I And

Music: Super Massive Black Hole – Muse 

 I’ve been breeding so much negativity these days that it’s hard to know the difference. I have a problem with everything. From the way I look, to my thick puffy head of hair, to the weather, to the people I live with, to the people I work with, to the immigrants I seem to see everywhere I go, to their accents and the way words spew from their mouths, to the person I am and the individual I drag out of bed every morning. I’ve started to question the value of things that I used to hold so dear. Now everything pales in comparison to just the chance of going back to college and completing my education. This is what my life is on the line for; I need to pass this one module. I’m terribly afraid of what the outcome might be. Fearful of the letter that will spell out the next step in my life. I have to believe that I will pass and make it but there are always doubts. I’m frightened of the alternative because I don’t know if it will be worth continuing this life for.

 I’ve never expected myself to be at this juncture. I’ve always mocked the ones who end their lives; the ones who throw the future out because of a stalwart in their present. I now understand why they did what they did. They didn’t have anything else to live for. Everything amounts to nothing the moment you die; it might as well be now. I’m freaking out at the thought of not making through this because I don’t know just what I would do. I know the helplessness will devour me and I will implode from the thought of how the future might be. I know I don’t have the balls to kill myself and I’m tired of dragging myself around day after day. I’m swinging on this pendulum; back and forth between this rock and this hard place. I’m on an airplane and I secretly wish that it would crash and my death would be instant. Then I take that back because the other passengers still have lives they want to live and a plane crash with just me dying wouldn’t be too realistic. If I did leave this world pre-maturely, I want to leave this world without anyone else getting hurt. Going in my sleep would be the best thing. I go to bed most night these days and I think about not having to worry about waking up.

 I see the person I am becoming now and it tears me up. I have become so anti-social that I wouldn’t speak to anyone unless I really needed to. I don’t want to know anyone new unless they would be the one I would spent a huge chunk of my life with; which of course, is never the case. I dread going through the cycle of living. I smile to mask the thought of killing myself. I don’t get excited by anything. I share my life with apathy and nothing matters anymore. I still think about the future though. I think about how I need to get my hair cut before Saturday’s pool party, I think about spending my life with someone my heart beat faster for, I think about the clothes to give away to make room for the new ones I will acquire, I go to the gym at least 5 times a week so I can look better in those new clothes, I think about the conversations I will have with my closest friends and family, I think about the life I want right now in LA. I think of these and then when I catch myself indulging, I stop and I pray. I pray to just pass this one module. Because I don’t know how to go on or why I should go on if I don’t.

 I wonder just how innately this unwillingness to live has seeped. I wonder how one’s every accomplishment could possibly mean anything at the time of death. I wonder about how grossly unfair it is that no one gets the chance to say no to having a life but when you have one; you’re supposed to live it the best you can, they always say. Screw that cliché adage, 80% of the people who tell you to live your life the best you can, never do so themselves anyway. So what happens if you didn’t ask for this life and the drive and route it entails? What do you do when you’re given one to live? What do you do when you’ve never ever wanted to make fucking lemonades out of the rotten lemons you’ve been handed?

 I wonder and I wonder. I wonder why in spite of all the swirls that come and go in my head daily, words still can’t flow like they used to. I feel bone-dry; emotionally and intellectually. I stare at the flicker of this word box and I wish that the reason to keep writing would be a simple one; because I can and because I love it. 

  Now, if only the reason for living was just as simple.

Quick

Music: Luminol – Ryan Adams

I need to define myself. I need to stop living within these walls of structured what-ifs. I need to decide if I still want to live because it’s either I live and live the best fucking possible way or I don’t. I need to stop sinking in quicksand pools in the middle of fences that will get me nowhere.

If I live, and I happen to fail and fall off this swinging pendulum, I need to pick myself up and move on to Plan B. I need to keep sowing and keep trotting on.

If I choose to end this, it’ll be at no expense or inconvenience to the people I love. It would be quick and swift and so long to this overrated thing called life.

So decide and decide soon. Start swimming or start sinking. Pronto.

I Rather Use My Hands

Music: Message In A Bottle – The Police

I don’t understand the notion behind dishwashers. I’ve tried and tried but I just don’t. If you are supposed to rinse each dish before loading them into the dishwasher, why not just simply soap and lather the dishes up while you’re in the midst of rinsing them under warm water? Why spend all the effort rinsing dishes after dinner and loading them in only to have to bend down and unload and put those dishes away? That’s not the worst thing; the worst thing is after all that amount of time and energy spent in going through the rigmarole of dealing with a dishwasher after a meal is realizing that the dishes you expect to be clean after that much arduous labor still have specks of grilled burger patty and brown rice stuck on them and in between them. You would expect a reasonable reaping of your trouble and clean dishes is certainly reasonable but no, dishes that still have leftovers stuck on them need to be washed again.

This means that they take up the space that other plates and cutlery would have if only they have been clean; and that leads to a pile up of dishes in the sink which contributes to the big waste of electricity and water. You never have to wash a plate or a fork a second time if you’re washing it by hand because you will ensure that whatever you’re washing is washed clean. It is just so unproductive and not to mention, unrewarding when you are swearing and rinsing semi-clean dishes for the second time. I can think of so many other more satisfying things I can do with the time I would have saved if I had washed my dishes by hand. I could masturbate for example. I just think it is effort that isn’t warranted.

I’ve been rinsing and loading and unloading the dishwasher and putting dishes away everyday now for the past week. I do that every time I’m in America; because my dear friends don’t believe in washing dishes after they’re done with a meal. Instead, they wished they had a second dishwasher. And as a result, they don’t have the necessary tools to properly wash a mixing bowl by hand. I’ve tried to understand this so-called convenience they preach every time I express my annoyance with their machinery that hums and squirts but I’ve not been proven wrong before.

I just think it’s a ploy by corporate America to instill just another need that every household must have. Because money can be made and given time when individuals get used to a certain routine; albeit how much more effectual the alternative is, what started off as a want would end up a need. What I need tomorrow is a pair of gloves and a 3M scrub sponge. I’ve got a pair of good hands and I intend to use them.

 Keeping this in mind, ‘Do you believe in dishwashers?’ would be a question I would ask the next time I’m on a date. No, would be the answer I want and if everything else is right, could signal potential. After all, I know I would want a man who enjoys using his hands too.

Humble Pie

Music: Putting The Damage On – Tori Amos 

I’ve been humbled and forced into a box with virtually no peep hole for air or light. I know I can’t do this alone and I’m relinquishing the stubborn strings that come with the territory of assuming that things and events, in all their infinity, are in my control. I know that now and I know that this is only the initial portion of my newly baked pie.

I got to thinking about the past and the errors I have made, the holes I have dug, the feelings and emotions that didn’t belong to me that I have tossed aside. I know I’ve got amends to make and people to reach out to. I need to know, for all that it’s worth that I tried my darnest. I thought about reaping what I sow and I wonder if all this that I’m going through is somehow payback for the dirt that I’ve dished and the doors I have slammed. That this karmic train is coming around the same track it went round. And this is the carriage it brings along with it. This is the way I was chosen to be punished.

I thought about Mark. This wonderful, sensitive, kind individual who I knew truly and really loved me. I thought about all he did for me and the dishonesty I dealt him and it stopped me cold in my path. He said in an email dated more than a year ago which I never replied to that he could never forgive me because he could never forgive what he didn’t understand and he will never understand why I did what I did to him. It’s been almost 1.5 years now and I think its time to ask for 10 minutes of his day (not because what we shared was worth only 10 minutes of a 24hrs day but because it a reasonable amount of time to ask someone who 1.5 yrs ago said he can’t forgive you) to ask for him to try/consider the possibility of forgiving me. I need to know that I’ve polished all the floors in my court.

I thought about wonderful friendships lost somewhere along the line. Maybe they weren’t so wonderful after all if I lost them down the slippery, hazy path. But those were good times in my life and I only realised the extent to which I need to try one last time (because believe me, I’ve tried). So many things left unspoken, so many mysteries that hang around in my head. So here’s to old time’s sake.

I hope by making amends, it will somehow lighten this karma payback. I wish not to be punished this way but it seems my whole life right now is waiting for this one outcome. So please I pray, know that I’m truly sorry.