Four in the morning, the end of December.
I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone before: I don't like the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The movies, I mean. I haven't read the books. I've only seen the movies. It's not that I wasn't entertained, or anything, I mean I got a kick out of them a lot of times, but really, I just think they were bad films. In the big context of everything, they were really some pretty bad films. I just haven't really felt right admitting to this, I mean, I've had some trouble really just admitting it to myself... Everyone's so crazy about them, I mean even the Academy of Awards is crazy about them, but me, I just, I just don't know. They feel so full of shit, like all this flashy shit that's just waving and saying "hey, look how good we can computer-generate things." But it all just seems cartoony, and cartoony is alright, I mean Kill Bill was cartoony and I adored that film (the first volume, anyway), it's just, it's cartoony with the affect of serious filmmaking, I mean it's all executed with the pretense that you're actually supposed to give a shit about what's happening on screen, and not just take some wild or goofy visceral pleasure in it. I'll admit that after the first one I was pretty sucked into the narrative, I mean it wasn't smart but it was just so culturally intrinsic or something, I don't know, it worked, I bought into it. But then in the next two films there's hardly any more quest going on, just these big battles, these big dumb battles that have no bearing on what the first film trained you to believe was going to be the epic arc of the thing. I don't know. It just felt like they'd rounded up all the folks who worked on Xena and Hercules and given them a bigger budget and some better source material.
Earlier I was playing with myself, and I don't mean masturbating, just playing with myself, like knocking my penis around in my pocket just for kicks, not for sexual gratification or anything like that. Really I can't get aroused enough for that any more, I mean there was a period last fall when I could get aroused by fantasies of robotic forms but that's gotten old now too, so the best I can do is just sort of slap it around, and while it's not arousal per se it's at least acknowledging the existence of the thing, which can be comforting. But anyway, I mention this because my pocket, I mean the sort of fringes on the edges of my pocket kept tickling my thigh and eventually I had an itch, so I said hey, I got clever and I used my penis to scratch it. It didn't seem like anything at the time, but later I realized it was a pretty brilliant thing, using my penis to scratch an itch. It was very satisfying, in a like tangentially sexual way. That whole using of the penis to achieve a goal thing, you know? It made me feel pretty good about myself. After that I smelled my hand and I felt shame. I used to be pretty proud, I mean in high school I had this weird sense of pride associated with that smell, but now it's different. Back then I guess I knew that I was supposed to be ashamed that my penis smelled like a penis, that it was bad manners or whatever, but for some reason it didn't really mean anything, it hadn't really sunk in at the time. Now the shame is totally built-in, somewhere along the line the shame became totally built-in. I don't know how that happened.
On television they had a commercial about a dog food, some ultra-scientific dog food they'd invented that they promised would "Increase Vitality" and "Increase Alertness." And I watched that, that alert and vital dog, and I though to myself "Jesus, I need something to increase my vitality and alertness." But I'm not sure the dog food would work the same on people. I mean, it would probably just make me need to poop a lot.
Last night when I had one of those moments where I'm trying to sleep, and suddenly it really sunk in that some day I would die. I mean, as far as I can tell, everyone has those moments, it's like we all know that we're going to die some day, and we make some odd effort to understand our lives in that context, but only when we're trying to sleep does it really sink in. You get that cold, clenching feeling, you know? I don't know. It might just be me. But anyway, last night, it was different, I mean it was the same, but somehow it just sunk in so much deeper that time. Like usually you just find some trick to shut it down, because there's no way to fix it so you just have to trick yourself, like telling yourself that the passage of time is only a product of your perception or like trying to remember what it was like before you were born, or whatever, just something to shut off that chilling clenching feeling so you can get to sleep. But last night was different, I just couldn't come up with anything quick enough, and I had to get out of bad and go to the bathroom to throw up. I've never thrown up just because of a thought before, even though I think about the death thing a lot. It's very strange. I think it's because I'm out of college and have this job now, I mean I remember that what got me on it was thinking about work, about deciding whether or not I should sacrifice a lot of things to stay at Blockbuster just because I know I'm on the fast track to Assistant Manager, or if I should risk it all to take a chance at being something I haven't even thought of yet, like a great artist or some shit, and then it occurred to me that whether I was a manager at Blockbuster, a famous genius motherfucker, or just some bum on the street, and whether or not I had some epic love or just sat in the rain playing with myself all day, that the point would come when I'd die, remember nothing, and all of it wouldn't make any difference. And that would really happen, that that would be more real than any love or any art of any job. And then I threw up. And then I thought about baseball and wondered if the Padres could really take the pennant this year, and then I went to sleep.
Earlier I was playing with myself, and I don't mean masturbating, just playing with myself, like knocking my penis around in my pocket just for kicks, not for sexual gratification or anything like that. Really I can't get aroused enough for that any more, I mean there was a period last fall when I could get aroused by fantasies of robotic forms but that's gotten old now too, so the best I can do is just sort of slap it around, and while it's not arousal per se it's at least acknowledging the existence of the thing, which can be comforting. But anyway, I mention this because my pocket, I mean the sort of fringes on the edges of my pocket kept tickling my thigh and eventually I had an itch, so I said hey, I got clever and I used my penis to scratch it. It didn't seem like anything at the time, but later I realized it was a pretty brilliant thing, using my penis to scratch an itch. It was very satisfying, in a like tangentially sexual way. That whole using of the penis to achieve a goal thing, you know? It made me feel pretty good about myself. After that I smelled my hand and I felt shame. I used to be pretty proud, I mean in high school I had this weird sense of pride associated with that smell, but now it's different. Back then I guess I knew that I was supposed to be ashamed that my penis smelled like a penis, that it was bad manners or whatever, but for some reason it didn't really mean anything, it hadn't really sunk in at the time. Now the shame is totally built-in, somewhere along the line the shame became totally built-in. I don't know how that happened.
On television they had a commercial about a dog food, some ultra-scientific dog food they'd invented that they promised would "Increase Vitality" and "Increase Alertness." And I watched that, that alert and vital dog, and I though to myself "Jesus, I need something to increase my vitality and alertness." But I'm not sure the dog food would work the same on people. I mean, it would probably just make me need to poop a lot.
Last night when I had one of those moments where I'm trying to sleep, and suddenly it really sunk in that some day I would die. I mean, as far as I can tell, everyone has those moments, it's like we all know that we're going to die some day, and we make some odd effort to understand our lives in that context, but only when we're trying to sleep does it really sink in. You get that cold, clenching feeling, you know? I don't know. It might just be me. But anyway, last night, it was different, I mean it was the same, but somehow it just sunk in so much deeper that time. Like usually you just find some trick to shut it down, because there's no way to fix it so you just have to trick yourself, like telling yourself that the passage of time is only a product of your perception or like trying to remember what it was like before you were born, or whatever, just something to shut off that chilling clenching feeling so you can get to sleep. But last night was different, I just couldn't come up with anything quick enough, and I had to get out of bad and go to the bathroom to throw up. I've never thrown up just because of a thought before, even though I think about the death thing a lot. It's very strange. I think it's because I'm out of college and have this job now, I mean I remember that what got me on it was thinking about work, about deciding whether or not I should sacrifice a lot of things to stay at Blockbuster just because I know I'm on the fast track to Assistant Manager, or if I should risk it all to take a chance at being something I haven't even thought of yet, like a great artist or some shit, and then it occurred to me that whether I was a manager at Blockbuster, a famous genius motherfucker, or just some bum on the street, and whether or not I had some epic love or just sat in the rain playing with myself all day, that the point would come when I'd die, remember nothing, and all of it wouldn't make any difference. And that would really happen, that that would be more real than any love or any art of any job. And then I threw up. And then I thought about baseball and wondered if the Padres could really take the pennant this year, and then I went to sleep.