Spite Day
Been a while.
Not much to report, but I figured it was worth elaborating on a few recent developments, so here goes. This'll probably be brief, since I've got one mother of a headache.
I had a good Halloween. I have so few. The last Halloween I had off, I was in Venice, two years ago. I put on a Carnivale mask and wandered the streets looking for lust personified, in the form of cold, shivering sex or fists raised triumphantly against anybody and barking at the autumn moon. I didn't find it. I went to Harry's Bar, like Hemingway would have, and I sat for an hour or two in my overcoat before mazing my way back to my hostel, stealing a ride on the water taxi halfway along. I went back into my room and killed a dozen mosquitoes before loneliness and self-hatred sang me to sleep like a funeral dirge, and not long after I was on my way to Ferrara, Rome, Naples, far away from the city I loved so badly but poisened my blood so thoroughly with despair.
This year was better. I normally work during what is my favorite holiday, so I was really amped to do something this year. And Halloween is my favorite holiday, though not for the most conventional reasons. As boastful as it sounds, I do not scare easily. I certainly feel a great deal of pressure, I worry and fret about the future, but raw terror is an emotion that has been alien to me for many years. Being a materialist, I know there are no ghosts out to get me, no creatures to hunt me. Not even a God to punish me. So fear, or at least fear of the unknown, is largely outside the compass of my emotions. But on Halloween, some people consider it their duty to make a valid attempt, and even if it doesn't work in practice, I greatly appreciate the attempt. If nothing else, I derive an extreme amount of joy from playing the frighteners' games, especially so if I'm with others.
This year, on Halloween, myself, Cyn, her roommate Jaine, and their classmates Zach and Stephenson, piled into a car and drove out to see a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was a good time. I didn't have time for a proper costume, but I got suitably odd for the RHPS, and happily, the girlfriend and her roommate were doing their deliciously skanky best to dress to theme. Oh, Halloween, how I love what you do for the female sex... The following evening, the girlfriend and her two roommates, Jaine and Danielle, went to a local haunted house attraction park, where I got to play along with the actors trying to scare us. It, too, was a fantastic time, and I had a lot of sport with trying to lose Cyn and Jaine in order to leave them terrified (it worked plenty of times, mind you). All told, I had a really good time. I haven't had so much fun in awhile, and it was really cool, to the point that I'm depressingly nostalgic for a short three weeks ago.
That aside. I'm still looking for a new job, as always. I've enlisted myself in a handful of professional staffing agencies who have promised to have me a suitable new job in no more than two weeks (their time is up tomorrow morning), and I've applied for jobs as a Travel Agent and Security Supervisor. Apparently, the last five years of security work on my resume seem to make me ill-suited to office work, by the reckoning of my would-be employers, despite the fact that the bulk of security work is filing reports, filling out forms, doing payroll... Plus ca change, non?
Spite Day; For the Rest of Us
As one might expect, I didn't really celebrate Thanksgiving in any meaningful sense. I didn't have to work (for a change), but I didn't really have anywhere to go, either. That isn't anybody's fault, it's just how it went down. In light of this, as I found myself alone, at home, on the afternoon of the holiday itself, I decided to get up and do something other than just arse it all night. So I invented Spite Day, a celebration for those who haven't a community to get together and gorge with, a holiday for those whom the only thanks they have to give are for the sweat of their own brows.
Traditionally, Spite Day is celebrated alone, though I suppose you could bring a fellow commiserator, if you so desire. All you really need to celebrate Spite Day is a good book and a diner that's open on holidays, and all you have to do to celebrate Spite Day is to gather said book and go to said diner, whereupon you order whatever the fuck you goddamn well please (because it's your goddamn money, and you fucking earned it), sit, read, and eat. This year's sacrament was taken with copious black coffee and a steady stream of cigarettes (highly recommended together, should such be your inclination and legality of your locale permitting), broken up only by the meal itself, which, this year, was prime rib with stuffed mushrooms, salad, bread, soup, all that shit. I sat and read Henry Rollins' Solipsist and then came home breathing fire and ready to kick someone's head in. So all told, I had a pretty good Spite Day.
As I was reading that evening, I chanced across an entry that I thought spoke a great deal to my current situation, and because I'm in the mood, I thought I'd quote it here:
"Autumn is here and the early darkness is depressing I know. Autumn is here and you feel absolutely no interest in going on. Ending your life seems like the best way to deal with the boredom and savagery that this urban failure brings upon you. It's this season that can save you if you let it. Hail the oncoming winter weather. Soon it will be silent and cold. The nights will be safe and frozen. Germ free. Humans are toxic but easier to take in this weather. Their smell is down somewhat. Don't end your life in a dimly lit room. Don't let the dead end of your job destroy you. The cold air is good for you. Walking alone is one of the best breaks you ever get. No one to have to put up with. No one to disturb your thoughts. No one to have to come home to. If you need company, you can always play an Art Tatum record. Fall is coming and the idiots are back in the suburbs they crawled out of on their insect legs. The wood burning fires are filling the night air, making it worth sticking around for. In defense of fall weather! Tip: Don't blow your brains out. Sleep is better in cold weather. Autumn is the time when a good book is a better friend than your panicked urban compressionist. Falling leaves and grey sky are the time of the greats; Poe and Dostoyevsky come alive on cold nights. Raskolnikov's madness will speak clearly to you. Knut Hamsun's character, Nagel, was always a cold weather man. Company is nice, but only if they keep their mouths shut and leave when you want them to. And since they never do, let's leave them out of this. The summer leaves me feeling old and wrong. It's only in the Autumn where I can take breaths that make me want to take more breaths. This is important. I know that most of the things I am trying tgo do will end in total failure and disappointment. I know I will have a later life that will be bitter and full of regret. I know that many of the people I worked hard to please will let me down, as I will eventually let them down. I see that no matter what I do, I will always be solitary and somewhat tragic. But I will always enjoy the grey solemn solitude of this season that grows darker and colder, day by day. The season that seduces and prepares me for the greatest season of them all. Winter. The season of heroes and gods."
Not much to report, but I figured it was worth elaborating on a few recent developments, so here goes. This'll probably be brief, since I've got one mother of a headache.
I had a good Halloween. I have so few. The last Halloween I had off, I was in Venice, two years ago. I put on a Carnivale mask and wandered the streets looking for lust personified, in the form of cold, shivering sex or fists raised triumphantly against anybody and barking at the autumn moon. I didn't find it. I went to Harry's Bar, like Hemingway would have, and I sat for an hour or two in my overcoat before mazing my way back to my hostel, stealing a ride on the water taxi halfway along. I went back into my room and killed a dozen mosquitoes before loneliness and self-hatred sang me to sleep like a funeral dirge, and not long after I was on my way to Ferrara, Rome, Naples, far away from the city I loved so badly but poisened my blood so thoroughly with despair.
This year was better. I normally work during what is my favorite holiday, so I was really amped to do something this year. And Halloween is my favorite holiday, though not for the most conventional reasons. As boastful as it sounds, I do not scare easily. I certainly feel a great deal of pressure, I worry and fret about the future, but raw terror is an emotion that has been alien to me for many years. Being a materialist, I know there are no ghosts out to get me, no creatures to hunt me. Not even a God to punish me. So fear, or at least fear of the unknown, is largely outside the compass of my emotions. But on Halloween, some people consider it their duty to make a valid attempt, and even if it doesn't work in practice, I greatly appreciate the attempt. If nothing else, I derive an extreme amount of joy from playing the frighteners' games, especially so if I'm with others.
This year, on Halloween, myself, Cyn, her roommate Jaine, and their classmates Zach and Stephenson, piled into a car and drove out to see a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was a good time. I didn't have time for a proper costume, but I got suitably odd for the RHPS, and happily, the girlfriend and her roommate were doing their deliciously skanky best to dress to theme. Oh, Halloween, how I love what you do for the female sex... The following evening, the girlfriend and her two roommates, Jaine and Danielle, went to a local haunted house attraction park, where I got to play along with the actors trying to scare us. It, too, was a fantastic time, and I had a lot of sport with trying to lose Cyn and Jaine in order to leave them terrified (it worked plenty of times, mind you). All told, I had a really good time. I haven't had so much fun in awhile, and it was really cool, to the point that I'm depressingly nostalgic for a short three weeks ago.
That aside. I'm still looking for a new job, as always. I've enlisted myself in a handful of professional staffing agencies who have promised to have me a suitable new job in no more than two weeks (their time is up tomorrow morning), and I've applied for jobs as a Travel Agent and Security Supervisor. Apparently, the last five years of security work on my resume seem to make me ill-suited to office work, by the reckoning of my would-be employers, despite the fact that the bulk of security work is filing reports, filling out forms, doing payroll... Plus ca change, non?
Spite Day; For the Rest of Us
As one might expect, I didn't really celebrate Thanksgiving in any meaningful sense. I didn't have to work (for a change), but I didn't really have anywhere to go, either. That isn't anybody's fault, it's just how it went down. In light of this, as I found myself alone, at home, on the afternoon of the holiday itself, I decided to get up and do something other than just arse it all night. So I invented Spite Day, a celebration for those who haven't a community to get together and gorge with, a holiday for those whom the only thanks they have to give are for the sweat of their own brows.
Traditionally, Spite Day is celebrated alone, though I suppose you could bring a fellow commiserator, if you so desire. All you really need to celebrate Spite Day is a good book and a diner that's open on holidays, and all you have to do to celebrate Spite Day is to gather said book and go to said diner, whereupon you order whatever the fuck you goddamn well please (because it's your goddamn money, and you fucking earned it), sit, read, and eat. This year's sacrament was taken with copious black coffee and a steady stream of cigarettes (highly recommended together, should such be your inclination and legality of your locale permitting), broken up only by the meal itself, which, this year, was prime rib with stuffed mushrooms, salad, bread, soup, all that shit. I sat and read Henry Rollins' Solipsist and then came home breathing fire and ready to kick someone's head in. So all told, I had a pretty good Spite Day.
As I was reading that evening, I chanced across an entry that I thought spoke a great deal to my current situation, and because I'm in the mood, I thought I'd quote it here:
"Autumn is here and the early darkness is depressing I know. Autumn is here and you feel absolutely no interest in going on. Ending your life seems like the best way to deal with the boredom and savagery that this urban failure brings upon you. It's this season that can save you if you let it. Hail the oncoming winter weather. Soon it will be silent and cold. The nights will be safe and frozen. Germ free. Humans are toxic but easier to take in this weather. Their smell is down somewhat. Don't end your life in a dimly lit room. Don't let the dead end of your job destroy you. The cold air is good for you. Walking alone is one of the best breaks you ever get. No one to have to put up with. No one to disturb your thoughts. No one to have to come home to. If you need company, you can always play an Art Tatum record. Fall is coming and the idiots are back in the suburbs they crawled out of on their insect legs. The wood burning fires are filling the night air, making it worth sticking around for. In defense of fall weather! Tip: Don't blow your brains out. Sleep is better in cold weather. Autumn is the time when a good book is a better friend than your panicked urban compressionist. Falling leaves and grey sky are the time of the greats; Poe and Dostoyevsky come alive on cold nights. Raskolnikov's madness will speak clearly to you. Knut Hamsun's character, Nagel, was always a cold weather man. Company is nice, but only if they keep their mouths shut and leave when you want them to. And since they never do, let's leave them out of this. The summer leaves me feeling old and wrong. It's only in the Autumn where I can take breaths that make me want to take more breaths. This is important. I know that most of the things I am trying tgo do will end in total failure and disappointment. I know I will have a later life that will be bitter and full of regret. I know that many of the people I worked hard to please will let me down, as I will eventually let them down. I see that no matter what I do, I will always be solitary and somewhat tragic. But I will always enjoy the grey solemn solitude of this season that grows darker and colder, day by day. The season that seduces and prepares me for the greatest season of them all. Winter. The season of heroes and gods."