Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in banshee1067's LiveJournal:

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Friday, September 21st, 2007
4:56 pm	One-liners Staring at the last ten minutes of "The King of Queens" with a gimlet eye...stonefaced at the stupid, predictable punchlines. I go back a few years to when I worked on the same lot where the show was taped and, on a whim, knifed two of the tires on the four-person golf cart assigned to the show. Seeing the show in syndication now makes me glad for the act of vandalism. Spent about four hours at the library, mostly applying for jobs i didn't want and getting angrier and angrier. On the way home, some pickup truck wouldn't let me into his lane and smiled at me while he did it, so I downshifted, cut him off by jabbing into his lane, and caused the person behind him to rear-end him. I smiled broadly, gave the motherfucker the finger and a sarcastic, waggling wave and left him to deal with the mess as I rounded the corner untouched, cackling with evil glee. My dad is, thankfully, going to head to his girlfriend's to get his dick wet. it's pretty disgusting seeing them together...the other weekend, on the way to view the new dog, I saw her put her hand on his thigh and it revolted me even more than the fact that three people were puffing on butts in the car while I politely tried to ignore it. The new dog is being pesty, but I forgive him for it. I shout "Sit!" and he obeys and I scratch his ears and kiss him on the head as he tries to simultaneously kiss and bite my face. He's eighteen months old yet pretty wild, so he's as much a pest as a pleasure, but I try not to hold it against him....even as he attempts to maul my $300 dress shoes. I laugh out loud as Seinfeld begins and George is crabby as he is fobbed off during a job interview ("If we have anything, we'll contact you, Mr. Costanza"). My life may not be quite as grim, but it's nice to see people on TV who AREN'T succeeding as well. Kramer comes on and I wonder if anyone will be able to see him the same way again after his stupid outburst a few months back. The dog growls and barks at another dog across the street and I shout "Shut up, dog!" to no avail. I go over and peer out the window along with him, assuring him that it's just another dog, give him a hug, and offer him another pig ear from Sam's Club. He sits like a Good Boy before I even ask, accepts the treat, and lays down to proceed to rip it to shreds. George's latest date on TV is contemplating a nose job and I'm trying to decide if the actress has a prosthetic nose (most likely) or they actually did a search for big-nosed actresses in NYC. Although I'm grateful my dad is gone, a part of me wanted to pick a fight with him, to come home and tell him I'm ashamed of him, of what a fucking failure he is, and that I'm leaving and hope to not see him again. I tune in to E!News online and see Joe Francis' smirking face. Apparently, he's "outraged" at the treatment he has received while being detained in Reno for tax evasion charges. Personally, I hope they transfer him to gen pop and let the gangs have their way with him. They'll probably idolize him for being a big boobie "success story", a grotesque man who managed to make millions by duping gullible girls into flashing their tits for a worthless T-shirt and a chance for three seconds of "stardom". I've read a lot about the guy and his arrogant ways and can't help but hope that he ends up savaged by an AIDS-infected rapist to give him a new perspective on his pussy-sick lifestyle. He claims his chief sin is "having too much fun", which makes me hate him all the more, and I'm tempted to visit his new website, dedicated to his "outrage" at the criminal justice system. As unconstitutional as his treatment may be, I can't weep too much for him. I've seen enough rich, famous, and arrogant people get special treatment to quell any empathy I might have for human offal who apparently waggled $500 to a prison guard for a bottle of water. I realize that it's quarter after five and no food has passed my lips today. I consider that a minor victory, but I'm going to have to eat soon before my blood sugar runs low enough to give me a headache and other assorted minor sicknesses. (Comment on this)
12:31 pm	Raise Your Fist and Yell "Start at the beginning...and when you get to the end, stop." - The Mad Hatter, "Alice in Wonderland", 1951 Walt Disney version Well, it's been about a month since I last wrote. I've been living at my dad's in Kalamazoo. It's been okay...I mostly keep to myself, at least until last week. See, the bank I have used since I moved to California also does business in Chicago, so I figured that since I would be commuting there for interviews, I didn't have to switch banks. Well, the other week proved me wrong. It started out around Wednesday, two weeks ago. I didn't have plans to go to Chicago until the next week, but since the nearest branch was in the city, I figured I would have to make a quick day trip simply to physically deposit the check. Well, my dad offered to wire transfer the money to me if I signed my check over to him (we have the same name). The money never ended up in my account, not until the next Monday when I did have an interview in Chicago and cashed another check. By that time, I had $150 in overdraft fees. I left a message for my dad, who didn't respond till later that afternoon. When he did, he had deposited my check, sans $100, which he said was "in case they were transfer fees". Now, I don't like to believe my dad would use my trust against me, use my check to cover his own expenses, but from the stories I have heard, it sounds like he has had a chronic problem with this his whole life. So, basically, my loser dad took my check in good faith, cashed it, and somehow fucked up my transfer, incurring over a hundred dollars in fines...through lengthy conversations with my mom, who divorced my dad because of his lying and financial problems, I determined that my dad, despite being highly intelligent and in his mid-60s, has little concept of his finances and is willing to do anything - including ripping off his own son's unemployment benefits - to finance his lifestyle. I've done my best to give my dad the benefit of the doubt...after all, I don't want to see my father as a petty thief, a shyster who would take advantage of even his own flesh and blood, but it seems that all evidence points toward it. "He probably thinks you're an idiot and that you won't bother to check your bank statement", sez my friend John, who is rude and blunt but still valuable in that he doesn't mince words. It's probably true, and that breaks my heart....to think that my dad would take advantage of me and attempt to steal a middling $100. After many talks with my mom and my stepfather, a former family friend who did my dad's books for a few years, my dad has an uncontrollable spending habit that apparently even supercedes his morals and obligations to his family. The fact that, for years, he berated me for spending money makes me want to spit poison at him. Yesterday, my dad counted out four $20 bills and gave them to me with a smile, telling me that I surely did not expect him to cover the wire transfer fee. My knees were shaking involuntarily and I was "praying" he wouldn't notice, but I told him that considering the situation, that I expected him to cover the wire transfer fee. He slapped down two $10 bills, as if to say "Happy now, you greedy bastard?", but instead of hanging my head, I raised my chin at him and, after he tried to end the discussion by suggesting that I not ask him for any more help with his finances, I told him that we had agreed upon that a week ago and that I wouldn't ask him for any help again since "I can't even trust you to cash a check for me". He did everything he could to defend himself - first, he called my bank "a bunch of assholes" for not being more unyielding in cancelling my overdraft fees, then he tried to blame me for their attitude (about four months ago, I listed some furniture on Craig's List and almost was a victim of a Western Union scam...hence the bank figured I deposited a bad check, which negated any attempt to get the fees waived. So, in the end, I figure my dad is a loser who is holding onto financial security by his fingernails....while meanwhile, my mom is so fragile that most days, she spends her time in bed, paralyzed by depression. What a fucked-up parody of a family. It makes me want to change my name in my more vengeful moments (I'm named after my dad, and actually have a "III" suffix to my name). In a way, it makes me reconsider everything my father ever said to me....every sarcastic remark, every 150-minute "session" where he would lambaste me for whatever was going wrong with my life... It makes me horribly angry to think that i took his words so seriously, and it makes me even angrier to think of all the times I hung my head and capitulated, even when he was making fun of me. It leaves me feeling rootless, unattached...and confused. I'm trying to give up online chat. It only depresses me more, seeing what unfeeling pigs most people are, even adults. It makes me cling harder to my beliefs and nightly, I have to stop myself from beating myself into a pulp. "You can't do that, you'll have to explain to Dad why you're bruised and it'll look bad on interviews". My last scar is mostly healed...the scabs are gone, but I'll probably have a discolored slash mark regardless. If I feel the urge, best to find a place to do it where nobody will notice. I already had to play dumb when my mom noticed my yellowing bruise last week. Here I am, in the library I loved when I was a kid. The librarian, who I knew by name, apparently retired in 1996. The place was renovated around the same time, if I recall, and it looks much different. At the time, I denounced them for trying to recreate my beloved local library, but I guess times change. Here I am, 30 years old, and every time I walk past a stack, I see books I once checked out. I find a book on the films based on Stephen King novels and find the bloodstain I put in the book at age 15. Oooo...oh so spooky... Whenever I die, I want whatever books I have to go to my local library, and if I ever end up rich (keep dreaming), I'd want to donate money to my library before anyone else. I'm still at an impasse over what to do with myself. Mostly, I see the answers and options and simply don't want to accept them. I don't want to accept that I will always be big, always be bald, unless I accept that that makes me ineligible for dating. I don't want a girl stupid enough to want some big gross side of beef....much less a girl who wants some bald man. Disgusting... (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
12:01 pm	Recovering Somehow I managed to stay up till past four in the morning last night and then get up in plenty of time before my 10 am meeting. I was so thankful to not be sick, though I still didn't feel 100%, naturally. I fortified myself with some orange juice and a hamburger that looked like a leftover Tom Savini creation, thrown up against the back windshield of a car with a lot of red Karo syrup. I'm not a bad cook, but I can't form hamburger patties for shit. Tasted damned good, though, with a slice of red onion and some ketchup. Got a lot of comments after reporting on my latest mellerdrammer, and the remarks are helping prop me up right now. It's nice to see people actually praise my writing...it helps me a lot and gives me a modicum of hope. There were some of the typical nyah-nyah types encouraging me to drink myself into alcohol poisoning or go throw myself in front of a wheat thresher or whatever, but I found the remarks sort of amusing and difficult to take seriously. A few people wrote saying that I should only allow friends to post responses, but I figure that if people want to present themselves as jackasses, I'll do them the favor, in some cases, of letting their words stand so everyone can laugh at the fact that they went to the trouble of writing. I find myself wondering if I'm one of many little hate missives they send...are these people trolling through the blogs, looking for hard-luck cases and depressives? I have a lot to do in the next few days...clean this place up, apply for more jobs, do some major bill paying, and who knows, maybe even do some more writing. I dread the boredom, though, and the boredom is what makes me drink. It's easier to get through a dull night with your mind buzzing than just sitting there with the hours clocking by like some long concrete slab, neverending (how's that for a bad metaphor?). My mind is now in neutral...no longer sick, no longer buzzed. At my interview today, I felt slightly out of it, breaking into a cold sweat at one point and wondering if nausea would set in and I'd come close to fainting, but it never even came close. The recruiter was a bit less impersonal than many of the others, though he tended to ramble. I set my face to Good-Natured and Eager, smiling encouragingly and agreeing with everything he says. I tell my story once again, the different jobs, why I moved, etc., etc. Although the position in question doesn't pay as much as I want, he seemed sort of impressed by me and had me meet the head of the agency before I left. Who knows, maybe they do that with everyone, but he said I was "very marketable". As I read over my posts from the last few nights, I'm a bit surprised at the sheer anger and self-flogging going on...with this tone, my autobiography could be titled "You Fucking Loser" for all the times I say it to myself. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
1:29 am	1:30 My throat is raw after inducing vomiting to clear my head. Got a few rude, childish comments encouraging me to commit suicide, all of which I smiled at. It's funny to see people so intent on being "shocking" that I cannot take their piggish, mean-spirited remarks to heart. Anyone who encourages another to commit suicide is, to me, not someone to take seriously....despite my depressed state, I take it as humor and judiciously delete the comments, reporting the hogs as spam. Figure they're probably at least as bored as I am, and I honestly feel a bit sorry for them, weaklings throwing out insults in an attempt to get attention. The equivalent of a fourth-grader saying dirty words in an empty classroom. About to pour the rest of the whiskey down the drain since it's not doing me any good. Fucking up my head is only an excuse, a prolongment. I don't want to live with my dad and get drunk every day or night, not even if I can get away with it. My primary problem is boredom, not alcoholism or drug addiction. I cringe at the sour feeling at the back of my throat, despite brushing my teeth vigorously to get rid of that awful sensation. Still, I'm glad to get it out of me, even if it means shoving a finger down my throat to emerge coated with god-knows-what. "Be brave", I mumble to myself right before I take care of business, and I'm already feeling more coherent than, say, an hour ago. I get up and stagger to the kitchen, where I upend the bottle of cheap whiskey down the drain, glugluglugging for an eternity till there's nothing left of it. I contemplate a Diet Coke to help clear my throat but nix it because of the caffeine. Starting to feel semi-sleepy. I go back to the bedroom, giving it the old college try once more by sticking my finger back down to my prostate, but nothing comes up but a bit of coughing. I'm still slightly buzzing, but not spinning and certainly not drunk like before. After dumping the whiskey and what was remaining in my little glass, there is no more liquor in the house. Tomorrow stretches out like an endless, boring plain. Boredom is what gets me, more than depression, even. I think back to the remarks I've gotten and think maybe, somehow, I'm not alone. A big sigh escapes me, as I realize what a challenge I have given myself. What am I going to do tomorrow? Write? Interview? Clean up the place? I don't believe in praying, so I'm not going to grovel to God to "give me strength" or any such crutch-holding nonsense. If I'm going to do it, it'll be by myself, and I'll have only myself to blame or praise. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007
10:32 pm	Another Drink Pour myself a stronger dose of whiskey, pleased to see there's a lot left in that pint. Of course, on my way back to the bedroom, the door catches on my elbow and I spill some of it. I manage to restrain myself from smashing the glass in my face as "punishment", setting it down and figuring I'll get some aerosol carpet cleaner tomorrow or Friday. I readjust the mattress, which is sticking out, and manage to clunk my head slightly on the sideboard, so I accentuate it by banging my head into the headboard...you know, to "teach myself a lesson" about being clumsy. Every time I do this, I hear laughter...justified laughter from the past. Ha ha...he fucked up again. Even some of my teachers thought that way...I remember one gym teacher who used me as his own little comedy routine, a guy who was probably in his 20s when I was in his class, who would look at the rest of the class and then at me and shake his head with a smile and say something like "You did it again". Everyone laughed...after all, even the TEACHER was getting into the act...even he knew what a fuckup I was. Last weekend, I joked with John that since I was moving to Kzoo, I'd have the opportunity to murder some of those who were mean to me without having to worry about manufacturing an explanation for why I was there. John is an ex-public defender and assistant D.A. (compare that to me being an executive assistant...John is about a month older than me....now wonder why I feel like an expendable waste of flesh?) and it's kind of fun to drop these scenarios on him. I remember when he used to brag about getting a client off who was "totally guilty" and realizing what a mockery the justice system was. Shit, I remember him prosecuting people on drug charges in court while he himself was stoned. John can afford to feel confident. Granted, I shouldn't discount the fact that he's in a wheelchair, but he's smart, is now starting his own law firm with financial support from his parents, is fairly good-looking (and has a steady girlfriend anyway), so he has a lot going for him. I, on the other hand, am not smart, not successful, not financially independent, and have little hope for a future. What would I get anyway? A certification as a paralegal, so I can service a bunch of asshole lawyers who'll probably treat me like a peon anyway? And that's several years down the road, after I pay off my debts and so on. Sometimes I think the only thing that really keeps me from suicide is knowing that if I did myself in, it wouldnt really matter. I'd be seen as a joke anyway. I remember some old Matt Groening "Life In Hell" cartoon where he advised to not kill yourself in high school because "people will make jokes about you", and it's true. When I first talked of suicide, at a bar mitzvah, of all things, one of the attendees told anyone he could find that I tried to cut my wrists with a knife at the dinner table and tried to OD on aspirin in the bathroom (they had some bizarre flower arrangement with aspirin clipped to the stems). Sometimes I regret not finding that bucktoothed fucker and beating him senseless, of smashing his face into a lovely pulp, but, of course, I didn't have the guts, miserable weakling that I am. Heh...that epithet...I remember my mom, drunk and incapicitated, calling me a "weakling" as me and a friend helped her up to bed. The same "friend" later spread it around that my mom was a drunk, yet I never did anything to him, gutless pig that I am. It's pointless now, I guess...what am I gonna do, massacre people for offenses made more than a decade ago? On one hand, I've found that people rarely really change, but on the other hand, I'm unwilling to sacrifice my remaining years for the pleasure of torturing one or many to death. I remember saying that I'd put out their eyes with the tip of a knife first, blinding them, so that they wouldn't even be able to tell what would come next, but that's just tough talk. While I doubt i would feel sympathetic towards them, I can't help but smile at the fact that while one part of me writes as this avenging angel, this sadistic monster who would take pleasure in slowly disfiguring them so that they wouldn't even get a decent open-casket service, another part of me was typing about taking care of some little girl, of making her feel happy and safe, of not losing my temper at her. "I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man", says Private Joker in Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket", when questioned about the juxtaposition of a peace symbol button and the legend "Born To Kill" on his helmet. Watching Polish TV interviews with Anna Mucha, a young Polish actress I remember from Spielberg's "Schindler's List". Now she's in her mid-twenties and quite attractive and it makes me jealous. I was about 16 when I saw the film, and she was probably 12, and now she's grown up and attractive and it makes me feel like an ugly toadstool by comparison. So she gets to mature and become attractive while I go bald and end up an ugly fucking joke? It makes me rage at life's "unfairness", childish as it might seem. Some get lucky, some don't, and my spin on the genetic roulette wheel turned up snake-eyes. My brother, less than four years younger than me, ended up six feet even, still has all his hair, and is of medium build at most. Meanwhile, I ended up 6'3", broad shouldered, and started losing my hair before I even finished high school. Jesus...is there anything more pathetic? I never even had a motherfucking CHANCE at being attractive...that was taken away when I started using Rogaine as a college sophomore and had my first hair transplant at age 20. I even have body hair, which is totally fucking gross. Not that I see my brother as some kind of ideal, but it makes me angry to see that he has a better chance at life than me. As much of a dork as he is, he gets girls and friends whereas I, deservedly, am an ugly pig lost in my own solitude. Just knowing how I ended up with the shit end of the genetic stick makes me so angry that I clench my fists, crushing my thumbs, so I don't smash this glass in my face and then rub the shards in. That will only make me invent a bunch of stupid reasons for why I'm "wounded". How the fuck am I supposed to go through life unattractive? Oh, I'm used to hearing well-meaning yet naive people who tell me that looks "don't matter", or only matter to this evil, "shallow" people, but I know better. I hate myself for looking like this, and "compliments" about how i look depress me even more. I don't want praise for being bald, for being big, for being tall...i view it as embarrassing and fucking disgusting, and I could care less that "most guys WANT to be bigger" or that "some girls like a big man". I wouldnt want to date a girl who wants some big man to "protect her"...how fucking melodramatic. Like me being big will deter some mugger or rapist. Finally starting to buzz...Jesus, what will I do tomorrow when I don't have this? I can always get more alcohol, I guess, but that's a losing battle. Despite my daily intake, I'm still not afraid I'm an alcoholic...the only reason I drink or even get high is because I'm lonely and have nobody to spend time with. If I had someone, preferably a girl, to hang out with, I wouldn't be sitting there wishing I could be drunk or high. I only do this out of sheer boredom. With nobody to talk to, nobody interested in me, my company is getting fucked up. When I'm fucked up, I enjoy things more...granted, they're the same things I like when i'm sober, but more so. Watching an interview on YouTube with the infamous Ed Kemper, who murdered various coeds, his grandparents, and most famously, his mother, whom he subsequently raped and then used her head as a dartboard. I don't desire to do the same to either of my parents, but since I heard that Ed was a pretty personable guy, it made me interested in finding out a bit more of him. It's not that I think I'd ever go on some nutso killing spree, but I refuse to be lazy and dismiss such people as mindless crazies. We all have our reasons. I grip my wrist, my hand easily overlapping the circumference, as I listen to poor Ed talking about taking a girl to "a John Wayne movie and Denny's". I smile as he puts on an old pair of glasses and says to the interviewer, "Would you get in a car with this man?" The power of humor...it manages to defuse all the horrid things he did, even when he talks about talking to severed heads. It's fascinating to see a guy who seems so normal, who realizes how nuts his behavior was. I go on YouTube and watch a scene from John MacNaughton's film "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", where Henry and his friend Otis murder a rude man fencing stolen TV sets, climaxing when Henry smashes a TV set into the man's head and orders his friend to "plug it in", electrocuting the man. What I find interesting is that the majority of comments are about the fact that the actor in question was overweight, a "fat fuck" who deserved what he got. While the actor, Ray Atherton (whose B-movie credits include producing "Fart: The Movie"), is obviously playing a rude and unsavory character, I find it interesting that the viewers concentrate on the fact that he's overweight and not very attractive, hence more "deserving" of his terrible fate. It's fascinating how cathartic the murder scene seems to be for people, a rude fat man being stabbed with a soldering iron, garrotted with an extension cord, and then electrocuted. The childish smile on the face of actor Tom Towles says it all. Finally buzzing after more than half a pint of Canadian Club, but not yet incoherent. Just means my typing is slower and I wonder what I can eat besides cottage cheese, which I hate probably an hour ago. Look up my former "friend" from childhood, now a newspaper editor probably somewhere in Battle Creek. The bearded face I see looks like a stranger to me, although I've known him since probably 1982. Even back home in Kalamazoo, I wouldn't contact him....partially because I'm ashamed that he has made a career with his writing whereas I'm a worthless piece of shit relegated to executive assistant positions, and partially because my writing is AT LEAST as good as his is. His prose isn't embarrassing, but it's nothing special, nothing I couldn't churn out myself. "You fucking LOSER....bet you'd love to be in his position, bet you'd love to be able to make your living based on your writing...but awwwww....too bad you were too fucking STUPID to even attempt it. Worthless pig! You deserve to look him up, to be humiliated by his success... If you had any guts, you'd kill yourself for how low you are compared to him, even if you know you're at least equal the writer he is! Like it matters....he has a reputation, and all you have is a history of "executive assistant" work, which at best makes you an ambitionless loser and at best makes you a competent functionary. You rotten motherfucker...THIS is the best you can do?!?" My head starts to spin a bit from the whiskey, and that plus knowing what an ineffectual loser I am sends me back to where I started. An ugly pig, with no use to anyone. You fucking loser....you proud of the life you've carved out for yourself?" Quarter to one here in Illinois and once again, I childishly imagine sticking a gun in my mouth for being such a waste of flesh, such a complete loser. "Awwww.....if you had any fucking talent, maybe someone would have noticed it, you hog, you pig, you disgusting worthless pile of shit! You're thirty years old! All around you, people are having careers, families, relationships, histories....while you languish. Fucking lazy loser....if you had any fucking talent, it would have been discovered long ago. Why prolong it? Why not get the guts to do yourself in, to kill yourself, to punish yourself for the fucking wreck you made of your life, you rotten pig, you worthless scumbag, you human offal, you pile of shit.... Whaaat, you think people will care about you, will care when you die? You're just another statistic, another failure, another typical case. They'll shrug their shoulders while they bury you and nobody will even notice except maybe your boohooing family, who'll secretly figure this shoulda happened long ago. You rotten piece of shit....why don't you have the guts to kill yourself? You KNOW you're nothing....you've been told that since fucking first grade. You're shit...why would you expect anything more? You've known this since you were six years old. Nothing but a rotten failure. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
8:55 pm	Grocery Shopping After a day of lethargy, I finished off the remaining Rolling Rock with nary a buzz, so I kipped to the supermarket for a pint of Canadian Club and some Diet Coke. "The last of the liquor", I tell myself. In the store, I encountered an adorable little girl, no more than five, gorgeous and completely freckly. I smiled at her and she gave me a big smile back and I swear, my heart melted. What makes me so sappy like this, especially in the presence of a little girl? John always makes fun of it, suggests I find a little girl and make her give me a blowjob or fuck her or something else to bait me, though he knows I don't even want sex from someone my own age, much less someone younger. Maybe I just like the idea of making someone happy. Maybe I just like the idea of having someone I can be gentle with, someone I can take care of. I'm not good at being mean, not good at shouting at people, probably because I know it never worked for me. When my father attempted "tough love", my response was to go up to my room and either slash myself with a butcher knife or destroy something he had given me - the watch he himself received at age 21 from his parents, my grandfather's gold watch...all met their death at the hands of a hammer pilfered from the basement. As much as it hurt me to do it, I enjoyed desecrating something HE felt was important, something he thought I should respect. I guess I figure that maybe I can prove that I can raise a happy child without resorting to cheap tactics like bullying. Who knows, maybe that's what it takes to raise a kid, but look at how my father's methods harmed me. I know I idealize having a daughter, but it's my luxury for the moment since I don't have one, so fuck it, she can be anything I want for now...cute, freckly, hyper, happy, clingy, anything. I remember several years ago, when I worked in a doctor's office in Beverly Hills. There was this little girl that would come in periodically, an albino girl. She looked different, but I thought she was totally beautiful. One day, I ventured to tell her mother so even though most people view any man who takes even scant interest in a young girl as a raving, barely-concealed pervert. She seemed disinterested, and when I said "She's so beautiful", she replied "Yeah, we try to tell her that so she won't feel bad." Maybe I just want someone to love ME. Maybe I want someone dependent, yet I don't like that in girls I date. I don't know, maybe I just see them as sort of funny. I just know that if I ever have a daughter, I know that having her wrap her little arms around me and give me a big hug will be a feeling better than even the finest kush L.A. has to offer (maybe!). Enough with the self-indulgent treacle... I got a number of responses to my last post, and was surprised to find none of them were mean-spirited. I tend to dread the responses to my posts since most seem to be of the "Quit whining, you pussy" ilk. A few even said I was a good writer, but then again, maybe they read some nonsense I wrote about how I was supposed to be a good one and figured they'd throw me a bone. Still, comments like that are harder to dismiss, even if that wicked part of me still says "Oh, so what? The Internet is full of 'good writers'...think that makes you special or something?" that's part of why I don't write much now...I figured it was a silly waste of time, similar to dreaming of being a movie star. Losers always dream of becoming a big-time writer or director or actor so they can "show up" all the people who hurt them in the past. Wealth and success, I suppose, are big self-esteem boosters even though I've read constant times about how fame and wealth tend to be downers...as Peggy Lee once said and was quoted a million times over, "Is that all there is?" The guy in front of me at the grocery store was probably 5'9" or 5'10", slender build, and even though he was average-looking, I was still somewhat jealous. He prattled on to the cashier about his cat (he bought litter and some cat food) and then paid with a check, the bastard (checks tend to take the longest to process payment). He also had a full, thick head of hair although he was probably 5-10 years older than me. I didn't hate him for it, but I found myself wondering if both my hands would fit around his neck, and laughed to myself. The thought of throttling someone for the crime of looking better than me was sort of funny. Still, in the darkened night plate glass of the supermarket, I could see my own visage bordering his, wide enough and tall enough so that I could see myself clearly despite him being in front of me, and I finally looked away. I couldn't stand to see myself, especially in that perspective. "I love how big you are...I love that I feel so small next to you" rang up in my head from years ago and I found myself almost involuntarily baring my teeth at the memory. I managed to avoid hurting myself today despite my constant ruminations over my appearance. No slammed doors, no slashing up my face so that everyone could see how I felt inside, no bloody noses, no fat lips...I remember years ago, at the aforementioned doctor's office, when I would open cabinet doors into my face for fucking up...WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! AWWWW...DID THAT HURT? WELL, GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME...YOU WANT TO BE A STUPID FUCKUP ALL YOUR LIFE, YOU LOSER, YOU PIG, YOU WORTHLESS SHIT! My own internal voice is even worse than my father's...at times, it's almost an extreme parody of his. Every time I miss an exit on the freeway, I scream "You did it AGAAAAIIIIN!" in that irritating voice he had, exaggerating it to the extreme to agitate myself all the more. One part of me takes the easy route, the same the others take. The cheap shots, the sarcasm, the beating myself up....God, I remember getting a parking ticket on Sunset Boulevard years ago for parking a few inches in the red zone and being so angry with myself, I skipped the concert at the Roxy I had already paid for and drove home, beating myself into a bloody nose on the way home. I had a convertible and a few people looked at me, dried blood all over my face, and I just smiled crazily at them. I was out of my mind, like the night I saw the Sex Pistols at the Greek, made a wrong turn and ended up driving all the way through Griffith Park. That time I gave myself a bloody nose and a fat lip so bad it affected my speech for a week...a worried cop asked me if I was all right as I entered the concert, dried blood all over my face and clothes. I never even bothered to clean it off. I smiled and told him it was fake, and found myself pleased when all the hardcore punkers gave me a reasonably wide berth as I tromped to my seat. I was such a fucking fool. Funny to me that I can be so brutal towards myself and yet so gentle to others. Shit, I have to condition myself to not say "thank you" to toll booth operators since they always ignore me when I give them thanks. Maybe I felt that since their job was pretty insignificant, they might appreciate someone who acknowledged them and treated them like a human being rather than a functionary there to open a gate and nothing more. You know, "we're all in this together" and whatnot. It was lost on them, so I finally trained myself to ignore them, to see them as no different than tossing my change into one of those little baskets. Too quiet in here, but a few clicks and music, wonderful music is playing. Sometimes I think I don't appreciate technology enough. When I was young, I thought having a big music and movie collection would make me happy, but it's not true. Sure, I appreciate it...I love expanding my tastes. I can't stand people who make snap judgments. One of the few things I love about me is that I can appreciate so much, but that isolates me as well. Who the fuck cares about, say, Dixieland jazz? Or film music, my true love, for that matter? I don't tend to listen to that much new stuff....I tend to get into it years later when I can see it from a perspective. Horns blare and cymbals tingle as John Williams' swing pastiche screams out my speakers. Gorgeous music, buried in some shit movie nobody cares about anymore, a box office failure, a legendary symbol of Hollywood excess. They write this wonderful music and then it gets forgotten forever unless the movie does extraordinarily well. I bang my heels together in time with the Gene Krupa-style tomtom and wish I had learned music. I remember so well taking some proficiency test in fifth grade...I remember the classroom I took it in and my mom saying that I scored high and did I want to maybe take lessons? The clarinet screams its solo and makes me practically levitate...to be that person, to be able to speak like that! I demurred on music lessons because I figured that if I expressed any interest, I'd be forced into years of drudgery whether I liked it or not...like Little League, like soccer, like everything... Everyone hated me since I was always the worst or, if I was lucky, second-to-worst on the team. Everything from first-grade soccer on the playground to my one year of JV football. My saving grace there was some fuckup who had apparently shit his pants on the bus coming back from a band practice, so the few times he tried to scorn me, I wasn't afraid to fight back. At least I tried. Heh...my most vivid memory was hearing some black player on the line trash talk to me and then be pulled off the field when he told me he was going to bust my ass and I told him that would be "mighty white of him". I start to get emotional...maybe the alcohol is working. I search for something to complement the mood, something to enhance it. Maybe that's why I like film music so much...it's all about enhancing moods, accentuating them, and there's a whole multitude of emotions they can evoke. I cup my bald forehead in my hands and splay them down my face, as if to clear it as my eyes screw up, almost in tears. Self-indulgent weepy bastard, I think...so eager to drown in your own pathos... I bare my teeth once again and glare at the monitor as the strings begin a circular pattern I can't begin to describe...maybe they call them triplets or something...I can't speak musical language. That's part of why I stopped writing music reviews...I felt unqualified. The editor of the magazine told me that mine were better than most, but I disqualified the comment in my head. Who gives a flying fuck about FILM SCORES, I thought, and was embarrassed whenever I interviewed and added that I had "been published", feeling like some phony. Like they were going to be moved by my heartfelt appreciation for Elmer Bernstein's score for "Ghostbusters", for Poledouris' score for the obscure teen comedy "Making the Grade"...who the hell was I trying to fool? Although I'm still unemployed, it hasn't affected my self-esteem too much, seeing as how I don't even want the jobs I'm interviewing and applying for. Who wants to be an executive assistant, especially at age 30? What will I do at 35, or 40? Jesus Christ, what if I end up supporting an exec younger than me? If anything would drive me to suicide, that might be it. When people ask what I do, I make sure to say I'm "only" an executive assistant since I'd rather be seen as an underachieving loser than a fool who actually thinks being an executive assistant is a respectable profession for someone, esp. at my age. We all have to make a living some way, and at least I'm not working fast food or something like that, but I still feel like shit doing what I do at my age. "If you're so fucking smart, if you're so goddamned 'special', how come you're doing this, loser? Huh? You're nothing...you contemptuous pig. Is this what you dreamed of being? Is this where you thought you would be when you were young? Thirty years old and a fucking 'executive assistant'! No wonder you feel like shit! You think you deserve to feel good, doing what you're doing? For Chrissake, if you didnt' hate yourself, THEN I'd see the problem! At least you're self-aware, at least you refuse to give in to Lowered Expectations and Self-Delusion, at least you still have enough self-respect to hate yourself for how you're slowly killing yourself, day after day. Shit, being employed would almost be WORSE...what kind of job do you think you're going to get? All you fight for is the best pay you can find...if you can make 50K or above, maybe yoiu can pay off your debts in a few years and then be truly free, you fuckup asshole. LOSER! FUCKUP! I clench my fists and wince, stopping myself from hitting myself like some bawling four-year-old having a fit. I go between a whiny, contorted moue of regret and an angry, teeth-baring snarl. I lean back, clenching the bare mattress with my hands and screaming through my teeth at the ceiling, my closed eyes bulging until my contacts feel like they might pop out. John Carpenter's repetitive theme from "Halloween" plays forth as I wheel around and bury my head into the soft, pregnant mattress, my hot breath rebounding in my face. "God damn you!" I shriek as the broadband cable, which has a broken clip, comes loose. I take another open mouth of whiskey and Diet Coke. My legs become animated, going up and down, my heels smacking together like someone being beaten to death, one punch at a time. Somebody online responds to my comment about being a fuckup with a weak argument: "Hitler was a fuckup". I tell him that at least Hitler achieved something, as bad as it was. I try to cheer myself up by playing Herrmann's grand score from "The 3 Worlds of Gulliver"...that indomitable spirit, those sad strings giving over to that British seafaring brass. I haven't even seen the fucking movie, yet I envision sadness followed by resolve...the strings skip back and forth, slowly forming a theme until those ooomphing trombones take over, as if someone woke up and said that today was a new day, a different day...to laugh at one's follies and start anew.. I take another swig of whiskey and Coke and run my head over my head, feeling where the sparse hair starts and then where the big bald spot is in the back. Christ! I can't even respect a girl who would date an ugly thing like me, a girl who would not mind or worse, APPRECIATE, a guy who was mostly bald. "You ugly fuck", I say to myself, the bitter look on my face uglier than anything else, as I bare my teeth and wish I could spit bile and venom on myself...reminders of the times I looked at my own reflection in a mirror and then smashed my face into it as "punishment" for my shit genetics. "You don't fucking DESERVE anyone decent, not like you have to worry, since the few girls you got in the past were bottom of the barrel", and I know it's true. "Ugly pig...you think you can do better, looking like that? You're BALD! You're 6'3"! You're big! You really think you're going to get a decent girl looking like that, loser? Hell, you don't even respect the few buttplugs who find you attractive, and that's always because they love what you hate: your size, your build, your ability to make them 'feel safe'. Fuck you! You worthless sack of shit, you ugly motherfucker...is this what you want?! Is this what you want, hah?" I feel like Donald Duck in one of his rages..."Wakwakwakwak! What's so funny, huh? Waaaaakkkkk!!!" (3 Comments |Comment on this)
12:23 am	"Brains" I lurch back from the liquor store, moaning "Braaaains" like one of those zombies in a Romero film. I always found it sort of funny that they craved human brains, rather than flesh. IMed someone in a chat, who told me she had talked to me before and was immediately hostile. My feelings weren't really hurt, but I talked to her for at leats ten minutes since I was fascinated by her arrogant remarks. Once again, an adult proves to be a child. This time, the individual was 49 years old, yet still taking cheap shots online. Finally, I got bored with her and igged her, making sure to report her as spam just as a final kissoff. Then I headed out to get more booze, since I'm not really THAT fucked up. I was surprised the liquor store was open, and couldn't help but feel bad for the old man jockeying the register. Imagine being in your 60s or 70s and relegated to working the after-midnight weekday shift! Maybe I'm being too melodramatic, but it made me feel bad to think that this guy was once a kid, a kid with real dreams, all of which faded and died and now he's 65 or 70 and manning a register at some liquor store late at night. That, to me, is more horrifying than any ghost or serial killer. As I walk along, I reflect upon what I've "learned" from my rude cohort online. I guess I'm learning the same thing over and over again....that people in general are not to be trusted. Most people are hogs...angry, frightened, and eager to abuse those they see as weak. That has proven true both in person and online, but I guess Idealistic Me is taking a long time to believe it. It's hard to give up on humanity, but all signs point towards dismissing others as human garbage, as irrelevant stopgaps on my way towards whatever goal I point myself towards. I can't look for solace online anymore...at best, I find ineffectual, at worst, ridicule. Of course, dismissing people as mere objects makes me more lonely, but maybe I need to learn to be my own best friend. As much as I wish I had friends, a girl, etc., the past has shown that that just isn't in the cards. I've been alone ever since I was in elementary school, when my second-grade teacher pleaded for SOMEONE to "please play with Bill". The most I got was a bit of sympathy from a few girls on the swingset, as I recall. "What sick ridiculous puppets we are, and what gross little stage we dance on. What fun we have, dancing and fucking, not a care in the world, not knowing that we are nothing", says John Doe in the film "Se7en", and although I'm not a religious fanatic like he is, I still remember thinking that he wasn't half wrong, long back in that theater in Okemos, some half-friend from the freshman dorms with me. Chris, I think his name was. I'm only a bit tipsy now, even after 750 mL of Jack Daniel's, a 40 of MGD, and now the first of 12 Rolling Rocks (less than $10!). I have no interviews tomorrow, so I can pretty much do whatever I want, even if that means slogging around half-drunk. As the music shifts to sad, sad strings, I wince and my face contorts, almost bringing tears at my loneliness and the pathos of the moment, here at more than half past midnight on a Tuesday in my 30th year on this planet. I feel hateful, baring my teeth at the computer screen as a chorus lifts me above this world, above my own feelings.... Music is so easy to escape in, like drugs, like alcohol. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
10:11 pm	Cleaning Up Cleaned up the majority of the glass in my fingers, transporting it to the kitchen garbage. Hit my head against one of the cabinets while doing it, with the psychiatrist's comment ("Billy is a good-looking, yet awkward boy") in my head, so I smashed my forehead into the cabinet a few times, screaming "Get it right yet? Get it right?" About to get dressed and go out and get some more alcohol. Congratulations...drank myself through 750 mL of Jack Daniel's since this afternoon...now all I need is maybe a forty or two to send me to oblivion, esp. since I have no interviews tomorrow. It must be some sort of sign that almost every day, I fantasize about firing a gun into my forehead, dying with one of those open-eyed, frozen, gape-mouthed looks on my face, even though I know nobody would even discover me until my insides began to liquefy and my face became a sunken horrorshow of no circulation....a ghoul parody of my formerly flushed and "healthy" face. I can still afford a few hundred bucks to buy a handgun, or even a rifle and a hacksaw if that waiting period shit still applies. Hell, my dad probably has a hacksaw amongst his multitude of tools. Why not use his freshly-sharpened kitchen knives to produce enough blood to write something cryptic yet damning on the long wall of his living room. Enough to guarantee him nightmares for the rest of his life as he drowns in bitter regret. I promise, if I ever do kill myself, I'll make sure he knows his culpability, and then some. Suicide would be the best thing for him, really....he's not doing anyone any good as is. Maybe his girlfriend would shed a tear or two and then go date someone else. Should I sacrifice my own worthless life to send someone else to Hell? Should I commandeer one of his handguns and wait for him to come home so he can witness my death, see my brain splattered all over the walls with a big smile on my face as I fill my mouth with the barrel of one of his guns? Perhaps a curt "Bye bye, Dad" with a big smile on my face will be etched in his mind for the last of his miserable days. He doesn't deserve any better...as much as I want to make peace and be happy that he's happy, another part of me feels that he got away with his rotten remarks and wants him to pay for them...for all those 90-minute lectures designed to humiliate me. Why don't I have the guts to kill myself, or at least murder him after letting him know why I'm ending his worthless failure of a life? My parents are useless losers, and I'm ashamed to be part of them. They had their chance, and they ended up as nothing, so fuck them. A failed, useless lawyer and his loser depressed wife. Who will really care about them? Just another foolish couple who fucked it all up. They don't really deserve better. Murder would be a relief for my mom. I still remember when that cunt called me a "weakling" when she was drunk, who smacked me across the face. Why not retaliate? If they are both capable of such violent actions, why not pay them back in kind? Why not stuff their mouths with it till they can't breathe...why not make their final minutes of life as horrible as possible. Tell my mom and dad I don't love them anymore minutes or two before killing them both. My mom would boo hoo and claim that she did everything she could for me, but since I turned out like shit, her efforts are meaningless. Why prolong her life, since it's pretty much a pathetic litany of lying in bed motionless. Fuck her....she wasted her life. Killing her would only hasten what she's already doing. My father deserves no such sympathy. The pig is only nice to me now because he doesn't have his thumb on me...I haven't forgotten how he acted before I left home. He's a failure, a worthless piece of shit, and death is probably the best thing for him. I need to learn to stop seeing people as people, to stop caring about how others feel. Nobody cares how I feel, or if they do, they just smile and wait to see how I'll react to their blatant rudeness, so why not become a killer? Why not dismiss humanity as it dismissed me? The only really important thing is not getting caught. Why not murder the both of them, the two pathetic losers who coupled up in the mid-'70s and then butcher their bodies and erase any evidence of their existence? All my grandparents are dead already, so it doesn't even matter. Chalk them up as failures in life...a pair of losers who aren't any good to anybody any more. Fuck them. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
9:06 pm	Another Mess Shattered glass all over the floor of my cousin's bedroom. I wiped up some of the liquid from when I poured a full glass of Jack and Diet Coke on the carpet in disgust at my clumsiness...my mind reels back to the psychiatrist who saw me when I was probably seven...I remember seeing the file when I was maybe 11 or 12 years old, which stated that I was "good-looking" yet "awkward", which obviously transferred to adulthood. I'll clean up the shards of glass tomorrow...one more "punishment" for being who I am. Who the fuck wants to be big and clumsy, esp. when certified as such by a professional? If I had a gun right now, I'd be thinking of killing myself. Inside of a week, I'll be living with my dad, who has many multitudes of guns for me to do myself in with, most likely unlocked. Shall it be a .306 rifle? My own little .22, which my dad bought me at probably 13, cheerfully ignorant to my lack of enthusiasm for guns? Does he still have that Walther P-38, the one he showed me at age nine or ten, when I got a Transformers "Megatron", which transformed into the same weapon? Killing myself with one of my dad's guns would surely end his enthusiasm for guns, and probably for hunting as well. I don't consider my dad to be some trigger-happy goon...if anything, he's an inept hunter who rarely tags anything....but if I blew myself away with one of his guns, I could guarantee that not only would he sell off his whole collection, but if I stained even a wall with my blood, he'd probably sell his pathetic little house, as well. I'd be just another addition to misery, a sign that He Fucked Up. I guess I shouldn't feel too sorry for him. He DID fuck up, and never paid any price for it, and I guess it would be somewhat satisfying to know I destroyed what's left of his pissy little life as payback for the times he ridiculed and intimidated me, foolishly believing it would somehow make me change my tune. Part of me likes the idea of shattering his life....of finally making him pay for every disgusted remark, for every bit of sarcasm, for every 90-minute interactive diatribe ("ANSWER ME!!!!" still boils up in my mind, when I was silent during his interrogation). Why shouldn't I make him pay with my life? Why shouldn't I fuck up the last ten or fifteen years of his existence for the way he treated me? Granted, it probably will not change the way he is, but why not make him suffer the ultimate consequence for his behavior? If my life is worth shit, why not go out making him suffer forever, haunted by his past actions? Why let him off easy? Why not spit bile and ruin the rest of his pathetic fucking life, send him into regret and despair and maybe suicide as well. I remember several years back, when my mom left him and he bitterly told me "I should just fucking kill myself". My response was to tell him that if he needed me, that if he wanted me to fly home, I'd do it on my own dime and tell work I needed to go home, regardless of the consequences. That rotten fuck wouldn't sacrifice the same for me, so why not leave myself a filthy mess in his own house, my brains splayed all over his living room? Why not use my life to ruin his, to haunt him forever for his fuckups? Why let him off so easily, especially when I can recall him rubbing shit in my face as a way to teach me, at age five, toilet training? Why am I the good one? Why don't I just sacrifice myself to hurt him? Why not sacrifice myself to ruin his life, to transform his peaceful, single-yet-dating existence into a shuddering hell? Why? Am I pussy, too scared to do it to him? Do I really "love him" after all he did to me? I know he's only nice to me because I'm not under his thumb. Why not give him the ultimate punishment....the death of his first son? Something he can take to the old folks' home, a memory to be repeated again and again. I'd make sure he knew he was responsible...I'd make sure to leave a note or even, in a fit of melodrama, to write something curt in my own blood, punctuating it with that final shot that erases my face just as it erases my memories. Maybe I'd even point the gun at the back of my head, so that I can turn my recognizable face into a distorted horror show for him alone to discover, a symbol of all he did to me. A badly made doll, covered in blood and entirely unsolvable...nothing that can be taken back. Such is my hate and resentment. I want to pollute the minds of those who laughed at me and my problems, to spray them with my blood and brain matter so that they will never, ever forget how they dismissed me. An honorable sacrifice....more honorable than going on, more honorable than applying for these chimp jobs and going on interviews pretending that I honestly CARE about these tinshit worthless jobs. Why not sacrifice my own life to ensure that others have to live with the remnants? Granted, my father is far from the only offender. John pointed out last weekend that, by moving to Kalamazoo, I have an "in" as far as my chief tormentor is concerned. Last I heard, he was living with his parents, prob. less than two miles from me, an alcoholic with a congenital liver disorder. Why not take him with me? If I'm going out, why not let him join me? Why not go out with a bit of pleasure? Why not cripple him for life, just as a memento? I doubt I would ever seriously entertain any such notion. I'd be more likely to kill myself as "punishment" for being such a worthless individual, such an expendable piece of shit. I have nothing to offer the world anymore, so why not kill myself and end all this boredom and isolation? My death wouldn't mean any more than the faceless deaths we see on CNN as we skip to the latest news on Paris Hilton. I know that I am insignificant. I know that I'm a joke. I know that I'm a worthless pile of shit who only hasn't killed himself because he doesn't have the guts to do it. Part of me wishes I did. I cannot stand living my life like this, like some big bald ugly scumbag piece of human offal. The only thing that keeps me from smashing a glass in my face is the possible consequences re. employment. Once again, I want to kill myself. No "professional" can stop me, esp. since I'm unemployed and therefore not eligible for any kind of health care. It's not like my death would be anything but another drop in the ocean, except maybe to my parents. My mom would freak out and go to bed for a week, but that's not that far from how she normally is, the fucking loser. I heard she tried to embezzle from more than one job she worked for....so how is that supposed to reflect upon me? Meanwhile, my dad lied to his last girlfriend about working for the CIA and other such nonsense, and myself, coward as I am, was "sympathetic" and gently told him that he shouldn't do that again. With parents like that, why not kill myself? An inept embezzler and pathetic depressive...Jesus...no matter how shitty my life was, I never took off work to lie in bed all day. As unhappy as I was, I managed to support myself anyway. Without any support from them, I managed to keep my head above water, but realizing what pathetic wastes my parents are, it makes me feel closer to suicide. Only fitting....with two losers for parents, why not off myself? Not like they ever gave me anything... An insane part of me relishes the idea of my father devastated by my death, by letting him know that it was mostly his fault, of inducing him to blow his own head apart in guilt and remorse. The pig. He actually thought his abuse would somehow "spur me" to self-improvement? Thinking of it makes me want to break a bottle and grind it into his face. How can I live with such memories? Almost all of my past life has been loneliness and depression. I still remember my father's mocking words when I returned from London: "Oooooo...I'm too big...my shoulders are too wide...." The fucking wretch. That may have been seven years ago, but I'm not fool enough to believe that he's nice to me for any reason other than he's getting old. I'd love to throw it in his face, to make him pay for his fucking sarcasm, for his brutality. Scary as it sounds, sometimes I think that nothing would make me feel better than beating him to death, of making him pay for every remark, every rebuke, every comment...of beating him till he's unrecognizable and then dumping him somewhere insignificant...a waste of a human being. Part of me is afraid that such an action would be the greatest moment of my life. It's so ironic, these bitter violent fantasies of mine, since my idea of happiness usually revolves around kindness. Generally, it involves a child, a daughter, someone to be gentle and understanding towards. Someone to make happy, not someone to bully the way my shithead swine of a father did. The fact that he would bully not only someone weaker than him, but his own son, makes me almost contort with contempt for such a pig. It makes me view humans in general as predators, as people to protect myself from, as those to take an aggressive stance towards. I wish the world were nice like I am. I wish people remembered to be polite, even to acknowledge me when I thank them, but that is not the case. People are hogs, and I need to stop viewing them as individuals with feelings. Better to see them as expendable and to not care how they feel....after all, it's not like they regard me as anything more. I try to train myself to turn off that part of me, the empathetic part that cares how others feel because I know how I'd feel. Better to view others as without feelings....after all, if they don't care about how I feel, what other stance do I have but to numb myself, to view them as rude children, to learn to not care if I'm rude to them. All I can do is desensitize myself, to not care how others feel, to see them as objects or insignificant, their "feelings" irrelevant. In a way, it's true, isn't it? I want to kill myself, but i want to take as many people as I can with me. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
1:42 pm	Job Hunting Went into the city this morning for a 10:30 interview. I was fairly confident, maybe more so than the interviewer, who seemed to be searching for questions to ask me from some copied sheet in his hand. Still, they're going to be searching for the next month... Saw this totally cute girl...freckly, a bit chubby, as I trudged down Wells back to the station. I wasn't going to say anything, because only a desperate loser tries to strike up conversation with the person next to them while walking. I sneezed at one point and she looked back and said "Bless you", which immediately made me want to continue the connection. As we walked along, I searched for something to comment on. After two blocks, she took a right into a parking garage and she was lost forever. Dammit. I've only got a handful of days left here in this house....then I have to move in with my dad in Kalamazoo. Maybe it won't be that bad, but my dad's place is small and there's an awful feeling about living at home, especially when home isn't really a home now (my parents sold the house we grew up in). I drove by last weekend, but somehow it didn't bother me. It's just a house I grew up in, so it's only fitting that it should go to some new family...there were kids' toys strewn all over the place. What creeped me out more was seeing a few beater cars in driveways...a Pontiac with a bashed-in front end, one of those sturdy Oldsmobiles grandpas drive. After our "generation" of kids around the same age, a new bunch moved in. I babysat for some of them...and now they must be in college. Felt really dark yesterday. I still want to starve myself. Walking through the city, I found myself focusing on all these slender girls and thinking how good it must be to be admired, to know that people are going to find you attractive. I felt almost embarrassed at my (unsuccessful) interview at an ad agency since the place was crawling with 20-something young women, all attractive and tiny, and here I was, this gross, lumbering, balding beast slogging after them. I looked for solace, stupidly, online, but nobody was talking and the best I got was someone who mocked me as an "angry little man". My anger and impotence flared and I immediately began thinking of hurting myself out of frustration, like I did two weeks ago with the door. I stopped myself, telling myself that they were just words, just a cheap shot, but I still wondered "Why are people like this? Why do they see someone in pain and use it as a chance to perfect their little comedy routine?" I thought of that all yesterday, walking through the streets with this horrible "you or them" attitude. I was stonefaced before the homeless people shaking their cups at me, murmuring "Fuck them" to myself as I passed. I refused to move to the side when people, not looking where they were going, got in my way, shoving past them and stuffing any concern that I seemed rude down deep. I felt infected and nearly monstrous, glaring hot beams at the people enjoying McCormick & Schmick's as I trod down Wacker Drive. I felt like spitting venom on the cars, bass turned up so that all you heard was an idiotic, vibrating BWOMP-BWOMP-BUMP over and over. At the intersections, I'd walk as slow as I could, daring the cab drivers to run me down in their fury to keep in constant motion. My mouth felt full of fangs, of rotten, horrible decay as I clomped along, sweating like a bastard in my Ralph Lauren suit. I looked at myself in the reflection of the buildings, glaring at my bald head, my non-existent neck, my broad shoulders. Just had a barbecue chicken pita pizza, only meal of the day. It was incredible...two more are sitting on the counter and I'm going to have to do my best not to eat them. The cycle begins again... (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
8:36 am	Um, it is Wednesday, isn't it? A lot has happened since I last posted. I started a few times, but just couldn't bring myself to sit there and write it out. My weekend at home was decent. I'm so desperate for human contact that even if it means going to Ribfest with my dad and his new girlfriend and my brother, who has this deep adenoidal honk of a voice, and a tendency to have these dumb, overblown opinions. It's weird...Robby actually has the kind of social life I'd like to have - several decent friends, good romantic prospects - but he always comes across as this phony dork. Maybe it's just because he's my brother, maybe it's just that dumb voice...even his attempts at humor are pretty stupid. Then again, maybe I shouldn't be too jealous of his friends...the two I met were marginally friendly and watched "Family Guy" with enthusiasm that equalled my brother's as I sat stonefaced at every tired pop culture reference and sight gag involving a fat man in his underwear. Jesus...it's like an animated version of one of those awful "racy" sitcoms they showed on Fox in the late '80s, back before they had their own news show and their biggest hit was their afternoon cartoon block (DuckTales!). It's so odd to look back at scorn the attitudes of the slightly younger generation. How "mid-twenties," I found myself scoffing, yet as I saw that my brother was living a better life than I was and probably always had. It's tough to be nostalgic and not have a lot of good memories. It's a bit pathetic that the best memories of your life can be watching "The Goonies" on video, back when renting movies was still a big deal and VCRs not all that common. "The good old days weren't always that good, and tomorrow's not as bad as it seems", Billy Joel sings, and it's true, I guess. To pine for a life when I was younger is to ignore how I truly felt during that time period. Who knows...maybe if I were me now back then, I'd make better choices and behave differently. Then again, I keep making the same mistakes over and over. I came back from the weekend to find a note from my cousin asking if I could be out of the house by the 18th. What a kick in the ass...I'm in the midst of a temp-to-perm job (they told me to go home till the boss returns in a few weeks) that I want less and less, and now I've got to contend with this. At first, I wondered if my cousin was thinking the place was going to get trashed or she had been through and smelled pot or something (I've been pretty careful on both counts), but it sounds like she really got screwed over by a client and now needs to sell the house quick. I asked her for more time and she keeps saying she needs to do more figuring. I think I can get at least till end of month. The worst case scenario here is that I have to schlep all my shit to Michigan and store it at my dad's, move in temporarily with my dad, and try to schedule multiple-interview days and commute to Chicago maybe once or twice a week. About that job, I don't know. Assuming they're not trying to blow me off (I'm not ruling that out), I'd have to either find a monthlong sublet or see if I can bunk at my Aunt Flo's (where my cousin is also currently living) until I find if they want me or not. It's not an impossible situation, although I'd be pretty bummed at having to go home and stay with my dad. His house is very small, the upstairs bedroom where I'd sleep is stuffy and small and the woodwork is this awful shaggy unfinished wood that makes me think of slivers. Deep slivers. The living room is crammed with too much furniture...I'm dying to re-arrange it just so he can see how much better it could look. I'd have to get a broadband card for Internet and have to deal with being around my dad quite a lot, which would be a drag since I don't have many places to go. When you don't have any friends, you're limited to seeing movies or going to the library or going shopping. I've been holding it together nonetheless, reminding myself that if I end up moving there for a few months, it's not necessarily as degrading as it can sound. True, if I was making long-term plans to live with my single dad, who is currently starting a romantic relationship with a woman who looks like a slightly nice middle school teacher, that would be pretty bad. Hence, I spent several hours yesterday "updating" my resume and applying for jobs with new vigor, aiming specifically for the highest paid I could get without fictionalizing things too much. I'm guessing that if I'm lucky, I can get a boring but well-paid job in some finance company in the Loop...I have to face it, I'd rather get a place in the city and work in the Loop than end up in some dumb northern suburb. After shooting out about forty resumes, I've received three or four responses, so I'm doing a phone interview this morning and a recruiter interview today. Recruiter interviews, as I may have mentioned, are a waste of time...they're there to make sure that a human being is attached to the resume and that you know enough to go there without wearing a T-shirt or sandals or something. Sometimes they make you take tests...boring, silly aptitude tests in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Sometimes a spelling test. Sometimes simple mathematical problems. It's mostly a waste of time, and I have to restrain myself to do it all without speeding through it. The worst is when they give you an "application" to fill out, which mostly consists of copying the contents of your resume messily into too-small columns and handing it back. Still, a few of these recruiters have gotten me viable interviews, and considering that my time to conveniently interview in Chicago on a day's notice is waning, I figure I'd better get out there as much as possible. Besides, it gets me out of the house. Ugh...after the weekend and the past few days, I'm at my fattest ever. It was almost an achievement...I could truly say I wanted to lose a full sixty pounds without being unreasonable or anorexic about it. Food is not even a consideration right now. On the upside, I actually worked out well the other day. I was patient with myself and made myself deliberately work with lighter weights to get an idea of where my strength was. There's not that much there, and my wrists are even weaker than my arms, but I made myself work hard while finishing everything and even doing extra at times to really work my muscles to failure. Just to have that patience was pretty great, even if I was kind of buzzed when I did it. That and pumping out those resumes did make me feel good. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 3rd, 2007
11:20 am	At Work At work. I was seeing double on the highway ("hit the one in the middle!" rings in my mind, Paulie from "Rocky IV"). Bernard Herrmann's strings-only "black and white" score from "Psycho" is on...my version of neutral, unobstrusive music as I venture into playing music at work. The boss' younger brother, who has an amusing accent that makes him sound a bit dumber than he probably is, stops by and, when prompted, says that Scott (my new boss) didn't say anything about my writing last night, but didn't seem to edit it that much, which is a good sign. There were a lot of details in the case last night...one man using fake names which led to another who was even more notorious...kind of interesting, yet a bit hard to keep track of. I doubted my boss needed Shakespeare-quality material in his letter to the L.A. DA, but apparently, what I did was good enough. I asked the guy for some stuff to do, but he asked me for 30-45 minutes to get something done, which is fine with me. Most of the office has joined my Yahoo Messenger (ignoranceandwant) list now and one asked about my nickname, claiming that most of their names were about skip tracing or smoking weed. I asked him about it and it sounds like - yippee - I may have a connection here, though I was warned to "keep it on the downlow" around the boss. This place is a total boys' club...Men's Health in the bathroom, one guy talking about his biceps in the lunchroom yesterday, but it's nice to think I might have some connection with these guys. I inquired about getting some dope this weekend from my brother, who quoted me a hilariously low price ($20 an eighth...I was used to paying at least $55 in California). Time will tell... Mind is in a slight fog as the music picks up...Marion Crane stealing the money from her boss and fleeing from town. I remember seeing this movie as a teen and then in college. My can of Caffeine Free Diet Coke, spiked with Johnnie Walker Red, is still mostly full. Just in case, I'm chewing some Black Jack. I don't mind being non-busy if my boss isn't here and is presumably busy in court, in downtown L.A. I booked him into the Biltmore, a great old hotel that they shot "Ghostbusters" at. I wonder if anyone has ever stayed there based on that fact. Still thinking about this morning. Strange to have no feelings...no desires. Scary to think of myself paralyzed by my hatred of my looks, to the point where I do nothing to change or improve my life.... (Comment on this)
11:11 am	Have 30-45 minutes before I have to leave for Palatine on some errand to meet Tom the Phone Guy at our new building. Guns N' Roses' "You Could Be Mine" is playing just because I love the complex drumming.... Spent 30 minutes wandering from room to room. Didn't want to do anything...not watch a movie, drink...not anything. I finally made myself have some Johnnie Walker Red and Coke, not because I wanted to get trashed, but to induce....something. Maybe a panic attack...I would make myself hyperventilate for maybe ten seconds and then realize I could stop myself easily. What was I doing, acting? Went into the room where my cousin's weights were and did bicep curls for a minute before getting bored. Answers, answers... Believe me, I'm pretty aware that I'm wasting my time. I realize that there is no future in hating what I can't change. I don't have to embrace it, to learn that a man should be big and strong and protective and all that jazz, but it's horrifying to think what paralyzed me mentally at age 20, in college, is now doing the same to me at 30....and will do the same at 40 if things don't change. I guess all I can do is take a completely pragmatic approach. Taking long looks at the mirror and hating myself is not exactly productive, and unless I want to spend the rest of my life getting drunk or high while counting myself out of the human race, I need to find some sort of compromise. (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 2nd, 2007
9:03 pm	God damn it...after spending the whole day thinking I would be out early since I ran out to Hickory Hills this morning, but at the last minute, he told me to stay late and help his brother write a letter. I can usually speed through that stuff pretty quickly, but he said something about how it would take him 30-45 minutes just to nail down the points. Hopefully, it still won't take too long, though I'm irritated. The pr (Comment on this)
9:59 am	Late Morning The aftermath of last night wasn't so bad. There was a bloody handprint on a wall next to the bathroom that washed off easily, and careful washing removed all the dried blood from my left eyebrow. There's a slight amount of swelling, but no discoloration. Got up early and drove out to Hickory Hills to try and fix some parking ticket that was mistakenly given to my boss. I was almost looking forward to it, since the name "Hickory Hills" was so charming that I wanted to see what this place was like. The little I saw of it seemed pretty anonymous: wide, clear roads and expensive-looking condo complexes. Predictably, the police department couldn't help me...they told me my boss should have come down there myself and the lady at the desk told me (not unkindly) she felt sorry for me. I came close to saying, "If I had any heart, I'd kill myself" just to be funny. It took me an hour and a half in traffic to get to work, thinking grimly about my life and profession. I hate being an assistant. Generally, I get about a third of the information I need, and so I end up looking like a dumbass to both my boss and whomever he wants me to talk to. Five minutes ago, my boss asked me to ask "Gary" for his info to set him up on the server. Well, Gary turned out to be a new guy I had never been introduced to, and of course, Gary wanted to know what he needed. I didn't even bother to look good, just said "Oh, Christ, I don't know" and ushered him into my boss' office. This drinking is becoming a bad habit. As I mentioned before, I only do it because I'm lonely...if I had someone to hang out with, I wouldn't be trying to get them to drink with me or anything...I wouldn't even want any. I'll see my dad this weekend and won't drink at all and be fine. Frustration simmering in a bitter bile...I know tonight I'll do the same thing. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
11:02 pm	Ouch... Trying to put on ice pack on my face as I frantically clean the carpet, trying to prevent swelling so I don;t have to make up some story tomorrow. Slammed a door in my face several times until I collapsed on the floor, and now I'm bleeding profusely above my left eye and starting to feel numb, which probably means swelling that will turn black and blue tomorrow. Some bitch taunted me on chat, taking pleasure in how much I hate myself, even though the ignorant cooze couldn't even spell the word "whiner" correctly. Why do I do it? Why do I give people a chance when they prove time and time again to be cruel and sadistic? Probably because I'm an ugly pig and figure I deserve such mockery. But the hastily assembled bag of ice is so cold and painful against my face that I can only stand it for a few seconds. I managed to keep the blood of the sheets and I am satisfied with my job on the floor, even as I hit myself to induce the bleeding all over, to make my face a grotesque, bloated, swollen monstrosity. "I fell down", I rehearse to the people at my new job, figuring I can get away with it just this once. Remember how I lied two jobs ago when I purposely opened a cabinet door in my face until my lips were so swollen as to affect my speech... Self-control stops me from slamming my glass into the empty plate on my bedspread, shattering it. I already did a quickie touchup job on the paint on one of the walls here after throwing a glass into it in a rage. Picked the shards up by hand, including those embedded in the wall, and luckily found touch-up paint in my cousin's laundry room. My hands smell slightly coppery from the blood as the Hollies sing "The Letter", a song popular ten years before I was even born. I realize I'm a fool for trying to seek comfort in others. Human beings are, by nature, jackals, enthusiastic in the face of others' weaknesses. Ice runs down my face like tears....I'm just hoping I'm not black and blue tomorrow. The bleeding has stopped, and although the ice bag hurts horribly, I think that I'll be normal in the morning. Best to hide it from work...it's not like they're going to show any concern...I'll just be some weirdo freak who put on a good act at the interview. I heard some poor timid guy do a quickie interview today and he fared even worse than I did....hearing him trying to pretend he was aggressive almost made me feel better about my own interview. Angry again, at myself and others. I'd kill myself if I had the guts, but I know I don't, and I find myself thinking about how it'd probably drive my parents off the deep end, and they're already there already. In a way, driving them to join me isn't that bad, at least for my dad. He was telling me last night that he had a "guest for the weekend", which means some new girlfriend. I guess I should feel bad that my dad has a gf when I don't, but I'm more apprehensive about meeting this potential buttplug and think about what a mockery my family life has become. No wonder I smashed the picture my mom gave me years ago, in a frame with the legend "FAMILY" in it, and tore the picture in tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet. It was fitting, since my family is a sham. A few disconnected losers....if I ever become something, I should disown them. My mom the alcoholic embezzler, my dad the loser spendthrift, my brother the do-nothing....I don't even want to be a part of them any more. My family name is worth nothing, and sometimes I almost want to change my name to "start fresh". Not like I can take any pride from their failed and useless lives. It just makes me worry that being a loser is in my genes, and it makes me sick to think of witnessing the sad remains of my parents' last 10 or 20 years on this planet. At least the swelling is going down and I hope I won't be bruised tomorrow. Lying to work is one tihng, but I'm going back to Kalamazoo this weekend. I know I'll be sick meeting my dad's undoubtedly buttplug girlfriend and feeling depressed at what my dad has been reduced to, even if he deserves it. I love him enough to care about him, but hate him enough to figure he gets what he deserves. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 31st, 2007
2:20 pm	Work I take a drink from my 1-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper. Actually, it's about one-quarter Jack Daniel's and three-parts Diet Pepsi. I cackle to myself (oooh, I'm so clever!) as I take sips sitting five feet from my new boss, at least for the next few weeks. Sometimes I wonder if this is a personal journal, just for myself, or if I'm writing for an audience. Since I last posted, I have relocated to the Chicago suburbs and managed to get a four-week trial job in Des Plaines, about 10 miles from where I'm living. It's my second day and I feel like it's my past job...a lot of pretending to work because my boss is so monumentally busy. I'm seeing if I can book my new boss into the Biltmore, a great old hotel in the heart of downtown L.A. I've never stayed there, of course, but I've walked through it. "Ghostbusters" was filmed there, standing in for the fictional Hotel Sedgwick when the Ghostbusters collect their first ghost, commonly known as Slimer. I've been drinking a lot lately, every night, mostly because I burned through my supply of pot pretty quick. I miss it and hope that my sole contact in L.A. will come through for me. If not, I'm going home this weekend for my dad's birthday and can probably get some off my brother, though Kalamazoo weed pales compared to the finest of Southern California. I'm not incoherent...I find that I feel a bit more relaxed. My new boss, at least for the next few weeks, is so busy that my training has consisted of him instructing me to "be nosy" and to "learn to do my job when I'm not here". I'm a bit at a loss...I'm not lazy, but without direction, I find myself re-reading the same stuff over and over again because I'm afraid to pester him. His keyboard is constantly in motion, so I figure that me typing will help me seem "busy". My desk is about four feet from him, which sucks, but maybe things will change in the next 60 days (assuming I last that long!). He's n the process of buying a building in Palatine, a suburb north of Rolling Meadows, which will add another nine miles each way to my commute. I'm currently working for a skip tracer and car repossessor. I really wanted this job a month or two ago since it's an interesting business, but now I have my doubts. There is a dark horse possibility on the horizon....about a week ago, I did what I thought was a rudimentary and unexciting interview in Northbrook for an executive assistant position, but the HR director saw that I had advertising experience and pitched a position to me working in Corporate Communications. The company does "fleet management", which basically means cars and trucks, but I'm hoping for a second interview. It could lead to a new career, based on my writing skills rather than my orginazational skills, which would be a plus. In my own life, I'm not organized at all, yet here is my career. Something that might utilize my creative skills, even shilling for some company, would be a godsend. Until then, I'm working for this guy for a month to see how I work out. I hate being idle. This guy is so busy that I'm afraid that if I pester him too much, he'll tell me he doesn't have time to "babysit" me. Given a list of projects, I'll buzz through them, but I hate having to sit there and pretend that I'm busy when I'm not. I'm purposely dragging out booking his travel for the weekend because it's my sole assignment. At night, I go home and drink not because I'm addicted to alcohol, but because I'm lonely. I don't have any friends here and at night, I find myself despairing of ever finding any companionship. With my unremarkable looks, most girls see me as some creep who probably just wants sex, which is a bit ironic since I could care less about it. I just want someone cool to be around, with a good sense of humor and someone somewhat attractive, at least to me. Rummaging around on YouTube brought back a very early crush, Canadian actress Elizabeth McGlade, now a successful TV producer, best known as "Moose" from the show "You Can't Do That On Television". What is it with me and freckly girls... my heart went all thumpy seeing her picture once again. I always saw her as somewhat of a big-sister figure, which sounds horribly incestuous, but if there's no lust, what's wrong with seeing a big sister as attractive? My boss is bellowing into the phone about some car that cost $156,000. That's most of what they cover here...high-end sports and luxury cars. It's kind of comical, the situations people get themselves in. "Nobody's holding a gun to your head, I'm explaining to you the federal banking laws!", my boss says into the phone to some argumentative chump. The few times he puts the phone on speaker, the perpetrators sound pathetic, scrambling for answers to his direct questions. "I'm telling you, tomorrow I'm gonna call you and you won't be able to make that $3,000 payment!" he interjects to some poor shithead in over his head. "I told you the deal was $18 grand, but, but you're gonna have to pay the legal fees...that's like $168 [grand], plus twenty grand! Listen, listen, listen! Why are you screaming? I'm just telling you how it is! Tell you what, you want to be an asshole, go set that Rolls Phantom on fire, you prick!" I ask how many payments he's late on, but my boss ignores me, typing furiously at his keyboard. I'm in the midst of booking him a Chrysler 300...$763 for five days, including full coverage. Someone else must be paying the bills. I report the sum to my boss, who once again ignores me. So much for being nosy. I feel slightly hungry. I cooked some Oriental chicken salad at lunchtime, a bit too heavy on the rice vinegar, but now I'm tempted to pick up something on the way home. Aaah, it's the last day of the month, who cares? Start fresh in August, rolls up from somewhere inside of me, another excuse. I lifted weights yesterday while listening to Haskell Wexler's commentary on "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", and now I'm already plotting ways to counteract it. I paste on a smile when I meet the boss' sister, the "Vice-President of Operations", and hope that my mouthful of Black Jack covers up the smell of whiskey on my breath. Meanwhile, my boss is saying "Fuck him! He already put money into wheels and tires and a stereo. He doesn't care! He says he's gonna storage lien it. I was gonna talk to Ontario P.D. and, honestly, it's a main drag and a shitty main drag in Ontario." Now he's discussing some BMW 745, which is similar to the car my ex-boss drove, this big luxury car that my 5'5" Indian boss probably felt lost in. This huge, grossly overindulgent tank of a car, with a DVD player in the back for his spoiled, sullen kids...one of which treated me like scum when I tried to be friendly to him. After seeing my boss' house, I wasn't that jealous...the whole thing was this ugly marble monstrosity that looked like something only a foreign nouveau-riche type would buy and decorate. No taste. I take another sip of Diet Pepsi and Jack...one more left. My boss just referred to someone as "faggot Brown"...God knows what that means, but I smile to myself anyway. I really hope that the company in Northbrook has faith in me...I have the feeling it's only a matter of time before this guy blows up at me for something or other. Other than ignoring me, he hasn't been nasty to me yet, but I'm anticipating it....it's just a matter of time. I can't find his Avis card or United frequent flyer card and think maybe he took them back, but I'm too afraid to ask him for them, so I book without and figure he won't notice. CLICK and I've booked his flight...no turning back. Meanwhile, his cell phone hums on his desk, vibrating. "I got your number...we were working a case on a guy named Francis Warner. Mr. Warner...Mr. Warner claims he knows you and I think it's bullshit, but he said 'They're not gonna repo my car, 'cause I'm friends with guys over there!'" My boss is in rapid-fire-argue mode with some hapless loser who's one step away from getting his car repossessed. My drink is gone and I'm drumming my feet against the cheap, non-padded carpet. Travel arrangements are done and my mind is buzzing with 110 minutes left till I'm outa here. Currently on hold with United to confirm my boss' reservation. I get some Indian guy with an "Americanized" name. I'm unfailingly polite, and resist exclaiming "One hundred dollars!" when he informs me that it will cost $100 to change the ticket, if need be. "Thank you for your help", I say to him, figuring he's used to dealing with sullen, impatient types who could care less if they're rude to him. My mind feels far, far away and I'm hoping my boss stays out of his office - has some meeting or something. I feel peaceful and want to keep it that way as my feet clump against the carpet in no particular rhythm. One hundred minutes left....assuming that the boss doesn't leave early. Some girl just IMed me and told me she liked my pic, which made me recoil. I wasn't rude to her, but after patient questioning, she said that I looked "manly" and that she loved big bald guys like Vin Diesel. That made me feel worse than if she hadn't said anything at all. Remarks like that, heartfelt as they may be, only confirm my worst fears and make me wish i could starve.... Less than ten minutes to go and I feel like I'm falling asleep here. Glad that I'll presumably be out soon. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 28th, 2007
12:06 pm	Goodbye To California Leaving on my road trip in a matter of minutes. I'll go down to L.A., buy weed, see a movie, and then...well, my ex-roommate gave me a "gift" for my birthday...four $20 chips at the Spearmint Rhino in downtown L.A. After the Rhino, I'll head to Barstow for the night, then to Utah. I should hit Monument Valley a couple of hours before sunset, and plan to drive along 163 at the "magic hour" and maybe take some pictures. Then it's 80 miles to Blanding, Utah, in between Monument Valley and Moab. The next morning, I'll head past Moab about 85 miles to Arches National Park, where I'll at least drive through, if not stop. Then the sightseeing is done and I'm off to Ogallala, Nebraska for a night before attempting to head approximately 780 miles east towards Elmhurst. I hope I can consider it somewhat of a victory that I barely chastised myself for my fone fuckup, which came to the tune of $1280.91, with $250 knocked off for me signing a nationwide contract on the spot. I should have held out for more, and it's a crushing blow since I'm unemployed at the moment and still awaiting back payments from the state of California. In all honesty, it's a $1300 lesson in laziness and stupidity, but all I can do is pay it off and learn from it. As wishy-washy as it sounds, I've bullied myself almost as much as anyone I've ever hated, and gotten the same results everyone else has. Today on the phone, I was trying to explain to John why his remarks hurt people and felt weak in the way I stammered over them. Still, his sarcastic remarks never helped me learn, they just made me defensive. John Barry's score from "The Black Hole" is whirling around me, the grand finale, Maximilian Schell imprisoned inside his robot atop a cliff over the firey pits of Hell and so forth. One day left in California... This trip has come without much fanfare...Harry gave me an awkward hug this morning when he left at around 9:30 for work, and that was that. Time to head towards L.A. (Comment on this)
Monday, June 25th, 2007
7:40 am	A Good Neighbor Called AT&T this morning and explained my position. As I feared, they pointed out that I was on an old plan that only gave me regional coverage, so technically it's my own dumb-ass fault for not being cognizant of it, even though I've had the plan for six years and have traveled only rarely outside the region, usually to much less-populated areas. Hell, I was surprised to get cell coverage in the U.P. without switching carriers. The customer service rep could, of course, do nothing about it, but mentioned a payment plan and, when pressed, agreed to forward the matter over to an unnamed department that will call me somewhere between three days and two weeks. She hinted that they might dismiss 50% of the charges or even 100%, but she's being paid to keep me happy and at bay, so that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I can't help but be foolishly optimistic, even though my only defense now is to point out my six years as a loyal, pay-my-bill-on-time customer who's gone through four phones with them. They've been my carrier ever since I moved to California. I told her that if they were willing to forgive the charges, my next question would be how to change my plan to a nationwide one and "continue our relationship". Yesterday, I smirked inwardly as I realized that even if they fuck me over, there would be little point in outright canceling my service for personal reasons since I do have a shitload of rollover minutes with them. However, as of now I've been exhorting her and her company to "be a good neighbor" (yes, I actually used that phrase) and help out a poor unemployed slob who racked up big charges in order to secure future employment. Who knows, maybe this sort of sob story and claim of long-term "customer loyalty" will actually cut some ice with these clowns...we are talking about nearly two years' worth of average bills here. If they let me off entirely, it'll feel like a lottery win, but my highest expectations are for them to lop off 50% of the fee and offer me some three- or four-installment payment plan. That won't break me, but who wants to pay %750 due to one's own stupidity. I consider it a testament to myself that I'm not currently cursing my ineptitude right now since it's times like this that I know why I usually have no confidence in myself and regard myself, sometimes with great fear, as a born fuckup...the kind of guy you laugh at if you're mean, and if you're nice, you string them along about how you'll "find your niche" and "everything will turn out all right". I was a victim of the cult of self-esteem myself...I grew up thinking I was something special, some sort of "genius" type because I did well in elementary school and liked to read. I'm embarrassed to admit it now: though I do have my strong points, it's pretty obvious that I'm below average on many others and would be regarded as stupid by the kind of people who cannot fathom a person who gets lost easily or who makes fuckups like this phone bill. It's easy for me to dismiss myself as well, but since I'm stuck with me, I question more and more my own damnations and dismissals of myself as a worthless fuckup. Suicide hasn't crossed my mind in some time, and barring incidents worse than this $1500 bill, I think that my self-disgust does not extend to that level any more. I'm sure I'll have more to write later. Oh yeah, today is my thirtieth birthday. (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 24th, 2007
9:41 pm	Is This What Passes For Entertainment? "I took in a movie. An appalling little piece of filth, its "leading lady" was a blonde harlot who spent half the film strolling around naked as a jaybird! No, just give the Great Unwashed a pair of oversized breasts and a happy ending, and they'll oink for more every time!" - Mr. Burns Back from the movies. Harry insisted on seeing "Surf's Up", and although the reviews for the surfing penguin movie weren't as bad as I thought, but I was in no mood for it anyway after finding out that my phone company is charging me nearly $1600 in roaming charges. That's right: every single call for the last four weeks has been charged as roaming, and now I have till July 10th to pay up. I felt a save of sickness in my stomach as I read it, unbelieving. I called my dad first thing, hoping he'd act nonchalant and make me feel a bit more confident about reasoning with Cingular about this. I've been a loyal customer for six years; I don't think I've even ever paid a bill late. Still, I can just picture some customer service flunky telling me to read mhy contract. I checked my plan online and found no details limiting me to California or the West Coast...I know that originally, I was charged for roaming, but never in a major metropolitan area like Chicago. Also, whenever I was charged for roaming in the past, I was given a different network, so I was aware that I wasn't being charged the same as with Cingular, but now that they merged with AT&T, I just assumed coverage had widened. I'm not even employed, and was using the phone to search for jobs, so I'm hoping that maybe they'll see to reason, but otherwise I'll be out all my savings, for the most part. We ended up going to the movies and Harry was so high he spazzed out and cut across three lines, rushing to get us to a movie that had technically started twenty minutes earlier. Right before heading in, he told me I could go where I wanted since "Pirates 3" was right next door. I found the first film halfway decent and knew I'd rather see that anyway, so we split up. The Cingular ad before the movie rubbed my nose in it a bit and the movie itself was unimpressive...I walked out after an hour and figured I'd sit through the rest of Harry's. I came in five minutes before the end, but like a kid, Harry insisted on stretching our movie dollar and we caught the last fifteen minutes of "Shrek the Third", which was mostly awful. Updated fairy tales are kind of passe and I counted two gags about a baby farting in the last five minutes, plus an audible one from a child behind me. Also bad, inexplicably enough, was Harry's breath. I know what a cheap shot that sounds like, but Harry laughed out loud a lot and would let lose this smell that I initially thought was a dirty diaper a row or two back. I exhaled myself, seeing if I was to blame, but it only came when he opened his mouth. I leaned sideways, towards the aisle. I'm thinking of leaving this Thursday. I'll drive down to L.A. in the morning, take care of business, and end the day seeing "The Great Escape" at the Egyptian on Hollywood Blvd., then drive to Barstow and get a motel for the night, then head up to Utah and Monument Valley, and then in probably Nebraska and then Iowa on my way back. Harry wants me to stay longer, but as flattering as that is to hear, I really don't want to sit around here any longer. If I need to pay that fucking roaming bill, I'm gonna need to get out on some temp assignments. At least, at least, at least I still have my unemployment! Now I'm home and going to bed soon. What a way to spend my thirtieth birthday: trying to argue my way out of a $1500 phone bill, buying pot and tickets to see "the new Cars" at some casino up north in Coarsegold (though I still need to decide if I'm leaving Thursday; I'm guessing I won't spend the money for me, but will pick up the other tickets as a courtesy to Harry), send out my unemployment claim forms, and go to dinner that night at Joe Roma's. (Comment on this)