{ August 6, 2008 @ 8:39 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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I saw that carved into an art table in college years ago, and it has stuck in the back of my mind since then.

I am turning 30 in about four weeks. Yes, just another year, just another birthday, but to me it is reaching far beyond that.

It is this whole big self-awareness thing, this huge self-check…

And I am not who I want to be.

I live in a shit hole apartment, have a job that has destroyed my ability for compassion, and melted my soul, and I never leave the house except for work.

And the hardest part is that no one cares. Because I made it that way.

You forge relationships in your 20s, you make lifelong friends who can help you when the ceiling is falling in…but not me.

There will be no big bash, because my family isn’t interested in driving out here for dinner, and I have no friends to line up a night of total debauchery in celebration. Vegas is off because no one ever bothered to make plans, these borrowed friends, and the most important part, no one cares.

I used to think I didn’t want friends, I didn’t need friends, but now that I’m facing 30 without them, I’m quite sad.

Disappointed.

Bruised.

So here’s to me, and my birthday, in bed all day, incapacitated with sorrow.

I am not who I want to be.

And now its a little late.

I am slowly going crazy, one two three four five six switch!

{ July 25, 2008 @ 12:30 am } · { Crazy Brain }
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Crazy going slowly am I six five four three two one switch.

I’ve always been a bit off my rocker, seeing shrinks since I was about six or seven. I’m not a psychopath, I don’t have any more problems than anyone else, but they affect my brain in a different way.

I’d never admit this to anyone, but I’ve got crazy brain now. I’m on drugs, but my body never uses them appropriately. It is never enough. They prescribe more, and more, and my brain just rejects them, rejects the higher doses, and leaves me wondering, wondering why.

I’m starting to think crazy things, like someone is coming into my house when I am gone, and putting antifreeze in my dog’s dish, poisoning her, trying to kill her.

Part of my brain says no, that is stupid, no one can come in.

The other part of my brain makes me clean out her water dishes with soap every day when I get home.

When I’m driving home from work, part of my brain tells me, pull over, pull over, there is something wrong with the tires on your car, you’re going to have a massive wreck, and you’re going to die. Pull over. Pull over. Pull over and check to make sure the tires aren’t flat.

The other part of my brain says no, the tires aren’t flat. The tires are brand new. They’re full of air, right to the right amount. Just keep driving.

Pull over, pull over. Hurry up and get home to clean out the water dishes before your dog dies. Hurry. Drive faster. Pull over. The tires are flat. Antifreeze in the dish. Massive wreck.

Even the night brings no relief. I swallow the strongest sleeping pill ever approved by the FDA, but it just propels me into another world, one full of the same anxieties as the awake world forces upon me.

Nightmares. Horrible, vicious nightmares. Someone is breaking in to the house. The alarms aren’t working. I can hear them, but I can’t move. I can hear the door opening. I can’t scream, I can’t hear my dog. She should be barking. Why isn’t she barking? Bark! I try and scream at her to bark, I scream as hard as I can, but nothing comes out. I can hear the person in the house. Why didn’t the alarm go off? Why can’t I move? Then it is there, the outstretched arm, the hand covering my eyes…

Then I awake again, in a cold sweat, double checking the doors, triple checking the alarms, checking to make sure my dog is alive, checking to make sure she is breathing, checking the doors again, checking the exterior security doors, checking under the bed, checking behind the bathroom door, checking behind the living room door, checking, checking checking.

Then I lay back in bed. Two hours until I have to wake up. One hour and fifty nine minutes until I have to wake up. One hour and fifty eight minutes until I have to wake up. One hour and fifty seven minutes until I have to wake up. One hour and fifty six minutes until I have to wake up. One hour and fifty five minutes until I have to wake up.

Pot of Gold. At the end of the Rainbow.

{ July 25, 2008 @ 12:15 am } · { Daily Life }
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I’ve got a strange job. Imagine a pot at the end of a rainbow, a pot full of gold, guarded by a red headed leprechaun.

Well, I’m the leprechaun. I decide who gets the gold, and how much they get.

These people in line for the gold, they scream at me. Call me names. Fight. They want the gold, but it is my job to be fair. After all, I can’t just give gold for nothing (although that seems to be the popular belief).

It isn’t such a great idea to yell at the leprechaun. It makes me weary. Tired.

All day they yell, yell, yell, and it is always the same thing. A broken record. Everyone in line for the gold has the same sob story.

I used to care. I really did. “Oh, you need the money for your daughter’s funeral? Well, here you go!”

Then I started to do research, and found out they’ve been using the same story on all the leprechauns.

For over 20 years.

So now, I don’t give as much. I’m not so generous. Very skeptical. I don’t smile anymore, my heart strings are no longer tugged…the question is, does that make me a better leprechaun, or a worse leprechaun?

Why?

{ July 19, 2008 @ 8:32 pm } · { Welcome to the Neighborhood }
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Why do people downtown honk and scream and whistle at you while you’re walking your dog, then circle the blocks a few times when you ignore them?

I really don’t understand it. I don’t walk her in hooker clothes, so surely they don’t think I’m just going to invite them behind the bushes for a gang bang.

So why do it? Does that actually work on any woman in the world?

I mean, two guys in a rusted out 1993 Dodge Caravan with two donuts for two of the tires they couldn’t afford to replace start honking and whistling at me. Do they really think that is what I look for in a man? Someone who picks up his women on the street?

And when I ignore you, is it really necessary to drive around three times? Do you think I missed the show the first time around, and maybe the second time I’ll notice you and come on over for a chat?

In any case, I’m toying with the idea of selling out to a condo uptown, in a high rise, with a security guard force, security cameras, and people who walk your dog for you.

Thanks, jerks.

Vindication from a Crack Head

{ July 19, 2008 @ 7:53 pm } · { Crackheads, Crackwhores, Odd Moments }
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There’s one main crack dealer, she lives across the street from me. I’m not quite sure how she can afford it, I suppose perhaps she isn’t addicted to the drug she sells, which affords her a rather nice lifestyle.

She sees me walking Mogwai almost every day, and consequently I see her partaking in drug deals nearly every day. She has this drive-by thing going, people drive up, and she gives them the drugs. Perhaps this is how all drug dealers work, I’m not sure, as she is the first one I have actually seen up close, aside from Law & Order.

She always makes a point to let me know that she sees me seeing her doing her deals. She will be right up at the person’s window, right in the middle of her transaction, and she will wave at me, and holler something like, “Hey neighbor! Nice day for a walk!”

She’s very obvious about it, I just smile, go back inside, and accept it as a way of life.

The other day she was walking to her apartment from somewhere, and she came up beside us on the sidewalk. She said to me, “Wow, he looks like he’s losing weight! You got him on a diet or something?”

And I swelled with pride! I’ve been trying SO hard with Mogwai to get some weight off her, and she has lost five pounds, and I was so pleased someone noticed!

Nearly every day a crack head will yell at me that my dog is too fat, and it has been this ongoing struggle medically with her obesity, and finally, finally a crack head said she looks thin.

Vindication for all my hard work.

From a crack head.

Rich Guy Blows Up Some Money

{ July 19, 2008 @ 7:25 pm } · { Dark Videos, Family, Holidays }
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I spent the 4th at my sister’s lakehouse. Family always feels obligated to invite the old spinster sister, so there I was. There was a gentleman two doors down who spent about $20,000 on a fireworks display, possibly more, that was just an estimate.

That was just a few seconds. It went on for hours.

I’ll never have that much money.

Ambulance

{ June 14, 2008 @ 11:25 pm } · { Dark Videos, Welcome to the Neighborhood }
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The other day, two cars crashed outside my house. One of them flew up into the light pole, and knocked out the lights. I couldn’t finish reading my book (because, being totally undomestic, I had no candles or flashlight), so I did what all the neighbors (ahem, crackheads) did, and sat back and watched.

12 Years.

{ June 14, 2008 @ 6:33 pm } · { Odd Moments, Shopping, Uncomfortable for Them, strangers }
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I am alone. I don’t know anyone, and no one knows me. Over the years I have come to see myself as camouflage, blending in to the background. No one even sees me anymore. I’m just another nameless, faceless person filling up space, creating a shadow.

I’m always shocked when I go into a convenience store near my house and the clerk has my cigarettes ready for me before I even get to the counter. My theory is that they remember me because I’m the only person in the city who smokes these particular cigarettes, rather than it being something specific about me.

Because there is nothing specific about me.

Rather than feeling warm and fuzzy inside at having been elevated to the status of a “regular” customer, I feel embarrassed. If they remember me, then they remember everything I’ve bought, like the case after case after case of beer I bought and drank alone during that blurry month that I tried that route.

So instead of enjoying the familiarity, I remind myself never to go there again.

I was at this very fancy store last month that I have never been to before, and the girl checking me out commented that I looked very familiar to her. I smiled politely and assured her that I didn’t know her. She asked what street I lived on, and I told her, and she confirmed that we are not neighbors. I used a card, so she asked to see my ID.

She scrunched up her face as she read my name out loud. “Even your name sounds familiar. It is like I know you.”

“No,” I responded. “Impossible. I don’t know anyone here.”

She continued, “Oh, you’re new here. Where are you from then?”

I said, “I’ve been here 12 years.”

Intro to Crackhead Conversations.

{ June 14, 2008 @ 6:07 pm } · { Crackheads, Odd Moments }
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Some days, the only conversations I have are with the crackheads outside my house. Yesterday, I was outside with my dog, letting her do her business, when a crackhead yelled at me, “How much is a room there?”

He was across the street, and it is a busy street. I yelled back, politely, “This isn’t a rooming house.”

“Oh, what is it then?” he yelled back.

“An apartment building.”

“Oh, so how much is a room?”

“Uhh…$1400 a month.”

“$14 a night?!? How do I get one?” he yelled back. At this point, my girl and I just turned around, and went inside.

Real Life.

{ June 11, 2008 @ 11:59 pm } · { Cigarettes, Crackwhores }
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While outside a moment ago, sneaking a cigarette on the stoop, I noticed a used condom baking in the sun. That crack whore is a lot smarter than I thought she was.