Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Shut Up and Drive

I went for a two hour and ten minute walk tonight. That felt pretty damn good. It's nice to be back in my routine of walking at least an hour each day.

You see, last year I had started doing this. I found it made me felt very good, as well as it made my legs muscular and beautiful. I find that legs are quite sexy—I like how they can wrap around you, and they're just so sturdy and strong. They're so grabable, too. When you see nice ones you just want to grab them and eat them, like boneless chicken thighs or something.

So. Two hour and ten minute walk. I was mildly tired about an hour and a half into it. My legs were aching a bit. But it was a good ache, one that told me I was, well, exercising, which is good. It's good to be exercising again. It's not that I need to lose weight—I weight about 145 now, give or take—it's just that walking makes me feel better. It is a way to release pent up emotions. And it's exercise, as I said. Which is good any day.

When I was walking I listened to "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails about six or seven times. I listened to the song and I thought of images the song made in my head. I thought about how the song started—it was kind of a thud, then a smack. Thud smack thud smack—that was how the song went. It was like that through the whole thing. The thud reminded me of a heart. I thought of a heart. I thought of it scraping along the sidewalk—the scraping noise being the smack, and the thud being the heart beating itself. I thought of two hearts meeting one another and having sex with each other like animals—". . .fuck[ing] like a[n] animal[s]." I thought it would serve as something to write a story about when I got home. I felt inspired in some sense.

Then I listened to "Head Like a Hole" and tried to think of what that made me think of. I imagined a head that was a like a hole, and got the image of a face that was all black and sunken in. I thought that would serve as an interesting story as well.

I listened to my .mp3 player as always. It was a nice walk. It was probably the highpoint of my day. Again. I plan and wait to do it again tomorrow.

When I came home I felt very lightheaded and I sat down and got myself some milk and guzzled that down. Then I got myself a glass of ice water and sat there, resting a bit. As I was filling up my glass with crushed ice for my water, my dad came over and asked me how many hours I was going to work if I got my job at Video Action. I did not feel like talking about it—that was the last thing on my mind and the last thing I wanted to think about. I told him I didn't know but would find out once I got my interview whenever that happened.

He then asked me how much money I was going to get paid for working there. I told him I didn't care. He laughed at me and asked me why I didn't care. I said I just didn't care and as he was walking away I sad offhand that I wasn't too enthused about getting a job either. I was a bit tired from my walk and felt open. I usually never tell my dad what I really feel about most things. He ends up just yelling at me and laughing and saying I am so naive or that I am so distant or that I am so dense.

It's a lot harder for me to explain to him what I will say here in a few sentences. It's just harder to say because I know that he'll just laugh at me.

I realize that I need a job in order to sustain my life. In order to live. I understand this and I'll adapt to it. But in the end I just don't care and I would rather not work and I'd rather do what I want to do with my life, rather than end up with whatever job I'll end up with after College. And who knows, maybe I'll get a good job after College, one that I actually care about and am interested in. But I doubt it. I've seen the way the world works sometimes, and most of the time things don't go exactly as you plan. I just see working as pointless—you work to get money and then you waste that money endlessly to pay taxes, pay your house, pay your car, and then the rest you use for whatever you want—and then you're supposed to work like this. When I said this in a shortened way to my dad, one that wasn't as well-said, he just laughed at me and said I was so out of touch. As I was bending over to put away a rubber lid, I thought to myself that he was right.

Then my dad said I wasn't expanding like I should, but I was closing myself off from everything. Again, I thought to myself that he was right. I thought to myself that I didn't want my child to die. I didn't want to be like my dad is—my mom is—my grandma is—my grandpa is—my teachers are—I didn't want to be like any of them. I wanted to stay me but I was always changing and there was nothing I could do. I decided I just didn't care and that I was in a good mood and to just let it slide.

I tried to tell my dad he was closeminded but I suppose he wasn't and he was just telling me like it is. My dad then gave me a scenario of getting paid more money at one job, and asked which I would choose. I told him it was obvious I would choose the larger salary and I told him that it didn't matter what I got paid. I would be paid at least minimum wage and that was fine. I should've added that I would take any job I could get as long as I could have it and it wasn't too hard and I could just get some money and experience, but I compacted that to just saying that I was sick of looking for a job and I'd take whatever I could get. I then just didn't care what he was saying anymore. I did not want to stare down this old monster again. I was in a good mood and I didn't want to look at it. I responded to whatever else he said with my mmhmm's. I remember he also said that I can't make a living writing poems. I wanted to say I wish I could but I didn't say anything. I told him that I was just being honest when I told him I didn't want a job. He said that's no way to think and that he can't believe I was thinking like that. He said his usual "Jesus" remark. He said that I do nothing. All want to do with my life is go to school and then come home and go on the internet. I didn't care and was passive and decided he was right. I was useless and I had no pride and I had no ambition.

And I don't. I don't care about school. I don't care about doing well. I don't care about exceeding. I don't take honor in cleaning my room each day and making my bed like my dad harps on. I don't take pride in anything other than my emotions and writing. And the things that I think matter.

I thought over what he said. That I could never make a living writing poems. He was right. I felt writing die in me again and I still wondered, again, why I keep it alive. I still wondered why I keep on saying I want to be a writer when it's something that'll never happen. I just don't know. That is all I can say to myself. All I can do is dream, but the dreams are dead but I keep them alive and smile and grimace and it'll all work out in the end—things always work out in the end, don't they?

I was putting away some knives when I thought of suicide. I realized that I wanted to live, and that when I thought of suicide I was only joking with myself. I told myself it is just me thinking in multiple ways—that I was thinking of my options. And I will choose to live no matter what. And I don't know why. The only reason, I told myself, is because I want to live. I couldn't take my life anyways and it's a stupid thought. What about my parents? They would be crushed. What about writing, what about that, even as useless as it seems to be lately. What about the future.

What about the future? Sometimes I wonder if the future is even going to come. I wonder if that is even going to happen. There is nothing I can do but accept it. Adapt to it.

And that was that. I had heard enough and he seemed done. I was glad I needed to get the hell away from the monster that was the future and what is going to change. I went down in my room and I wrote my story. It was pretty ambiguous but it made some sense. But in the end it makes less sense than it does, and I decided it just reflected my overall feeling and how I've felt for a long time, as long as I can remember since I was a kid—I was confused. I didn't know what the hell I am doing here. I was thinking I didn't belong. That what I wanted was something I could never have.

I am so paranoid and full of fear. Sometimes it hurts too much, no, it always hurts too much and I push it aside and I just say live. Live and do what you can, hopefully something you do will matter. But most of the time I don't do anything that will matter and I see that I'm just your average person. Which is fine and good. But other times I feel I could do so much more, if I could just make a living with my writing. If I could make a living and give people this gift I have to give.

There is nothing I can do, though. The world is too big and I just don't care. I am being twisted and eaten by the way things are each day and it's starting to make me not care and do what it says no matter what. I need to keep the part of me that writes alive and to do that I need to push the uncaring one aside. How long can I do it is the real question it appears.

I told him as I walked down here that I wouldn't tell him how I really felt then. That is why we aren't too close other than I love him because of how he keeps me strong sometimes, and how he slaps me in the face with reality like he did. I told him that I guess being honest meant nothing then.

"Guess I just got to keep myself to myself as always then," is what I said as I walked downstairs. That same old card. The one I choose to open and end everything with, to win everything with. It's the only card that seems to work and not make things be changed from where they go now.

Be quiet and keep yourself to yourself. Be the introvert.

That's me there. That is what I am: I keep myself to myself. It is hard for me to open up to anyone but myself, and opening up to myself isn't even opening up to myself: it is more like looking deep inside myself, and it only makes me go deeper in me and nestle in there deeper too.

There's nothing I can do to stop the way I am, though. The way I am is made by seventeen years of causes and effects now.
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