[728] To Be Determined

Standard disclaimer: I don't really know what I want to write about.

A few friends came to town. Had a fun night. Came home obliterated with 6 lines decrying how much I missed having friends before I passed out with the keyboard in my lap. I want to be careful here and draw that line between friends and the idea of friends. I was hanging out with mostly the idea of friends. The idea of friends can play out like a regular night out with friends. Friends have been willing to pick up where you left off and talk in the time between and after. The idea of friends plays along for a laugh or a shot.

I'm feeling weird about my day tomorrow. As is my habit, I've made it a point of trying to account for my conscience and write up my honest perspective on how I might “feel supported” in a job I very much don't want by people who very likely have no capacity to do so. I wrote my polite explanation of myself in context and used all the polite deferential language we govern our lives by. If something comes of it, great. If nothing comes of it, duh. But most importantly, my sheer mastery of swinging my big invisible and powerful dick around, you know, the obvious and persistent truth, will grant me the leeway to fuck them like I've asked them to deliberately state how they're fucking me.

If only for the weight of culture and the inescapable condescension, closing in on 30, still a mere child no doubt, really makes the edge of the knife glean. I don't have to get into stupid fights. I don't have to justify anything. Even more I can just say and do. Only now, instead of bleeding insecurity quivering and judging, it's depleted hopelessness nodding along. The pause and shuffle when something gets exposed. The exasperated sigh and resolved look and nod. I've thrown myself into a pit of ideologues and interjected myself into people's lives for lack of something better to talk about? Because I found the idea of getting my money from drug studies too easy so I turned into a nervous wreck? Because of some cliché about how you don't know what you need until you've fought through it and come out the other side?

Life has been a series of “lessons” on learning how to die. Stop believing in this. Stop talking like that. Stop pretending with this person. Stop getting worked up. Stop planning. Stop fearing certain risks. Stop bothering with other, stupider risks. Stop defending those irrationally afraid of shields or who've crippled their arms before the fight begins. Stop chasing girls. Stop playing video games. Stop thinking anything is coming just around the corner or that you have enough money or that anyone “helps” without bottoming out or taking advantage.

I adopted my goals because they weren't simply about me. I make the same pitch year in and year out. I want to strike that balance between indulgences and entertainment while working my heart out. Should I sit down and be humble? Should I pretend what I want, what seems a moral imperative, should take a back seat to a measured comfort for going through the motions? Should I revel in my “base pay?” Should I slosh around in the mud of a few thousand in savings because to go without is the highest moral edict? Sacrifice today for the future? Act like I see a future where I'm not running with all my might away from this extinguishing country?

I wish I was angry. I wish I had a grip on that level of motivation to keep driving me. It's more fun. Now, I've learned too much about sugar to take my spoonful with gobs of medicine. I took pills to sleep tonight. I don't think they'll work, but I did it. Why not? I have to be in a woman's home who I listened to cry for 20 minutes because she did a little meth and now just wants things to go back to normal. Me recording what they say for 2 hours helps, because these abjectly poor children with terrible influences, and every complex imaginable in teenage girls are “safer” for it? As long as we use that language while I find every excuse to interject in their lives longer, here comes the pat on the back.

What's it going to take? Another 2 weeks? 2 months? I got past the “pay off credit cards, pay expensive car issue, oh remember secret bill happened too” stage and can sit on the $1200 until the next $1200 comes in. I can re-call all up and down southern Indiana for a handyman who isn't shit. Then what? I've handed all the time I usually do nothing with to a “real” job. I can't just go build a greenhouse tomorrow. Or, I can schedule time to do the first parts of trying poorly and see parts stack up around my house and van. 

I never ended this properly, so here’s an abrupt stop.