinners, sleeping, drinking at saints and sinners, watching tv, checking email/myspace, building IKEA furniture while watching DVDs, sleeping, and bowling on mondays.

Well, something happened that broke the cycle this weekend.  Now, I'm not going to get into specifics, because anybody I want to know will know soon, as soon as I know the whole dealio myself.  Let's just say that something that hasn't happened for a very, very long time in my life has recently happened.  Someone entered a room long locked up and shuttered, with cobwebs over all the arcade games and studio equipment in the middle of the desert, like in that Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers video.  That room having been amongst the tumbleweeds of a barren landscape, I'm a little worried about the possibilities.  My biggest concern is not so much whether or not my heart gets broken again...it's kinda used to it, and at worst, I'll just get really depressed and write another album's worth of mediocre songs that I will likely not record in time to capture the angsty zeitgeist of it all (see also, the 14 songs I wrote when Christina broke up with me in 2000 that I still haven't recorded).

What scares me is that I have to fight every single impulse and instinct that my brain has commanded of me in every similar situation throughout my entire life prior to this moment.  Everything I have ever done before (well, 99.9% of it, to be fair) was wrong.  Granted some of these things were when I was 13, and let's face it, I know maybe one couple who was even sort of together at age 13, and frankly, I think it's kinda weird, but they're great people, so it's not weird in a bad way, but I digress from the point...i.e, me and my biggest enemy -- my brain (see also, everything I've ever written, ever).

It's not that I'm a bad guy, or unstable.  Nope.  My biggest problem is the addictive personality I have. Something makes me feel good or happy or different, and I immediately have to experience it again. Sometimes, it's minor -- I mean, listen to the "Puddin'" EP by Best Kissers In The World, it's a really kickass 25 minutes, in fact, there's only like 15 more minutes worth of songs they recorded that are as good.  It's so kickass you have to listen to it again.  That's normal.  But does it mean that you have to search out every single song that BKITW ever recorded? Well, if you're most people, it doesn't.  If you are J-Ro, it does.  Luckily, the market for BKITW isn't booming and you can find the stuff pretty cheap.  But multiply that by the thousands of bands that I own recordings by, and I think you get the idea. And that is just music. There are whole other aspects of my life that come into play here. For example, let me relate the story of a four year old me, which I am convinced will make a great case for the prosecution.

The scene: cute little four year old boy is picking apples in the yard with his grandfather.  That sounds pretty idyllic, no?  We all wish life could be like this.  Boy leans in to grab an apple, an overripe one falls on his head.  It feels squishy, and kinda neat.  The boy thinks it is fun.  Obviously, he is no Isaac Newton.  Much like the Baby in the TV series "Dinosaurs," you can almost hear him yelling "Again, again!" as he steps deeper under the tree in the hopes that an apple will fall on his head.  And then it happens.

*buzz buzz*

What's this?

*BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ*

It gets louder and more violent as the yard grows darker to his eyes and he finally feels the first sting. He keeps running to get away from the horrible cloud, but it does no good.  Pretty soon, his entire body is numb as he stumbles towards the house.  He asks his Grandma if Grandpa is okay as she combs the stingers out of his hair.  Years later, he learns that his grandfather was actually allergic to bee stings, and thanks whatever force allowed him to survive this unholy terror that he unwittingly unleashed on them both.

The next thing he remembers is all the white.  It is white everywhere, even the chairs, except for the shiny metal. A woman dressed in white says words he barely hears and understands even less.  It sounds a lot like the adults talking in the animated "Peanuts" specials.  His grandmother has been told to make sure the boy stays awake or he might die.  Every time he hears "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd, he relives the experience, wondering how many of his friends have ever felt this way without the use of illegal substances or booze.  Perhaps this is why he doesn't get high.  It just makes him sleepy.  Where's the fun in that?

Then there was the Yodel addiction in junior high school. For those unfamiliar with Yodels, they are a Swiss Roll desert cake made by Drake's Cakes, and are more popular in the NY metropolitan area than Little Debbies.  He would eat as many as 16 of these in a sitting.  They came in packages of twos.  But he couldn't stop.  Not after he broke up with somebody because some people in school said stuff about her.  Somehow, this lack of good judgment was visible, like any zit on an adolescent's forehead.  Sure, he lost the weight once he was able to quit cold Yodel, but not everyone is so lucky.

Even now, I get this way.  I have a great time with someone and immediately I want to have that great time again.  If I don't restrain myself, I may look foolish at best and obsessive at worst.  It's not that I don't enjoy other aspects of my life, but when something is absent for so long and suddenly appears again, my instinct is to grab on for dear life because it could disappear at any moment.  This may sound a little foolish, if not for the fact that in one summer, there were moments shared with three women in the span of four weeks, all of whom disappeared within that time. We all know the saying "If you blow chunks and she comes back, she's yours.  If you spew and she bolts, then it was never meant to be," but sometimes the fear takes hold.  I try not to give into the fear, but sometimes it is difficult when someone is new, unknown and unpredictable.

I spend every waking moment trying to keep my mind off of it, keep myself occupied, but all I do is play my guitar and strum sad chords and think about her waking up and realizing that maybe it was a mistake, to ignore him and he will go away.  So I watch TV, try to build more furniture, pace around, stare at the unringing phone.  Run next door, nervously check for emails that are never sent or received, run back, stare at the still-unringing phone, try to figure out how this shelf will get put up without the bookcase on the other side, and eventually realize that the chord progressions aren't very good or that it has been ONE DAY and that most of the time, several days go by before I get back to people.  Sometimes, things get crazy, there are things that need to be taken care of.  All I can do is not pick up the phone again until it rings.  Not send an email to sound all retarded.  Maybe even try sleeping.  Sometimes that helps, too.  Maybe I will just go with that. Yeah, sleeping, that's the ticket...

Our lives are changing lanes, you ran me off the road...

So, I've not posted anything on this blog for way too long. So I've decided to jumpstart it with a post that originally appeared on what I guess was my Dead Journal (yes, I had one of those because I thought Live Journal was lame, but then I ended up with one of those, too, as I was trying to hide from the women I wrote about who didn't love me.)

This entry was written about a woman who is now married (as a good chunk of my former paramours (real and imagined) are now bound to another in matrimonial endeavors, this doesn't really narrow the realm of possibility or illuminate the subject), and whom I never went on a date with (I seemingly had one opportunity to do so, and I blew it off), though I did once make an overture (well, if she knew it was an overture, she blew it off; otherwise, it was perhaps more of an underture) which I believe to have been too subtle. I remain convinced that the right woman for me would have understood the symbolism of the gift involved.

4:56am 02/03/2004 
mood: confused
music: Ben Folds Five "Brick"

Yeah, so I've been living inside myself lately. So much going on in my mind, and so little free time to let it all out in the ways I would like to. I really enjoyed letting off some steam playing a set as Caroline's Pneumatic Drapery with Matt, Andre, Dallow and Nick. Just like 6 years ago except noisier and more brutal. It was very cathartic, and you can never go wrong playing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" to the tune of "Dance To The Underground." I need a better schedule to make use of my nights more productively, as working from 7pm until 7am just really messes things up. It's so hard to catch up if I fall behind - with friends, housework, record label stuff...It's 5am now and I need to go to sleep.

On the way home from bowling tonight, while I was getting crazy to Death Cab For Cutie, I was thinking how I should write music and play guitar when I got home...but I just sat and watched tv after eating a slice of meatloaf sandwiched between 2 chicken cutlets on whole wheat bread with spicy vidalia onion dressing instead of mayonnaise...In fact, I was half asleep on the couch two hours ago, but here I am, semi-awake at 5am. And I really need to get some sleep so I can wake up early to get a lot done tomorrow. Not only do I have things to take care of for myself, but for 7 others in the two bands I've released music by, the other bands i intend to work with, and two other performers who are traveling great distances to play Long Island (why? dunno) at the end of the month who need confirmation of a venue.

Emotionally, I've gone through a lot, too...all on the inside. I've made peace with a lot of my recent stumbling past, and realized these scenarios are for the best. But that's not all...this one semi-crush i've had on someone for about three years is starting to take over, thereby dashing my hopes to be blissfully happy by ignoring such things while keeping myself insanely busy with work and the record label, etc. I toss and turn in my bed waking up or trying to sleep going over the scenes in my head that could transpire.

I wish the movie of my life had a better screenwriter, because the more I think about such encounters, the more likely I am to try something zany and blow it, but not in a cute, "Ed" sort of way that ends with him marrying Carol Vessey at the end of the show's run. My three year (non)pursuit of this one person is probably so hidden below the surface that aside from the two people who I've told, I bet nobody else has a clue, least of all her. I did, however read an interesting horoscope thing about how the person will probably grow weary and impatient of waiting around for me to make a move. So, if it is obvious to her, then I must look like a freakin' douchebag. I mean, I don't have the best poker face, and oftentimes, when I am trying to impress someone, I get all quiet because I'm afraid to say something stupid and then wish I had a gun to shoot myself in the foot with to lighten the mood.

I don't even know if the person in question reads this...not just because of my hopping around online locations for writing stuff, but also because of my less and less frequent updates. It's so hard for me lately to sit in front of this machine and write down my thoughts...not that I've written a whole lot down in my paper journal lately, either. I just kinda feel like I've been there before. That I've felt it all, done it all and lost it all too many times before to care. This time, however, I realize that I don't care so much about this person disliking what is probably my favorite band, so much as that I need someone with her sense of humor and on the wavelength she is at...someone who will "get it" if I say something random and weird, or liberally quote George Carlin for days at a time.

Someone who knows what I'm referring to when I blurt out a line from a sketch in "The Kids In the Hall." I just feel stupid because for the past 6 months to a year, I've been fine and witty with the repartee via email and IM, but in person, the 3 or so times we've hung out in crowds or the couple of times on the phone, I've been like a dead fish with no mouth. I had even hung up the phone wishing I had hung up before letting things go so quiet. Sometimes, the radio DJ in me just screams "DEAD AIR BAD!" and the silence makes my brain attack itself. I just want to tell her that if she's so intent on dating someone, she should date me. But I know that these words will never pass my lips, at least not in a way that makes me sound cool or collected.

I can identify all too well with the awkward social retardation of Ross Geller on "Friends" as perfectly portrayed by David Schwimmer. Those noises have emanated from my cake-hole before. After all, I am a man who morphed into Columbo just trying to ask someone to hang out, proceeding to ramble on about the game "Mousetrap." In ancient times, I think the procedure of trephining was invented out of a society's overwhelming desire to shut the stinking traps of people afflicted with whatever brain malfunction/ verbal diarrhea disorder I have. I can do nothing but apologize to all of you who have been humoring me all these years, letting me believe that I am sane. No matter how much I loved cake, I've never had to ride the short bus.

Amtrakked

I should preface this by saying that the writing that follows is 10 1/2 years old. When I posted this the other night, I thought I had edited out the over-the-top references to my now ex, whose name peppers this stew in a most unappealing way. I'll edit it later. But for now, enjoy a travelogue from the sort-of distant past, when I was but a young lad of 23, with a whole lot of youthful optimism and full of romantic notions. Bwa ha ha ha. Fool I was!

Amtrakked

Moving from Long Island to Seattle by train is quite the experience. Next time, remind me to take a plane. 19 hours to get to Chicago, at least 15 of them I spent next to a really tall wannabe woodland creature. He got on near Albany. He rolled his own tobacco, he packed his own meals which resembled bark and rice patties covered in what looked like chocolate. At night he took off his boots and put on his sandals. I hate sandals. Mostly because I hate looking at people’s feet. This is due to the fact that most sandal-wearers seem to have dirty feet. He didn’t put his boots back on until Chicago. Lucky for me, he had been gone for a long stretch between Ohio and Indiana.
I have spent a good deal of this trip listening to Slint’s Spiderland and Bedhead’s Beheaded and reading Jim Carroll’s Fear of Dreaming. I have listened to other cds during this time as well, often while reading, but those two cds command me to listen wholly and to do nothing but watch my surroundings as I take in the meanings of the songs. I have listened to Spiderland numerous times before, but until this train ride, had never quite understood it all. I am in awe of the imagery used to describe simple things. Of course, no matter what the meaning, the song “Good Morning Captain” has always and will always make me think of Christina, the reason for this journey, the light at the end of this long tunnel. If you ask me what could make a man spend three days on a train, she is my answer.
She is always my answer. What other reasons do you need to live? I’ve only known her for 10 months, but I have a good feeling unlike any other good feeling that has come before. I know that she loves me at least as much as I love her. She gives to me as much as I give to her. She buys me books, I buy her music, we open each other’s ears, hearts and minds. Without her, I would not own this Jim Carroll book, which has helped me enjoy this particularly long train ride through the most boring parts of the United States.
Now that I have started writing, the scenery seems to be improving. C’est la vie. We’re approaching Denver. Up until now, the most exciting scenery has been multiple pickup trucks on cinderblocks in somebody’s front lawn in Indiana. (black on white FILA basketball clodhoppers with navy blue socks -- not a good idea).
Christina is a good reason to move 3000 miles away from what I have called home for 23 years. I mean, I still have a job with the same company, I am still the same person, I will just be far away. Christina and I will make a good home together, I am sure of it, even though I know I will drive her crazy in a matter of weeks. I just cannot stand the pain of missing her any longer. As much as I might miss my family, talking on the phone has a better chance of alleviating that condition than it would with Christina...
All these months I have longed to hold her, and here I am, a day-and-a-half away from it becoming a reality. Although I most likely miss the comforts of my former home, my new home will free me from some of the shackles of such comfort. Perhaps now I will be able to spend more time on making my own music, writing my poetry and less watching TV.
We are at Denver now. There is snow on the ground and on some of the cars. There has been snow on the ground for the last two hours. I have never seen snow in September. Even when I went to school in upstate New York, it didn’t snow until at least late October. There was no Autumn in Oswego. The leaves didn’t get to change colors before they fell off the trees. They just fell. Sort of like the way I fell for Christina. No time to change colors -- I just fell, with no warning.
This train ride has been good for me emotionally, if not so healthy from a physical perspective. It gives me three days to myself while I make the transition from first born of two sons to “commitment guy.” Three days on a train to myself to metamorphose from a kid to full-blown adult. So, naturally, I am doing what I always want to do, but never seemed to get the chance to at my former home: listen to music, read a book and write a story. I am now listening to Elevator to Hell. It makes me wish I had brought along my Eric’s Trip cds, but they are amongst the first things I packed, of course.
The breakfast/lunch food place at the train station was out of breakfast sandwiches. I had to eat a bagel in Denver. It wasn’t bad, but it was plain. I gave my jam to some guy...
*ANNOUNCEMENT* “The lounge car is now open. Come in, have a coffee or coke and meet the other people on the train”*
Wow, what a good idea! Can I please talk to these rugged, outdoorsy men with backpacks that weigh more than I do attached surgically to their hips along with their overalls? I especially want to talk to the woodsman with the yellow shirt under his black overalls. Is he a Stryper fan or a bumblebee in disguise?
I feel bad for the coolest guy in the world, the one with the FILA sneakers, the navy blue socks, the hip shades and the 49ers jacket. He is now stuck with one of the most decrepit women. Mother Theresa is in better shape. She looks like her head wants to give up the struggle, but her body keeps walking to spite her imploding cranium as it caves in slowly. Soon it will be nap time. No one is sitting next to me. That is why I returned to my seat at first call. I do not like surprises. I also prefer the people next to me to be young ladies. I feel more at ease with them than most guys. I don’t know why. Maybe women are just more open as a general rule.
Last night I ate dinner on the train with a nice elderly gentleman who had been a professor at several universities and had spent time in Tunisia. Not bad for a young boy from Kentucky. He told me stories about his youth, an Arab professor he once knew, who had an affair with a young French woman, with whom he would eat pork (because his children were raised Muslim, he would dare not show them his vices). The Arab professor and his young mistress would dine at George’s house to eat pork, which is not Kosher to Jew nor Arab. He told me about his cars, as well as the way the Arab professor drove his car right into a train, killing both he and his French mistress. I felt like Camus’ Stranger, only telling him my occupation, where I came from, where I was going and why, and what I really wanted to do. I forgot to ask him what he taught for all those years. He couldn’t finish his prime rib, but found enough room for a slice of pie a la mode. They had no cheesecake, so i ate no dessert.
(Oh wow! Smurf graffiti! Just outside of Greeley, Colorado. What a dangerous gang they must have here!)
I am so glad I don’t smoke. If I did, this train ride would seem even longer. An honest-to-goodness western trailer park. Could you imagine - “Home is where the car is.” Isn’t it Smurf-tastic? They are building big immobile homes right around this here trailer park. What would Stuart say?
As I listen to Superchunk, I ask myself why I did not bring Portastatic as well. Then I remind myself that I brought along a lot of cds I have never listened to before so that I could decide if I wanted to sell them once I get to Seattle. Greeley, Co - we are there. Please don’t let anyone get on here and sit next to me. i see some people getting off. The new people can have their seats. We are moving again. Relief.
Three days on a train. In the middle of nowhere. Why is there no shower car on this train? I took a shower last on Tuesday. It is Friday now, and I won’t get to Seattle until Saturday night. Damn this train is bumpy now. Thank goodness I am not shaving. Boy that would suck. It would be most un-Smurftastic. is this the train to Seattle, or is it some traveling geriatric ward? I thought old people went to Florida to die.
The A&W Superstore next to a Lutheran Church. We are in God’s Country now. Which brings me to my next thought. Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, just passed, and it is a day of remembrance of dead relatives. i wonder why it is that my grandfather, who has been gone for a year and a half, had to go so soon. He was not shriveled up and drooling like these old prunes who cannot even walk about on this train (oh look, a parade of geriatric shoes). He still had contributions to make to his community. A year and a half, and it still is as fresh in my mind as yesterday. He always made me smile. Now I think about him and i just want to cry. I think my whole family feels this way, too. His was the first death that really threw me for a loop. Everyone else was old and decrepit. I miss some of them, too, but I don’t have memories of them the way I have memories of him.
Three days on a train, one pair of pants, worn without relief of a night shift. I suppose I will change my clothes (except my pants, of course) again tonight. It feels good to sleep in clean clothes. I still wish they had a shower car. My hair feels greasy. There is now a family of three next to me. The father is in the seat next to me. He seems nice. They are going to Evanston, Wyoming. That is not far from wherever we are now. I don’t think it will be too bad. When this cd is over, i will go to the lounge car and see what I can munch on there. I am just about hungry.
Wooden barricades in the middle of an empty field. Fences with no neighbors. The ground is dotted with snow, resembling my dandruffy, 3 day unwashed hair. I have written so much that since I am writing on my pad backwards, I already wrote past the original pages that I had allotted and am now going backwards from where I started. It is lunchtime.
I am in the lounge car now, now that there is a lounge car here. They added it on in Denver. I had a chicken breast sandwich, lovingly nuked for 30 seconds. Next to me, two old couples are playing pinochle. Trump is “red” - not hearts or diamonds individually - but “red.” One man gets up at the end of the hand. He comes back and doesn’t remember that he lost. Now they are trying to figure out who dealt last. We go through a tunnel and they all shout “Hey, who turned out the lights?” They are just like kids, except that they play pinochle. They amuse me. I think “black” is trump this hand. I look over at their cards, they look similar to “Uno” cards. They have big numbers on them, and they come in yellow, green, red and black. Now I know, but I still don’t understand. They point out needlessly that there are other railroad tracks besides ours. Like when I was little and would state the obvious. Old people are from Ork. Trump is “black” again.
The smoking stop is “Laramie.” Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think? Because you’re never too young to smoke, except for that town where it is illegal to carry tobacco products when you’re under 18.
It is Saturday. 11:00 am. Everything sucks today. As I was listening to the new Archers of Loaf cd, i realized i would rather be shuffling through All the Nation’s Airports than ever, ever taking Amtrak 3000 miles again. If they went the way they should, I could have been there yesterday, but they take the most ass-backwards route. We stopped in Ogden, Utah last night. My new neighbor is from London, England. He likes Oasis, but other than that, he seems a fair bloke. I finished Fear of Dreaming last night and started reading the Nick Cave book And the Ass Saw the Angel. So far, so good, but I am wondering where it is leading to. As I remarked to Paul, the London guy, this is a most un-punkrock train, and he laughed and called it the Geriatric Train.
I am at the peak of my boredom, and if I had an air rifle, I would be shooting bb’s at the crew members for sport. As I listen to the new Descendents cd, I want to speed up this train to make up for lost time, since we’re going to be an hour late as it is. Spend four days and three nights on a train and see if you don’t go insane. Last night I ate dinner with a woman and her son. They were traveling from Greeley, Colorado, so I am pretty sure the kid was in the Smurf gang. They were traveling to Boise to visit her daughter.

The contest:
Question one: What is your name?
Question two: Name a famous personality that you think to be widely disliked.
Question three: (two-parter)
part one: What is your favorite past time, that we can repeat over the Public Address system?
part two: Where would you like to be most in the United States?

(The resulting poem will read like the Match Game. Except, without Charles Nelson Reilly, it is quite lame.)

There are old people on this train who know what elderberries taste like. They mention this and all I can think about is Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I fart in their general direction. They bore me. I spoke to some guy from Portland this morning, who was drinking a beer at 10 am. He spent a week in Boise. I think they should make a movie called “Things To Do in Boise When You’re Drunk.”
Utah is even boring to the English. In his folly, Paul had originally scheduled a two day layover in Ogden. Once he got there and slept, he realized “this place sucks” and smartly hopped a train to Seattle. I wish I could have hopped a plane to Seattle when I got to Chicago. One day on a train was plenty. Three days is a good way to get yourself committed to an asylum. You’ve got to be nuts. I think I must be. We’re still about 200 miles from Portland. Egad, man!
“The jury has reached a verdict, your honor...This train is never going to reach Seattle, Washington. All its passengers are doomed. Bwa ha ha! This train shall be a traveling Purgatory. You get almost there, and then we yank you back!”
What I’m getting at is, not only are we an hour behind schedule as it is, but now there seems to be ANOTHER TRAIN on our track, and our conductor knows not how to get around it. Fucking genius, man! For lunch, a hamburger. No fries, only blue tortilla chips. BLUE!! We are not even in Portland yet. We will never be in Portland, so we will never get to Seattle. How can I go to work on Tuesday if I can’t even get to Seattle by mass transit? There is talk that they are discontinuing use of the Pioneer line (as this treacherous trek is called). I say “Go for it! Just get me the fuck to Seattle before you shut it down!”
I can’t take it anymore! I just want off this hell-train! I want to live again! I need a shower, perhaps a shave. I need to get to Seattle soon so she doesn’t get too worried. I didn’t think I was asking too much, I just wanted the damn train to get to Seattle in less than four days. Last time I expect a train to do ANYTHING! Outside, a train moves. So do we. Forty-five minutes to pull off this maneuver. Jesus H. Christ! I will be so happy when she is at the station to meet me. You will most likely never see a happier man. So much for seeing Hovercraft, though. Figures, doesn’t it?

The Storyteller

The Storyteller

They say “the devil is in the details.” He found out too late in life what those details entailed. Seemingly a natural-born storyteller, he always knew which details to emphasize; the proper use of hyperbole was innate, as was his knack for inventive metaphors. He could always captivate a crowd with his free-flowing narratives; tales of comically botched and cosmically doomed romances in locations near and far, with just the right mix of pathos and humor.

Everyone seemed to love his stories, and he was all too eager to have an audience to please, to make him feel useful for a few short moments of, if not fame, then something like fame, but smaller. These were no tall tales, however -- these stories were all true. The hapless anti-hero/protagonist/everyman was no Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill...it was himself. His friends were always rapt in attention, gobbling it up like a heroin pig gobbles, um, heroin. What was the harm? He loved talking about himself, and they encouraged him.

This worked out well for a while, until things stopped feeling so funny. He tried to thread these new tales with silver linings, but there was this heavy desperocity that clung to the words, making them sink like three-day-old helium-filled balloons, reaching the ground and shriveling up slowly. The subjects and the verbs were not far enough removed anymore. The pain was too fresh, the people too close. The principals recognized themselves and got uncomfortable. The uneasiness spread...who wants to have their private lives on display for all their friends to see? He went home alone, again. There would be no new story to tell this time. It wasn’t his intention to hurt anyone with the tragicomic tales of his romantic ineptitude. He just wanted someone to listen while he rambled incessantly out of necessity.

He tried to shroud telltale details in enough vagaries to protect the parties involved, but somehow word got around. He had told the beginning of a wonderful story too soon, and by doing so, changed the outcome. Instead of a happy ending, it would become just one more chapter of disappointment and heartbreak. Nobody wants to have their private moments broadcast for all the world like that..well, except for those reality-TV show freaks. He wasn’t yet ready to TiVo his own life, the suicide of self-respect. He felt like a parody of his former self. A self that once was confident and cocksure enough to brave these adventures. He was a shell of that guy, hollowed out by these experiences he replayed over and over to amuse his friends. What was left when you took away the stories?

He couldn’t answer that. in fact, he wasn’t even sure if he could still feel real-life emotions derived from human interaction anymore. Everything he felt seemed to formulate first in his head, and he was merely trying to write the future to play out these scenarios; already anticipating having another story to tell. He briefly thought it possible that he still had a heart, but he also had a mouth and a brain he was unable to disengage. They seemed to conspire against said heart, be it imaginary or not. And then he remembered being a little boy desperately wanting attention and saying horrible things he didn’t mean in order to get it, only to wonder if he had any emotions at all. He felt soulless and cruel and manipulative...at age seven.

At least if he felt pain, he would know he was human. The stories only worked because the pain was real. He could mock his tragedy, so they could laugh at it. He didn’t want to tell stories anymore. He’d had enough of his own pain, reiterating it and streamlining it until he could recite it all in his sleep. He just wanted to listen, to her, to anyone...

It’s funny how you can know someone, but not know all about them. Conversely, you can know too much about someone, but not know them at all. He wished he could erase history, start fresh, eat the words that reminded him of the mistakes he had made. He wanted her to really know him without already knowing too much about him. He wanted her to know as little about him as he knew about her. Everything she needed to know was in his eyes. For once, he did not want to speak.

2/25/04

Mental Mishegoss

Staring at this (formerly) blank page sucks
and right now that blank page is my brain.
My mind is practically inert, burdened with
so many thoughts as to be rendered neutral.
There is so much in it that I cannot think.
A month’s worth of thoughts backed up in my
cerebral cortex as if my medulla oblongata
were the pipes leading to my clogged drain.

I need a week alone with nothing but a
continuous IV drip of coffee, the
occasional roast beef sandwich or
bacon, egg & whatever on some kind of
bread dealy -- all by myself in a cozy room
with a laptop computer to translate my
thoughts to zeros and ones and back out again,
hopefully resembling an altavista.com translation
from English to French and back -- the words
are similar, but too literal as to become its own
jagged vernacular of meaningless mishegoss.

This would more accurately describe the way
I’ve been feeling these past few months.
I no longer make sense to myself.
Happy one moment, the next I come
crashing down to oblivion. I’ve been riding
the Emotional Freefall at Six Flags Cranial Adventure --
free Prozac and beer with admission.

**********************************
To fixedly look at this (formerly) white page sucks
and in this moment this white page is my brain.
My spirit is practically inert, charged with thus
much of thoughts as for are made neutral.
There is so much in what I cannot think.
A value of month’s of the thoughts supported in
my cerebral cortex as if my oblongata of medulla
were the pipes carrying out to my blocked drain.

I need alone one week with nothing but a
continuous drainage of IV coffee, the
occasional sandwich with ox of roasts or
bacon, egg and that which on a certain kind
of bread dealy -- all by me in a comfortable room
with a portable computer to represent my
thoughts to the zeros and those and to still support,
resembling if all goes well to a translation of
altavista.com English-French the and back
one -- the words are similar, but too literal
as for become his clean vernacular jagged
mishegoss without significance.

This would describe the I’ve manner more
exactly feeling these last months. I do not
have a direction for me more. One happy
moment, the next one I come breaking to the
bottom to forgets. I’ve assembling the emotive
free fall with the cranial adventure of six flags --
free Prozac and beer with the admission.

This is almost 3 years old. I found it while digging. There's lots of treasure in my old notebooks. I like most of this one. Figures it was about the first crush I had on someone after moving back to New York. The bright side is that I see her every now and again and it's always awesome, if too infrequent. She and her boyfriend will never break up, and I think I prefer it that way. They are both amazing and talented people, and I love them dearly. But this kind of thing does make for good copy. ha ha. Enjoy.

PS The formatting is gonna be messed up, as it is supposed to be centered, but I don't know html, so deal with it. Also, if it sucks, let me know. Please.
--------------------------------------------------------

02/02/01

There are pictures in my mind of
you and I traversing the boardwalk
hand in hand, discussing
many topics with great enthusiasm.

Images akin to scenes from
“Kissing A Fool” where Jay and Sam
slowly fall in love in a montage of
similar shots.

I could see that happening, and
I don’t know if i should be happy
or sad. Maybe it is just
confusion over what a friend is
versus a companion.

I shouldn’t be jumping into this,
I need to wade in the kiddie pool
with my water wings to keep me afloat.
I’ve drowned before,
I cannot suffer that again.

I wanted to remain friends, but she
disagreed. I will not lose another
person in my life before they even
enter it. Please, do come in, though.

I promise to behave myself,
and not try to whisk you away
from the manor just yet. I know
this infatuation can only
worsen over time,
as we
progress
to
a
point
where things
get weird -- I’ve
been there before and lost.
I really want you in my life
and close to my heart.

This time I want to be inspired by
how much one woman can do --instead of
being depressed to the point of
immobility. Please humor me and be
my muse, and I will amuse you
to the best of my abilities.

Excerpts From A Thinly Veiled Journal Entry:

Scene: Cut to a bedroom at 6 am on a Sunday morning. A man and a woman are engaged in desperate, passionate, prolonged foreplay. Heavy-duty heavy petting... Lots of deep, penetrating eye-gazing occurring. The one glitch -- the woman is not who you think it is.

(sounds of needle being dragged across a record as video starts rolling horizontally)...

Narrator: So, you may be asking, “What’s so wrong about this picture?” What ISN’T wrong with this picture? When we left our now-Lotharioesque protagonist, he was agonizing over what had just happened after finally kissing the woman he had tried unsuccessfully to woo last summer. This was a mere two days earlier.

After a few kisses of the closed-mouth variety, and just when phase two -- open mouth, no tongue -- was to begin, she pulled away, looked at him with crazy eyes and a Mona Lisa smile -- well, it was wider than that, definitely more smile than smirk, but just as mysterious. A little less toothy than the grin of a Cheshire cat, but seemingly a combination of the two. That was it.

In another breath, without another remembered word uttered between them, she drove off into the night while he stood there scratching his head, literally. What just happened? What did this turn of events mean? Was she smiling because she was happy? After all, isn’t this what she wanted? Why else was she thinking about him when he called, while she was on the road, heading in his direction? Why else would she answer the phone “Holy shit!” when his number came up? Not “Hey, I was just thinking about you!” but “Holy shit!” Certainly, there is a subtle difference in these two approaches. Why else did she stop by that night? She KNEW this would happen. She WANTED this, right?

How come this never happened before? After the mix CD with the collage cover art in the DVD case, with the 80-line poem written especially for her, perhaps... but why now? Months had passed since he felt but more than a sigh at the sight of her. He had moved on, gotten another crush, been rejected yet again and gotten over her, too, by this point. He had promised himself never again to play the role of smitten schoolboy. Too much pain endured for too little personal gain. The only thing that didn’t suffer was his art. He had by now gathered enough stories to write a book based solely on his misadventures in the realm of romance. Every mistake chronicled, footnoted, revised, reworked and refined after several million recitations to friends of varied interest over the years.

In fact, he had secretly been pursuing someone else. he had decided to play it safe by not letting himself get all worked up about it. If something happened, that would be that. No more hapless romantic making a mix CD a week for someone who wasn’t looking for the same thing. After all, he had his books and his poetry to protect him. Shielded in his armor -- which consisted of many of the saddest songs in the Modern Age of the Western World. Something DID happen. She made out with his brother on a trampoline at a Fourth of July party. “Well,” he thought, “that’s pretty fucking weird, but at least I hadn’t gotten all retarded for her first.” Clearly he was making progress.

It was right around the time of his decision not to get anymore schoolboy crushes that she started IMing him regularly. Some of the conversations were interesting, indeed. They started discussing the act of making out and how things didn’t have to be awkward afterwards if it didn’t lead to coupling. She then suggested they meet up and go out dancing in a couple of weeks. As with most plans they’d made in the past, the dancing didn’t happen. But that was okay, he figured, because she had at least WANTED to get together -- perhaps even make out. It would be soon.

Time passed. She accepted a job as a live-in housekeeper at a mansion closer to home. She needed some help moving and a place to crash on a Saturday night. He had an extra ticket to a rock and roll show. It was kismet. fate. He had a couch, he had a bed. She needed someplace to rest her weary head. They loaded up their cars with her worldly possessions and then went out to get some Indian food. Then it was off to the subway, Manhattan-bound.

The subway was all farkuckt and they ended up on the wrong line in disguise. So they walked from the West Village to the Lower East Side, enjoying each other’s company very much. She laughed maniacally at his jokes and they were both making random weird noises -- all in all, this was typically what occurred when they got together. The first time they had really hung out, they both started humming the same imaginary tune while looking for the car in the parking lot. But this night seemed different somehow. Things really seemed to click. He knew they were both changed from last year at this time; more complete in themselves than before.

She half-jokingly suggests they walk across the Williamsburg Bridge after the show. He greets the idea with much enthusiasm. All during the show, they are pumping each other up for this. It is one of the best nights of his life, just being with her and being close; the two of them talking and listening intently. Why can’t life be like this more often? The only thing that brought him back to Earth was when he awoke the next morning and realized that he had missed not one, but two opportunities (at least) to kiss her. Dumb ass.

-----------
“Here it is, one year later, and this rush of feelings for her came back like a ton of bricks. What the fuck is that about? I honestly figured that it was so over. But when we got together, I was so giddy. I’ve never been happier helping a person schlep their stuff anywhere. And we had a crazy adventure in the city. we crossed the Williamsburg Bridge on foot and walked all the way back to her apartment in Brooklyn. It was amazing. It was such a beautiful night out, too. Why did I not stop her in the middle of the bridge and kiss her, as the passing Hassidim gawked? Because I am an ineffectual loser. The only way to fix this is to kiss her somehow. I came so close last night, while tucking her in as she went to sleep on the couch (I offered her the bed, just for the record). Our cheeks were pressed against one another, but I was bent over awkwardly, so I pulled away too quickly, retreating to my bedroom with my tail between my legs, so to speak.”
------------------

That was exactly two weeks ago tonight. The long-anticipated kiss was two nights ago. He still had no clue as to what exactly happened Thursday night, or what it meant. Is it always so cryptic?” he thought.

“So what’s all this, then?” you may ask. I couldn’t tell you. Even if I wanted to. All I know, is that he was at a party, drinking heavily, flirting with this girl, sticking his nose into everyone else’s business; which was followed by a viewing of “Playmate of the Apes.” They were each drinking a beer to help sober up during the course of this fine feature film, while leaning on each other and holding hands.

Back on the deck afterwards, she picked up his book and started flipping through it. She was actually engrossed by it, reading intently in the dimly lit environment while he sat next to her and made asides, giving insights into the stories like a color commentator for the televised broadcast of his own life. She read a good amount of the book, considering the hour and the occasion.

Later, she admitted to having asked about him, that she had been curious, and that the book sealed the deal. “Well,” he thought, “it’s not everyday I meet a good-looking woman who is drunk enough to tell me that I’m hot.” He walked her to her car and they said goodbye while kissing each other slowly. Note how this kiss actually lasted more than thirty seconds. It seems as if this first kiss between two people who were practically strangers was the very essence of what
he had been hoping for all this time...

Scene: Fast forward to a bedroom at 6 am on a Sunday morning. A man and a woman are engaged in desperate, passionate, prolonged foreplay. Heavy-duty heavy petting... Lots of deep, penetrating eye-gazing occurring. She has to be at work in three hours and hasn’t even slept at all...

It's been almost 4 freaking months since I've posted here. What the hell? I'm sorry. A little sorry to anybody who still checks this page with even an eighth of a fluid ounce of hope that I may have actually updated. A lot more sorry, however, for myself, for being such a poor example of successful time management. I can make all the excuses I want, but despite my crazy hours, I am still the thing holding me back. If friends are just enemies who don't have the guts to kill you, then I am a good example of a friend to myself.

Having said all that, I'm posting a brief article that is truer yesterday than the day I wrote it. The neon sign line actually was uttered to a dear friend of mine after she told me that she didn't, and couldn't ever, love me. And I made HER cry. Oh, I have just noticed that this means that the last two posts are connected, even though they are clearly posted 4 months apart. Some topics never let go of you, I guess. Just to clarify, though, I have seen lately that I am more complex than I paint a portrait of myself in this piece. It did take me a couple years to realize this, though, as I was 28 or so when I wrote this. Enjoy!

**********

it seems like everyone i know is complicated except me. i feel like i have no substance most of the time...like my emotions are either A or B. everyone else seems to have more letters in their emotional alphabet... which is why i don't understand other people, i guess... i keep trying to figure out what it is about me that prevents people from having real feelings for me and if it is indicative of some flaw of my own and not a reflection of the headcases i am invariably attracted to...

why am i only attracted to people who won't reciprocate my feelings? are my feelings really real, or is that the catch? meanwhile, i feel like i am getting older and scared of living alone all my life, of becoming that bitter loner who lives above the convenience store with the flashing neon sign that reads "OPEN 24 HOURS!"

i'm wondering what it will take before i realize that love is bullshit and doesn't really exist for people like me...

It's been way too long since I posted something here. I've sort of assembled a book of things that I'm not too embarrassed by to let other people read them all. I'm going to try to to exhume a few poetic corpses and do a little slashing, but I think an anthology of my poetry and prose not related to my novel will soon be forthcoming. In the meantime, take a gander at this slab o' words, which I wish was a piece of fiction. But you know what they say about truth. I don't think the person in question has ever read this one. Don't get too depressed, though.
********

It’s Not Important

I said “I love you” as the sun came up, a reply I neither expected nor craved. She simply exclaimed “Oh, Jesus!” and her sigh punctuated the air. It was followed up with a disgusted look, then she rolled away and wouldn’t let me touch her. I asked her what it was that was wrong and she said flatly “it was nothing.” But nothing always means something, it’s just something you don’t want to know.

She stopped staring at the wall, but not to look at me. Instead she gazed up at the stars; the phosphorescent ones stuck to my ceiling... placed there by my brother, when he was much younger, before I left the house and lost the lease on my room.

We’d shared many moments in the course of winter months, which I’d taken to mean that there would be more. I had already lost my heart to her, confessed how I felt, told her I’d been trying to play the hand I’d been dealt, but by her response I could tell she wasn’t impressed. She told me she didn’t love me and doubted that she ever could. I know I heard what she said as her eyes and mine were locked in painful embrace, but my heart and ego were plugging their ears.

She was crying up a tempest when she made me leave that night. The rain fell hard on the hood of my car as I drove speeding home in pain, screaming along to the Get Up Kids, punching the ceiling with my fist, wondering if I would see her with the same eyes again.

My feelings grew stronger and the days just got longer, no matter how hard I tried to fight it. Despite the things she said and her poker face, I kept thinking I could beat the house. When she told me of another, whom she wanted for a lover, I figured she was just confused. After all the (mis)adventures and the times we had kissed, when she said she missed me I assumed her mind was made up.

She never said she loved me, she made that painfully clear. She always insisted that we were just friends, something I never truly believed to hear. It seems like every time she told me something else that should have stopped me dead, we just slept together again. Third time was the charm, the one that did her harm; she quickly drew the bath so she could smoke and cry. She intimated that she missed him, though it was me with whom she’d been, and my heart rammed into my intestinal wall.

Despite all the damage she caused, I can’t really blame her for mistakes that I made. Follies committed in the nature of love - that human weakness for connections, for ties that bind. I knew it was wrong, but I could not extricate my heart from the wreckage-to-be, even though my head kept telling it that she won’t be the best one I find.

She rocked me like a hurricane then docked me like a dinghy, left me floating, tethered to the dock, by a string wrapped around her pinky. I’m cutting it, I’m cutting it, now I’m hopelessly adrift in the middle of an emotional ocean... godfuckingdammit.

This one is dated 2/19/00... about six months after landing in Amherst, NY. The title refers to the manintenance guy's name in our apartment complex. It was a very nice apartment. Very spacious. Lots of room for my stuff. My records were in an easy to access area, right against the wall in the living room. I wish that apartment could have been transported to anywhere I wished it. It is actually bigger than the house I am moving into next door to here. The living room was huuuuuuge. If I had had friends, we could have had a big party there. Well, we could have if Christina didn't exist. Then again, every party has to have a pooper. So, yeah, this little piece of prose has to do with feeling down about being 26 and feeling that potential is being wasted. That much hasn't really changed in the ensuing three years and change. It's hard to get off of the "treadmill of suck." But I'm trying.
----------------

Butch the Maintenance Guy

Just sitting here wondering what I should be doing with myself and my time. I feel very unproductive right now. I have most of my second solo tape finished, I just need a few more well-placed and well thought-out dialogue samples and to finish an instrumental track. I haven’t touched these tracks in at least a month. I always find some excuse to not work on my music. At times like these I wonder what my artistic idols do... for example, Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. It seems that he’s always up to something worthwhile - all the SY albums, the solo albums, collaborations, the books of poetry and journals, the trips to Jajouka and Morocco - the time he’s spent writing, and modifying (fucking with) his guitars and building assorted effects. Am I doing anything near that calibre in my bedroom by myself? Or how about the Elephant Calf recordings? I have more confidence in Xina than I have in myself sometimes, which is probably why I have such an affinity for her words and voice that grace our tapes. For some reason I don’t like my words or voice, even though the music is still flowing within me and without me, though there is a different vibe to my solo stuff. I really want to do a collaboration with Andre, I want to work on a CPDY2K project. I need time off to work with the boys down on Long Island to get this complete. I hate being stuck in remote locations - at least if I could get the world to come to me...

I’ve reorganized my studio setup now - it’s on wheels! All I need is a few rackmountable effects boxes and I’m set. This TV cart has tons of room on it, just waiting to be filled with wonderful hi-tec gadgets galore.

Listening to the Ranaldo/Hooker/O’Rourke cd “Clouds” - damn this is wonderful - skronking sax, Wm Hooker’s musical drumming, Lee’s hum & squeal - the interplay, the wordplay, the way it crescendoes. I’ve been reading his book jrnls80s, full of his writings, lyrics and whatnot from his high times and lowlights of the Youth’s “indie years” on the road and at home. I know he was doubting himself at times, low points seeming to culminate around his 30th year on earth.

I couldn’t imagine not having to work some punch-the-clock job to get through, to be able to concentrate on my music, my writing, my website-to-be; to be able to afford a nice audio setup for my computer - nothing a few grand wouldn’t fix! I’d really like to meet Lee Ranaldo - hang w/ him, talk over coffee, jam out -> I think I’ll send him a tape of some of our stuff... see if he digs it, ya know? If I send it to Hoboken, maybe they’ll want to spread the word? We seem to travel down similar paths, although he has helped pave the way for me, even if the tracks are still fresh and undisturbed. His love for Kerouac, Sun Ra, DeLillio, Carver, et al -> my love for Kerouac, Sun Ra, DeLillio, Carver, Sonic Youth, et al -> the affinity for minimalism and maximalism, impressionism and sheer will of expressionism... I feel a bond that I’ve never felt for another musician/writer since I realized that Lou Reed, as talented though he may be, an asshole by any other name would smell just as foul.

Making Time, Losing Car Stereos

“FUCKING FUCK FUCK FUCK MOTHERFUCKER FUCK FUCK GODFUCKINGDAMNIT! I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS SHIT! FUCK!”

Now that I’ve gotten your attention, maybe I should back up a bit. About five seconds before this not-atypical outburst, our hero’s friend, and tonight’s concert going companion, Forsythe, had asked Simon why his car’s gas-tank-cap-door was unhinged, pointing out the obvious fact that it had not been like that before they had entered the club. The moment he had started to mention this little detail, Simon looked in his window, where he could do little but to stare in disbelief at the gaping hole in the dashboard where his car stereo had been just a few hours earlier. Simon would soon be mustering up all his cosmic energies to let loose a torrent of obscenities, but first, a moment of silence in remembrance of the fallen dashboard savior. This was where you came in. Let’s go to the videotape, shall we?

He looked down at the pavement, where several cards from his VH1 Pop-Up Video board game lay scattered like the autumn leaves with which they were now intermingled.

“Fuck! They got into the trunk!“

This he knew, as the switch to the gas-cap door was located next to the switch to open the trunk. They weren’t huffing gas -- they were feeling around for the trunk switch. He also knew what would be missing from there -- some cds of friends’ bands that were intended to be sold on consignment at the record store he worked in. He wasn’t expecting them to take the toolkit, however. Nor the board game.

“I can’t believe they took the Pop Up Video game... Those fuckers!”

Simon walked around the car, inspecting for damage and possible missing things. He didn’t see his backpack, the one that went everywhere with him (well, I guess NOT everywhere).

“Damn it, not my backpack!! I was right in the middle of Miss Wyoming! And I hadn’t finished reading that issue of The Baffler, either. SHIT!”

Also missing was the brand new portable cd player he got from his parents for his birthday exactly one week earlier. They even took the broken portable cd player. That, he thought, was amusing, especially when added to the fact that they went a little wire-cutter happy, and simply didn’t just unplug the cord to the cd player. That was about the only ha-ha funny element of the crime. One day, he will actually remember to detach the detachable face instead of leaving it attached and visible in a fun neighborhood, parked beside a pile of amputee bicycles.

At this point, the frustration overtook him, and as the bluestreak of obscenities continued to shoot from his mouth as if it were a Howitzer, he felt myself turning green and suddenly attired in a ripping collared button-up workshirt and torn purple pants. He started lifting and tossing the limbless carcasses of bikes at the park fence, as if they were dwarves; swinging them at trees, trying to exorcise the these demons... or maybe just being plain damn angry.

“Chill out, man. Take it easy. Just calm down. Be cool, alright?”

“Fuck fuck shit fucking fuckers, lousy fucking motherfuckers fucking car stereo goddamnit!”

Music -- the one thing in his life that means anything. The one constant. Music has always been there -- and now, there was a gaping hole in the dashboard, where the music had once been. Simon wanted to cry. This was worse than Bryce Hackford singing Smiths songs for half an hour (or was that an eternity unto itself?). He’d had friends whose cars had been broken into (even in their own driveways), but this was his first time. He’d had his apartment robbed once, five years prior, and several virtually irreplaceable cds were taken. No trace of them at the local record stores. Not a trace at all. Eighty-eight miles had been put on the odometer of the stolen rental car -- the thieves sure got around. He checked stores as far as Bellevue, and left a list of missing cds, complete with police incident numbers. Nothing ever turned up. Oh well, he thought. Material possessions, no big deal in the overall scheme of things. Just a blip on the screen of the big picture, right? At least they didn’t break a window or fuck with the electric. That would have been worse for sure.

As for the girl; how did she fit into this puzzle? When was the radio taken, and did she have anything to do with it? Could she have? He tried reconstructing the scenario in his head: he had just exited the club with Forsythe, and two new acquaintances, Jared and Ann Marie. Jared and Simon were discussing random musical groups, when he happened to mention The Creation’s song “Making Time,” the UK Freakbeat anthem that was introduced into the American conscious thirty years after its initial release by its inclusion in the soundtrack to the film “Rushmore.” All of a sudden, a pretty, but obviously intoxicated, woman enters the discussion.

“’Making Time!’ Are you talking about ‘Making Time?’ That is such a great song! I was just thinking about that song and then I heard you mention it. Oh my gawd! That is soo amazing! To think the same thing as some random person on the street!”

She said her name was Emily, and that she was a massage therapist. She also shared with us that she was currently living with her ex-boyfriend until she could get a futon to sleep on in her own apartment. He couldn’t help but wonder if they still had sex with one another. She seemed really nice and was quite attractive. Was she really that excited about The Creation? Simon hoped so. He also hoped she would ask him to come home with her to Brooklyn, get a cup of coffee and talk all night. He had seriously been missing out on all-night talks since the end of the whole mess with Naomi. Well, late night conversations and... sex.

That would be a welcome distraction from the tedium of the current routine that his life had become: work late --> watch television --> check e-mail --> sleep from three until eight am --> lather, rinse, repeat. He kept thinking to himself “Please, please, please ask me to walk you home. You can trust me. Screw Forsythe, he can still catch the 1:46 train home. Pick me, pick me!”

She prattled away some more, handed him a cd of Hawaiian blues music, then disappeared into the misty city night. That was that. She was gone. If she was indeed their patsy, that wold have been the coldest thing ever. How would they have known it was his car? How could she betray someone completely randomly like that? She couldn’t have. He struck the thought from his mind. Maybe she just really liked that song? It’s possible. More importantly, would they meet again some sunny day? Maybe for coffee? Or something...

Simon thought about how much he was missing out on by living such a long drive away from Manhattan. How many chance encounters per week he could be having -- instead of all the usual missed connections and narrow scope afforded him on that ridiculous sandbar. If only he could get himself some bullshit overpaying job requiring minimal effort, he could get himself a decent-sized studio apartment where he could keep all his gear set up to record whenever the mood struck him. Above a record store that he owned. Oh, to live the perfect life.

Simon was brought back down to Earth suddenly, focusing on the newly present musical void in the dashboard. The ride home would be even longer this time. He tried to talk to Forsythe as much as he could, while still in shock from the evening’s tragic turn of events.

“What a fantastic show. I’m glad we went.”

This is an old one, folks. Dated June 15th, 2002, an entry from my notebook. It is kind of fitting, since tonight I ended up at Nappertandy's (what the fuck kind of word is that anyway?) with some friends of mine, for reasons that are still blurry to me. But I was treated to a couple of shots, so it made the experience less painful. I mean, how bad is it when pretty much the first thing you say to a friend after being someplace for five minutes (or an eternity, whichever one it feels like when they start playing a Sean Paul marathon, which totally disproves the existence of God, mind you) is "Wow, so this is where those people I consider wastes of space go at night when they leave their jobs. I feel like an alien here." And now on to the journal entry. Enjoy.

Last night, I had a dream I was hanging out with some people, and I remember that I dressed like I used to when I had my tech support job -- collared shirt, in this case, it was my Apple Computers shirt, and slacks. I wasn't having much fun... that, I remember. On the third night, however, I reverted to my usual clothing -- band t-shirt and jeans. Some damn preppy jerk was asking me why I dressed like a slob (ie, not like him, as I had the previous two days). I told him that I was uncomfortable wearing collared shirts and slacks. I am not that kind of person. I very much prefer t-shirts and jeans. I gave him a big speech about how I am an individual, and that he and his preppy/jock scum asshole friends could keep their collared shirts and fucking stupid khakis. I called them names and trashed their lifestyle... And that's when the mob started chasing me....

People, Props, Extras

I find it amazing how there are all these people surrounding us every day, whom we will never get to know, or care to know, but yet they all exist. Endlessly circling our own orbits with theirs; maybe even touching the lives of those we actually know to exist. It’s almost as if they were all just extras. After all, how many people can we honestly get to know and care about? I mean, half the time, we aren’t even in touch with our own feelings, how can we care about anyone else? Especially, those two-dimensional extras that pop up everywhere we go.

And isn’t it a strange event to witness when an extra morphs into a main character with a speaking role? All of a sudden, this black-and-white, silent cardboard cutout comes to life. All of a sudden, you realize that this is a person, just like you, but different. A person with feelings, just like you. And it blows your mind, because you’ve never thought about it. I mean, they always seemed barely there -- no color, no emotions. Then...blammo! One day you wake up and they are now real...and starring in your movie.

Well, as promised many moons ago, here is another excerpt from my forthcoming (evetually) book. I hope it was worth the wait.

GEO

I first encountered Geo at the Sunset Inn -- a non-alcholic dance club on my college campus, which I would later student-manage for two and-a-half years. We talked about music for a while, but the only artist that stinks out for me is Nanci Griffith. At this point, I wasn’t listening to anything remotely country, so I wouldn’t have been into her just then. He figured as much.

He was older, I think he said he was 24, and he had been in the army, and was now going to school on the G.I. Bill. Geo was a short, cute guy who looked kind of like Neil Finn from Split Enz and Crowded House. We also talked about the Kids In the Hall. When the club was closing at 2am, he mentioned that he had some Kids In the Hall episodes on tape at his house off-campus. Being the big Kids In the Hall freak I was, I took him up on his offer, so he drove us to his house.

We got to his house about 2:30am, and it was freezing inside. This was, after all, the middle of winter in upstate New York, mind you. I’m not sure what kind of freaky Hobbit he was that he didn’t need heat, but it was freakin’ colder than a well-digger’s ass in there. I did all I could to keep warm, but it was no use.

After declining his offer to partake in the consumption of one of his M.R.E.’s (Meal Ready to Eat, Army issue), I asked if he would mind starting up the Kids In the Hall viewing, since that was my whole motivation for being there. Mysteriously, as I sat on his bed, anticipating my favorite sketch comedy show, the TV set was not functioning properly. “Hmmm...” I thought to myself, “This sure is odd.” Since I was freezing my tuckus off, and there was no Canadian sketch comedy afoot, I decided it might be best if I got myself back to the mild warmth of my dorm room before I lost any extremeties to frostbite.

And that is when he sat behind me on his queen-size bed and started giving me a backrub. Now, I wasn’t the most experienced lad at the time (I’m still not, really), but just then I got one of those weird feelings (not the good kind). Of course, nobody had ever attempted to touch my back before, so I wasn’t sure if this was a come-on or not. Nonetheless, I was sufficiently eeked-out, and instictively used the tried-and-true”I have to get up early for work in the morning” excuse that every guy uses. This was true, however, but also incredibly convenient.

“You can sleep here tonight. It’s okay. I’ve got plenty of pillows and an extra blanket...”

“No, thanks. I should really just call a cab and get back to campus.”

After spending several awkward minutes fidgeting in silence, the cab finally honked its horn, ready to whisk me back to my warm dorm room, where the only physical contact my roommate would make with me were some drunk “you are my best friend” hugs and the sober fist-fight we would eventually get into before the semester was over.

I bumped into Geo occasionally after that -- the first being at our friend Gretchen’s trailer one night for a party. I can still see the way his eyes lit up as he dashed across the room and sat on his knees all excitedly when he arrived and saw me while scanning the room. At this point, I hadn’t yet put two and two together, though there was a nagging feeling I couldn’t quite place my finger on...

Another time, I bumped into him at the Price Chopper, with some guy. It was then, while watching him grabbing and feeling the produce, and interacting with his friend, that I made the connection.

So one night at the Sunset, I asked my friend Anna, who was a townie, but also a freaky vampire girl, “Is Geo gay?” She replied in that “duh, moron!” tone quite bluntly, “WHY DON’T YOU ASK HIS BOYFRIEND?” Mystery solved. I think I tried to explain to her why I was asking, because it wasn’t like I just went around randomly asking if so-and-so was into guys.

I don’t recall seeing too much more of Geo after that. I hope he’s happy, wherever he is. Also, I’d like him to know that I now enjoy the music of Nanci Griffith. And also, if I had swung that way, I would totally have gone for him. I’m still waiting for a woman that cute to be so forward with me. Sigh.

I honestly don't know where two weeks goes when I look at this and see it hasn't been updated. I must discipline myself better. But anyway, here is a BRAND NEW poem, I just wrote this morning.

Untitled (because I haven't thought of one yet, but "Yay! A Poem" was suggested)


My eyes have only seen you
through the thick, tangled trees of reason;
cold rationality perpetuating a sort of
distant closeness; friendliness without fear that
something lurks in the tangled stickerbushes --
a passionate otherness previously blocked from
thought amongst friends during business hours.

The night I remember meeting you,
bright eyes pierced through my walls from
behind a radiant, drunken smile I’d never seen.
I remember secretly hoping I was the cause,
the catalyst for such devilish gleam and grin.
Not really knowing the person behind it,
I kept my first impressions repressed,
locked inside a music box with songs unheard.

I can still see every scene from last night,
undistorted through the lens of drinking glasses.
I view myself less restrained, though I have
far too many inhibitions than I can drink away
physically. I blurted out suppressed truths,
tossed you compliments, unsure of my intent.
Shocked by my seemingly random candor,
you took it quite well. It was by far our longest talk.
I wonder if you will remember it in the morning.

I can't believe it's not butter! Please forgive me, it's been six days since my last blog. This is something I wrote in October, sitting at a Borders Café. I was just so taken by this struggle. It's such an everyday thing, but it plays out in its own beautiful way. So without anymore jibba-jabba:

A Play In A Cafe´

Francine leaves her glasses on a table in the crowded cafe and orders a drink. She then picks up her glasses and takes them with her while setting the coffee on the table -- the only one not occupied at the moment. She disappears for several minutes. A girl walks up, looking for a vacant table at which to sit. She picks up the seemingly abandoned coffee. Feeling its warmth, she sets it back down in its place, and walks away.

Enter the boyfriend -- his turn to look for a seat. He ventures to the very same table, the only one appearing empty, and picks up the same fresh, hot coffee, makes a face and then walks away, looking for someone to possibly tip him off as to the ownership of said coffee, and the whereabouts of its possessor. He looks around intently, almost pleadingly. Do I volunteer this information? After all, it would clear up any confusion and quickly resolve any potential conflict. No, I will leave it alone. Let them fend for themselves while I watch it all unravel before me. A private performance, with myself as the lone spectator. How grand. Am I a bad person?

Coming back a few moments later, with girlfriend in tow, he decides to go for it.
“But Isn’t someone still here?” She asks.
“Somebody must be rich,” he responds. “It doesn’t really matter, anyway” he mutters, while displacing the controversial object from the table to the nearest windowsill. “Do you want anything to eat, Jill?” He walks to the counter to wait in line. She follows.

Francine reenters the café. She is looking for the table with her magazine and coffee, but it is no longer there. Should I tell her where her coffee is, who moved it and who the real gunmen in the John F. Kennedy assassination were? No, I have already decided on my role as the impartial observer -- I cannot change my part in the middle of the play. I am here simply to watch the drama unfold, to be the only witness in a possible standoff.

Francine has determined that she is not insane; that her coffee is NOT where she left it, after all! The lines on her face can barely conceal the contempt rising below the surface. She thinks to herself “Where is my drink, and who is to blame for this?” She places her choice of reading material and her glasses on another table, as she goes back to the counter to get a replacement drink, having lacked the fortitude to continue her quest for the missing beverage.

A couple of minutes pass by. Jared comes back to the table, picks up the orphaned coffee from its new perch and throws it in the dustbin. I wonder if he is being presumptuous, or just a downright asshole. As Francine prepares her replacement beverage, Jared sets up shop next to her. Have the two parties communicated with each other offstage (I cannot see the coffee counter), or are both events still occurring independently, parallel to one another, unaware of their personal conflict?

As Jared takes his seat next to Jill, and Francine sits at her new table, I am truly disappointed at the lack of animosity. I was fully expecting a showdown -- some yelling, a raised voice -- anything.
Jill sneezes repeatedly. Jared sits there, unresponsive, reading a magazine silently. She sneezes some more. Not one single “Bless you” or “gesundheit” passes from his lips. What a freaking’ douchebag! Francine should have clocked him. Instead, she picks up her coffee and walks gently into that good night. What a waste of my time. Why did she not rage, rage at that freaking douchebag? That’s it. I’m out of here.