Cold hands (still) holding (to) the program
I was off yesterday so I went to see "A Scanner Darkly". I go to movies by myself all the time. I remember I went and saw Bladerunner by myself, and when I came out of the tiny mega-plex down in San Jose (they were somehow charming to me back then - shingled facades, giant Welcome Back Kotter "1"s and "2"s on the walls) it was raining, just like in the movie. So it was like this continuation of what I'd just experienced, not so much in plot or fictional story but in a rumination. And I remember there seemed to be this purveying mood in the country... maybe it was all the Moog synthesizers I don't know, but what had been portrayed for years in films as only a dim possibility now felt like it was being accepted as the general concensess and simply a forgone conclusion... it may have been the filter of my adolescence, but there was this cynicism overtaking things and Bladerunner seemed to exemplify that societal shift. People just seemed to be becoming aware of it.. anyhow, to read/see a Phillip K Dick book or movie now, well it's sort of like seeing a John Waters film now - at one point their stuff was so much bigger than people's ideas of the reality around them and now their stories are something you can sort of see coming a mile off. The world's caught up and surpassed them and their stuff just isn't quite as shocking. But that aside, I still liked "A Scanner Darkly" not just for its creative visuals, but in the way it seemed to grapple to define that elusive invisible checkpoint an addict passes in going from the partier up in the penthouse to the outcast down in the outhouse. Part of me hoped, in some vague/unconscious way to duplicate that anti-euphoria I'd felt coming out of Bladerunner drifting around in the rain, just a teenager with no place I had to be or no place I felt like I even should be, but those were different circumstances, and circumstances don't repeat themself in life. So with this realization resonating more than the actual film I cut throught the Tenderloin on my way back home.
As I'm heading back, I pass a guy passed out with a needle stuck in his arm, a junky-prostitute chasing men off the sidewalk, a police car putting a man in cuffs -typical Tenderloin stuff.. it's all fairly depressing but more than anything you are just tired of it. Tired of it on top of everything else that comes at you in life. Feeling bad for these people might happen later on as you're falling asleep in bed, it might not happen at all, but right now you just feel bad for yourself in that it seems like such an extra helping of bullshit on your day off, on top of PG&E, rent, women, your sobriety, etc etc.. When I got home I decided to go for a run. As I'm coming up on the park, it must have been about 9pm, it was just getting dark. I see all these police cars pulled up ONTO the grass in the Panhandle. I start my run. I go around.. start coming up on all the ambulances, fire trucks, cop cars.. and it looks like there's something down on the ground there.. well as I got closer, I could it was a yellow six foot long object they were all standing over. And then closer up the lights from the police cars shined right through it and I coiuld see it was a dead guy with a belly underneath the plastic. I couldn't place who it might be but I did recall this one guy that usually sits on a bench with a transistor that wasn't there that night. Anyhow, I wanted to get my run in but after circling this poor guy about six or seven times I began to feel like vulture and called it off. Hard to feel motiviated about life and your health and not feel a completely immorral person, as you circle a dead guy under plastic worrying about your waste line.
So it was with images of junkies and whores and dead guys that I headed on up to San Rafael today and looked at some one bedroom apartments. I'm forty years old and all I've ever had were studios or shared living situations. I figure it's about time I tried to make a better living situation for myself. Nobody's gonna bring it to you on a paper plate, you got to go and get it. The first one I looked had a lot of woodgrain and brown formica and was a no-go. The second one though was swell looking, with a boyish kind of bachelor quality to it and a lot of old appliances and crazy horizontal Flinstone bricks in the walls. I filled out an application for that one and turned it in. The last place I looked at I just had an address for, no appointment. It was the one I liked best. It's pretty near the Moes and has a real Leave it to Beaver calmness to it. The building is a tasteful gray and u-shaped with a nicely manacured garden and hedges in the middle. It had those old, levered windows that open out and the big fat blinds from the 40's that you rarely see anymore. I talked to the lady on the phone who owns the place and hopefully I'm going to go look at the place in a few days.
I'm pretty close on my car savings account (I want a '60 Ford Falcon) and am closing in on the balance of my goals for the year. A couple of them are still further out there, but I figure I can still get them in before the year is out so long as I stay true to myself and work at them every day. I want to get as far away as I can from the person I was on 10-25-05.
As I'm heading back, I pass a guy passed out with a needle stuck in his arm, a junky-prostitute chasing men off the sidewalk, a police car putting a man in cuffs -typical Tenderloin stuff.. it's all fairly depressing but more than anything you are just tired of it. Tired of it on top of everything else that comes at you in life. Feeling bad for these people might happen later on as you're falling asleep in bed, it might not happen at all, but right now you just feel bad for yourself in that it seems like such an extra helping of bullshit on your day off, on top of PG&E, rent, women, your sobriety, etc etc.. When I got home I decided to go for a run. As I'm coming up on the park, it must have been about 9pm, it was just getting dark. I see all these police cars pulled up ONTO the grass in the Panhandle. I start my run. I go around.. start coming up on all the ambulances, fire trucks, cop cars.. and it looks like there's something down on the ground there.. well as I got closer, I could it was a yellow six foot long object they were all standing over. And then closer up the lights from the police cars shined right through it and I coiuld see it was a dead guy with a belly underneath the plastic. I couldn't place who it might be but I did recall this one guy that usually sits on a bench with a transistor that wasn't there that night. Anyhow, I wanted to get my run in but after circling this poor guy about six or seven times I began to feel like vulture and called it off. Hard to feel motiviated about life and your health and not feel a completely immorral person, as you circle a dead guy under plastic worrying about your waste line.
So it was with images of junkies and whores and dead guys that I headed on up to San Rafael today and looked at some one bedroom apartments. I'm forty years old and all I've ever had were studios or shared living situations. I figure it's about time I tried to make a better living situation for myself. Nobody's gonna bring it to you on a paper plate, you got to go and get it. The first one I looked had a lot of woodgrain and brown formica and was a no-go. The second one though was swell looking, with a boyish kind of bachelor quality to it and a lot of old appliances and crazy horizontal Flinstone bricks in the walls. I filled out an application for that one and turned it in. The last place I looked at I just had an address for, no appointment. It was the one I liked best. It's pretty near the Moes and has a real Leave it to Beaver calmness to it. The building is a tasteful gray and u-shaped with a nicely manacured garden and hedges in the middle. It had those old, levered windows that open out and the big fat blinds from the 40's that you rarely see anymore. I talked to the lady on the phone who owns the place and hopefully I'm going to go look at the place in a few days.
I'm pretty close on my car savings account (I want a '60 Ford Falcon) and am closing in on the balance of my goals for the year. A couple of them are still further out there, but I figure I can still get them in before the year is out so long as I stay true to myself and work at them every day. I want to get as far away as I can from the person I was on 10-25-05.