i was in the neighborhood

i was walking home from some errand downtown. the town was sparse and i was by myself on the streets.

i am in my head so much sometimes. i am so surprised at how good i have become at not giving anything away. nothing slips out and little comes in. i'm drifting, i was walking down the street.

and someone had gone to town with sidewalk chalk the night before. most of the drawings and scrawl was uninteresting: a spiral, a face, a penis. as i walked i saw that someone had drawn a large heart in the sidewalk, with an "i" above it and my name beneath. i was just walking down the street and someone had written "i love david" in the sidewalk.

and i burst out crying and didn't pull myself together for over a block.

i dreamed it was you in some inconceivable drunken blackout spree. that it came from some dark and safe corner where no one would ever remember it but it would still be true.

which is just the stupidest thing when i think about it.

it doesn't make it any less important or significant to me, though.

at the edge of this diabolical street artist's work were large letters capping it all off. they read, "all hail cthulu". which i have to say was a nice touch. leave it to a lovecraft reference in sidewalk chalk to lend me the perspective i was looking for. 

the message read:

i really regret ever dating you

it was from someone i don't have that many emotions tied to and i'm happy i'm not dating anymore, mostly due to the fact that this person says hurtful shit when she feels like she's entitled to it. we didn't date for long and i hadn't seen her in a month or more. she was leaving town the day after i spoke with her, i'm pretty sure the spite was unnecessary.

though, to be fair, i had just told her she should go get checked for chlamydia.

which sucks for anyone who's ever received or needed to make that phone call. and i can sympathize with feelings of anger, of feeling like someone else fucked with your world with their irresponsible behavior. and anger at oneself when you realize you may have fulfilled that very role for someone else. though i have to say, it feels sort of grownup and funny now that it's all said and done.

i'm glad i don't date this person anymore and i'm glad she left town. and i'm pretty sure the only reason for someone to send a message like that would be to hurt someone.

but goddamn, that one stuck with me. and in the past couple days, along with an accompaniment of related noise, that message bounced around my head quite a bit. it's severe and petty and i realize it's been a long time since i elicited such vitriol from someone. sigh.

oh, and just so it's been said, i no longer have crawlies in my jollies.

(that's my story about the clap)

whooboy.

lots of work, lots of play, lots of hiding.

and tonight i think i'm going for a second shot of everclear. one is really all you need. the second one is almost always superfluous and unnecessary and will likely translate into unpleasant in the morning. okay, here we go.

goddamn. i was right, that was a bad idea

it's hot as shit here lately, temperatures over a hundred during the day and a lot of drinks poured at night. i am exhausted and wounded and excited and insignificant and elated and powerful. i am overwhelmed at my lot but i know i'm not special. every one of you lunatics has any number of ridiculous and impossible tasks you're dealing with at any given time. i'm just caught up in mine. which includes squeezing out what i can from these unlikely minutes. i've half a mind to delete this but for tonight at least i think it stays.

i don't know why, but i've taken to consuming energy drinks occasionally. as an offshoot of that, i have begun looking for the foulest energy drink/malt beverage available at convenience stores. today i outdid myself. i found a 23.5 oz. can of dragon joose, a vile purple drink formed when a small welch's grape juice plant in indiana contracted the worst yeast infection ever recorded in modern-day juice history. it tastes like purple but with bubbles and a yeasty, malty marble running through it. 9.9% alcohol but it goes down like soda. i drank the thing in probably forty minutes and realized i was moderately hammered and passing out for a nap. i woke up on the couch with sticky purple in my mouth and a light headache. it was like sesame street all over again.

i feel better, less mopey. i think i hit my annual quota for feeling sorry for myself in the past couple months, but who knows, there's a lot of year left.

i saw a friend today and it was great. i had an online conversation in the early morning that made me laugh out loud. i have fair in less than two days and the weather has been nothing if not perfect lately. tomorrow is work and then thursday i'm off for the weekend. and good riddance to me, that's what i say.

there's been a song running through my head and it goes like this:

i am drowning
there is no sign of land
you are coming down with me
hand in unlovable hand
and i hope you die
i hope we both die

it's by some group called the mountain goats. i don't know anything about them.

i wouldn't say the lyrics exemplify my feelings, but i hurt, and it's good to vicariously get a little bit out through music. i don't know what the hell is wrong with me. the days have been getting harder to slog through and the nights evaporate like dreamstuff in the morning. i know i am still sad about my former lover. but she is happy and i care for her and i love seeing her happy. and besides, this is kind of what i asked for. it's frightening to think about, but i always get what i ask for. so i have a bruise marked with a little heartbreak. it's really not that central to my life right now, i just can't think of what else might have me spiraling out like this. this is the heavy part of the day.

the other parts are good. i have made a new friend, i have a well-paying job where i'm respected and only have to work three days a week and the summer is upon us with all it's blossoms and short shorts. i need to flush the rest outta me with juxtaposed memes and the company of others. wish me luck

it's good when it doesn't all come too easily. or when it does, the point at which it becomes difficult again.

today is not more basking in streamlined smiles and self-satisfaction(there's been a lot of that lately). neither is it painful or manic. i just get to peel back the lacquer i just applied, tear it all off and run my hands over the rough and timeworn interior. that's a terrible metaphor, but it stays.

i want to force out something romantic, something poignant. but i feel neither romantic nor poignant tonight. the truth is i am stressed out about money, i'm anxious about my home and i look up and see the minefield i have laid for myself in my personal life. none of it is that dramatic or terrible; sometimes it just feels heavy.

i feel so socially capable, more so than i ever did before. i can navigate new and uncertain situations, befriend strangers and enamor others. i feel like it's not always the most honest depiction of myself.

last night i ate the worm. it's not a euphemism.

i attended a meeting of the whiteaker cocktail society as a guest last night after i got off of work. from what i could gather, the wcs exists for locals to get together and vote people in as members, vote them out for not attending meetings and argue over how to proceed with the whiteaker block parties, which have grown a great deal in popularity over the last couple of years. the sensational local brewery is a sponsor, which pretty much means they provide a keg for the meetings. i met countless new people, ridiculous local business owners and neighborhood miscreants. for knowing very few people when i got there, i felt remarkably at home. never in my life have i had such a connection to my community.

cookies, thumbs-up voting, pints and pints of beer and an arm in mine. that goddamn bottle of mescal. and now i feel like a microwaved shit sandwich. i can't wait to get off work

fer fuck's sake

i have been trimming what i write lately, for a variety of reasons. i'm sick of it.

i bailed on seeing two people today on this, my last full day in houston. i walked through my halls and looked around and realized that i don't give a shit. they are people whose company i enjoy and whom i haven't seen in a long time. a person can only do so much, though. and i'm pretty fucking tapped out.

my laundry is done and i have triple antibiotic on my feet. tomorrow i have planes and cars and late-night arrivals.

i swear, i love colloquialisms like a redneck loves chicken fried steak. i find myself grabbing double negatives and wearing them like a hat made out of discarded beer cans. today was windy and chilly, which blows because i can't really wear socks and shoes today due to the glistening new ink on the top of my feet. which, incidentally, hurt like the proverbial motherfucker.

i'm thirty years old and i can't think that it means anything at all. except, as aaron suggested, that i can now talk shit on twenty-somethings. i look in the mirror and see my grown man's form, with my accessories and acne scars, my simple lines and whiskery grin. i look at me without comparing myself to anyone else, male, female, flora or fauna. and compared only to me i am hale and wrecked, riddled with flaws and impossibly strong. i love this hard and stupid life, always. but i am constantly surprised at myself for continuing to do so.

my time here has bled through my fingers, there are only a few drops left. tonight i will see more friends, share more raised glasses before i withdraw for a day before traveling back to eugene. i am exhausted from coordinating arrivals and plans. i am filled with encounters and new memories, brimming with them. through all of it i long to get back to my simple little life in my lovely little house with my roommate and those i care about. that number grows faster than i can account for, everyday. i look forward to my stupid and pedestrian job and that small city. i look forward to the warm nights of movies and drinks in a house other than my own, with those who grow less foreign every day. i look forward to a painted attic room and the way the light follows the angles so early in the morning. i have so many things to look forward to.

but today i am in texas, straining the last drops out of this trip. this is mine, so completely and utterly of me. i think about my death all the time and while it never measures up, i can't say i would be disappointed if this were all i got. i feel good, soothed and loved.