You wake up in the dark and you feel fine.
It's 3:00 AM when you wake up and now you're trying to remember when you went to bed. It wasn't that long ago but it feels like another lifetime. Maybe midnight? No... It wasn't even that late. Last night was one of those weird nights when time can't keep up with where your brain is going and so by ten o'clock you're looking at your watch and thinking, "No... No... It feels way later than that," and a part of you wants to pretend like you're not done and ready for bed. But you all stopped playing pool and you got Ruth home and you got to your apartment at just the right time.
You wake up in the dark and you feel fine and then you try to move.
It's still dark and it's still about 3:00 AM, maybe 3:15 AM, and now you don't feel so great. Now that invincible feeling has faded into a churning burn in your guts. You want to get up and drink a glass of water and take Advil. You want to chance a trip to the bathroom just to pee, but you're thinking maybe this is Round Two of vomiting into the toilet, and so you don't go anywhere. You roll around and try to get comfortable. It's not as hard to get comfortable as it was last night, but last night you were exhausted and so some otherworldly force knocked you unconscious. Now, though, it's just you and a sour stomach and your own damn willpower. Obviously you decide to write in your blog. Okay. That kind of makes sense. It's almost 4:00 AM now and there you are, writing down your misadventures of the night before. And again you wonder what inspires you to write. It's four in the morning and the sun's going to start to rise and now you're not as sick as you felt an hour ago (let alone six hours ago), but you stay awake and keep writing, just to finish this paragraph for the sake of proper grammar.
You wake up and it's dark and you feel hungover and so you take a shit and read a couple pages of The Mist, down two ibuprofin, dress up in proper pajamas, and curl up with your blankets for a while to see if maybe you'll tune into your old sleep cycle.
Not happening.
So you write. You write about your friends and your life. You write with the hope for an audience, but mostly just because it's enjoyable. You do this because someday you think you'll stumble across this blog and fondly recall these memories of your youth. Maybe you will. Maybe you won't. You know there's a LiveJournal account out there with your name on it and a good amount of entries that you wrote during junior highschool, but good luck finding it. This one feels a little more secure, you tell yourself. This one might actually mean something more to you in the future than the earlier ones. Maybe that's true. Maybe, you're thinking, because you're such a level-headed and responsible adult now, this blog won't just be another stupid creative endeavor like all the other projects you've devoted so much of yourself to.
You're tired of your sarcasm that no one's going to pick up on.
You just fill the white space with random thoughts. You mention the afternoon you smoked with Karen in her garage and met her two dogs and listened to your mixed CD and talked about anything (considering this was the first time you got to hang out with her outside of work). You get to see her awesome little house just down the road from where Jillian lives (or used to) and that's a trippy flashback to sophomore year intersession when you lived in Jillian's basement for two weeks. This makes you think about Shayna, from A'romas, who also stayed in Jillian's basement for some amount of time after you did, and who checked herself into rehab last Wednesday. Then you're thinking about Tiffany, who checks into rehab today (according to the grapevine). And now you're anxious to talk about the rock that was thrown through the window of A'romas sometime between 1:00 and 6:00 AM on Sunday.
This was a historical moment that you were a part of and you almost didn't even mention it. So you come into work at 8:40 AM like you always do and stand in line to get a mug of coffee and everyone's in a good mood and all's well, but then Michelle keeps pointing off to the right and you think she is pointing at some person and so you don't notice the gaping hole in the large plate-glass window on the far wall. Then you see it. A big ass hole in the window. Sara and Danny came in at 6:00 AM and found glass everywhere and this heavy stone near the roasting machine. Nothing stolen. No sign of forced entry. Just the simple story of When Rock Met Window. Later in the day the resident handyman, Smitty, stopped by and put a square of cardboard over the hole and taped over the cracks and, as far as you know, that's as much as they've repaired it. The window is huge. This won't be a cheap thing to fix. Now you're wondering what they'll do with the big rock the vandalizer(s) left behind. You're thinking about when you and Sara stood outside the broken window and tried to CSI an answer, but came to no conclusion. This was after three beers at the Toad in the Hole. You were in no place to be investigating crime scenes.
You were just thinking about Kim and how she's making waves with the other coworkers. Not good waves. You don't have any problems with her and you probably never will, but you see things and hear things and know things that you wish you didn't because you're still kind of really naive about the reality of people. Not to say Kim isn't a good person. She's just going through a mid-life crisis, we think, and that's why she's become the resident tattle-tale. It's hard for you to be close friends with the two people that dislike Kim the most. But whatever.
You started thinking about Pineapple Express. How can you not? You saw it twice. You tell everyone you see to see it, and then you warn them that it's a legitimate blend of stoner comedy and action violence. To emphasize that point, you tell them that someone gets their toes shot off with a shotgun and, yes, you do see it happen. To make sure they still want to see it, you tell them about how the last scene of the movie really makes the whole thing. You drop lines from the movie and then apologize to people because they'd have to see the movie to understand the signicance of "I will fuck you in the street" and "The monkey's out of the bottle" and "I felt like a wishbone." First time you saw it with Bryce. It was a smaller and more in-tuned crowd, you remember, who saw the Thursday afternoon matinee, and you're smiling because you're glad Bryce suggested sneaking in Baja Fresh burritos. Second time you saw it with Carissa, Alyssa, and Alyssa's posse. You fondly remember hotboxing the Cherokee before the movie and then flirting with Alyssa's friend, V, on the way to the ticket booth. Popcorn and candy and soda. Jumping in the elevator. Losing the car Seinfeld-style in the parking garage. Finding the bud Alyssa lost under the backseat of the Jeep and thinking, "Score."
Now a new wave of sleepiness breezes by. It's 4:30 AM now and you've been up since 3:00 and who knows how long you've been writing for. Does it matter? It's sort of therapeutic, this blog. It's a place to rant in an organized fashion. But not just rant. You see signifcance in everything. And this will all be important in the long run, really. In a couple years you'll be so happy that you wrote this down. Even if it's boring, stupid shit. Even if you're in such a different place that none of this makes any sense, you'll at least know that it happened. This is a record of your tentative first steps into adulthood. A record of the friendships, jobs, and relationships you created. A handful of stories you'd otherwise have completely forgotten, you stoner you.
So go back to bed, you crazy sonofabitch. You woke up in the dark and you felt like shit for a while, but that's gone. You took a hit from the bong on your nightstand at 4:20 AM and felt like a fucking champ and now you're feeling especially gravy. Still you write. Why? You're thinking about the novel now. You're thinking about your hopes and dreams. Being published. Making tons of money. Buying a house. Getting a dog. Meeting the one.
And before you start thinking about too much at once, you cut yourself off.
It's 3:00 AM when you wake up and now you're trying to remember when you went to bed. It wasn't that long ago but it feels like another lifetime. Maybe midnight? No... It wasn't even that late. Last night was one of those weird nights when time can't keep up with where your brain is going and so by ten o'clock you're looking at your watch and thinking, "No... No... It feels way later than that," and a part of you wants to pretend like you're not done and ready for bed. But you all stopped playing pool and you got Ruth home and you got to your apartment at just the right time.
You wake up in the dark and you feel fine and then you try to move.
It's still dark and it's still about 3:00 AM, maybe 3:15 AM, and now you don't feel so great. Now that invincible feeling has faded into a churning burn in your guts. You want to get up and drink a glass of water and take Advil. You want to chance a trip to the bathroom just to pee, but you're thinking maybe this is Round Two of vomiting into the toilet, and so you don't go anywhere. You roll around and try to get comfortable. It's not as hard to get comfortable as it was last night, but last night you were exhausted and so some otherworldly force knocked you unconscious. Now, though, it's just you and a sour stomach and your own damn willpower. Obviously you decide to write in your blog. Okay. That kind of makes sense. It's almost 4:00 AM now and there you are, writing down your misadventures of the night before. And again you wonder what inspires you to write. It's four in the morning and the sun's going to start to rise and now you're not as sick as you felt an hour ago (let alone six hours ago), but you stay awake and keep writing, just to finish this paragraph for the sake of proper grammar.
You wake up and it's dark and you feel hungover and so you take a shit and read a couple pages of The Mist, down two ibuprofin, dress up in proper pajamas, and curl up with your blankets for a while to see if maybe you'll tune into your old sleep cycle.
Not happening.
So you write. You write about your friends and your life. You write with the hope for an audience, but mostly just because it's enjoyable. You do this because someday you think you'll stumble across this blog and fondly recall these memories of your youth. Maybe you will. Maybe you won't. You know there's a LiveJournal account out there with your name on it and a good amount of entries that you wrote during junior highschool, but good luck finding it. This one feels a little more secure, you tell yourself. This one might actually mean something more to you in the future than the earlier ones. Maybe that's true. Maybe, you're thinking, because you're such a level-headed and responsible adult now, this blog won't just be another stupid creative endeavor like all the other projects you've devoted so much of yourself to.
You're tired of your sarcasm that no one's going to pick up on.
You just fill the white space with random thoughts. You mention the afternoon you smoked with Karen in her garage and met her two dogs and listened to your mixed CD and talked about anything (considering this was the first time you got to hang out with her outside of work). You get to see her awesome little house just down the road from where Jillian lives (or used to) and that's a trippy flashback to sophomore year intersession when you lived in Jillian's basement for two weeks. This makes you think about Shayna, from A'romas, who also stayed in Jillian's basement for some amount of time after you did, and who checked herself into rehab last Wednesday. Then you're thinking about Tiffany, who checks into rehab today (according to the grapevine). And now you're anxious to talk about the rock that was thrown through the window of A'romas sometime between 1:00 and 6:00 AM on Sunday.
This was a historical moment that you were a part of and you almost didn't even mention it. So you come into work at 8:40 AM like you always do and stand in line to get a mug of coffee and everyone's in a good mood and all's well, but then Michelle keeps pointing off to the right and you think she is pointing at some person and so you don't notice the gaping hole in the large plate-glass window on the far wall. Then you see it. A big ass hole in the window. Sara and Danny came in at 6:00 AM and found glass everywhere and this heavy stone near the roasting machine. Nothing stolen. No sign of forced entry. Just the simple story of When Rock Met Window. Later in the day the resident handyman, Smitty, stopped by and put a square of cardboard over the hole and taped over the cracks and, as far as you know, that's as much as they've repaired it. The window is huge. This won't be a cheap thing to fix. Now you're wondering what they'll do with the big rock the vandalizer(s) left behind. You're thinking about when you and Sara stood outside the broken window and tried to CSI an answer, but came to no conclusion. This was after three beers at the Toad in the Hole. You were in no place to be investigating crime scenes.
You were just thinking about Kim and how she's making waves with the other coworkers. Not good waves. You don't have any problems with her and you probably never will, but you see things and hear things and know things that you wish you didn't because you're still kind of really naive about the reality of people. Not to say Kim isn't a good person. She's just going through a mid-life crisis, we think, and that's why she's become the resident tattle-tale. It's hard for you to be close friends with the two people that dislike Kim the most. But whatever.
You started thinking about Pineapple Express. How can you not? You saw it twice. You tell everyone you see to see it, and then you warn them that it's a legitimate blend of stoner comedy and action violence. To emphasize that point, you tell them that someone gets their toes shot off with a shotgun and, yes, you do see it happen. To make sure they still want to see it, you tell them about how the last scene of the movie really makes the whole thing. You drop lines from the movie and then apologize to people because they'd have to see the movie to understand the signicance of "I will fuck you in the street" and "The monkey's out of the bottle" and "I felt like a wishbone." First time you saw it with Bryce. It was a smaller and more in-tuned crowd, you remember, who saw the Thursday afternoon matinee, and you're smiling because you're glad Bryce suggested sneaking in Baja Fresh burritos. Second time you saw it with Carissa, Alyssa, and Alyssa's posse. You fondly remember hotboxing the Cherokee before the movie and then flirting with Alyssa's friend, V, on the way to the ticket booth. Popcorn and candy and soda. Jumping in the elevator. Losing the car Seinfeld-style in the parking garage. Finding the bud Alyssa lost under the backseat of the Jeep and thinking, "Score."
Now a new wave of sleepiness breezes by. It's 4:30 AM now and you've been up since 3:00 and who knows how long you've been writing for. Does it matter? It's sort of therapeutic, this blog. It's a place to rant in an organized fashion. But not just rant. You see signifcance in everything. And this will all be important in the long run, really. In a couple years you'll be so happy that you wrote this down. Even if it's boring, stupid shit. Even if you're in such a different place that none of this makes any sense, you'll at least know that it happened. This is a record of your tentative first steps into adulthood. A record of the friendships, jobs, and relationships you created. A handful of stories you'd otherwise have completely forgotten, you stoner you.
So go back to bed, you crazy sonofabitch. You woke up in the dark and you felt like shit for a while, but that's gone. You took a hit from the bong on your nightstand at 4:20 AM and felt like a fucking champ and now you're feeling especially gravy. Still you write. Why? You're thinking about the novel now. You're thinking about your hopes and dreams. Being published. Making tons of money. Buying a house. Getting a dog. Meeting the one.
And before you start thinking about too much at once, you cut yourself off.
0 Responses:
Post a Comment