back to the books

my first day of class is today.

i woke up earlier than i have been. partly because i am a little nervous and partly because i passed out before 3am last night. my vacation is over. there will be no more lazy days for me, not in the next few months, at least.

the class today is Social and Political Philosophy. i'm not sure what this entails or what we are supposed to be learning, but the name of the class piqued my interest so i signed up for it. i know taking a class on saturday is absurd to most people but my real weekend is during everyone elses work week so it suits my schedule.

not like i need to justify anything to you...

its a shame i never got to finish my book over vacation. i never got to complete my revisions. i never made that new playlist. i never saw that friend or that other friend. but cest la vie, maybe in the summer.

im curious what sort of books we'll be assigned. im also curious what kind of classmates i will have. what other kind of person takes a course such as this on a saturday? will the class be big or small? does the very nature of the course invite pompous assholes or curious intellectuals? in that same line of questioning, what will the professor be like? will it be a man or a woman? how serious do they take this course? how serious will i take this course, for that matter?

hopefully all these questions will be answered by about 4:30 this afternoon. and thus my school semester has begun.

forced entry #386

the hours between thursday night and friday morning seem to be shorter than the rest. i work until late at the bar, pulling down the gate at about 3am, then brave the cold on the way home unless im lucky enough to score a ride.

when i get home i am greeted by the cats at the door. they scamper around my feet as i make my way through the darkness of the hallway, then disperse once i enter the living room, tearing off in their own directions to individually gain my affections. sophie runs to a cardboard box and begins ripping at it with her claws. Her fur puffs into spikes and her tail juts straight up in excitement. Miles goes to the couch and, in a furious display of his feline prowess, grips and scratches at it, pulling himself along the top edge from corner to corner in short, deliberate rips. i walk to over to each one and stroke their head and back. then take off my bag and coat.

because it's so cold i immediately put on a big sweater. i have a huge yellow one i wear around the house as a pajama uniform with black sweats. then i go to the computer desk because that is where i smoke and unwind. i fire up the ole pute and roll myself a smoke and take a deep breath and exhale. while the cigarette is burning i usually go to the fridge and grab a bottle of beer. this beer will last me most of the night, if not ill open one more and not finish it until morning.

then i roll a spliff. i smoke it and i think of the day. the hours fall away. i type a few sentences and read a few more. the sun remains hidden behind the atlantic sea but the black of night turns slowly to blue. i meander on the web until i cant anymore. then i lay down on the couch.

often i wake on teh couch with miles and sophie cuddled all around me. the tv will be on and the day will be pouring into the room. it will be seven or eight in the morning and ill make the decision then whether or not to get up and go to bed. if i work the next day, like i do on friday, i go to bed, if not then it depends on my comfort and where the kitties are placed around me. last night i went to bed. it was eight am.

i woke at around noon and the house was bitter cold and i made my way to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. again i get familiar with my computer desk, check my email, say hi to some people on line. by the time i am fully awake it is time for me to get in the shower and go to work. i hardly even have time to read, let alone try to write.

back on the grind

i just had five days off in a row. the days were slothful and largely without any event. i planned on working on personal things. doing some writing, reading, perhaps catching up on my more serious movies. but instead i did nothing.

it isnt that i didnt accomplish much on my days off [the final days before i return to school, and my hours are all assigned some task and the days ahead are all fraught with deadlines] but more so that i planned to accomplish so much, and failed at accomplishing anything. had i not betrayed this promis to myself then i would be ok with my laziness. hell, i embrace my laziness and feel i deserve it. but if i say i want to do something i want to be able to do it. at least TRY to do it.

but i didnt. well, i didnt completely fuck off my days, there were a few brief surges in discipline, where i pulled out the ole computer and typed a few sentences here and there. deleted a few others. rearranged a couple more. but for the most part, i sat around chatting with friends, sporadically watching porno, and toiling around on lamebook. i did not read my book. i did not watch the oscar winning drama sitting on my coffeetable. i did not finish all the re-edits i was supposed to do. i did not write anything new.

i did though, drink a lot of beer, smoke a shit ton of cigarettes, and catch up on old reruns of sitcoms ive previously seen. i cuddled with my cats a lot. i saw a couple friends. i took long showers. i slept in.

at night - like clockwork- i would make a pledge to wake up the next morning and write a few words. whatever words came to my head. just to exercise my mind a bit. and every morning -like clockwork - i would roll out of bed and meander to the computer and, while sipping my coffee and taking the first nicotine drags of the day, stare at the screen hoping something in it would push me to write. but nothing ever did. so i just leafed through the wires.

now my mini vacatin is over and i am left with nothing to prove it ever happened. i start school saturday and work tonight and the next. im done with time that is easy and free, now i am thrust into the routine of performance. every minute counts. every new moment another chore. and i havent even stretched yet.

brain fart

you ever heard that dirty lullaby,it, or some variation thereof, is written on bathroom stall walls stretching across north america:

here i sit
broken hearted
thought i'd shit
but instead i farted

this is the exact sentiment i feel when i sit down at the computer to write these days.

shortcuts

There was one day we tried to get into all of them. Every single porno store in San Francisco, or at least in the small concentration downtown. We were both about ten years old then; it was summer. My mother was working at the time, so she was gone all day while I had no school. I don’t think Dion’s mother was working, but she would be gone too. We had been building towards this. Everyday we grew more familiar with the streets. There were shortcuts we learned. Small alleyways that cut between buildings. They would have dumpsters in them covered in graffiti and filled with treasure.

There was one such alley that ran behind an X-rated movie theater and a strip club. In the dumpster there we found long beams of dead florescent light bulbs and had a fantastic sword fight with them which ended when one of the bulbs burst and a plume of poisonous white powder exploded all around us. We coughed and laughed wide-eyed and excited and waved our hands in front of us trying to catch our breaths. After that we took turns spearing the remaining bulbs into the air and watching them blast open against the walls and ground. Every so often a patron would exit the club or theater and we would try to sneak in to see what we could see.

One time we got into the movie theater. We snuck up into the front seats, which were emptier. There were a just few figures in the back and they were all still and unmoving in the darkness. The screen was large and the sound was loud but I could still hear small rustling behind me. I didn’t turn around to see what it was; we just stared ahead. The scene was of a woman at a funeral and she was talking to someone off screen. Dion let out a small hiss of disappointment when he saw her dress and I shared the sentiment quietly. I don’t know if we were sure then what exactly it was we wanted to see, but we knew it didn’t involve any clothes. Excitedly we waited for the scene to turn. I gripped the knees of my pants and fixed upon the screen. Before it was over a thin man in a red vest came over and bent down and whispered to us that we had to leave. We stared up at him and stammered and then looked back at the screen and then looked back up at him and stammered some more. He moved to the side and spread his arm out presenting to us the exit and we took one last look at the woman talking and I marveled at her cleavage one more time and then without protest we got up and left.

On another time we got into the strip club. This was a stroke of luck. On a whim I tried the door and it swung open letting a blast of blinding light in from behind me. I caught a glimpse of the seats which were set up like an auditoriums and in one not far from me a woman sat on a mans lap and she was in her underwear. She had her hand on his hand which was on her bare leg and she had her head in his neck and was whispering into his ear. I quickly closed the door and gasped and looked at Dion.

-What did you see? He asked impatiently.

-A naked lady, I said, she was sitting on a man and they were kissing.

-You lying, he said. But even though he was right I could tell he believed me.

We both opened the door again, this time he went in before me. We shut it behind us and moved discreetly along the shadows on the wall. Everything looked black and red and smelled it too. There was a naked woman on stage holding a pole and a rock and roll song was blaring. She had long natural brown hair and her tits were flat and saggy. There were other girls walking around talking to the men and I don’t think we expected that but at the same time I don’t think we knew what to expect at all. I just knew that we weren’t supposed to be in there and I wanted to see what we shouldn’t. We stood along the wall in the thick redblack trying to be hidden in the sounds and smells around us. A woman walking by looked down towards us with slow bored eyes then adjusted her bra and moved on. The husky wind of a sweet perfume followed her towards a man in the seats. I looked at Dion and he looked at me and from our eyes a noiseless screamed passed between us. Then a lady wearing long lingerie who wore caked on mascara and deep red lipstick yelled to us from the seat of a mans lap.

-HEY YOU KIDS GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!!

We bolted from the door laughing and stumbling and leaving in our wake an explosion of sunlight. We stood at the end of the alley gasping and catching our breath. Beaming from the experience.

That wasn’t the last time I would visit that club but it was the last time I was ever in it with Dion. At the time we thirsted for more but weren’t ready for interaction yet. After that we stuck to mostly video stores.

As I said, one day we tried to sneak into them all, and we almost did. We were systematically ejected from most every open porn store in the downtown San Francisco area. All in the same day. In some stores we would immediately be ordered to leave. Hardly even catching a glimpse of the flesh covered walls and racks beyond the entryway. But in some stores we went unnoticed. The clerk would sit behind he counter, bored and oblivious, and we would peruse all the aisles, avoiding other patrons, gravitating towards the box covers with the most exaggerated women posing on them. We saw pictures of couples entwined together, sometimes one gender out numbering the other. Faces shocked into ecstasy and the uncomfortable grimace of penetration. Portraits of lust without romance. We let these images chip away at our innocence, twisting and perverting our ideas of temptation. This was what we thought they had held from us. This is what we believed we were never told.

it is no secret that i am a lazy, procrastinating, paralyzed with worry type of individual. i begin every project —no matter the size— by jumping through mental hoops, going over psychological hurdles, painstakingly reassuring myself that not only will i complete the task, but i will achieve it with mistake free ease.

putting this sort of pressure on myself adds to the procrastinating bit in my nature.

i have about ten minutes before i have to get ready for work. there is nothing in my head and nothing in my gut and nothing on the tip of my tongue.

outside there is a blue sky with a gray horizon. on my desk is a mess of loose tobacco and ashes. there are empty envelopes and bills scattered about. a half drank beer and a half drank glass of water. a bottle of xanax tipped over. the wooden part of a burned stick of incense leaning from the window.

i ramble i ramble with nada on my mind. im searching for reasons and dont know if ive found any yet. i have to go to work i dont even know what else to say

forced entry #321: the shocking cat

I'm being shocked by Miles. He is a long black ball of static electricity. His fur pops when I pet him. Its crackles as a drag my palm along all his curves and stretches. Small jolts snap between his nose and my forearm and he flinches back and stares queerly at me and I stare back with my own shrug and shiver. You can see it spark. A small shock from him to me. It's exciting and somewhat frightening at the same time.

i wonder if its me. Am i the one carrying these pent up charges of energy? i think back on my routine and don't find many strays or changes to it. not recently. it is the same, always the same. i have not acquired any new clothes. my couch is still made of the same fabric. my curtains and rug are the the same, non-static-electricity conducting material they have always been. so what is new? why the sudden shocks?

Ive been watching him to see what may have manifested in his daily methods, but he seems to be the same ole hooligan kitty he's always been. knocking over glasses of water. tearing at the toilet paper roll. bullying Sophie. getting into cabinets he shouldn't be anywhere near. he does have the habit of grinding his face along every surface he can, marking his own little territory in a territory hes forced to share, but that's nothing new. it cant be that, can it?

if so, there is no way i can stop it. I'll just have to accept that some day i may be on the wrong end of an electrical charge that will most likely stop my weak, nicotine and red meat filled heart. it would be fitting that miles, my black cat, were the cause of my demise. i love him so but he in many ways reminds me of myself. self absorbed, needy, long and dark and pretends not to care. always guilty; paws dirty in someway or another. doesn't realize his size sometimes. cant hide the truth on his face.

Sophie, on the other hand, is devoid of any such startling jolts. she is the same, fluffy, soft as a babies bottom, tabby shes always been. she still wakes me up in the morning, demanding i pet her under my covers. she still has that coy, aloof manner in which she begs for attention. she still remains delicate and fragile. and acts as if her bones are too brittle to be bothered with the world. she, like miles, has not changed much, save she doesn't shock me when i pet her.

i suppose it could be miles wildness trying to unleash itself from his small, furry frame. this apartment just isn't big enough for him. he needs to hunt. he needs to run. he needs to be free. sorry miles good buddy, you re a city cat, and i cant have you running these streets and coming home with kitty AIDS or some bullshit because you got mixed up in the wrong crowd. just tone it down buddy. and stay away from the left side of my chest.

forced entry #214

Yesterday I meandered about the house in my pajamas. I wanted to do this or that, small accomplishments that may give the day some purpose, but I never got around to them. It just wasn’t in me to be productive.

I'm not sure why. I suppose my almost crippling laziness has something to do with it, but with no crucial obligations to fulfill, I would assume I could at least do something as small and insignificant as write 300 words or read some of the book I'm in the middle of.

Instead I read a bunch of articles regarding pop culture on line, and chatted with friends, then watched a bad movie. It is true that I had a playdate with her, but she canceled and I realized, after she canceled, that I had nothing better to do than just waste time on the internet.

Well, I had better things to do, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do them.

Nothing online taught me anything I didn’t already suspect or know. Just a bunch of gossip in the air. Judgments and opinions. Accusations and denials. I cant honestly say what I was searching for, only that I didn’t find it.

I guess I'm having another “whats it all mean, anyway?” moments.

Cest la vie.

new day

I haven’t written in a while. Never mind posting on this blog. I think of it, but I don’t. Instead I sit in front of a blank page and consider all that is inside me and in man and in the world we have built for man. I contemplate how to articulate such thoughts but they are all vague and gray and deep down I don’t feel they mean anything and that actually writing them will reveal their abject insignificance. So I just surf the web instead.

I'm not going to promise myself things anymore. Resolutions and goals serve just to betray me. I will not commit to writing every day. I will not commit to exercising more. I will not commit to eating healthier. I will not commit to smoking with my window open, or drinking less, or any such ambition that will bring me down if I don’t break myself trying to achieve it. I want to do all these things, and eventually I will, but I will not burden myself with them.

Not now.

I will though, and in most respects I have, stop complaining about my life. The routines I’ve built for myself are, even if they sometimes cause me to step back and question why I exist at all, envious to most. I'm lucky. This I recognize. Life could be worse.

Not to say I'm going to be more positive. I'm unsure if I'm even capable of such a thing. But I will try to see things in a less bleak manner. Like I said, my life could be worse, and that frightening horizon of the future will always be steady in my sights, but there is something humorous about being alive for almost 35 years. That in itself is an accomplishment.

My cat is sitting on my lap and he is squeezing at my arm with his paws, his claws giving slow, gentle pokes at me while he purrs himself into a feline trance. It is nice. I can feel it.