Whilst the entire rest of the world of domesticity, of normal life, inter-human relational fucked-upness, or even this whole tiny expanse of population is asleep in their beds, or drinking with friends, or buying stuff for a trip, or inebriated in some way, I am here, dancing with depression, dancing with my head, poisoning my pets with smoke and pretending to be talking to someone who's listening, burning my throat with tobacco (or wandering through wal-mart, gleaning whatever small diamonds of burning life i can from elle magazine and drew barrymore's distant galaxy of life). I'm thinking of proust, pretending to be a writer, pretending to think of myself, pretending to get myself back from this year of drinking and non-thought, pretending that all of this (this tea-drinking, this distraction, this isolation, this reaching out to tiny relationships in a bay of internet waves) is going to get me somewhere. Pretending that going farther into myself will somehow let me into someone's life, pretending that this ritualistic egotistical static soul-searching secrecy will somehow lead me back to intimacy, pretending that I will ever be jesus enough to have a real relationship, to be a part of someone's life. I pretend that I need to keep myself away from my sister because I smell like cigarettes and she can't see me depressed, she can't see my thoughts, or else I will ruin her. I pretend that all this selfish bullshit is going to make me okay enough to be around her in a week, every night. That staying up late at night and obsessing over myself won't turn me into a nasty Charles Bukowski late night superstar who growls in the morning and can't give enough of itself to actually love another person. I'm pretending that in a week I will be able to mix the two, that I will be able to be honest and kind and giving and committed when I'm in love with my burnt hideous insides, when the only person I want to think about is my work, my something outside of myself that is me. That my greatness will blossom and shower from all this external extopia, from all this non-interpersonal dealings. That I can be in love with a computer screen glow on my face and the picture of my face in the window sill, deep in scared shitless thought; deep, deep living in anything other than a human being. Ah well. At least I'm temporarily without cigarettes stuck to my acidic lip. At least I haven't thought about Andrew Ross for a whole ten minutes. At least I will be in a good mood at work tomorrow.
What is it that they made for us? They tell you to work and be good for your family, and then they tell you to be there for your family, and how are we supposed to do all this? How am I supposed to be happy at work and at home? How am I supposed to love people who will hurt me, withdraw, make me empty, make me not want to eat?
Today I ate a smoothie. Some fruit, a package of crackers, and a serving of goldfish. But that's just how much I pussied out today. Someday, I will eat again. Someday, or maybe not, I will stop constantly thinking of ways to distract myself from myself, and I will bask in the versimilitudinous shadow of people in my life. I won't think of myself at all. Someday I will have an appetite for banquets of savory fats and animal hide.