Something’s not right. It’s not “wrong,” but it’s definitely not right. I can’t seem to figure out how to get moving. I can’t seem to find the drive to push the outer limits of the experiment. I can’t find the fucks to give and barely discover the focus. I envision what I might otherwise be doing or what will happen when I arrive, and instead, well I’m doing this, this time. I might just as well go to sleep, start a show, or find myself vacuuming spider webs that never bothered me for the last 9 months they’ve been there. I’ve been keen to theorize this has something to do with “undiagnosed ADHD.” I’m beginning to suspect there’s something darker and more insidious going on.
I just returned from a comedy show. I saw another one the night before with my
dad who came down the 3-hour trip to visit. At the show tonight, the audience
was very chatty. Although Joe Pera was encouraging answers to questions he
posed to the crowd, one woman took it upon herself to share a mini monologue
during a punchline. I’m absolutely fascinated by the complete lack of self-awareness
when something like that happens. More to what I think is echoing in the back
of my head though, her doing that is almost the norm. It’s an abysmal and
disrespectful norm, like so much that modernity has presented for us to choke
down, but you don’t really know if you’re going to hear the person you paid to
see more than the assholes they’ve attracted to the room.
I feel like I hate this in an outsized way because I was not the person going
to 65 shows a year. I might have made it to 2, more likely 1, if any at all. I
didn’t have the expendable income to just write off a negative experience. I
might have saved and sacrificed for a while to get a ticket at all, let alone
one with a decent view. Then I get drunk bitch chiming in? Her selfish
interjections stealing my invitations to connect and laugh? I might lose my
goddamn mind, especially if I haven’t felt like I was connecting to myself or
anyone, artist or otherwise, for a long period of time.
I’ve griped about having to tell idiots to shut the fuck up in every 3rd
movie. The people at the show yesterday weren’t any better in terms of staying
quiet or paying attention. Literal conversations going on all around. Drunk
over-blasting discussions about the bill. It’s fucking trashy and embarrassing and
it’s this kind of stuff I think portends the end of man.
I don’t know if I’m more dangerous when I don’t know what I’m doing or believe
that I do. I don’t have any real and proper compulsions, but I can savor a moment
that registers as an excitable opportunity for change or chaos. I have so many
tasks and chores and dreams that feel like so much plodding and errant hole
digging. “Any word on the counseling business?” The refrain from onlookers after
I get tricked by the word “paid.” I don’t know, I can spend money to build a website
and offer text-based super-low-priced counseling. I can spend money and look
for a lead generator. I can spend money and outsource outreach or access pools
of people. Or, I can wait until the only seemingly remotely feasible way to get
paid, even meagerly, long-term is being contracted.
It all feels like wheel-spinning. Meanwhile, I have a job allowing me to live
as close to my “extravagant” lifestyle as I’ve dreamed so far, but it’s proving
as unfulfilling and incomplete as I always knew it would. Just because you win
the lottery doesn’t mean you have a purpose, and I’ve won many lotteries. As
the parade of “general audience” members continues to suggest, even the notion
that I might “escape” into the world of persistent viewer/laugher/analyzer is a
farse because the attention will always be drawn back to the loudest cawing
asshole in the room.
I feel myself get tired when I get home. I don’t want to do 10 minutes of
notes. I don’t want to fill out another reference survey. I don’t want to put
the paperwork together to apply for another empty well-wishing not-so-promise
that some organization “loves what we do” and “wants to work with us” but won’t
be available for a year to “maybe” pay and only if we meet “specialized
criterion” that will change with the wind. I don’t want to get up and drive to
Bedford tomorrow to be rushed into conversations about nothing to nowhere. I
don’t want to do anything right until the moment I do, but can’t. The weather
was brilliant today. The first time I’ve felt I wanted to break down the
pallets since the last time when it, of course, rained indefinitely weeks ago.
I was on my way to Indianapolis. Even if I wasn’t, I haven’t fixed my water, so
when I get immediately sweaty and grungy, I get to sleep in that and take it to
work? I get to drive to Bloomington for Planet Fitness fresh-shit-in-the-air
showers?
I’m feeling more tired in the way that has nothing to do with
the physical. I watch as too-driven Hussain tells me he’s not sleeping and
repeats “this has to work” with regard to the counseling business because he,
like all of us, has his own debt and bills to pay. I gripe about 2 to 4
paychecks of debt as I spend freely to rock out and laugh, he’s 200K for school,
has a mortgage, and a wife with a decent desire to spend. He said recently that
he was experiencing heart trouble as he’s constantly stressed out and arguing
with the school or companies he works for. He’s like me when I started the
coffee shop thinking 20 steps and years ahead, and letting what hasn’t happened
act as a weight or unrealistic anchor on the future.
I feel like I’ve never really wanted anything that complicated. Before I had
the opportunity to be infinitely humbled, I just wanted to work. I wanted to
work and get recognized and rewarded for all the work I was doing. School led
me to believe that grades indicated something special or important, saying
nothing about the safety it afforded me at home. When I thought I had a friend
group, the goal was time together. That turned into an endless series of
resentments. In relationships I feel myself occupying that “How can I help?” roll,
whether it’s spending money, physically working on something, or just there to
listen indefinitely to what most often amounts to a problem that’s not going to
get fixed. I don’t know what to trust most of the time, and it’s leaving me
very disoriented and dispirited.
Work ethic doesn’t mean just or persistent reward. It means exhaustion,
exploitation, or maybe hurting yourself. When you connect with so many “friends”
you have to run that experiment for 20 years before you maybe luck out and
find ones who haven’t succumbed to their mental health disorders or fallen in
with all manner of crazy on planet Also-Alone while left to their own devices.
What was the point? I find myself constantly asking. I look at all the crap I
have in my little house. What was the point of buying these books I’m not reading?
Why do I have a sewing machine? Why do I have 4 guitars and seven other instruments?
I have woodworking equipment I’ve never opened. I have cooking tools I’ve used
once or twice. I’m existing in this persistent fantasy where these are all
tools I’m able to use in a consistent and convenient way. You know, the future
where I’m meal prepping and have counter space and water that’s more water than
copper silt. The future where I’m playing my instruments with nothing on my
mind than the subtle differences I need to make to get my fingers right and
next set of chords memorized. The future where I’ve loaded up on sewing
material and spent all day watching videos until I start making custom bags and
pockets for the crap I have.
Instead, I’m watching TV. And even with that, I’m not getting all of the
episodes renamed so I can continue to build my channels and lists. I’ve gotten
so far, and am watching what I’ve gotten. As though completing the task would
leave me with too arduous of things to do next and I want it lying in wait as
an excuse. You know how I bought a weighted-keys piano? Just so I could learn “A
Thousand Miles” about 90% correctly, forget most of it 3 weeks later, and now
stare at the piano literally at my feet as I occasionally turn it on to confirm
it’s still plugged in and ready to go.
I’m sick. I’m stuck. I’m floundering, hard. I made it real and started flying
around to see shows. Oh, shit, well I confirmed that airplanes exist, people
are people wherever you go, and you’re gambling if you fly cheap. I’m
incredibly happy and thankful I can do and say that, but it’s only a small part
of the puzzle. I think people go the other direction and try to make their
families or their jobs account for the whole of their puzzle. No one’s got
money or time to come with me to the show most often, but they’ve got all the
family time, talk, and obligations you could ever ask for. They don’t need me
as a friend in the same way that I don’t need a hug from the kids I don’t have.
Maybe I’m an addict. I must be addicted to something that
persistently finds the runaround discussion about what I should or could be
doing, but can’t seem to be invested and intentional about changing.
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