Someone’s gum is stuck to the chair next to my bed.
It was Friday the 13th. If ever a day flies the red flag, would it not have been that one? I should have seen it coming…
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I have a feeling this post is going to roll heavy and telling. So if you will, permit me a brief digression in the spirit of easing tension.
If you ever get the urge to chain me down and lock me in a metal cabinet for a duration of time exceeding 10 weeks, the deal I strike is this: Give me 10 songs and I’ll manage. Though I refuse to dish the 10 songs unless you ask, I will confess that I recently found myself a new one. In case you didn’t pick up…that’s fairly high praise. I never lent an ear until a week ago. Shit Happens. In case you haven’t, lend yours when you get the chance.
Arcade Fire – Wake Up
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Where was I? Friday the 13th.
I don’t much like to talk about it, but I used to have this painful addiction. The sort that can mix and toss pleasure and pain in such a ruthless manner that when it leaves, it leaves you cracked and chipped…broken into thousands of pieces.
My addiction was a she.
And it wasn’t all her fault. I have matured enough to know that in the realm of anything considered to be “normal” life, I am out of my fucking mind.
On Friday the 13th, she was a fog…rolling in and disappearing. So vivid, it very well could have been a dream. I knew the feeling all too well.
My feet are cold and my sleep pattern has suffered a ruthless Blitzkrieg. It takes a lot of work to go from being cynical to…something entirely else in the course of 6 hours. Let’s just say I had a little help from an “old friend.”
On Friday, my head hit pillow at five in the morning…alone, but not really. I was dead tired. Though, when I closed my eyes, I was not transported, lifted or whisked away. I got to hang out with me from 5-7am. Then, from 10am until 5am the next day. It’s not as hot as it sounds.
Let’s jump ahead to Saturday where the last thing I wanted to do on this entire fucking planet was go to Basque for a birthday party. I was sick with something doctors don’t “get.” Terribly fucking ill with something germs have no hand in.
I sucked it up, faked a good face and stayed until 2. Knowing sleep was out of the question, I went to an after hours coke bumping soiree and sat through Wedding Crashers. You’d be surprised how insightful the crew became. My head hit pillow just before the sun came up and I was alone. That “alone” feeling I had all but marvelously forgotten.
Oh, and FYI: If I blew coke, don’t you think I would have skipped that part of the story? Fucking please. In case you were wondering…I’m still me.
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Sometimes, before I go out, I raise a glass with cronies, “here’s to falling in love for the night.” No one gets it, ever. Probably because I speak in the tonal ballpark of someone steps away from leaping through the window of a skyscraper. More than anything, it’s a joke for hopeless LA cynics who think they’re too good for everyone. Ladies, gentlemen…welcome to my thought process.
In more ways than I could ever succinctly explain, I’ve been bone picking with Cupid. To a man who puts food on his celestial table through the business of love, I’ve been downright disrespectful. On Friday, his vengeance was swift. Dude stuck a shank in my heart and left it in all weekend. I think it was a quarter to 1 when it happened…
Head, heels…you can fill the blanks.
What the fuck was she doing in my city?
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We spend our lives jumping and catching trains…locked in a never-ending battle.
Come 4 o’clock on this Monday, it’s time to once again jump the train. Years ago, I’d jump and walk away with a broken neck. Mind you, walking becomes quite difficult when one sustains such an injury. These days, my tuck and roll is nearly flawless…allowing me the freedom to jump on and off without sustaining much injury at all.
Care for elaboration on the keyword, “much?” Of the thousands of cracks I earlier spoke...it’s down to a couple hundred. Nothing weeks of therapy couldn’t mend. Right, World?
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But my tales are never always and only grim. This weekend, I found something that was absolutely necessary. There’s a point on the other side of the tunnel. And it’s this place where for a moment, all of your faults…all the rocks and razors you’ve stumbled across and bled by can somehow become…inconsequential. Because in that moment, you’re both holding a piece of something so haunting and fragile. Beyond and around, there’s endlessly nothing.
How I envy the parts of my past that knew it well.
I know. The sign is blinking, flashing, singing and screaming. It’s jumping out of the ground, trying to bash my face with its aluminum forged by our country’s finest condemned men and women. I know it all too well.
Sometime tomorrow, I’ll snap out of it. I’ll remember that I live in Los Angeles…that it’s time to jump. And even if the chemicals in my head were playing tricks on me, I know the good stuff when it comes. It came…and now it’s leaving. Forever, once again.
Don’t ask me why her gum is still stuck to the chair next to my bed. Or more importantly, why I haven’t thrown it away. I couldn’t tell you.
Okay, strike that. Allow me to steal a quote from paragraph 9…
“I have matured enough to know that in the realm of anything considered to be “normal” life, I am out of my fucking mind.”
Over the past day and a half, a realization has been rolling through my head. Its echoes refuse to stop. They just beat louder and louder and louder…
I’m fucked for the rest of my life. Forever and ever. All because of a she. What do you want me to say?
Oops.
