coworkers have nightmares about proofing pages. one poor, sweet guy unable to fall asleep proofing pages that don’t exist. even the ones that do are thrown in the trash moments after, often before, their purpose is served. we care too much. we say we won’t let ourselves but we do (though me least of all. delinquent. slacker. burnout in the sociology textbooks i wrote a paper defending. and i am. so burnt out.) and our team at work. we sell our souls and scratch our arms and pull out hairs. greying faster than they should. we gain wrinkles. down drinks. smoke smokes instead of staving off cancer. we do all this to pay the bills. to support the habits that help us get through it all.
we all initially put our feet down on weekend work. but slowly they cave. not i, said the me. i will keep my weekend open for the possibility of a tall dreamy thing. that stresses me. that i am torn between being the likely strange-seeming, open, honest thing that is ‘me’ and the playing-it-cool-thing dating requires of me.
i have nightmares about shopping. before and after two coats in 30 minutes flat. the void that can never be filled. $200 a week. a visa that won’t quit. loans that won’t be paid. all because of man that hasn’t been found. that will protect us from old creeps next door. that we’re too polite to not tell our apartment number to. like an idiot. proof once again an education says nothing about one’s smarts. even those of us that pride ourselves on our street smarts. maybe all it’s been is a matter of luck nothing bad has happened to us stalker-wise.
and i digress further than what i thought was the last point of digression – 19. a decade ago. i end up somewhere more innocent, where i was when i was 14. the emo and pop punk that i thought i’d cringe at if revisted, instead i listen to it nightly. and feel bad for keeping the old lady neighbors up with it. lonely. all of us. the curse of being on a floor with all single ladies. i blame the floor. i always look for something to blame. it’s the only way i get by, in truth. it always has been. it was the bad friends. it was the illicit drugs. it was the legit drugs i took in lew of the drugs. i thought i was someone else, but when all that falls away, i’m still the same person today.
what the 14-yd old vice is i can’t even bear to blog about it, and i tried. but deleted it. even though no one would see it…
this should be embarrassing, but is nothing compared to that: wanting a guy like paul mullen in this photo. the same way i would have wanted him when i was 14. 19. 24. and i had versions of him along the way. but none of them stuck. the newest ones no different, though we pretend the stray gray hairs, the 3 instead of 2 at the start of the age, might make them. maybe none of them will stick. so smooth to slide across. hairless and boyish. flawed being constructed internally as perfect. maybe it is always superficial. though addictive. enthralling. (at times, worth it). there is no solution. we are attracted to what we are attracted to. seek solace in the things that soothe us, even while stressing us.
arts degrees should be illegal. everyone i know left helpless in the ‘working world’. i hate companies, yet i want to work for one. a good one. a big one. just to be comfortable. just to have an easy job and pay my bills. and feel appreciated. in some small way. maybe the smallest of ways.
i can’t remember the last time i read a book because my relationship with writing has grown so fraught. antag.onistic. the writer i wanted to be. the writer i never had the heart to be. the writer that wasted many years and many moneys on trying to one day be the writer i’ll never be. everyone can write. it’s not even a skill. the prerequisite for the only even remotely well-paid ‘writer’ jobs require a business degree today attests to this fact. i could have been a secretary out of high school. with a house and a husband and no debt. making $70 000 a year.
and if i sound somewhat emo (and i most certainly do) maybe it’s that which i fill my ears with. prevent tears with. maybe it’s the time of the year. the time of the month. the situational state. the lack of food on my plate. the surplus of booze in my belly. the loneliness i do what i can to deal with and tell myself i don’t really feel. but my phone as my appendage speaks volumes. these rants that warrant a new section on the blog, speak excessive decibels. at least the title of this post would make an excellent title for a book. a collection of words. that is surely to never be. and oh there i go sounding like morrissey. or wilde.
maybe it’s definitely maybe. maybe that was a great album title and wasted on a band like oasis.maybe it’s all of that. maybe it’s none of that. maybe it doesn’t matter. and maybe, that’s not a maybe at all.
maybe. the word of the day (of the century, of the lifetime, for me – skipping ahead with possibilities, convincing myself of the worst possible ones) is. maybe.