To the Homeless Man Around the Corner

We're not so different,  you and I.

That maybe insensitive of me to say but we are both struggling to come out of this with some finesse, some morsel of evidence that our efforts weren't for naught.

Everyday at 7 PM I observe you, and you are always huddled in that same little spot in front of the Dunkin Donuts. The 13th street, Dunkin Donuts. The 13th and Juniper, Dunkin Donuts. The gay, loud, and proud, Dunkin Donuts.  You always exude just the right amount of vulnerability, enough that I can feel something tug at my heart and for a moment, I want to run to you, give you whatever you ask for. But then the devil/economist on my shoulder reminds me that you'd probably ask for drugs or something totally unconstructive, like crayons and paper clips. As I walk by you, you shiver, rubbing your hands against each other for warmth on this 80 degree humid summer night. And right then I knew that your frigidity had zero correlation to the weather. Your physical condition is an emanation of the human condition, or the lack thereof. Your presence is certainly hard to miss by the clumps of pedestrians, yet at best it incites fleeting sympathy and at worst, disgust. I wonder if each of them are having the same thought process as mine, down to the uncannily similar tiny economist sitting on the right shoulder, whispering a verbatim rationale. 

But like good instruments of logic, we heeded our shoulder economists. Reaching out would cost too much. More than we could give. Plus you would want more, or you would put it to ill use. An excuse, a lie, a hop, and a skip away lay our typical Wednesday night routines. Waiting with promises of interminable comforts and immortality. As if life would fall into line and succumb under our whips of fabricated order and structure. Before returning to my overly scheduled Wed arrangements, I try to pause and take this in. The thought of ceasing to exist gives me sick-chills. Realizing this, I yearned for a loved one, and fuck did I crave wings. 

The shoulder economist gives one of my strings a tug, and I feel my feet start to hit the pavement again. "You're late," a voice slices clean through my thoughts. But it didn't wipe the blade, because out of the two of us, the clearly deranged homeless man and I, I wondered who had got it right. And as far as my cold bones could tell there was nothing wrong with asking for crayons and paper clips. 

Spill

I miss you. 

a lot.

I had to tell somebody. 

But you know. 

Dreams don't come true because we don't dream

Every once in a while I am pleasantly reminded of how childlike I still am.

I've been watching James Bond movies and I can't stop thinking about what it might be like to be James Bond or find a best friend like James Bond.

When I am in different settings now, I make sure to scope my environment for escape routes and high elevation climbing potential. You know, in case I have to chase a bomb maker or an international terrorist.

Even when I am running or in gym class, and I start to feel that burning sensation in my muscles which tells me to give up, I think about how much more I still have to train to be like James Bond. It's insane but I feel reborn. Like I have a new reason to do everything that I do now. Nevermind the practicality of this all.

What I really wonder is why, if we have the potential to make movies and write books about awesome characters, aren't there any real awesome people out there. Where are all the buddhist hitmen hiding???

Free-doom

The glass is either half empty or half full.

You either have freedom or you're incredibly lonely and bored.

In the past 2 days, I have experienced painful and bedazzling moments of both. I guess I'll just do a quick categorize:

- INCREDIBLY LONELY AND BORED (AND INEXPLICABLY TIRED): A day that consists of sleeping till noon, staring at the monitor until the words blur into vomit inducing chunks, "napping" some more, then more agonizingly pointless blank stares, until it's finally time for bed

- TOTAL AND UTTER FREEDOM: Getting into that shape you always wanted, in my case it's a straight 1 pt line. Running and hitting the gym has left me sore, but definitely grateful I have the time for it now.

- INCREDIBLY LONELY AND BORED: Being on gmail for more than 6 hours a day. Granted the biggest reason is to check for employer emails but honestly, I don't even like human contact that much.

- INCREDIBLY LONELY AND BORED (AND DESPERATE): Stalking employers and anxiously awaiting phone calls like you that girl who just went on a first date with an awesome guy--- but you also slept with him so you're a little nervous.

- TOTAL AND UTTER FREEDOM: Wow I never thought these would fit in this category but getting errands together. Budgeting, attempting to set up the internet then realizing it would be more cost effective to steal internet, finding a place to trade all your inane trivia and joke books. Etc Etc.

- Unsure if these would be products of freedom or insanity:

- Cleaning the bathroom and inadvertently getting overly worked up that we have to pay for toilet paper. Seriously. Think about it. When did businesses convince us that we had to wipe our asses with toilet paper, AND that we had to pay for it. I could wipe my ass with newspaper if I so wished. Toilet paper, it doesn't make any sense.

- Attending a "Ranger Workout" class at the gym where you had to run in place for 2 minutes and perform cadence calls. The class is designed to mimic a drill camp, the instructor at one point even got in my face and shouted: "What number are we on, I CANT HEAR YOU. I bet you wanna hit me right now doncha." It took everything I had to fight the urge to go: "NO SIR NO." And what are PT Tests?

- Sketching, doodling, blogging, and going insane.

So I guess if anyone ever asked me whether the glass was half full or half empty. I'd say something along the lines of: It's half full when I'm not thirsty at all and half empty when I'm parched.

In the end, I'll be happily insane doing whatever because I believe my biggest job is keeping myself entertained, and that's a job that's not getting outsourced, ever. (It's not about distrust of labor quality as much as I just don't think anyone would want it:)

Patterns

It was still dark when my eyes opened. Blinking a few, what shifted into focus was your back. It seemed so far away. Forcing my eyes shut, I tried to temper the nausea that was rising up, threatening to pin me down in some eternal twilight zone where you were drifting, farther and further away. It was some crappy old futon, hardly a galaxy far far away. I think I hate large gaps because of you. Nevermind gaps, chasms. To think that one point could be so unbearably far from another. What madness in such space. Shutting my eyes only made me peek more. Sure enough, you were floating, and you didn't even budge. A red glare in the corner sufficed as a distraction of mere seconds, 3:34 Am. I think it's safe to say, I have never woken up at 3:34 Am, consider it a fucking new activity. If I had just tried to tap you, it would have been a reality check. No, didn't want to wake you. My arms were lead, my whole body, cement. Trapped inside a host body where it hurt to inhale. Trapped on an unfamiliar bed next to someone you no longer own the rights to. Trapped in frustration because you wish they could sense how much pain you were in or at least the eyes fixed on their back. Trapped wishing they fucking gave a shit. Trapped because you don't know how to make sense of how someone couldn't don even a morsel of concern after so long. Trapped to finally understand that this is existence. Something shut down after that. But I finally REALized you hadn't moved a hair, it was me. Down down down I sank. All went to sleep except my mind, fixated on this unjustifiable outcome.


A person can always recall that abject misery. Memories, particularly ones of dicomfort, are an ideal shield. Then we sell, push, peddle, wonderful and infallible theories about how laughable the idea of love and marriage are, our biggest clients being ourselves of course. Until you wake up one day, and find yourself staring at a back again. Only this time you don't grieve, you don't feel anything, besides utter disappointment for seeing your pattern. That's the thing about patterns, they keep repeating until you do something different.

The American Fear

To be correct, the Pursuit of Happiness ...and the Pursuit of the American Dream are not the same thing. That is the one gripe I have about the Chris Gardner biography. The premise is based on that quotable quote from the Declaration of Independence: "Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." Interestingly enough, Thomas Jefferson had originally written: "Life, liberty, and property" which was later edited by Ben Franklin into the ever so catchy phrase we like to spit out every chance we get.

Maybe since I wasn't born and raised an American, I have trouble grasping the way the illusive "American Dream" resonates within society. Just like how I sometimes question whether I fully understand the catchphrase "working for the man." Or like how I know for sure an 80s song doesn't play the same to me as it does to someone who grew up singing along to it in the car with their parents on road trips. Ahh, dreaded family vacations, that's one concept I fully understand too well. So to me, technically, happiness is an emotion triggered by a combination of different neurological functions, involving dopamine and a shitload of MDMA. Ha. While it CAN be triggered by achieving one's goals and economic prosperity, it is altogether possible that someone can experience happiness without being fulfilled in those ways at all. Arguably, a successful career and excellent finances can lead to a fairly empty existence. We really need all that money to buy all that stuff which sets our feet in stone and our minds on cruise control? It's like we're all in a fucking treasure cave as it's about to collapse and we're so ladened by the gold chalets and whatever valuables we could stuff in our garments and limbs that we forget the most important thing is having an escape route. The trappings of the rich they say. Fear of challenging the status quo I say. But hey, we're all gonna die someday.

Here's the part that has me scared shitless. It is entirely possible for me to live in PA for the rest of my life, spend my days shopping and feeding my fashion addiction, dine in fine global cuisines, return to my lifeless job day after redundant day which will have inevitably earned me a condo somewhere in rittenhouse, all the while lamenting my biggest concern: how my skin will look as age slowly sneaks up on me, or maybe not so slowly--who knows. Or I can have minimal possessions, live in the remote suburbs where the air isn't slowly polluting my lungs, spend my days reading, writing, working, loving, who knows what. Or I could go broke, trying to make it from one day to the next, desperately wanting all that stuff I had to begin with. One of many different permutations and combinations, but all possible, with no real judge of right or wrong. I used to think I would feel it if something wasn't right--but things got complicated when I realized there are drugs for that sort of thing. So I can't trust my feelings? What now?

The only thing that keeps coming to mind is that only when you have nothing (amend to very little), then will you understand everything (amend to a lot more).

Artificial Stimulation

Another summer, another apartment, another roommate.

God Jamie has been such a necessary addition to my life --A friendship formed in that great way one neither initially expects nor realizes, but resulted in a marvelous bond nonetheless. And in the same way we were so arbitrarily fused together, chance would have us separate a year later, spanning the distance between two different time zones. (Although a 1 hour difference might paint a rather dramatic picture, we're still talking different time zones here) My new found ability to hold such relationships makes me feel more mature, or some fun version of that. And try as I may, I have yet to think of a more meaningful feat than two completely different individuals forging such a strong connection. What's that saying--scarce as hen's teeth?

It's funny how you can plan life as much as you want to, but it's the unexpected turns that deliver the biggest punches. Maybe it's the element of surprise, maybe it's getting something for having expended almost no effort, or maybe it restores your faith in the unknown a little, but life does unfold on its own. With no perceivable or intelligible algorithm. With no warning. And certainly with no airbags. Great outcomes can make you and horrible outcomes can break you, either way these are the moments that truly take your breath away, especially when it feels like a sucker punch to the stomach. And like the intelligent beings that we are, we take great lengths to develop intricate strategies so that we can maximize the upside and minimize the downside. We fabricate models and feed it our risk tolerances, our minimally accepted level of return, our past experiences based on historical data. All attempts to recreate what life does so naturally. Yet when we are successful, we are hungry still because we've grown desensitized to such stimuli. The current motto of 21st century humans might as well be: "we make life happen." But at what cost?