but seriously, it's bad enough i took a nap for an hour and a half so i'd wake and be ready to down enough to get rhode island drunk and then start typing, but to have that be the first thing i see? this past week has been hectic enough, i don't need the added insult to injury. green may be her favorite color, but it's a hell of a color to see the world through all the time; wanting what you can't have, missing what you did. and maybe it's a little sad that this, for me, is therapy, but to each his own. drinking alone on a wednesday night may not be all that classy, but it suits me just fine. three people in the last week have kindly suggested i curb the habit a bit for awhile, and they're probably right, but i don't see the harm if it's used a productive tool to unwind in my room. i'd say it helps me imagine a better life, but it's no psychedelic. alcohol is clearly a depressant, but if used properly it can heighten the creative and painfully honest aspects of my inner being and thereby allow me to escape reality in a more direct way than reading. i really need to stop tossin' 'em back in other places as frequently, though. i don't remember the impact that put the small dent in the back of my car sometime over the course of the last week, but i can tell you i was probably extremely intoxicated and should not have been behind the wheel of anything with the ability to exceed five miles per hour. it scares me to think that i can sink that low at times when it can somehow be rationalized, and it's only a matter of time before it catches up with me like the rest of my mistakes. the whiskey tastes right tonight and the beer is cold and i'm ready to let go of form and go with the flow. i usually try to give my rambling some sort of coherent structure that segues nicely from one topic to the next, but i have so much to say that writing a fucking essay just doesn't seem feasible, let alone fun. it's sad that doing a stream-of-consciousness sort of rant is about as recalcitrant as i get, aside from the whole drunk driving thing, but i'm really not all that exciting most nights; a loud-mouthed lush at best (or worst), a boring bookworm at whatever you consider the opposite. a world of extremes i am, folks. no happy medium, no happy anything. but this part of it all makes it worthwhile, the putting it down in pretty little words that from a distance seem to amount to something. not that i want to have to do this for the rest of my life. no, i only do this right now because i feel i have to for my own dwindling sanity. i want someone to somehow find a way to make me want to put this drunken documenter side of me down: like a tired veteran putting his rifle in the closet, like an ex-alky locking the flask away, like a cleaned-up junkie burying his spoon, like a happy young man focusing all of his attention on the positive energy shared with his loving partner instead of having to face his fears head-on at night with a drink in his left and the mouse in his right and that ever-laughing escape sheathed just feet away. but let's be real, that day is not even on the horizon for me or someone like me. so for now, cheers. (i know what this paragraph made you think, and i don't have an answer: how many times will i try to say the same thing in a different way? there are only so many spins i can put on the same situation, the same desires. if i were you i'd stop reading too, or i'd try to do something about it. remember: it's not the accident that holds up traffic, it's the passersby turning their necks.)
i'll try to spare the majority of you (haha, only like eight people read this) by getting to what you're probably most curious about first. no, i have not hunted anyone down in the heat of the moment and broken multiple bones. even yours truly tends to simmer after awhile, though there was a period when pounding my right fist into my left palm and fantasizing about the plan of attack in the shower was not unheard of. frankly, he's not even worth it. no long-term good would come of revenge, and i think i made my point already, though i don't quite remember much after killing the bottle of hundred-sixty proof rum and dialing his number. there's nothing i can do now but learn from it, and be leary of trusting anyone again simply because of their alleged rank in my hierarchy of friends and acquaintances. when it comes down to it, the guy you'd have as your best man in your wedding would do you dirty quicker than the bum next to you at the bottle return sometimes. it's not a matter of fixed loyalty based on title, it's a matter of what people want and how much they're willing to sacrifice to get it. (and though, like i said, the ass-kicking daydreams have stopped, i still like to think about asking him the one simple question that always came from my mouth during those violent little mental scenarios: "was it worth it?") and the band is one thing i realized i'm not willing to sacrifice. i didn't realize how much i had missed playing during that year hiatus, and things were just starting to come together for us. we'll even have a bonafide singer soon since our top-secret future vocalist gave us his word he'd be ready to take on the commitment in two months. at first i thought i could let it go by the wayside, but after about a week i put the scenario into perspective. either i lose a friend and a band, or i just lost a friend. it's hard for me to swallow my pride and bury the hatchet, but i know i can maintain a professional relationship with him for a few hours a week at practice because i love the band more than i dislike him. at first i considered the notion selling out, and i guess in a way it is, but i see no other way of continuing to function at a somewhat healthy level without reaching some sort of compromise. as mentioned in my previous entry, there are far too many turds in this current shitstorm to convince me that being stubborn on this matter would behoove me in the long run. i can be a big boy, no dirty looks or menacing remarks. just don't talk to me about anything other than the music after the amps turn off for the night or expect me to ever want to chill one-on-one again; we've both lost that privelege, this is just making the best of it for the sake of one of the other entities both of us cherish. the tension will fade with time, it always does. it's just a matter of getting there. the always-applicable irony in it all now, the band we saw reunite in may and the album he introduced me to that saved my life and whose title is on my arm: "where you are and where you want to be."
the coke just stopped fizzing in the tall, tantalizing cocktail i just made. it's ready to be sipped now. ahhhh, the sweet taste of the cherry coke dripping from my beard onto my lips. manna from heaven, ladies and gentlemen. this is why i'm hot.
someone ran over one of the wild bunnies that runs around at the end of my road. i saw the flies buzzing around his cute little cotton tail the other morning and took it as an omen, as i tend to do in such cases. twenty minutes later i arrived at the plumbing supply house to pick up some fittings for my boss when a counteromen intervened. the dew was fresh on the seven a.m. grass as i walked towards the entrance of the building and a rabbit froze in its tracks a mere five feet from me. he looked my way as i said hello, then ran off around a corner. last week i went to the mall and got dinner with a friend whom i haven't seen in awhile. he laughed and walked away as i veered towards the small black rabbit in the display window of the pet store muttering the equivalent of cute obscenities to myself. it's something i always do at the mall, i instantly turn into lenny from "of mice and men" whenever there's a lagomorph (look it up) present. it's pretty queer that a six-foot, two-twenty puerto rican plumber like myself can have his whole day lit up by something so absurd, but i try not to question good things. that's why i've decided that once this temporary roommate across the hall moves out in august i'm going to go get a new dwarf rabbit and keep it in there. has to be black (so i can name it leroy), has to be female (so it won't try to hump me, and so the name leroy makes no sense), has to be better than the zero company i have around the house now. i know it will make me happy somehow, just like i know i will be having a stern talking-to with my roommate's obnoxious and carnivorous cat about what will happen to it if it ever so much as glances sideways at leroy. so it is written, so it is done!
my friend and singer from an old band who moved to the city and works on the production of the martha stewart show is drunk-texting me as usual. it happens about once every three weeks, mostly in the form of song lyrics. that kid cracks me up, i wonder how he lives from day to day down there. tonight he's telling me how he's drunk on wine and miserable and is going to a dive bar to try to pick up girls. i told him i wish i was there to be his wingman, i'd talk him up to them and say how he's martha's favorite. he said he's just her favorite because of his oral skills. i said that's because he goes the extra mile south. he said girls love that. i said good luck with the ladies tonight. sometimes the timing of a conversation is more important than it's depth; i just remembered i have friends who reach out and touch me once in awhile. god bless drunk-dialing, even though i'm pretty sure it's hurt me more than helped me in my past.
speaking of which (so much for the no segues threat), i was heading home from a three-hour stint with my side-job boss and stepfather friday and mustered up the balls to call her. i got her voicemail, as hoped for, and said what i had to get off my chest without getting sappy. i told her how i ran out of cd's to listen to in my car and popped the mix she had made me in out of desperation, and how all the songs suddenly made sense; it was in essence a break-up album, which is why the lyrics didn't click back then and just bummed me out to the point where i tossed it into the back seat and wished it wouldn't ever apply. but when i heard "how's it gonna be" and a few death cab songs and "leaving on a jet plane" last week it all came to me at once. three of the songs made reference to rain and storms and it just so happened to be pouring as i rode around listening to it and scratching my head, looking for the truman show cameras. i told her how appropriate the songs suddenly were, and that i hope she finds what she's looking for, then moved on to what i had really wanted to tell her: that i'm sorry i "embarrassed" her, as she said the last time we spoke, and that i am just as proud to have gone out with her now as i was during those early days of our relationship when we'd go to the diner and i'd be glad that people saw us together. i told her that ever since she said she regretted going out with me and i was an embarrassment i had hoped she'd call so i could tell her to go fuck herself, but that my feelings had changed. i could never do that, even after all the shit we put each other through. i told her i give her credit for not calling me first and that she's stronger than me, even though she doesn't see it, and that's one of the things i always loved about her. i told her she can hate me all she wants, but i don't regret a thing and i wish her only the best. i hung up and sighed in relief as i turned my car onto my road and headed back to pass out for a couple hours. once again, i need to stop driving drunk, but at least i slept knowing i said what i had to. she didn't respond, and i'm still not sure he has, but there was a strange myspace comment left by her brother's account on my page today saying "You just couldn't stay away......" (six periods, not three) and i'm thinking that was her. it was hard for the moths to stay away from the porch light during my last cigarette break, it's hard for me to stay away from anyone i miss. and though i try to pawn it off on just missing the feeling of being with someone, i do think that there are qualities in that raging bitch of a female that i will never find in someone else: namely, her total willingness to admit she's a raging bitch of a woman, just like my blunt acceptance that i can be a total asshole. birds of a feather, sparrows on our bodies. and how i said in a previous paragraph about misjudging friends: i may do that more than i know. during a serious conversation with someone who really doesn't know me that well i was called out on missing this one more than the rest based on what's been written and read here. i guess i have to take an outside opinion more seriously than my own in this case since i'm rather biased. it was hard to hear that it's not who i'd like it to be and who it was for so long, but it was good to hear that someone actually took the time to read into what i say more than i do. and to be challenged on my own battlefield by someone who barely knows me. sometimes it's an honor to be outdone. thanks, bro.
to be cropped out of a picture, and poorly: there is no worse a fate. for the love of god, don't leave an eighth of the person's face in. do you have any idea what the psychological effects of that are on someone? don't read into that too much, i just looked at someone's myspace and saw that they had done that and instantly recognized whose face had been slaughtered, and rightfully so since one night during my first few weeks of being single i mistakenly...yeah.
i normally try to remember certain somewhat important facts through simple devices. if i need to remember something in the morning i'll throw something from my dresser on the floor so i wonder why i deviated from the norm and remember why i did it, etc. i tend to do the same with lightswitch configurations when multiple lights are involved, but never bothered to do so in this house until tonight. previously, when going out for a smoke, i'd hit both switches until the porch light came on, but not anymore. oh no, friends, i now have it embedded in my subconscious that the switch closest to the door is the switch that must be up if i plan on going through that goddamn door. it's a sad way to have to look at life, but it's how i get by. simple associations like that are why i tested well in school, and how i used to help her study inane vocab words for her speech therapy classes last summer when i lived in the last house. it helped her as much as it did me, she always got those questions right. unfortunately, i failed the final. this wasn't supposed to be about her. stream of consciousness, right.
i've been working my ass off for my other boss. our company was pulled from the job last week by the union hall because our contractor didn't pay the hall what he owed them so my apprental friend and i went to work for my previous non-union employer who usually keeps us busy for a buck-twenty on saturdays. it was an important job because the wire plant we've been working in is shut down for two weeks and the system we were installing had to be up and running by the time the workers returned. that meant working last week, saturday and sunday, and a couple nights this week. burning the candle at both ends has been rough, but i can't let this guy down. he's relying on me even more than i'm relying on him and i want to keep his business afloat. he put a lot of trust in me on this job and left me to work my pipefitting magic even though i'm just a kid. it all paid off last night when he called me drunk to ask how our second-shift session went. i told him we finished a three-inch line and that we're in good shape. he stumbled through a few bud-friendly words and told me i'm doing great and he's proud of me. for a man of few words that meant a lot, especially since he told me at the bar a few days ago that at the fourth of july party my mom confided in him about my father's absence and how i look up to him and the union guys i work with. we've been being pretty honest with each other during our post-work barroom confessionals lately. on sunday, after eight pints and three shots, he looked me in the eyes and asked if i'm ok. i told him what's going on at my mom's with her and my stepfather and how it pisses me off to no end that he gives her shit over nothing and i have to hold my tongue. his green eyes looked towards the ceiling for a moment and even the beer couldn't talk for a few seconds so i knew his response was sincere. he was blessed with two daughters, but no sons, so i know that that's the way he sees me. he makes me count the cash he pays me in front of him because he wants to be sure we're squared up and never second-guesses my hours, he's that kind of guy. i just wonder if when i'm pulling those wrenches to make the both of us a buck he sees the scars on my forearms that i try to hide. if he only knew how funny it was that the factory we're working at is right across from my old therapist's office, and that i saw him driving a few weeks ago and wanted to flag him down for an impromptu roadside session. alcohol's great for that and all, but sometimes i like to make professional heads explode with the bad movie that is my life.
i told that same man a few weeks ago about the dream i had that night. i was running late in the morning and my mom was hounding me about it, saying i'd be late for school. i told her i wasn't going to school, i was going to work construction that morning. and in there was the sign: i'm not going back to college, at least not now, not for an english degree and a teaching profession. i've accepted my fate as a proud union pipefitter, and i'd rather do this if it means i'll make more money and be able to support a family more comfortably. now all i need is that family. or at least a good woman for future prospects of a household. haha. i'm an old man trapped in a twenty-three-year-old body.
what they say is true: what you learn drunk, you remember drunk. i hit the right light switch on the first try while going for the smoke break i just took, despite the numerous cocktails and empty beer bottles on my floor. the biggest mosquito i've ever seen hovered around my head and i went to swing at it, but played it off like i was just scratching my beard when i realized i would miss. as if a bug would call me out for being a drunken fool. driving to work in a few hours should be fun, i'll sweat it all out in the morning.
there's a pair of pants i want to write a very short story about. i have these blue plaid pajama pants my mom bought for my five years ago when i started college, as if i'd wear them. i kept them around since i'm a packrat and can't throw things out, even if i don't use them. ever since i've had them every girl who's spent (too much) time in my room(s) has wanted to wear them to bed every now and then (when they were on the rag). i've never had the heart to tell any of them that the previous girl that they automatically hated used to wear them, and that i never bothered to wash them since they were rarely used. it was pretty motherfucking ironic (i know, recurring theme) that they all gravitated towards these goddamn pants and i'm pretty sure i could get a decent couple concise paragraphs out of it, the way they feel so comfortable feeling like they're the first. well, honey, you're not. and you won't be the last. i'm not done searching yet, and even if i were i'd keep fucking it up until you left. that's how i roll. so much for the very short story.
and the only thing more embarrassing than having a peebottle in your room for drunken lazy nights is emptying it the next day when no one's home.
ok so i'm weird and have a hair thing and she cut me a few locks over the course of those two years. i'd always lose them after awhile, and sometimes they'd pop up. i couldn't get rid of them, even after she left, and i lost the one i knew of the other night. i woke up and checked if it had disappeared inside my pillow case and to my surprise i found a different lock of her hair that had been lost a long time ago. i pulled it out of the pillow case and took a look and saw that it was pristine. i must have lost it right after she gave it to me, probably in a card of some sort for some occasion. the hair looked like it had just been cut from her head, like it could have been resting on my pillow in early march with no problem. it was somehow harder to look at than anything i've seen in my life, it somehow brought me right back to reality. she was once here, she used to be real to me, she used to fall asleep naked against my body and we wouldn't worry about anything other than waking up in time for work in the morning. i threw it in my desk drawer and swore not to take it out again. i may be a packrat and a bit of a masochist, but i know what'll put me under.
fuck this. i'm going to bed. and waking up to go to work still drunk in five hours. i'm really not as bad off as it seems, don't worry.
if you turn the other cheek fast enough they miss.
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