2001-07-22 - 3:09 a.m. - t.j. eckleberg and other failed oculists
In the afternoon the humidity sat on our chests like bullys, making shirts stick to skin and sweat streak our slowly darkening skin, so that we were unable to breathe or talk or scream for help; a typical strategy used, not just by bullys but, by angry lovers and vengeful gods. Today the gods were definitely vengeful.I woke up at two in the afternoon after a night of rehashing high school glories pertaining, not to football or sexual endeavors, to marching band. All night as I slept the ghost of an ancient conversation where we both agreed that we would never sit around and talk about how great the high school marching band days were haunted me, echoing around in my skull everyday i almost woke up and then fell back asleep.
When i finally pulled my sand bag of a body out of bed and went outside there was a party going on at the hosue across the street. i could hear the laughter of middle aged women dancing across the street, taunting me: 'this is your future' and could imagine the reserved, self concious conversations of their husbands talking about sports and cars, afraid to express an opinion or give away too many of the secrets that compose their masculine mystique. I looked out across our lawn and the street, choking on the sticky cotton atmosphere, and associated the unseen scene with being reminiscent of a less glamorous version of a Jay Gatsby summer party.
Every minute seemed to crawl by today as if the seconds themselves were choked by the blanket of moisture trapped in air around us as i just kicked around he house waiting for the phone to ring.
In the evening i was outside smoking a cigarette when the rain came, breaking up the party across the street and temporarily easing the pain of air too hot to touch.
and then i was back at the doughnut shop again and thinking about how i should really stop coming home as this doughnut shop s a nice place for an hour or two, but somehow looses its charm after that and becomes just a place to remind you of how pitiful and lonely you really are. tonightt aht sensation was heightened by the mythical stories traded to us by a couple of barely acquaintances. i listened to stories of waking up with strange women, waking up with close friends, waking up and forgetting their is anyone with you, forgotten names, forgotten vows of love, and naked walks of shame home after it was all over. i cant decide if feel empty as a result of listening to these stories or if i was able to listen to them and nod encouragingly because i am empty already filled with too much caffeine and nicotine for one day.
and when it was all over i couldn't even bring myself to talk, somewhat startled by our eagerness to see a sincerely bad driver get pulled over on the left side of the street by two cops and then our dissapointment that she was only a bad driver and didn't get busted for drinking and driving. i sat in the booth alone but with andrew and dan on either side of me and just thought about how speaking took too much effort and how i didn't really feel like talking at all. my eyeballs bulging with tears that, for some incredibly frustrating reason, refused to fall.
driving home i prayed for my eyes to explode in a flashflood of saltwater and veins and instead only felt the slow drain of tears down the back of my throat, soothing the burn of too many cigarettes, and into my stomach where they are still sitting, heavy and ominous, filling me with the uncanny need to vomit. im sure if they are in their long enough they will, like sand in an oyster forms a pearl, form an ulcer, a secret pearl that will bleed the tears out into other parts of my body so maybe then i can get some peaceful sleep.
everytime i come home something is different. i don't know if i really feel at home here anymore. i need a home. i need someone to be in love with. i have made home on my own out of places and things and songs and smells, and now i need a person with whom i can feel at home. i have mastered the art of independence and now it just makes me too tired, iroically, to go out and look for my future, my home.
so i'll just sit here and wait. and make wishes on falling stars and when it is 11:11, but for myself this time. not for your well being or happiness, for me.
right now i can't see myself in three years so im just making it up as i go.
xoxo.
listen to: the migration of insects right before the storm. Retsin.
wednesday: go see soophie nun squad and lovesick at the pirate house in ann arbor
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