- Traffic - By my best estimate, the road system in California was designed somewhere in the 60s-80s, when there were substantially fewer people here. Additionally, the culture of California is style over substance. Why would I share a car or use public transportation when I could show everybody the new Benz that I can afford if I skip my rent payment every other month? These are numbers in an equation that adds up to stupid amounts of traffic, at all times, for no reason. Do you want to go shopping on a Sunday at 3pm? You may cruise along unimpeded and cover the ten miles in ten minutes. Or it could take 45. I was driving to LA one night to visit my girlfriend. Friday night, 9pm. Traffic was 5mph at best for about 45 minutes and I kept telling myself that there had to be some horrific accident. I kept my head on a swivel looking for burning nuns frantically running around or random body parts scattered about BUT IT WAS A FUCKING TRUCK TIRE. A two-foot piece of rubber standing on end had crippled tens of thousands of drivers. Not an actual wheel/rim combo that fell off, your standard chunk of exploded tire. I can't even think of a ridiculous metaphor for the rage and hate that went through my body. It changed me. In that moment I knew that I am superior to every Californian. That is a fact. A supporting piece of evidence for this is that...
- Rain Shuts Down California - There's this myth that since it never really rains here and that there are so many cars, oil builds up on the freeway. When it does rain the water beads on this oil and causes carmaggedon. The reality is that real, actual rain causes power outages and landslides and the bullshit mist that they call rain causes the clueless shell people that reside here to play thirty-six car bumper cars. And they do this even though they're only driving 22 miles an hour. If any of these people actually saw real rain they would drown to death. From their own feces that would fill up the inside of their car.
- Traffic Lights - The light directly in front of your lane most likely has no bearing on what you are actually supposed to do. There is a four lane road that leads toward my house that has an additional turn lane at a light. Five total lanes. There are two lights at this stop. One light is in front of lane 4 (the left turn lane being lane 1) and the signal for the left turn lane is actually in between lanes 2 and 3. My best guess here is that the state is too bankrupt to afford an acceptable number of traffic signals. Even if they had one signal per lane it still wouldn't matter because...
- There are Secret Lanes in California - I know it says Bike Lane, but that's really just code for Right Turn Lane. That thing on the side of the highway for Bimmer's that run out of gas because the owner can't afford to keep the tank full? That's not a shoulder, that's just an extra exit lane. Anywhere a car can squeeze becomes a lane.
- Speed Limits - ...don't matter. If there's bad traffic, the speed limit becomes this mythical thing like a unicorn or a girl who actually wouldn't cheat on her husband with Brad Pitt, if given the opportunity. If traffic is good, there are still too many cars for a cop to radar you in any manner that would hold up in court unless he's right behind you. Motorcycle cops are a concern, but only because...
- You Will Kill a Biker if You Drive Here - I've just accepted this fact. California allows lane-splitting, which means that good people who are eagerly ready to volunteer (their organs) can drive their motorcycle on the dotted lines BETWEEN cars. This will scare you shitless the first month or so that you drive here. Putzing along at 38 mph in a 65 will have you frothing with hatred until you get blasted by motorcycle exhaust 3 inches from your open window. You spend the next couple weeks paranoid, looking out for bikers when you're crawling to and from work, even trying to scoot over to give them more room. Until one day you just accept fate, like a stage 4 cancer patient, and resume whipping back and forth between lanes to gain those extra 3 feet each time the tiniest of gaps appears. One of these lane changes will eventually lead to a biker witnessing his own death in my rear view mirror, and I'm okay with that.
- The Fast Lane is Not the Fast Lane - Everybody in California is original. That's why they all dress alike, drive the same cars, and think that In-N-Out is better than any other fast food burger on the planet. They all also think that the far left lane is the fast lane, which is why it isn't. The second lane from the left is the fast lane well over 50% of the time.
- Turn Signals - Aren't used. This seems counter-intuitive because it is. There are more cars here than 99% of places on the planet yet nobody feels compelled to tell the other motorists where they intend on going. You do get used to it after awhile. If it would be massively dangerous for that car in the right lane to cut in front of you with no warning, they almost certainly will. They're not really concerned that they're going 45 and you're blasting along at 80 as this is a detail for you to work out and can't possibly affect their day at all. While lanes are usually pretty clearly marked and there aren't as many people on their cell phones while driving, I still have that self preservation instinct that forces me to move my middle finger three inches every time I want to turn or change lanes.
- Cell Phones Are Not Recommended While Driving - They're actually illegal, punishable by a minimum $325 fine, but it's more of a recommendation since all of the people that you don't WANT using a cell phone while driving still do. Trophy wives, douchey business guys with slicked back hair, and high school girls still yack away while tailgating you and mysteriously looking to their left, but when I lived in Omaha it always infuriated me that roughly 75% of drivers had their talk box glued to their face at all times while operating a car. The law knocks the number down to probably 25%, but that's still an improvement.
- Road Rage Doesn't Really Happen - This is another one of the positives. Everybody wants to get home as quickly as possible and be out of the awful Royal Rumble that is rush hour traffic, so when you nose your way in front of somebody shaving 2 more seconds off of your commute the person behind you reacts more to the tune of "Well played you wily bastard" than "I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND FUCKING MURDER YOUR THIRD COUSIN!"
- I'm getting bored with this, so I'll just lump these all together: You hate the fact that every day you see somebody, who is obviously a prick, driving your dream car; Toyota sells more Priuses here than anywhere in the world and the drivers do, indeed, sniff their own farts out of smugness; Carpool lanes are fantastic ideas that nobody uses because carpooling isn't very cool; and gas costs a dollar more per gallon here than anywhere else in the country, at all times.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Things I've Learned While Driving in California
I've lived in California for just shy of five months and have had quite a few adjustments to make since I moved. Aside from the different culture of people and the cost of living, the biggest adjustment has been driving. I've always considered myself a pretty savvy driver, being knowledgeable of traffic laws (and how to break them without getting busted), but there are a different set of rules when driving in California. I have no idea why some of these things are the way that they are, but here are some things that every visitor or new resident should know about driving in California.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The Shanks
I had a computer science professor in college that constantly chirped the adage "Garbage in, garbage out." Computers are stupid and do what we tell them, so when we tell them to do dumb things, they oblige. I've pushed this saying to the outer bounds of what Dr. McClung ever thought possible. It turns out, nearly any system in life spits out garbage with cartoon smelly lines and flies swirling around when we provide it with half-assedness and stupidity. My writing habits lately are an example, as is the bulk of the productive things that I'm attempting.
My writing hasn't totally flat-lined, and I'm not suffering from writer's block because I'm still lucid and seeing the world in this patchwork quilt of words and phrases, but some of the phrases are in Tagalog and I can't tell which one starts the damn quilt. I should change things up and go into editing mode to polish things that I've written and don't presently hate, but I don't want to take an up and coming bit of writing and introduce it booze and women and easy money and sully it before it's prime. My sentences are running on like a marathoner that picked up smoking. Premises of pieces are lost like droplets assimilating into the ocean. I used to be able to know how long to drag on a sentence, how many flowing phrases to string together before punctuating it all with a little five word staccato. Now words are piling in before periods as if they were some sort of horrific train accident moving from right to left.
Of course this all assumes that I had a manner of swagger with a pen that may not have existed in the first place. A slump isn't a slump if it's normal. As with all things I will persist, head down, crooked jaw clenched in concentration. I will fight the urge to backspace all of these words out of existence because if I can't stare down my garbage writing in the mirror and pluck out the edible bits like some sort of homeless author then I won't get through the winter. And the humble writer has no conclusion so he merely stops writing for now.
My writing hasn't totally flat-lined, and I'm not suffering from writer's block because I'm still lucid and seeing the world in this patchwork quilt of words and phrases, but some of the phrases are in Tagalog and I can't tell which one starts the damn quilt. I should change things up and go into editing mode to polish things that I've written and don't presently hate, but I don't want to take an up and coming bit of writing and introduce it booze and women and easy money and sully it before it's prime. My sentences are running on like a marathoner that picked up smoking. Premises of pieces are lost like droplets assimilating into the ocean. I used to be able to know how long to drag on a sentence, how many flowing phrases to string together before punctuating it all with a little five word staccato. Now words are piling in before periods as if they were some sort of horrific train accident moving from right to left.
Of course this all assumes that I had a manner of swagger with a pen that may not have existed in the first place. A slump isn't a slump if it's normal. As with all things I will persist, head down, crooked jaw clenched in concentration. I will fight the urge to backspace all of these words out of existence because if I can't stare down my garbage writing in the mirror and pluck out the edible bits like some sort of homeless author then I won't get through the winter. And the humble writer has no conclusion so he merely stops writing for now.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Disappearing Into the Hollow
I only ever write beginnings
because I don't know how it
ends. I can't see over
that hill because the trees
are old growth and overdue for
a fire. The crackling would be
horrendous
and a generation of larks
wouldn't learn to fly.
The fire would bring new
plants but the old ones
probably won't give a shit,
casting charred, shrill looks
upon the new buds.
The new beginnings.
The ozone would catch the brunt
of the fire smoke like that huge mat
that catches pole vaulters each time
their vision turns
from ground to sky.
Deflating but not quite rebounding
all the way.
Some of the smoke particles would float out
into space, assuming an orbit
that takes them into the far reaches of
the cosmos, where trillions of crumbs are
gathering.
Sucked into a black hole,
crushed together into what scientists call a
singularity.
And then their knowledge stops.
They don't know if inside that dense abyss lies
a universe's graveyard,
bleak and without flowers,
as if the groundskeepers have been by
several nights after Memorial Day.
It could be the void like a canon fuse
disappearing into the hollow
of the launch tube before
propelling the artillery shell
skyward with a big
bang.
The thud reverberates between the houses,
the shockwave making itself known against my chest.
My favorite ones are the shimmering
fingerlings that slowly shower
down, blurring the line between night
and dream.
I've always wondered what happens
to the embers.
because I don't know how it
ends. I can't see over
that hill because the trees
are old growth and overdue for
a fire. The crackling would be
horrendous
and a generation of larks
wouldn't learn to fly.
The fire would bring new
plants but the old ones
probably won't give a shit,
casting charred, shrill looks
upon the new buds.
The new beginnings.
The ozone would catch the brunt
of the fire smoke like that huge mat
that catches pole vaulters each time
their vision turns
from ground to sky.
Deflating but not quite rebounding
all the way.
Some of the smoke particles would float out
into space, assuming an orbit
that takes them into the far reaches of
the cosmos, where trillions of crumbs are
gathering.
Sucked into a black hole,
crushed together into what scientists call a
singularity.
And then their knowledge stops.
They don't know if inside that dense abyss lies
a universe's graveyard,
bleak and without flowers,
as if the groundskeepers have been by
several nights after Memorial Day.
It could be the void like a canon fuse
disappearing into the hollow
of the launch tube before
propelling the artillery shell
skyward with a big
bang.
The thud reverberates between the houses,
the shockwave making itself known against my chest.
My favorite ones are the shimmering
fingerlings that slowly shower
down, blurring the line between night
and dream.
I've always wondered what happens
to the embers.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Ding Dong, Reality
A friend of mine was arrested today for something that, if true, is despicable. I'm not ashamed to call him my friend because the version of him that I know is kind and selfless, constantly struggling to fit in but always feeling like an octagonal peg trying to fit into a round hole. So very close, which makes the separation that much more frustrating.
I have an empathy for him, for a lot of people, that is hard to understand. When I received the news via text the witch-hunt began. "I always knew that something was wrong with him," was thrown around. I didn't. If I had I would have distanced myself from him. I try to make a habit of avoiding people who are sinister or at minimum have broad swaths of evil painted across their soul. I prefer to dabble in mischievous and the occasional misdemeanor. Felony is too far. Yet I understand, in a way, because I know that good people can do bad things for good reasons. Sometimes people aren't equipped to play the hand that they're dealt at all and choose to throw their cards away. I can't say that I blame them. The reaction is where I differ but I also feel like that is more to chance than any of us really care to admit. Apparently most of my wires connect to where they're supposed to which makes me laugh. If sanity were a horse race I would not put my own money down on Bret Londer. Things could be so very different though. When I'm confronted with a reminder like this I can't help but think back to what would have happened if I would've stood up in that restaurant and flipped the table like I wanted to. Or opened that second bottle of Evan Williams. Or skipped the meeting with the professor. Or, worse, what if I had just rolled with the punches, cramming it all down inside, rotting from the inside out. Some cosmic coin flip made all of those decisions for me. God knows I didn't. Any one different decision could have turned me to the paving stone path that led a couple of police officers to my door. I would have opened it and had that same rush of terror; that the upward trajectory of my life had just been cut short, that I had caused it, and that there was no way to fix it. Self-created helplessness. Real despair.
I feel bad for the victims. Even the most benign tornado ruins farmland and tears down trees. The land will never be the same but over time new plants will grow and the new trees will regain most of the height of their forebears. If I'm being honest my hurt for them doesn't outweigh my hurt for faces that are familiar and shamed. Other people's problems are never quite are as potent. It's harsh, but it's true. For my friend, I hope it's all an awful dream. I hope he was an unwitting participant in a game that he wasn't aware was occurring. Even if that turns out to be the case he'll always have that film of doubt and mistrust on him. Even in the best of scenarios, life will be a hike up a steep mountain made of mud. I hope that through all of it he discovers something about himself and meets fate head on. But in this moment he's dealing with reality one minute at a time, and these words are nothing more than bullshit.
I have an empathy for him, for a lot of people, that is hard to understand. When I received the news via text the witch-hunt began. "I always knew that something was wrong with him," was thrown around. I didn't. If I had I would have distanced myself from him. I try to make a habit of avoiding people who are sinister or at minimum have broad swaths of evil painted across their soul. I prefer to dabble in mischievous and the occasional misdemeanor. Felony is too far. Yet I understand, in a way, because I know that good people can do bad things for good reasons. Sometimes people aren't equipped to play the hand that they're dealt at all and choose to throw their cards away. I can't say that I blame them. The reaction is where I differ but I also feel like that is more to chance than any of us really care to admit. Apparently most of my wires connect to where they're supposed to which makes me laugh. If sanity were a horse race I would not put my own money down on Bret Londer. Things could be so very different though. When I'm confronted with a reminder like this I can't help but think back to what would have happened if I would've stood up in that restaurant and flipped the table like I wanted to. Or opened that second bottle of Evan Williams. Or skipped the meeting with the professor. Or, worse, what if I had just rolled with the punches, cramming it all down inside, rotting from the inside out. Some cosmic coin flip made all of those decisions for me. God knows I didn't. Any one different decision could have turned me to the paving stone path that led a couple of police officers to my door. I would have opened it and had that same rush of terror; that the upward trajectory of my life had just been cut short, that I had caused it, and that there was no way to fix it. Self-created helplessness. Real despair.
I feel bad for the victims. Even the most benign tornado ruins farmland and tears down trees. The land will never be the same but over time new plants will grow and the new trees will regain most of the height of their forebears. If I'm being honest my hurt for them doesn't outweigh my hurt for faces that are familiar and shamed. Other people's problems are never quite are as potent. It's harsh, but it's true. For my friend, I hope it's all an awful dream. I hope he was an unwitting participant in a game that he wasn't aware was occurring. Even if that turns out to be the case he'll always have that film of doubt and mistrust on him. Even in the best of scenarios, life will be a hike up a steep mountain made of mud. I hope that through all of it he discovers something about himself and meets fate head on. But in this moment he's dealing with reality one minute at a time, and these words are nothing more than bullshit.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Unknowing Participants
I have these memories in my head that linger with a breathtaking magnitude wherein I'm sure the other participants have long forgotten the moments. There's this longing to clue them in so that they can share the feeling but I'm always worried that I'm incapable of conveying the same feeling I have for the moment. While I'm sure that time has glossed over some of the more unpleasant relevant details the images themselves stand out as clear as a photograph printed on high gloss paper.
One such memory is during the beach vacation in Mexico at the end of my summer of study there. I had spent the entire summer flirting with my now-girlfriend Mandy and the promise of a drunken beach weekend before parting ways was packed with expectation. We spent the whole of the first day together doing whatever we felt like doing. Most of what we felt like doing involved drinking. Flashes of beach, pool, vibrantly colored drinks, shops, a crowded restaurant, night clubs, moonlit beaches, the carbonated waves of the black ocean lapping at the shore, a kiss while standing fully clothed and chest deep the water, and waking on the balcony of my hotel room alone. After I was finally able to wrestle movement from the mouth of the single worst hangover I've ever experienced in my life I went searching for her, thinking that she was just out enjoying the day. As the hours pressed on I realized that while she was out enjoying the day she was also avoiding me. I tracked her down going into her room later that evening. I asked her if last night's kiss was just a kiss because that's all that it could be given the circumstances. She said "Yes," and went into her room. I took my hangover and my sunken heart back to my room and went to sleep. The next day I found her roommate and best friend from the trip, Amity, aimlessly wandering about the hotel. We proceeded to spend one of the best days of my life walking around the beach, shopping, eating, just being tourists. It was one of those rare moments that I felt completely at ease. Most of my side of the conversation was trying to analyze why Mandy wouldn't want to spend more time with me in our last few days together. Amity talked about how our time in Mexico had changed her life forever. We were two people in awe of things much larger than ourselves, like people standing at the feet of a colossus that we couldn't see, even when we leaned back as far as gravity would allow. Despite the thick coating of alcohol that stands between my brain and the memories from that long ago I still remember what she was wearing, each place we went, what her hair looked like, and her facial expression when I crash-landed the parasail that we rode on into a beach umbrella. It was never love, it was simply wonderful. The next day we boarded buses and she disappeared into the distant fog like a character in Grand Theft Auto. I wish I had a way to thank her for that day and apologize for the version that she certainly remembers of it, spending a day with a mopey twenty year old bitching about how he didn't get laid.
I wouldn't know where to start to thank people in my life for these moments. The day my college roommate Paul came in to our shared room in the fraternity. It was a gorgeous spring day and the lights were out because the sun was able to overpower the shadows in spite of the smallish windows. I was sitting with the TV on but not watching and Paul sat down and asked me if I would talk to somebody out of a favor to him. Looking back I can tell that he had spent hours carefully choosing vanilla words to keep me at ease as he was telling me that he was worried about me and wanted me to see "somebody," but even in the fog that I was living in I knew that "somebody" meant "therapist" and that "worried about" meant "I think the road you're on ends in suicide or accidental death." Judging by the struggle I'm having nearly ten years later to type these words in front of this anonymous, inanimate computer screen I can't imagine how difficult that must have been. Had he not done it I'm afraid that I probably would have proved him right. Despite reliving that moment every so often I've never thanked the kid that sat there in an old white soccer tournament shirt and red shorts and told me in not so many words that he wanted to help save my life. I have never thanked him. Nor have I thanked my other friend Matt that had donated his courage to Paul to have that conversation and did the grimy legwork of finding somebody for me to talk with. I don't imagine that they think about that moment any more.
These are but a few of the dozens of moments that helped to shape who I am and it's odd to me that in some cases the people that helped to smooth out the ridges and repair the cracks in my clay aren't even aware that they did so. The only thing stopping me from looking them up right now is the inadequacy of what I would have to offer in return. Some kind words and a humble thank you seem to pale in comparison to helping a person define who they are and how they fit into the world. I should host a parade. One with gigantic inflatable Mighty Mouses and floats constructed of thousands of flowers. I should hire marching bands and military jets for a flyover. Of course this is all preposterous. A parade with depictions of these moments from my past should surely be banned for public decency concerns. Huge, inflatable liquor bottles. Drunken float riders swinging shovels at each other. Think of the children.
One such memory is during the beach vacation in Mexico at the end of my summer of study there. I had spent the entire summer flirting with my now-girlfriend Mandy and the promise of a drunken beach weekend before parting ways was packed with expectation. We spent the whole of the first day together doing whatever we felt like doing. Most of what we felt like doing involved drinking. Flashes of beach, pool, vibrantly colored drinks, shops, a crowded restaurant, night clubs, moonlit beaches, the carbonated waves of the black ocean lapping at the shore, a kiss while standing fully clothed and chest deep the water, and waking on the balcony of my hotel room alone. After I was finally able to wrestle movement from the mouth of the single worst hangover I've ever experienced in my life I went searching for her, thinking that she was just out enjoying the day. As the hours pressed on I realized that while she was out enjoying the day she was also avoiding me. I tracked her down going into her room later that evening. I asked her if last night's kiss was just a kiss because that's all that it could be given the circumstances. She said "Yes," and went into her room. I took my hangover and my sunken heart back to my room and went to sleep. The next day I found her roommate and best friend from the trip, Amity, aimlessly wandering about the hotel. We proceeded to spend one of the best days of my life walking around the beach, shopping, eating, just being tourists. It was one of those rare moments that I felt completely at ease. Most of my side of the conversation was trying to analyze why Mandy wouldn't want to spend more time with me in our last few days together. Amity talked about how our time in Mexico had changed her life forever. We were two people in awe of things much larger than ourselves, like people standing at the feet of a colossus that we couldn't see, even when we leaned back as far as gravity would allow. Despite the thick coating of alcohol that stands between my brain and the memories from that long ago I still remember what she was wearing, each place we went, what her hair looked like, and her facial expression when I crash-landed the parasail that we rode on into a beach umbrella. It was never love, it was simply wonderful. The next day we boarded buses and she disappeared into the distant fog like a character in Grand Theft Auto. I wish I had a way to thank her for that day and apologize for the version that she certainly remembers of it, spending a day with a mopey twenty year old bitching about how he didn't get laid.
I wouldn't know where to start to thank people in my life for these moments. The day my college roommate Paul came in to our shared room in the fraternity. It was a gorgeous spring day and the lights were out because the sun was able to overpower the shadows in spite of the smallish windows. I was sitting with the TV on but not watching and Paul sat down and asked me if I would talk to somebody out of a favor to him. Looking back I can tell that he had spent hours carefully choosing vanilla words to keep me at ease as he was telling me that he was worried about me and wanted me to see "somebody," but even in the fog that I was living in I knew that "somebody" meant "therapist" and that "worried about" meant "I think the road you're on ends in suicide or accidental death." Judging by the struggle I'm having nearly ten years later to type these words in front of this anonymous, inanimate computer screen I can't imagine how difficult that must have been. Had he not done it I'm afraid that I probably would have proved him right. Despite reliving that moment every so often I've never thanked the kid that sat there in an old white soccer tournament shirt and red shorts and told me in not so many words that he wanted to help save my life. I have never thanked him. Nor have I thanked my other friend Matt that had donated his courage to Paul to have that conversation and did the grimy legwork of finding somebody for me to talk with. I don't imagine that they think about that moment any more.
These are but a few of the dozens of moments that helped to shape who I am and it's odd to me that in some cases the people that helped to smooth out the ridges and repair the cracks in my clay aren't even aware that they did so. The only thing stopping me from looking them up right now is the inadequacy of what I would have to offer in return. Some kind words and a humble thank you seem to pale in comparison to helping a person define who they are and how they fit into the world. I should host a parade. One with gigantic inflatable Mighty Mouses and floats constructed of thousands of flowers. I should hire marching bands and military jets for a flyover. Of course this is all preposterous. A parade with depictions of these moments from my past should surely be banned for public decency concerns. Huge, inflatable liquor bottles. Drunken float riders swinging shovels at each other. Think of the children.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Whatever Label You Prescribe
I've had the furrowed brow of somebody tangling with a Rubik's Cube over the past several weeks. There's a foreshadowing of understanding. A dramatic irony wherein the audience can see what's about to happen to me but I'm on the screen and I have no idea. Some author, probably Vonnegut, wrote a passage wherein a clairvoyant character explained to a human character that their clairvoyance had nothing to do with a special gift or a heightened perceptiveness to the universe, but merely that when you're taller you can see farther down the road. The feeling I've had lately is that I've been standing on the opposite side of the street, on the corner, and I'm watching myself plod down the other sidewalk along the building. Walking Me has earbuds in, face canted toward the sidewalk, and the same shoulders-hunched profile that is probably the root of my back problems. It's a thought I've preoccupied myself with over the past month. Spine straight. Shoulders back. You're slouching again.
Observing Me can see Walking Me on that concrete conveyor belt, but can also see what lies around the corner. Dog poop on the sidewalk. Cars whizzing through the intersection. The play of the light through the leaves of the young ash tree on the corner and the dancing shadows that it casts onto the sidewalk. It's not a scene of impending doom because I'm still controlling the split personalities. Observing Me can call out at any time. Walking Me will likely look up periodically to check for disaster on the horizon. I still haven't given up the idea of becoming a government spy so I remind myself to be perceptive. I need to work on inconspicuous if espionage is in my future.
This at-odds feeling with parts of myself has stemmed from a looming awareness of the fact that one day I, and everybody I know, will die. It's a feeling I've always had. Right before I fall asleep at night, for as long as I can remember, I have the thought "This is what it will feel like to die." It's right at that moment when you've closed your eyes and it feels like your consciousness is Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger, dangling from the insides of your eyelids, in peril of dropping into the infinity of blackness inside of yourself. Nirvana, or whatever label you prescribe. This thought at that precise moment usually either causes me to gasp awake each night like I've caught my first breath after being suffocated or to settle comfortably into sleep knowing the ultimate end result of the fruits of my life. No matter your outlook, there's an odd comfort in the idea of oblivion. The reaction doesn't vary night to night, it goes in patterns. This newest iteration is different. It's like both ideas are standing eye to eye. UFC fighters in there pre-bout mean mugging stance. My reaction has been a combination as well. I'm getting a fair amount of sleep every night but it isn't restful. I'm not constantly distracted but I'm only able to muster around 83% focus at any one time. It's limbo, but there's no stick or accompanying music.
And this is where my Observer/Walker analogy spawns from. The sense that while I can't see the Magic Eye picture the authorities assure me that I will if I keep staring. The thing has been sapped of its despair. The feeling that there may be all manner of obstructions ahead and treacherous, broken pavement hidden by thick fogs but I am able to help myself by calling across the street and asking if the record store is on the next block or if it's two down.
Observing Me can see Walking Me on that concrete conveyor belt, but can also see what lies around the corner. Dog poop on the sidewalk. Cars whizzing through the intersection. The play of the light through the leaves of the young ash tree on the corner and the dancing shadows that it casts onto the sidewalk. It's not a scene of impending doom because I'm still controlling the split personalities. Observing Me can call out at any time. Walking Me will likely look up periodically to check for disaster on the horizon. I still haven't given up the idea of becoming a government spy so I remind myself to be perceptive. I need to work on inconspicuous if espionage is in my future.
This at-odds feeling with parts of myself has stemmed from a looming awareness of the fact that one day I, and everybody I know, will die. It's a feeling I've always had. Right before I fall asleep at night, for as long as I can remember, I have the thought "This is what it will feel like to die." It's right at that moment when you've closed your eyes and it feels like your consciousness is Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger, dangling from the insides of your eyelids, in peril of dropping into the infinity of blackness inside of yourself. Nirvana, or whatever label you prescribe. This thought at that precise moment usually either causes me to gasp awake each night like I've caught my first breath after being suffocated or to settle comfortably into sleep knowing the ultimate end result of the fruits of my life. No matter your outlook, there's an odd comfort in the idea of oblivion. The reaction doesn't vary night to night, it goes in patterns. This newest iteration is different. It's like both ideas are standing eye to eye. UFC fighters in there pre-bout mean mugging stance. My reaction has been a combination as well. I'm getting a fair amount of sleep every night but it isn't restful. I'm not constantly distracted but I'm only able to muster around 83% focus at any one time. It's limbo, but there's no stick or accompanying music.
And this is where my Observer/Walker analogy spawns from. The sense that while I can't see the Magic Eye picture the authorities assure me that I will if I keep staring. The thing has been sapped of its despair. The feeling that there may be all manner of obstructions ahead and treacherous, broken pavement hidden by thick fogs but I am able to help myself by calling across the street and asking if the record store is on the next block or if it's two down.
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