four, five

Four...

I've decided to start writing again. To start taking it all into account, make a written record of whatever it is that I think I should write. Two hours a day, a week, whatever it takes. It seems though, that when I do sit down to write, to actually do it, the writing, when I feel I should be writing, it all falls apart. Ideas I had, maybe, only hours before, before even now, are gone, forgotten and no amount of standing out on my balcony smoking seems to bring them back. Yet, walking around town, they come to me, from the shit I see, the everyday stuff, somehow it all makes me think of the strangest things. So today, as some sort of preventive measure, I bought a small notebook and decided to start jotting down these different ideas as they come to me. A free pen given to me by the woman I bought the notebook from, who I developed an immediate crush on for some reason I can't figure out, I took as some sort of positive sign as well. Trouble is, I'll probably forget it, the notebook and perhaps the pen, when I leave the house each and every time, like I do my glasses. And, like my glasses, I don't really need it, them, all the time but they, it, would surely help.
I didn't even know I needed them, my glasses, until I got them. It seemed though, after hours hunched in front of my computer, navigating my way through pages and pages of unmentionable subjects on the internet, my eyes, bloodshot and battered, often felt as though they were going to fall out of my sockets. So after a short, but somewhat interesting eye exam by a woman who seemed really interested in touching my face over and over like I was covered in Braille, I left, prescription in hand and wandered over to Granville Street and bought a pair of specs.
After trying on what seemed like a million pairs of frames, with my friend Billie offering up her opinion on each and every pair, something I found disturbing, if only because she was making a judgment on how I looked which made me uneasy, I settled on the Clubman's. Sort of a Clark Kent, Malcolm 'X', old guy, geek style of glasses.
It seems lately, without making any sort of conscious decision, that I've, somehow, affected or gained this nerd look for myself, almost by default. Every day, it seems, I start to look more and more like my grandfather, a man whose name I was given as if my parents couldn't think of anything better. The glasses, the clothes, even the way I smoke. And, while, I'll never ever match his tall lanky frame I have been told I walk like him, as does my father, and now that I've started to go gray the similarities have become even more pronounced. I find myself sitting like him, off to the side, holding a cigarette in my right hand and my Zippo in my left. Gesturing with it, the smoke, long before I light it, holding the lighter in my hand as if I'm warming it up before I flip it open, calling people 'farmers'. Although I never really truly understood what that meant, 'farmer'. My grandfather used to call me a farmer whenever I did something less than intelligent. Years after he died I had a job on a dairy farm and thought of him often as I shoveled manure and made my way around the field looking for lost cows.
Doesn't mean much now but, there were times when I understood what he had meant even if it hadn't really been his intent to insult farmers per say. Often at work I would find myself doing things that could only seen as stupid and without thinking. Yelling at cows as if they understood me and whatever it was I was trying to tell them to do. I even started wearing a cowboy hat, even when I wasn't at work but driving around town in my father's 1969 Chevy Biscayne, that with age and the odd running over by the farm tractor became a signature attachment of mine for better or for worse. That coupled with the, more than, occasional impure thought about my boss' Little House on the Prairie wife while I cut the lawn, listening to the Dead Kennedy's and the Stranglers on my walkman. All this made me think that if I stayed there much longer that my i.q. would continue to drop, maybe even to the point where I may not even be able to stay attached to the food chain. My dad eventually got me a job landscaping with the school board that was so much better intellectually.
And now, as I look at my clothes and those that I wear more than the rest I realize, if I don't nip this in the bud, I'm going to become my grandfather. Although, I'd still love to have some of his old clothes- there's nothing better than a big old grandfather style cardigan or pair of well worn work pants, especially when they smell like thirty years of pipe smoke.
Also, what started out as a means of saving money, and some sort of unconscious decision to look like my grandfather, has turned into something completely removed from that. The second hand beat-up men's black oxfords, 50's loop style short sleeved shirts and green janitor style workman pants, seem to fall onto my body as if they're the only clothes I own. Other clothes that I own sit for weeks, maybe months without me even so much as giving them a second look. I also, recently, bought myself a Biltmore straw hat that I wear with the brim rolled up all the way around. Apparently, according to my friend Renata, from whom I bought it, it's refereed to as a Stingy, a fedora style hat with a shorter brim. Every once in a while, you buy something for yourself and it feels like it was made for you, well, this hat feels just like that. Although, those who know that the hat is refereed to as a stingy yell that across the street at me as if it has become my nickname, I suppose it fits.
I'm not sure what happened exactly, but, my decision to start writing again came quite suddenly. I have, for years, written off and on, refusing to show anyone, with the exception of a small column I do for a local music rag, the results. Some of them, the stories, so close to the bone that I feared I would be giving up too much of myself. Stories about my life and all it's pitfalls and loves lost-most of which I killed all on my own without anyones help, thank-you very much. Lately, however, I have given up the ghost and let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, and given out a few stories to friends for them to read. More often that not though, I never ask them about the stories or what they thought of them fearing the worst. I don't have thick skin and take it all very personally, the questions, the criticism, and wish, sometimes, that I could grow or acquire a tougher outer layer. I guess I shouldn't really worry too much about that, time should take care of that and maybe a little rejection is a good thing, build some character, put hair on my chest and muscles in my spit as my father used to say. Lord knows I've been turned down more than once when I've asked someone to dance, shouldn't be that much different really.
So enough of the internal preamble, the sitting around smoking and thinking about it, I need to get started. Maybe I should start keeping a diary of my everyday goings on and take leads from that, for my story. Compile it all later, put it together somehow, make sense of it all, the chicken scratch notes. I'll have to be careful though not to use things too close to myself, verbatim accounts of every move I make and people's names have to be changed as a precaution. The last thing I need is to get this thing published, a long shot at best, and have someone see themselves portrayed in a somewhat unfavorable light-likely, and next thing you know I getting sued. I'll start a table with people's real names equally others. A Sam equals Susan, Jamie equals Richard sort of a thing. I'll also have to take parts of one thing, events and combine them with others so that direct references to certain events can't be made. Mix up the events, lie a little, change the names, screw up the dates and times and I should be alright. I have made the mistake in the past of writing about events, places and people in such a way that those who were there see themselves all too clearly and my phone has practically smoked right off of the cradle. Especially from old girlfriends-two in particular, who are sure I've given away every detail of our past love life and now the whole world knows all. So I’ve told a few tales out of school-so what?
Plus close attention had better be paid to my finical status as I go along. Running out of money would be the death of this whole little experiment and lord knows the amount I'm getting from the government each month for unemployment issuance really doesn't cover much. I have hidden away so much money from the government over the last few years that I get the bare minimum every two weeks and will have to just use that for my rent. That, a steady diet of rice, coffee and showing up to friend's homes at dinner time should carry me for a while. In the end I know I'm going to have to go back to work at something, bartending, perhaps a postal job or maybe freelance work here and there. Maybe I'll go back to school for something or another, something that's as good as anything, maybe a baker or an accountant. It's hell trying to live having to rely on an alarm clock and having to show up somewhere on time to work for someone you'd rather take outside and throw in front of a bus or better yet, take outside and piss on. But, that day will come and hopefully I'll be ready for it, I'll figure that part out when I get there, hopefully.
I also need to throw a little excitement into my life, spice it up a little. I need to stop being, for lack of any better term, so vanilla, so run of the mill. I have led a life that up to this point has been void of any real excitement, any real dirt or filth, something I could use a little of. Which is surprising in a way due to the amount of Lou Reed records I have listened to in my lifetime. You'd think all those nights spend locked away in my room as a teenager listening to 'Berlin', 'Street Hassle' and 'Transformer' with my old black and white TV Jammed in between stations so that it would create unsettling snow patterns, would have had some sort of effect on me. That and wanting to be just like 'The Thin White Duke' or 'Ziggy Stardust' would have, at the very least, made me want to hang out in drag bars or hang out downtown looking for smack. Even if I really didn't want to poke myself a needle or have sex with another guy.
I have managed, to this point, to be the guy who has blended well into the woodwork. I have led a life that could be viewed, really, only as boring and stayed. Doing things that I find interesting but that are of no real interest or consequence to anyone else really. I, for better or for worse, have become a bit of a loner and have spent too much time by myself, being my own best friend. Who's night is completed by the evenings episode of 'Law and Order' on A&E. I need to get out and go places I'd never normally go. Get out and see things I've only thought about, experience things to write about, research as it were. Sure, I go to gigs, drink a little, smoke like a bastard but more often than not, I head home afterwards when others are just getting started. I, also, have a daily routine I'm going to have to break. Coffee at the Whip Gallery instead of Starbucks, breakfast on Main Street instead of Fourth, all the little things have to altered, meet some new folks. I'll try and take my lead from others and what they're doing, read the paper, check the coming events calendar and get out and see what there is to see, check the streets. My friend Fawn, often referred to as a downtown scenester by the local media, always seems to know what's going on, maybe I'll enlist her services and follow her around a little. Time for some coffee.

five....

Romance told-you-so.... or something.(Maybe ‘Lisa X’)

There I was on the 401 heading towards Montreal after deciding to head further east rather than turn around and go home to her. There I was on the phone with her, on the 401 heading east towards Montreal, and she telling me-only after I pried it out of her, like I needed the kick in nuts, that she was cheating on me. That he was at the house right then, that he had been there all night, that he has been in my bed, fucking her.
There I was, on the 401, heading east towards Montreal from Toronto. Pissed off, feeling pissed on. Alone. And it was fucking raining and the traffic was backed up like a frathouse toilet.
She’s going to be sorry she ever did that.

Christ am I bitter. I’ve got to change my focus.

Thirty days turns thirty-two years.... pt. 1 (lying/stretching the truth is okay for this)

The ride in the cab feels right tonight. I’m coming home from a party that I shouldn’t have gone to. But I did. The air is coming in through the half open rear window and the window on the driver’s side is open wide and he keeps flicking the ash off of his cigarette out the yawning opening. My day started at 5:30 a.m. and it’s now 3:30a.m., the next day, and as I settle into the seat I can barely keep my head up so I just let gravity take it’s course and let my head fall back against the back of the seat and close my eyes.
I know the street we’re driving on well and try to figure out where we are, opening my eyes every once in a while to see if I’m right. I’m usually off by about a half a block-not bad.
I left the party with a woman I’ve had contact with before but we’re way beyond that now. At least I think so. She was looking at me strangely as we rode to her house, we figured it was cheaper that we ride together since her place was on the way to my house, and I felt a little weird, even worried. We spoke of things that I could tell neither one of us was really that interested in. Goes that way sometimes. When we got to her place she sat for a second and looked at me as if she wanted to say something but then broke the silence by just saying she’s see me soon. Maybe. She will. More than likely. Soon.
I’ve been working too much lately. Practically from the time I get up in the morning until the time I go to bed. Instilled in me, somehow, by my father who always told me that it was good to work hard and that the time would come for sitting still and rest. This day, however, seems to be taking it’s toll on me. Or maybe it’s this week or this year. I have really been working like I have something I really need money for. Some sort of hidden goal.
My social life has flown out the window as of late. I’m single. Again. For a while now. Almost by choice. I was doing a lot of fucking around, literally. I work four to five nights a week as a bartender and while I would hardly say I’m a great catch, not even close. I have found that, as such, I have been very fortunate. In the sense of sex and the case of which it seems to find me. Shit. It was getting bad. I’d wake up in the morning and not always know where I was or who I was with. The lure of the regulars, the women, at the club, while intense at first has seemingly lost it’s shine as of late. And I, recently, decided that I would make a concerted effort to try and turn off my gravitation towards them. They’re beautiful, young and I love them. The thought of them, women, in general, but mainly a select few, kills me. I have to learn to have faith that I will meet the right one eventually and that I don’t have to take a different one home every night to feel complete. I’m working at it but late in the night sometimes I find myself in bed with another wishing I had only used my better judgement. Maybe she’s thinking the same thing. Probably is. Shit.
The air in the cab feels good. It rushes across my forehead and I think for a moment that if I could hold any one moment for ever this would be it. Just the time of having someone drive you around and the sinking into the seat. The darkness around me. The sound of other cars passing by us. I contemplate telling the driver to keep driving around and then remember I don’t have enough money to do it.
Sleep. I’ll get a few hours tonight, if I’m lucky. Where am I working tomorrow? While I admire myself for working a lot and never having to rely on others for sources of income it takes it’s toll and I have, to a certain extent, become a workaholic. My father , it’s his fault. Weak. I feel weak. Lately I’ve only been able to gain anything I’ve wanted to by getting it from others. For two, maybe three years I’ve barely been able to hold my own. Maybe I’m selfish. Shit.
It’s raining hard now and the sound the windshield wipers make as they cross back and forth across the windshield breaks the sound of the wheels as they pass along the pavement. The driver has made three phone calls from his cell phone as we’ve been driving and because I can’t understand a word he’s saying I fantasize h’s plotting my murder.
The blocks race by as we bolt down Twelfth avenue and I know by the passing of the all too familiar neon that I’m getting close to home.