Say Anything
This one turned out okay. It's not that I'm this huge Breton fan. We read Nadja in my Modern Literature class and instead of discussing it and taking notes I sat and drew the pictures from the book. People in my graphic novel class ask me if I can draw their comics for them (and, truly I'm not that good) so I show them this drawing which took about an hour and a half and explain that this drawing equates to maybe one panel of a comic. For me to do even a twelve-page book would take days. Besides, we don't have to draw our comics for that class. It's a writing course, not an art course. I can draw okay pictures if I'm using a reference, but only portraits like these. I can't draw objects or scenery. What good is a comic without action?
It's been a tough week. In the last comic I made I referenced Elliott Smith's song "I Better be Quiet Now" (thanks to Jocine for putting it on a mix for me years and years ago) and, of course, I've been listening to it a lot and you can read the lyrics here and make the proper connections. Often we have the impulse to let the work of others to speak for us, and right now I believe I am the proverbial John Cusack holding the stereo outside her window even though I'll admit I've never seen Say Anything and I don't intend to. Anyway--and there is a point to this--Elliott says "a lot of hours to occupy it was easy/ when i didn't know you yet,/ things i'd have to forget" and I guess that'll explain where I'm at right now. When I'm at school I don't really talk to anyone or have anything to do and when I come home I might see Pfleegor or Derek, but generally I don't really talk to anyone or have anything to do. My phone doesn't ring anymore and I secretly wish it would.
So now I have this not-so-secret hate for everybody for moving on with their lives, wherein I'm at a place where I can't. I resent all my friends in other places, be it Tallahassee, Orlando, Boston, Chicago or wherever they are without me. And, of course, it'd be real easy for them to say "well just come up here!" or "you'll make new friends" and all of that bullshit. It's real easy for somebody to tell me I need to be adventurous, or that I need to begin to make life-altering decisions about my future. It's very easy. In fact I can go ahead and tell myself those things because it's easy to say anything. It'd be easy to tell my pal Domenick, who at once was the only person I could count on at USF to hang out with and now that role is vacant, that I'll come visit him in Boston whenever, but it's very likely I won't be able to. It'd be endlessly easy to tell my parents that I'll look for a job, but that doesn't mean I could find good work that fits around my fucked-up school schedule.
I resent the fun that I'm not having, and know I can't have. I know it's not as easy as just attending "$10 sink or swim" and getting totally trashed and letting my inhibitions go. I can say that I'll go, and I can tell people I'll have had a good time on the drive home, but there's a stark difference between having a fun night and a fun life. I do not have a fun life. A fun life includes people you can call up whenever and who will call you up whenever to do something incredibly stupid at the risk of no one's feelings.
I can tell myself that I'll move on from it all and somebody else can then tell me that they understand and that will be a lie, but a neccessary one, and it'll be okay for a while until I get back to thinking about things and realize that so much of our relationships are not structured upon honest care and concern but our own expectations of what we can get out of person A or B; that I'm just making up for what I had lost before, and before that, and before that, and before that. And at first they'll think it's very cute and charming that I'm a little depressed, like Elliott Smith, until they realize that that actually entails. Because unlike Mr. Smith, I'm not being asked to tour the country and play songs. I'm making my living, right now, finishing up a degree. After that everything is uncertain. As a teenager I couldn't imagine being past 25. I honestly thought I would have killed myself by then. Anyway, they'll think it's real cute that I'm this broken man, but eventually it becomes a peeve and they'll ask me why I'm not hanging around somebody with the same problems and I try to explain that it would be the last thing I need and that I really can be adventurous and fun if I only was pushed. I've been on rollercoasters before, but I literally had to be forced to do it and I suppose I don't regret it since I didn't throw up although my eyes were closed the entire time.