(no subject)
"plan c (quiz show)"
Basically, as my mood states. Drawn and quartered from the recent events that seem almost criminal to omit at this conjecture, I'm faced first and foremost with the decision to either simply state my recent goings-on in a bland, deadpan narrative (which is almost impossible for me to do, as you all probably well know) or tell the story like I'm actually..telling a story, thereby eliminating any trace of personalization and alienating anybody who gives a rat's ass. I don't feel comfortable doing either. Is there a way for me to balance things out without vomiting from overexertion? I don't know. I just don't know. But I'm going to try. Because everything right now seems so peculiar, almost scripted by somebody else, not from the hand of God but from the hand of some cynical thirtysomething writer living in Manhattan (the kind of writer I HATE). And I swear upon the ghost of Mel Carnahan that if I turn a corner and surprise a guerilla trio of cameraman, sound guy, and director, I'm turning around, packing all my shit up and moving back to Missouri. However, before I completely raise hell, I'm still doing just fine, thank you. In the big scheme of things, none of what I'm about to write is really all that important. Or, like my father used to say during times of chaos, or mutter between the plastic filter of a Swisher Sweet, rather, "Shit, none of this is gonna matter in a hundred years anyway."
Still, it obviously matters to me now..doesn't it?
One day, all of you are finally going to have your revenge on me, although it may or may not occur to you at the very moment my karmic debt is repayed. Years could go by, long after my name for any of you invokes even the faintest memory. But you people out there, the ones who did exactly what you thought you were supposed to do? The ones who I read about, who earned their degree and are going to work every day whether you all enjoy it or not? Maybe not real soon, but eventually you will find yourself safe and warm in your paid-for houses, and I will be toothless and alone on the streets of Cincinnati, never to have done anything productive with my life. Or I will be long, long dead thanks to some unsolved boating mystery or poker game gone horribly awry. Know this.
Because my ass, upon waking up at the break of noon today, had his cup of coffee con Camel Light and groggily planned out my "to-do list": In order of completion:
1. Check, and potentially answer e-mail/LJ comments, since I have computer access for at least a couple more days.
2. Purchase cigarettes, although they are very expensive here.
2 1/2. Still reading?
3. Wait until later tonight and go to this bar and meet a "friend" of Eric's and an ex-friend of Eric's fiance, who responds to the name of Ashley, who we ran into at the same bar the other night and who Eric told of our plans to get out of Dodge (Boston is the furthest thing from Dodge, mind you), and decided she wanted to go, although at first we both said NO, and now Eric's kind of changed his mind and wants Ashley to go along because Ashley keeps calling him up and pestering him on the subject, and now he's all "dude, you never know, she might be the one so why not," and I'm all, "dude, I think she's too young for you and especially for this, and women are only going to complicate this, so that's why not", and now I'm meeting her, on Eric's insistence, so the two of us can "get acquainted", but "don't make any moves on her, I call dibs."
4. DIBS?! Ashley is a human being, and not shotgun for crying out loud.
5. Fuck you, Eric. Jesus.
Anyway, I went to This Bar with the most humble of intentions, to listen to why on earth she'd even be interested in going up there with the two of us (of all people) in the first place. To either politely tell poor little Ashley I'm real sorry but I just don't think this is a good idea, or to play the psycho card and frighten her away using what drama skills left over from my thespian days in primary school. "Hands DOWN the best fourth grade Christmas play we have ever seen," they said. "A triumph," chirped Variety.
Have you ever just gone into a situation with the most basic of intentions and the most easily accessible of goals and just somehow lost all backbone and failed miserably? Because that's what I did, mere hours ago. Me! Okay, maybe those who know me will know that this isn't saying incredibly much, but I have to confess that I was steeled. I got at This Bar first, like I always do when meeting someone, and mentally prepared myself. Like a motherfucker. I had speeches rehearsed, a piece of paper with questions on it, and I attended (most gently and discreetly) to the nosehair "situation", for extra emphasis. "This won't be a problem," I sat in my very comfortable booth and warned myself, "She's obviously just a bored 22 year-old, with no other intention but a vague desire to leave the nest and to do something she can tell her grandchildren about one day. She can get her own damn grandchildren-tellin' stories, as I'm having no part in it."
Enter Ashley. Ashley comes in, and I rise to greet her. Ashley gives me a hug, one of those girl wrap-both-arms-around-a-guy's-neck kind of hugs. It becomes uncomfortably obvious that Ashley chose not to wear a bra this evening, something 4 out of 5 dentists would not recommend. Ashley rode in, just like Rainbow Brite, on a fucking unicorn. Enemies, freedom-haters, shot bullets at Ashley, and do you know what she did? She caught those bullets in her TEETH like it never happened. Ashley, with her big brown eyes and her flawless complexion, with her Ashley-voice resonating through still good but not quite perfect teeth and her cherry-flavored hair, systematically and forever ruined me as a man. Now, there is nothing left of me. Put a fork in me, friends, as I am finally done.
Before the fingers start waving, I will adamantly maintain (and I swear I will to the grave) that this has nothing to do with love or its bastard cousin, lust. No. No, no, no. It's just that she's so fucking nice, far nicer than any woman of her status and position should be. She couldn't maintain her friendship with Maddy because of how she treated Eric, how she went behind Eric's back and did "all kinds of terrible shit." She still lives with her parents, works as a waitress, and never pursued higher education for about the same reasons I avoided it. Ashley likes to write, and we talked about books for like, an hour. She wants to go up with us "because it seems like a good opportunity to straighten some things out for myself. Not major things..but..things. Ex-boyfriend things. Shitty father things."
I tried. I desperately tried to turn up the volume of the harsh, authoritative voices that once held such prominence in my head prior to Ashley's arrival, and tell her, no, this is about brotherhood and all you're going to do is distract us from my writing and Eric's whatever he wants to do. But she kept asking questions about me, diverting the conversation away from the topic at hand. And, unlike Eric, she was actually listening to my responses, asking follow-up questions, and ended with oh-so-flattering conclusions about how nice of a guy I actually am and it's amazing what I can see in your eyes, the goodness and the honesty. She liked my belt buckle. I even told her my new joke that I ripped off from luckaduck's info page:
Me, "Heh. Knock, knock."
Ashley, "Who's there?"
Me, "Orange."
Ashley, "Heh. Orange who?"
Me (shouting), "LINDSAY LOHAN!"
And we laughed the effortless laughter of children who have never known war or chicken pox.
The last nail in the coffin, after some beers (Ashley can drink with the best of them. And the worst of them too, obviously), I discovered just how lovely Ashley's singing voice is.
Okay. Even now, it's obvious I need to smoke a cigarette and regroup. Okay. People. Please endure one more confession in a narrative that's already full of confessions, but when I drink, and when I drink in Boston, I can't help but have the need to sing O Danny Boy. The song rules, it harkens back to my own dubious Irish heritage, and is tinged with such emotion is makes an old sap like me wistful for the old days. Not only, like myself, did she know all the damn words, we managed, at least by "And come ye back / When summer's in the meadow" to harmonize. It was amazing we didn't have an audience at this point, but I don't know this city very well, and perhaps people here are used to this (or upset with tonight's defeat of the Sox).
At the end of the evening, when it came to the matter of her dismissal, her rejection, what do you think happened? After O Danny Boy, what was I supposed to do? Am I, at the end of the day, only a man? Am I not flesh and blood? Do I have the authority to prevent people, good salt-of-the-earth type people, from fulfilling their destiny? Absolutely not. I don't want or need that kind of guilt on my shoulders.
Fuck it. All of you naysayers can keep on saying nay, the advice-givers can keep on with their purely-intentioned advice, and all those suspended in disbelief can keep hanging there for all I care. I decided that it would be fantastic if Ashley came along to Maine with us. Thank you all for your patience and your time. We are leaving this city soon. Rules are meant to be broken, and Ashley is now the little sister I always wanted in life but never had. And I'll be goddamned if Eric lays a dirty paw on her. Goddamned.
Basically, as my mood states. Drawn and quartered from the recent events that seem almost criminal to omit at this conjecture, I'm faced first and foremost with the decision to either simply state my recent goings-on in a bland, deadpan narrative (which is almost impossible for me to do, as you all probably well know) or tell the story like I'm actually..telling a story, thereby eliminating any trace of personalization and alienating anybody who gives a rat's ass. I don't feel comfortable doing either. Is there a way for me to balance things out without vomiting from overexertion? I don't know. I just don't know. But I'm going to try. Because everything right now seems so peculiar, almost scripted by somebody else, not from the hand of God but from the hand of some cynical thirtysomething writer living in Manhattan (the kind of writer I HATE). And I swear upon the ghost of Mel Carnahan that if I turn a corner and surprise a guerilla trio of cameraman, sound guy, and director, I'm turning around, packing all my shit up and moving back to Missouri. However, before I completely raise hell, I'm still doing just fine, thank you. In the big scheme of things, none of what I'm about to write is really all that important. Or, like my father used to say during times of chaos, or mutter between the plastic filter of a Swisher Sweet, rather, "Shit, none of this is gonna matter in a hundred years anyway."
Still, it obviously matters to me now..doesn't it?
One day, all of you are finally going to have your revenge on me, although it may or may not occur to you at the very moment my karmic debt is repayed. Years could go by, long after my name for any of you invokes even the faintest memory. But you people out there, the ones who did exactly what you thought you were supposed to do? The ones who I read about, who earned their degree and are going to work every day whether you all enjoy it or not? Maybe not real soon, but eventually you will find yourself safe and warm in your paid-for houses, and I will be toothless and alone on the streets of Cincinnati, never to have done anything productive with my life. Or I will be long, long dead thanks to some unsolved boating mystery or poker game gone horribly awry. Know this.
Because my ass, upon waking up at the break of noon today, had his cup of coffee con Camel Light and groggily planned out my "to-do list": In order of completion:
1. Check, and potentially answer e-mail/LJ comments, since I have computer access for at least a couple more days.
2. Purchase cigarettes, although they are very expensive here.
2 1/2. Still reading?
3. Wait until later tonight and go to this bar and meet a "friend" of Eric's and an ex-friend of Eric's fiance, who responds to the name of Ashley, who we ran into at the same bar the other night and who Eric told of our plans to get out of Dodge (Boston is the furthest thing from Dodge, mind you), and decided she wanted to go, although at first we both said NO, and now Eric's kind of changed his mind and wants Ashley to go along because Ashley keeps calling him up and pestering him on the subject, and now he's all "dude, you never know, she might be the one so why not," and I'm all, "dude, I think she's too young for you and especially for this, and women are only going to complicate this, so that's why not", and now I'm meeting her, on Eric's insistence, so the two of us can "get acquainted", but "don't make any moves on her, I call dibs."
4. DIBS?! Ashley is a human being, and not shotgun for crying out loud.
5. Fuck you, Eric. Jesus.
Anyway, I went to This Bar with the most humble of intentions, to listen to why on earth she'd even be interested in going up there with the two of us (of all people) in the first place. To either politely tell poor little Ashley I'm real sorry but I just don't think this is a good idea, or to play the psycho card and frighten her away using what drama skills left over from my thespian days in primary school. "Hands DOWN the best fourth grade Christmas play we have ever seen," they said. "A triumph," chirped Variety.
Have you ever just gone into a situation with the most basic of intentions and the most easily accessible of goals and just somehow lost all backbone and failed miserably? Because that's what I did, mere hours ago. Me! Okay, maybe those who know me will know that this isn't saying incredibly much, but I have to confess that I was steeled. I got at This Bar first, like I always do when meeting someone, and mentally prepared myself. Like a motherfucker. I had speeches rehearsed, a piece of paper with questions on it, and I attended (most gently and discreetly) to the nosehair "situation", for extra emphasis. "This won't be a problem," I sat in my very comfortable booth and warned myself, "She's obviously just a bored 22 year-old, with no other intention but a vague desire to leave the nest and to do something she can tell her grandchildren about one day. She can get her own damn grandchildren-tellin' stories, as I'm having no part in it."
Enter Ashley. Ashley comes in, and I rise to greet her. Ashley gives me a hug, one of those girl wrap-both-arms-around-a-guy's-neck kind of hugs. It becomes uncomfortably obvious that Ashley chose not to wear a bra this evening, something 4 out of 5 dentists would not recommend. Ashley rode in, just like Rainbow Brite, on a fucking unicorn. Enemies, freedom-haters, shot bullets at Ashley, and do you know what she did? She caught those bullets in her TEETH like it never happened. Ashley, with her big brown eyes and her flawless complexion, with her Ashley-voice resonating through still good but not quite perfect teeth and her cherry-flavored hair, systematically and forever ruined me as a man. Now, there is nothing left of me. Put a fork in me, friends, as I am finally done.
Before the fingers start waving, I will adamantly maintain (and I swear I will to the grave) that this has nothing to do with love or its bastard cousin, lust. No. No, no, no. It's just that she's so fucking nice, far nicer than any woman of her status and position should be. She couldn't maintain her friendship with Maddy because of how she treated Eric, how she went behind Eric's back and did "all kinds of terrible shit." She still lives with her parents, works as a waitress, and never pursued higher education for about the same reasons I avoided it. Ashley likes to write, and we talked about books for like, an hour. She wants to go up with us "because it seems like a good opportunity to straighten some things out for myself. Not major things..but..things. Ex-boyfriend things. Shitty father things."
I tried. I desperately tried to turn up the volume of the harsh, authoritative voices that once held such prominence in my head prior to Ashley's arrival, and tell her, no, this is about brotherhood and all you're going to do is distract us from my writing and Eric's whatever he wants to do. But she kept asking questions about me, diverting the conversation away from the topic at hand. And, unlike Eric, she was actually listening to my responses, asking follow-up questions, and ended with oh-so-flattering conclusions about how nice of a guy I actually am and it's amazing what I can see in your eyes, the goodness and the honesty. She liked my belt buckle. I even told her my new joke that I ripped off from luckaduck's info page:
Me, "Heh. Knock, knock."
Ashley, "Who's there?"
Me, "Orange."
Ashley, "Heh. Orange who?"
Me (shouting), "LINDSAY LOHAN!"
And we laughed the effortless laughter of children who have never known war or chicken pox.
The last nail in the coffin, after some beers (Ashley can drink with the best of them. And the worst of them too, obviously), I discovered just how lovely Ashley's singing voice is.
Okay. Even now, it's obvious I need to smoke a cigarette and regroup. Okay. People. Please endure one more confession in a narrative that's already full of confessions, but when I drink, and when I drink in Boston, I can't help but have the need to sing O Danny Boy. The song rules, it harkens back to my own dubious Irish heritage, and is tinged with such emotion is makes an old sap like me wistful for the old days. Not only, like myself, did she know all the damn words, we managed, at least by "And come ye back / When summer's in the meadow" to harmonize. It was amazing we didn't have an audience at this point, but I don't know this city very well, and perhaps people here are used to this (or upset with tonight's defeat of the Sox).
At the end of the evening, when it came to the matter of her dismissal, her rejection, what do you think happened? After O Danny Boy, what was I supposed to do? Am I, at the end of the day, only a man? Am I not flesh and blood? Do I have the authority to prevent people, good salt-of-the-earth type people, from fulfilling their destiny? Absolutely not. I don't want or need that kind of guilt on my shoulders.
Fuck it. All of you naysayers can keep on saying nay, the advice-givers can keep on with their purely-intentioned advice, and all those suspended in disbelief can keep hanging there for all I care. I decided that it would be fantastic if Ashley came along to Maine with us. Thank you all for your patience and your time. We are leaving this city soon. Rules are meant to be broken, and Ashley is now the little sister I always wanted in life but never had. And I'll be goddamned if Eric lays a dirty paw on her. Goddamned.