May 3rd 2002 (Flashback)
This is a transcript of me talking on a day when I was still struggling to get clean, and stuggling with my place in the world. It's long, and meandering, and more for my benefit than anyone else's
"It is 12:30 pm on the 3rd of May. I am sitting in Copley Square, and unfortunately, my normal sanctuary spot [the fountain] has been sort of spoiled today, because I see Nathan sitting there
on the grass, with some squatter kid. He's got an alice pack and a skateboard, I wonder who he stole them from. I'm sort of tempted to go over and ask him, but I feel like that would be innapropriate and it might make me upset... and there's no reason for me to be upset.
"I'm working on this project of mine. I missed the last two days of work. I don't really know why. I keep blaming in on the acupuncture relaxing me too much, but I don't think that's really the truth. Um, [laughter] I think it's just an excuse. I think I just don't want to work, I think I want to do other things- but circumstances require I go to work at least a few days a week in order to keep a roof over my head.
"Part of me just wants to throw everything away, you know- or put it in storage someplace... and just go again... but I don't know...
"I think I'm pretty well domesticated at this point. It makes me a little bit jealous of Nathan, but [long pause] I don't know why I'd be jealous of him- he has no life. He's an alcoholic bum... and I don't want to be a bum on the street anymore.
"I don't know exactly what it is that I want, but I'd like to find a way to live where my rent is cheap enough that I don't have to work all the time- where i have time to do all these projects I keep getting so enthusiastic about.
"It's amazing to me that I spent these past two years doing nothing. I don't understand what happened to me. It's like, when I was in Ohio, I was on fire with creativity or whatever you would call it. I know it sounds cheesy, but I was drawing all the time, I was writing a little bit. I just wanted to make things; I made that lamp that Dmitri still has in his room, and all that [stuff].
"But he pointed out, [Dmitri] pointed out to me that I had lots of time in Ohio. Lots and lots of time, and very very little distraction. It wasn't as though we were hanging out all the time. When I came back here I just got really into hanging out with Nathan all the time, and doing nothing. Being a drunken fool, running around, [pause] getting into fights.
"While that might be fun, you come out of two years with nothing to show for it whatsoever. That's what happened to me.
"Nothing to show for it except more fucking stitches on my heart.
"It's funny, I recognise now that from the very beginning we were in a totally unhealthy situation, we just fought all the time- with each other and everyone else. I thought it was exciting. How stupid.
"I don't even feel like we liked each other. I keep being amazed, over and over agin, how I can fall in love, or feel like I'm in love- feel like I need someone [pause] who I don't even like as a person.
"I don't know if this is a sign of my having some kind of issue about abandonement, feeling like I need to feel needed, [sic] which is kind of what I think it is.
"I think that, in a sense, it would be better for me to find someone that I don't feel like I need. I don't want a relationship where there's so much of a sense of ownership, because I feel like that's dangerous... right now.
"I feel like I need to have a person that it's okay when I don't see them for a long time. It's okay if they have their own life, and therefore I'll be more inclined to have my own life and do my own thing, and be creative."
[signs out]
"Okay, I just got interrupted by some corporate Bostonians on a scavenger hunt for their company. They took a picture of me shaking hands with them because, apparently, they have to get a picture of a 'Team Member' shaking hands with a person with blue hair [laughter] and I believe I'm the only person I've seen all day in boston with blue hair, so this might be funny, I might get accosted by these people on this scavenger hunt all morning.
"Anyway, that doesn't have any relevance to what I'm talking aboout, although... I'm sort of feeling like this project doesn't have any relevance, but it's okay, because the idea of this project is that it gives me something to do.
"I was talking to Dmitri about how I'm spending all this time mapping out all the players in my life. I sat down and made a roster of all the people who've been involved in this fucked up, scanalous life I've had for the last five months. And I was like, 'I'm spending all this time planning this project and who knows if I'll ever finish it.'
"He said, 'Oh, well. Don't plan too much, because then you'll get lost in the planning, and you won't ever fionish it. It won't be spontaneous enough.'
"I'm not really worried because I feel like the idea of the project is more about me just doing something than having something to show for it... Although that sort of contradicts what I was saying before. It's just important for me to feel okay to do things, to feel creative, to feel like I am producing something. I don't really know. This is the first time in a long time that I've had the clarity of mind, the time, and the inspiration, to be able to create. And I'm gonna just go with it, I guess."
[signs out]
"1:33 pm. I want to take a moment to point out that the tape I'm using to record this commentary is one of Nathan's SKREWDRIVER tapes. I am thoroughly offended that it was left in my tape collection when he left. It's not something I feel comfortable with owning, so I think I'm gonna use it to create- to move on with my life.
"Create, Create, Create... This is getting kind of redundant. Like I said, It's one-thirty- it's only an hour since the last time I checked in, but it feels alot longer. I think it's probably because it's slow today, and it's ridiculously windy, riding to Cambridge right now is ridiculous- it's like trying to ride through a wall.
"I don't know if I am comfortable with Nathan being here... I don't feel like I'm gonna flip out if I get into a situation where I have to talk to him... I feel like I am detached enough now that I can just kind of ignore him. But it's a struggle.
"The last time I saw him, I was coming down Boylston Street, real fast, whipping between the cars, trying to feel so tough, just for myself, ya' know, 'cause I have this romantic image of myself:
"I am victoriously riding down the street, a girl on her own, wind in her hair, with my bike, 'Man's Ruin, the Second'.
"...and then I see in the distance, who is sitting on the fountain but Nathan, and Sarah Seamonster.
"It was funny, actually. I had enough waring that when I was getting to the point where I was passing the fountain, passing Copley, I just sort of looked straight ahead and stuck my middle fingerout to the side, and then he yells, 'Hey, Hey c'mere,' and so I did.
"I hopped the curb, and y'know I like slow down, pulling up to the fountain, and he says, "I heard you told Laura you were gonna give her my violin,'
"And I was like,... I just looked at him and I said, 'You fucking asshole, you owe me three thousand dollars, and I told Laura I would sell her the fucking violin, if she wanted it.'
"and he starts yelling... Not yelling, y'know, but he starts going like, 'You fuckin' blah blah blah.'
"and I looked at him and I said, 'I don't have time for you.' and I left. I just left.
"It was the most awesome feeling in the world, to be able to just look him in the face and say 'I don have time for you', because finally, he had no power over me.
"A couple months earlier, if I'd seen him I would have been freakin out, grabbing onto his leg or something, wishing he would change his mind or something, and it's so stupid. It's ridiculous.
"When I was talking to Tayren recently, she said she saw him at a party at a friends house. It's funny, it's like five months later, maybe more- I'm not keeping track anymore, but people still- every time they see me, they want to be like, 'Oh my god, I saw Nathan here', and 'Oh my god, did you here what Nathan's doing?'
"I don't even care! and even if I do care, I don't want to care. I don't want it to be important in my life.
"But anyway... she said she saw him, and he was all shitfaced with [I think] Sarah Seamonster- she was described as 'the most disgusting girl' who Tayren had ever seen. I'm assming it was Sarah. [cold laughter]
"The girl said, 'I'm his [Nate's] Ex.' (!?!) They were totally wasted, cutting each other and smearing their blood all over each other and all over the house, and yelling, 'we have the same disease, so it's okay.'
"Tayren said she looked at Nathan and she said, 'You know what? Everybody told me you were a shithead, you know, and I heard all this shit from Arriel, and I didn't want to believe it. I was like, well, I've met Nathan, and he seems okay, so I had to sort of make up my mind for myself, and you know what? I made up my mind. You're fucked.'
"So he looks at her and he says, 'Yeah, I'm fucked, but I'm gonna- I'm gonna be fucked, and I'm gonna live it up and I don't even care anymore, It doesn't matter, 'cause I'm just gonna get fucked up, and be fucked, and live it.'
"WHAT THE FUCK?"
[signs out]
"That, my friend, is what I would call a perfect example of a person who was given more chances, more opportunities, than any person I've met in my whole life, and just threw them away, I mean, I personnally feel like I gave him several of those chances myself, but whatever. If we're looking at it like 'it wasn't meant to be', then it wasn't meant to be, and he couldn't have taken my chances anyway, [laughter] but that's not the point.
"The point is... It goes back to this conversation I had with [my roommate] last night about stereotypes. You can say stereotype aren't real; people want to be politically correct and say, 'Oh, punks aren't like their stereotype' or 'gay culture isn't like it's stereotype, you know- they're not like all these fisting leather daddies'/ but it's not true. It is and it isn't.
"If you're realistic about it, if you're honest, you see that there are people like that, that's why the stereotypes exist... And it can be a trap:
"If society tells you that you are supposed to be a certain way, more often than not, you will be. When I was still a punk rock street kid or whatever, I could have tried really hard to stay clean, I could have gotten up really early and made it to the shelter everyday, and gotten a shower and stayed clean, and tried to get free clothes at the Salvation Army so I'd look good... but I wasn't going to do that.
"Everybody told be I was supposed to be some kind of filthy scumfuck, who didn't give a shit about anything, and I thought, 'You know what? I'm going to take this stereotype, and I'm going to own it- I'm going to make it mine. I am going to be that [stereotype]. I'm going to be like 'yeah man, I haven'ty taken a shower in like five years, and these clothes, I got these clothes off my dead buddy, and I still haven't washed 'em'.'
"I was fun... but it's not right. It's not the answer. I'm not sure if I've lost myself again here, but what I'm saying is You can't give up, you can't give in, you need to take your chances, you need to not be a stereotype. You need to be yourself, and it doesn't really matter who you are, as long as you haven't given in to what someone else tells you to be.
"I think that for him [Nathan] it has to do with being Christian, and believing in God, because you know- when you're raised in an Evangelist situation, you do Believe, unless you make a really conscious decision to not [Believe], and to change your life, and to change your morals and ideals to something different, and I don't think he was able to do this.
"I think that he got into this cycle where he thought, 'I feel guilty, because I'm a sinner', and it made him feel shitty about himself- and what does he do in reaction to that? Well, he goes out, and he sins some more, and he feels guiltier, and so on.
"It's like OA, or NA or AA; if you are not strong enough to live up to the morals that you limit yourself with, you are just setting yourself up for failure. You're setting yourself up for this terrible endless cycle of guilt, that you can never escape until you do change yourself.
"I think that cycle is exactly where he is.
[signs out]
"So this is a day in the life of Arriel the Courier. I'm not claiming it's like anyone else's life downtown, but this is what I do. I ride around and I get fucked with by cabs and I have a romantic image of myself, and I fight the wind and the cars, and overall- I think alot.
"I think about everything that's going on in my life and I toss these questions around in my head. I never seem to come up with any rteal answers, but I don't think it matters. It's a journey, not a destination [laughter]."
[-end]
post script:
I never finished the project, and I never saw Nathan again. It took me until the 21st of that year to actually get clean, and since then I've stayed clean. I've changed alot. My mind is not the same as it was on this day, but it was a learning experience.
After all, everything in life is.
"It is 12:30 pm on the 3rd of May. I am sitting in Copley Square, and unfortunately, my normal sanctuary spot [the fountain] has been sort of spoiled today, because I see Nathan sitting there
on the grass, with some squatter kid. He's got an alice pack and a skateboard, I wonder who he stole them from. I'm sort of tempted to go over and ask him, but I feel like that would be innapropriate and it might make me upset... and there's no reason for me to be upset.
"I'm working on this project of mine. I missed the last two days of work. I don't really know why. I keep blaming in on the acupuncture relaxing me too much, but I don't think that's really the truth. Um, [laughter] I think it's just an excuse. I think I just don't want to work, I think I want to do other things- but circumstances require I go to work at least a few days a week in order to keep a roof over my head.
"Part of me just wants to throw everything away, you know- or put it in storage someplace... and just go again... but I don't know...
"I think I'm pretty well domesticated at this point. It makes me a little bit jealous of Nathan, but [long pause] I don't know why I'd be jealous of him- he has no life. He's an alcoholic bum... and I don't want to be a bum on the street anymore.
"I don't know exactly what it is that I want, but I'd like to find a way to live where my rent is cheap enough that I don't have to work all the time- where i have time to do all these projects I keep getting so enthusiastic about.
"It's amazing to me that I spent these past two years doing nothing. I don't understand what happened to me. It's like, when I was in Ohio, I was on fire with creativity or whatever you would call it. I know it sounds cheesy, but I was drawing all the time, I was writing a little bit. I just wanted to make things; I made that lamp that Dmitri still has in his room, and all that [stuff].
"But he pointed out, [Dmitri] pointed out to me that I had lots of time in Ohio. Lots and lots of time, and very very little distraction. It wasn't as though we were hanging out all the time. When I came back here I just got really into hanging out with Nathan all the time, and doing nothing. Being a drunken fool, running around, [pause] getting into fights.
"While that might be fun, you come out of two years with nothing to show for it whatsoever. That's what happened to me.
"Nothing to show for it except more fucking stitches on my heart.
"It's funny, I recognise now that from the very beginning we were in a totally unhealthy situation, we just fought all the time- with each other and everyone else. I thought it was exciting. How stupid.
"I don't even feel like we liked each other. I keep being amazed, over and over agin, how I can fall in love, or feel like I'm in love- feel like I need someone [pause] who I don't even like as a person.
"I don't know if this is a sign of my having some kind of issue about abandonement, feeling like I need to feel needed, [sic] which is kind of what I think it is.
"I think that, in a sense, it would be better for me to find someone that I don't feel like I need. I don't want a relationship where there's so much of a sense of ownership, because I feel like that's dangerous... right now.
"I feel like I need to have a person that it's okay when I don't see them for a long time. It's okay if they have their own life, and therefore I'll be more inclined to have my own life and do my own thing, and be creative."
[signs out]
"Okay, I just got interrupted by some corporate Bostonians on a scavenger hunt for their company. They took a picture of me shaking hands with them because, apparently, they have to get a picture of a 'Team Member' shaking hands with a person with blue hair [laughter] and I believe I'm the only person I've seen all day in boston with blue hair, so this might be funny, I might get accosted by these people on this scavenger hunt all morning.
"Anyway, that doesn't have any relevance to what I'm talking aboout, although... I'm sort of feeling like this project doesn't have any relevance, but it's okay, because the idea of this project is that it gives me something to do.
"I was talking to Dmitri about how I'm spending all this time mapping out all the players in my life. I sat down and made a roster of all the people who've been involved in this fucked up, scanalous life I've had for the last five months. And I was like, 'I'm spending all this time planning this project and who knows if I'll ever finish it.'
"He said, 'Oh, well. Don't plan too much, because then you'll get lost in the planning, and you won't ever fionish it. It won't be spontaneous enough.'
"I'm not really worried because I feel like the idea of the project is more about me just doing something than having something to show for it... Although that sort of contradicts what I was saying before. It's just important for me to feel okay to do things, to feel creative, to feel like I am producing something. I don't really know. This is the first time in a long time that I've had the clarity of mind, the time, and the inspiration, to be able to create. And I'm gonna just go with it, I guess."
[signs out]
"1:33 pm. I want to take a moment to point out that the tape I'm using to record this commentary is one of Nathan's SKREWDRIVER tapes. I am thoroughly offended that it was left in my tape collection when he left. It's not something I feel comfortable with owning, so I think I'm gonna use it to create- to move on with my life.
"Create, Create, Create... This is getting kind of redundant. Like I said, It's one-thirty- it's only an hour since the last time I checked in, but it feels alot longer. I think it's probably because it's slow today, and it's ridiculously windy, riding to Cambridge right now is ridiculous- it's like trying to ride through a wall.
"I don't know if I am comfortable with Nathan being here... I don't feel like I'm gonna flip out if I get into a situation where I have to talk to him... I feel like I am detached enough now that I can just kind of ignore him. But it's a struggle.
"The last time I saw him, I was coming down Boylston Street, real fast, whipping between the cars, trying to feel so tough, just for myself, ya' know, 'cause I have this romantic image of myself:
"I am victoriously riding down the street, a girl on her own, wind in her hair, with my bike, 'Man's Ruin, the Second'.
"...and then I see in the distance, who is sitting on the fountain but Nathan, and Sarah Seamonster.
"It was funny, actually. I had enough waring that when I was getting to the point where I was passing the fountain, passing Copley, I just sort of looked straight ahead and stuck my middle fingerout to the side, and then he yells, 'Hey, Hey c'mere,' and so I did.
"I hopped the curb, and y'know I like slow down, pulling up to the fountain, and he says, "I heard you told Laura you were gonna give her my violin,'
"And I was like,... I just looked at him and I said, 'You fucking asshole, you owe me three thousand dollars, and I told Laura I would sell her the fucking violin, if she wanted it.'
"and he starts yelling... Not yelling, y'know, but he starts going like, 'You fuckin' blah blah blah.'
"and I looked at him and I said, 'I don't have time for you.' and I left. I just left.
"It was the most awesome feeling in the world, to be able to just look him in the face and say 'I don have time for you', because finally, he had no power over me.
"A couple months earlier, if I'd seen him I would have been freakin out, grabbing onto his leg or something, wishing he would change his mind or something, and it's so stupid. It's ridiculous.
"When I was talking to Tayren recently, she said she saw him at a party at a friends house. It's funny, it's like five months later, maybe more- I'm not keeping track anymore, but people still- every time they see me, they want to be like, 'Oh my god, I saw Nathan here', and 'Oh my god, did you here what Nathan's doing?'
"I don't even care! and even if I do care, I don't want to care. I don't want it to be important in my life.
"But anyway... she said she saw him, and he was all shitfaced with [I think] Sarah Seamonster- she was described as 'the most disgusting girl' who Tayren had ever seen. I'm assming it was Sarah. [cold laughter]
"The girl said, 'I'm his [Nate's] Ex.' (!?!) They were totally wasted, cutting each other and smearing their blood all over each other and all over the house, and yelling, 'we have the same disease, so it's okay.'
"Tayren said she looked at Nathan and she said, 'You know what? Everybody told me you were a shithead, you know, and I heard all this shit from Arriel, and I didn't want to believe it. I was like, well, I've met Nathan, and he seems okay, so I had to sort of make up my mind for myself, and you know what? I made up my mind. You're fucked.'
"So he looks at her and he says, 'Yeah, I'm fucked, but I'm gonna- I'm gonna be fucked, and I'm gonna live it up and I don't even care anymore, It doesn't matter, 'cause I'm just gonna get fucked up, and be fucked, and live it.'
"WHAT THE FUCK?"
[signs out]
"That, my friend, is what I would call a perfect example of a person who was given more chances, more opportunities, than any person I've met in my whole life, and just threw them away, I mean, I personnally feel like I gave him several of those chances myself, but whatever. If we're looking at it like 'it wasn't meant to be', then it wasn't meant to be, and he couldn't have taken my chances anyway, [laughter] but that's not the point.
"The point is... It goes back to this conversation I had with [my roommate] last night about stereotypes. You can say stereotype aren't real; people want to be politically correct and say, 'Oh, punks aren't like their stereotype' or 'gay culture isn't like it's stereotype, you know- they're not like all these fisting leather daddies'/ but it's not true. It is and it isn't.
"If you're realistic about it, if you're honest, you see that there are people like that, that's why the stereotypes exist... And it can be a trap:
"If society tells you that you are supposed to be a certain way, more often than not, you will be. When I was still a punk rock street kid or whatever, I could have tried really hard to stay clean, I could have gotten up really early and made it to the shelter everyday, and gotten a shower and stayed clean, and tried to get free clothes at the Salvation Army so I'd look good... but I wasn't going to do that.
"Everybody told be I was supposed to be some kind of filthy scumfuck, who didn't give a shit about anything, and I thought, 'You know what? I'm going to take this stereotype, and I'm going to own it- I'm going to make it mine. I am going to be that [stereotype]. I'm going to be like 'yeah man, I haven'ty taken a shower in like five years, and these clothes, I got these clothes off my dead buddy, and I still haven't washed 'em'.'
"I was fun... but it's not right. It's not the answer. I'm not sure if I've lost myself again here, but what I'm saying is You can't give up, you can't give in, you need to take your chances, you need to not be a stereotype. You need to be yourself, and it doesn't really matter who you are, as long as you haven't given in to what someone else tells you to be.
"I think that for him [Nathan] it has to do with being Christian, and believing in God, because you know- when you're raised in an Evangelist situation, you do Believe, unless you make a really conscious decision to not [Believe], and to change your life, and to change your morals and ideals to something different, and I don't think he was able to do this.
"I think that he got into this cycle where he thought, 'I feel guilty, because I'm a sinner', and it made him feel shitty about himself- and what does he do in reaction to that? Well, he goes out, and he sins some more, and he feels guiltier, and so on.
"It's like OA, or NA or AA; if you are not strong enough to live up to the morals that you limit yourself with, you are just setting yourself up for failure. You're setting yourself up for this terrible endless cycle of guilt, that you can never escape until you do change yourself.
"I think that cycle is exactly where he is.
[signs out]
"So this is a day in the life of Arriel the Courier. I'm not claiming it's like anyone else's life downtown, but this is what I do. I ride around and I get fucked with by cabs and I have a romantic image of myself, and I fight the wind and the cars, and overall- I think alot.
"I think about everything that's going on in my life and I toss these questions around in my head. I never seem to come up with any rteal answers, but I don't think it matters. It's a journey, not a destination [laughter]."
[-end]
post script:
I never finished the project, and I never saw Nathan again. It took me until the 21st of that year to actually get clean, and since then I've stayed clean. I've changed alot. My mind is not the same as it was on this day, but it was a learning experience.
After all, everything in life is.