i’ll do anything to amuse myself

So, you have to do with your own social life by yourself, as well as entertaining yourself, doing things to other people that make you laugh even if they don’t get it. You have to not care. I mean for nobodies sake you have to strike out on your own and start to assume they are the loser even if you aren’t that fickle, they are. But then is it a matter of survival? Fuck saving face! The piano that started this piece had the best riff ever but the clown singing is ruining it for me. Now a boy is approaching me; I think he might have written a long story on a napkin for me. Sounds like his life has crashed but that is just an instinct. God, does he want me to think he is a loser? Oh. A homeless musician with an outstanding education. He knows people I know from a college in wisconsin. He dropped out. I drop names by him. He said he was working on green party stuff. His odor is unpleasant.

“So where do you sleep? ” I ask as if it just dawned on me, as if I am not typing as he speaks.

“Oh I have a GREAT PLACE near volunteer park on soft pine needles.”

He was living with his sister until he started using heroin again. Before he was on methadone; he jumped off and went down too fast.

I don’t really want to be talking to him about heroin. It bores me.

“I can tell your awesome” he says. I remind him of people he went to school with. Forget what I said about his education. Oh wait. He is re-informing his statements with context.

He has a certification for technical writing- for jobs at Microsoft and “stuff” so he lost his job in 2009 with the 6000 drop off. Doesn’t he wonder what I’m typing away on?

Wow he is so boring. The odor adds something to the experience. Skunk? But now he is telling a story about losing his ipod but tracking it down. He bought it from the lady who stole it from him.

Maybe he doesn’t feel pleasure. He is chewing his thumb now. Make that three fingers in his mouth. A thumb sucker? He has wire rim glasses on. Mousy hair. A tad creepy. Name is very common. I think some people are downers. Anyway, this confirms my theory that it is better to treat people as entertainment than just sit around waiting. Waiting for what, you wonder ? Romance? Finality? The promises nobody could get away with breaking, not even if they were Brad and Angelina? But they did and holding your breath just makes you turn blue. It is funny and tragic how far people run to avoid themselves. Yeah, you heard me right. He- not the guy in front of me now tugging his earlobe- runs from what is inside. Me too. But I ran in- that’s right, not into but in another person, creating a perfection there- or tried to- a place to escape to. Just a minute of burrowing up inside that person is enough. But then, like anything you want, more seems better. You get a minute, so you want two minutes. Until not just one person but two people don’t know what or who they are running from. Have I lost you? It really sounds like a 1940’s comedy but it is no WONDER I haven’t been as funny lately. It’s no wonder I depended on others for my comedy with flat face here talking in monotone, the music going on like we are in a ballroom, and outside homeless people beg for change. Do you get it yet? My generation isn’t happy times! Why is it everyone I meet in my age group has some addiction to youth and to drugs, and it doesn’t matter if I am in academia, a rich politician party, a fundraiser, a cult, a middle class family… It seems to be everywhere? I started without it, without any idea of it, I was born in what appeared to be an ordered system. I listened to classical music, and everything and everyone had an order. That order wasn’t real. I don’t waste time wishing things that aren’t real were real- or if I do than boy, snap your fingers please.

Everyone isn’t on, or trying, or remembering some past involvement with drugs because of some coincidence. The truth is nobody is finding what they need and want, yet each thinks their situation is unique! How alone everybody thinks they are in their aloneness! Nothing could be further from the truth. Even Ginsberg could see hints of it, and he had friends. Okay…  (Hello??? Now would be the time for the audience to sneer please! Oh but you won’t indulge me that small thing. So typical. But he is so good at not forgetting blank in relationships. If only we knew what blank was. ) That guy won’t stop. Got to lend him this phone because he is nervously biting his fingers. Like time is so important to HIM, who has no place to be or go…interesting, huh? A mumbler too. He is throwing away rotting coffee beans from his bag now.

I was still laughing over some texts I sent. Didn’t matter what the person thought of them… I have to let go of some things! Don’t think the recipient will get it though. Maybe, maybe not. Will I care? Does it matter? Or is it important to NOT CARE, otherwise when you do care it doesn’t count! Oh, relativity- can’t live with mixed feelings on EVERYTHING; that would just be a cliche: like saying “I love you” on a guy’s Facebook or Myspace or MyFriendsLookAtMe page. It’s embarrassing to have that crap on your page  (unless you want to show off? Or you really are so self-deluded as to believe it is so sincere? Or maybe you just want to believe it means nothing, so that when it does mean something, you can say, well maybe it meant nothing- you know, in case I get rejected?) and to see it cheapened and displayed on friends pages UNLESS they are truly devoted, married, hypocritical and deceitful to themselves and the world, or just mindblowingly in love on their own spree. It can be fun to exclude the world with one other person. Me, never really done it. I feel left out. Awwwwwww.Just wait until the next joke is on me. I mean you. I mean.. would I joke about stuff like this?

The recipient of endless speculation

I

My left eye itched.

I felt like rubbing it hard, but then my contact would get contaminated, my eye would turn red, and all my makeup would spread over my face in splotches, probably getting black eyeliner on my shirt, and the cute guy sitting to my left in Kaladi’s Coffee sipping his cappuccino would notice.

Cute wasn’t really the right word. Chic, maybe? His cotton sweater looked outrageously expensive, and the expression on his pale face swore he’d never be caught dead in polyester. His glasses had no rims. According to the article I’d proofread last week for an online quiz, cappuccino drinkers tended to be “responsible and slightly reserved” with extra points for seriousness, ambition, and maturity.

I looked over at him and smiled a comehither glance, and I could have swore he winked.

Okay, that’s not exactly how it went. Actually, I was rummaging through my stash of stuff looking for eye-drops in a way that was as harried as it was undignified, and when he looked over and met eye-contact with me, I raised my hand as if to wave, then spilled my drink all over the table.

But it’s as if it went unnoticed because both parties looked severely dead-set on ignoring everything around them.

He was talking with his head down to a determined-looking girl. From what I could tell, she was no knock out. Her hair was up in a tight ponytail, a dead giveaway that she was a plain, mousy type. No competition there. I started to focus more on them rather than on him, trying to determine the nature of their relationship.

They were using words like “outsourced” and phrases like “digitally truncated.” I leaned closer and I think I heard the man spout something about “using the firms budget password to get into the main furnace and retrieve the password to the McCartheny file.”

I watched as the girl got up, went outside, and started using her phone.
Leaving my stuff on the table, I went to do a little snooping. Upon closer inspection, she was not plain at all. She had a fresh, Rose Bryne looking quality to her. I overheard her talking on the phone.

“The deal is closed. We have the fucker by his balls. I have to go Cher. Love you too.”

I tend to have an over-active imagination, but being on the receiving end of this sort of information was like telling a paranoid delusional that he was being watched all the time, implanting bugs in his apartment, and then sending the poor schmuck emails with video attachments of him digging paté off his fingers and licking it, for example. So I decided to intercede, get involved, see how this was going to play out, maybe play it out my own way. Can you blame me if I went a little overboard?

To be continued…