The blogs where I don’t have a rush of thoughts and anger to unload I never feel are that great so I’m warning you now this will probably meander.
I have no life. I got off of my nonsense job at 5 AM (after much conditioning to get used to getting off at 8:30) and I still managed to listen to the whole of Consider the Lobster and got a deeper appreciation for the reasons David Foster Wallace killed himself. My feet were sore, but less so, throbbing on my living room bed as I refreshed my Trakt.tv page and made sure it properly recorded instances of what I’ve watched. I took in a condescending or demeaning comment from reddit as I probed past fights and future plans for litigation. I ate half a bag of Cheetos, not because I was hungry, but because it was there.
I proceeded to fall asleep to the last half of a TV show I only started watching because people in my demographic remember and enjoy 3 of the main cast members from cult series of the past. I even saw Ron Funches perform in person once. Twice now, before even reaching 2 paragraphs, I’ve been re-opening a “case” with facebook in an exceedingly feeble attempt to get my old page back that was locked down for initially unclear reasons, and then likely kept that way after my intransigence at sending them a picture of my license. This has been a saga transcended only by the years long poking wars of old. In front of me is a white board (because all serious and thoughtful people need to splay their ideas out on a white board) with quasi-arbitrary lists and words the speak to all sorts of “things” I’d “like” to “do.”
In a fit of motivation I returned a faulty car jack only to learn the money would still be subject to be spent at Wal-Mart despite my questions and protest. I stole a pack of nails (while buying 2 more identical ones) because. I proceeded to drive downtown, as the weather has been, in the words of a friend “terrifyingly beautiful” for February in Indiana. I wandered down the sidewalk making extra effort to ignore how this day brought out the goofiest looking people and bizarre homeless. Making it to the library almost felt like an accomplishment as it spurred my memory to return a book I forgot in my car. I bought 3 books, 2 of which I probably won’t read. I went back to my car and sat there with my leg out the window reading a few articles and texting a person I’ve no business pretending to be friends with.
The sitting in my car waiting around scene played out again in front of another friend’s house as I waited to hear back from a woman offering free firewood. If man can be judged by their texts alone, I have my suspicions about this woman’s ownership of a high school degree. Our poor communication has me trying again tomorrow to take a few stumps for my future fire plans. I came home and put on a random “guitar play along” playlist where I strummed easy chords to songs I don’t particularly care for and sang super loud in what I hope is a passive aggressive ploy that annoys my shady neighbors. I finished off 3 different kinds of tea and a beer, all the while putting off a shower I genuinely wanted to take a long time ago.
I pick at my skin until there’s pools of blood that spot my shirts and sheets. I rehearse the same verses of a handful of classical songs in between picking out the dirt that gets trapped under my nails grown out in service to the task. My eye is raw from something getting trapped under my contact I generally can’t be bothered to take out for a month or two at a time. I primarily defaulted to a state where if I’m not hungry, I’m just confused. I don’t know why I’m listening to the audiobook or reading the article talking from another detailed angle I already know enough about. I don’t know why I’m learning songs I don’t care about while I hear something on a long drive that has me itching to get home and start up, but rarely if ever do. I’ve eaten 3 foods I don’t even like over the last 2 days I think to just give my mouth something to protest.
On a random page of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, one of the 3 books I bought and likely the only one I’ll try to read, there was a line about which facts tend to stick with you and why. The facts that sit at the nexus of who you are and who you are becoming are what you remember. If I’ve now immortalized this day does it then suggest I’m becoming even moreso this wandering lonely hobo-adjacent layabout? Or am I just dropping it off here because I’ll be forgetting this day and all I happened to be involved with so quickly that any lesson or resolve I might glean from it would be fleeting? Somewhere in my mind is the belief in having the ability to make choices, but knowing I again have work at midnight and my mind is leaning away from seeing a collection of townie bands, I’m sensing circumstantial victimhood.
Tomorrow I’ll have a life. Tomorrow I’m going to get another job and pick up tree stumps and 2x4s and get a shovel fixed and see if I can make a solid spot to stick people I’m not convinced even really like me around a fire. Then I can dream about misremembering some of these recent songs I don’t care for, try to unload 3 or 4 extra containers of salsa that were ignored at the last together, and create another memory centered around my, apparent addiction, to gathering people together. I didn’t call a friend to shoot the shit. I didn’t clean the kitchen or continue taking inventory. I didn’t watch more videos related to straw-bale building or pouring concrete. I’m not learning to code better to organize all of my Mystik related activities. I’m a day tripping Sunday driver who’s convinced himself carrying on like this will eventually get me everything I ever want. Slightly over-simplified, but I heard Elon Musk schedules his days down to 5 minute increments. Guess I’m not a Martian.
