Fan’s Complaint

I dreamt last night about a girl I met once at a bar. She was really cool. Witty. An English major like myself. We talked about the meanings we assign to everything–the snow, the smoke, the day of the year.

I woke up and the dream faded from my mind. All day I felt like something was missing. It wasn’t until I sat down to continue a story that I realized I had had one of those happy dreams. The ones where I’m happily involved in a deep and meaningful way with a girl without any messy real life problems.

The happy dreams are all the same, the girl is idealized to such an extent that her real-life counterpart could not possibly compare. The problem this time, with this dream, was that the girl did not have a real-life counterpart at all. She is a character I made up for the purposes of this story.

Maybe it’s time to give the h. character a happy ending. We’ve been through so much together: love, loss, debauchery, even a fake death. If it were in his power to give me a happy ending, I’m sure he would do it.

Or not. Everything he has gone through has been at my whim. None of the bad things that have happened to him over the years would have happened under the watch of a more merciful… scribe, weaver of fate, god, what have you. What happens to him is a reflection of what has happened to me. If I truly do not believe that someone is tugging at my strings, why do I tug on the strings of my fictional counterpart instead of allowing him control?

Maybe he is the one exerting his control on me, forcing me to act like him. After all, I didn’t use to drink until I thought it could bring my character some tension and conflict. When I didn’t smoke, my character had nothing to do with his hands. When I was a boy and read in the library instead of playing sports, was my character trying to pick up pointers from his fictional brothers? Was he there all along, ensuring that I would stay on a path that would guarantee his painful, but continuing existence?

Now I’ve gone over my own head. If I were stoned I would be freaking out right now.

M.,

I’m sorry about what I said, but now, sober, I’m quite certain that there was truth to what I said. Intentional or not, you fucked with my head, got me so twisted up and turned around I didn’t know my heart from my head. But I guess that’s what you do. All of you.

If there’s one thing I learned in all those writing classes, it’s that annoying little maxim: “show, don’t tell.” Your words tell me I’m amazing and great, that I’ll never get anywhere when I hate myself so much. But your actions show me that I don’t hate myself enough, that it takes a sadder chinaman than myself to win your heart.

Well, I’m working on that. All the booze and pills in the world (in tonight’s case, six shots of bourbon and four sleeping pills) couldn’t drown my sorrows. You like chinamen with stories of death? I’ll see what I can do.

***

I’ll be fine.

Prepare for the rentrée chaude…

well…

I just threw up.

I’m obviously not wasted. I drove home alright. And I had only six drinks, if that.

Maybe I am really falling apart.

addendum@8:15am: I threw up again. Sitting there by the toilet bowl it occurred to me for the first time today that I really should not be throwing up, as I have nothing to throw up, not having eaten for over twenty four hours.

Oops. I was wrong. I had a McDonald’s apple pie last night. It was a pretty big apple pie, I guess.

Failure caught up with me tonight, sometime around midnight, on Lafayette, about a block from the cube. Death almost caught me on the BQE, four-wheel drifting across a lane at 85mph because of my worn suspension (or impaired senses). Needless to say, I am back. For good. Updates soon.

The Era of Good Feelings was a time in American history when there was just one political party, and there was no partisanship. There was a story about how Madison, if I remember correctly, was almost elected unanimously, but for one elector who felt that Washington was the only man who deserved such an honor, and therefore cast his vote for the Vice President.

This has nothing to do with that. All I wanted to say was that the old Fan’s Complaint will (probably) be back in a week’s time.

If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s fucking up–missing windows of opportunity or jumping through seemingly open windows and cutting myself to ribbons on the broken glass.

What a horrible metaphor… I’m really back.

Perhaps Manos McFate has a sense of humor. Last night, I got an offer from my boss for a short job next week. This morning, my father asked me to pick him up in the city after work so he can carry some heavy stuff home from work. An hour later, my boss calls and says I can start working on Thursday. Seeing as how I’m down to my last two hundred dollars, I jumped at the offer.

I was enjoying lounging around today, knowing that I’ll have some money coming in in the near future. Actually looking forward to work.

But then I drove my dad home, on the BQE/LIE, during rush hour. As soon as I hit the bumper-to-bumper traffic, I went a little nuts–cursing every single infraction of the rules, leaning on the horn, squirting around slowpokes. I think I may have freaked my dad out a little bit.

Someday I’ll be a real boy and have a job where I can take the train.

Was hoping to see more of the love graffiti, but no luck tonight.

in the afternoon, walking past a church, cherry blossoms in bloom, saw out of corner of my eye a flash of pink. pink and green. like e****a. she had a pink coat and a green bag.

it amazed me how the combination of those two colors seen for the briefest moment in the periphery can bring back so quickly memories of this girl from ages ago. all of the nonsense that went on, watching ducks in the courtyard as she passed, thinking of nothing better to say than the fact of duck-rape, the high pitched squealing on my part in the union, the fruitless following…

it occurred to me that there is just one girl, one soul that jumps from body to body, different emanations like the buddha of the same spirit. it is a neverending wheel of flesh and death.

but then tomorrow is a new day, possibly untainted by alcohol. spring is baseball and the hope of going home. the winter of discontent is behind me.

So much for staying away from the booze. I feel like shit. I can’t even concentrate on my reading. I feel like going out for a short drive to clear my head, and possibly to bring back some potato chips, but I just paid my credit card bill for last month. Spur-of-the moment trip + computer for my mother + dining + booze - income = Holy Shit am I screwed.

I really need to stop spending so much on combustible fluids.

What’s more important is to continue “the new program,” which should maybe, at this point, be called just “the program.”

***

Today is the last day for a long while where I can say, “A week ago I was somewhere else.” It doesn’t feel like I have been back all that long, and yet it feels like ages ago that I was somewhere else. Lying in bed earlier, I thought about this, and it is really the best explanation of transcending time.

The normal passage of time still registers, somewhat, but the thoughts about yesterday, a week, a month, or a year ago do not come up. Nor do thoughts of the future. Time simply is, just as you simply are. It does not make a difference whether you get up at 5am or 5pm. Either way, you will be up for an amount of time, and have to go back to sleep some hours later.

That explanation really sounded a lot better with the lights out.

***

Current title: My Father Never Taught Me How to Shave.