the world is too big for me; i find it overwhelming

I was going to go out and have a drink at Monks, but then I didn’t, again for no particular reason. I am trying to think clearly, but the inside of my head is a little more like the proverbial hamster wheel. I need someone to give me a swift kick in the arse, maybe. I miss my friends, except when I am talking to them. I miss my girlfriend, except when I am talking to her. I miss my family, except when I am in the same room with them. I want company, except when I have it.

—

Maybe I am a spoiled, petulant brat who thinks everyone owes me attention and happiness.

Dostoevsky’s underground man said it’s all better in books. Maybe he was right.

—

I need to get a professional job, or do something that makes me feel as though I’m not just sitting around waiting for meaningful things to happen to me. I need to find something, but I don’t know what it is that I’m looking for.

Everyone remembers what it was like when they were small, and they could go to their parents with the largest problems on Earth, like “I’m bored, tell me what to do,” or “I’m sad, what will make me feel better?” and their parents always had the right answer, not because of the particular suggestions that they gave, but because of the simple fact that they gave suggestions; they cared enough to pay attention and engage in conversation, even if undirected, and that was both validating and helpful. Adult conversations aren’t anything like that, even when the other party wants to talk to you. There are still rules and expectations and a hundred ways to feel threatened or hurt. Childhood is like a curse that prevents you from enjoying the majority of your life.

I don’t know why I bring this up. I can’t quite figure out what it is I’m after; when my parents speak now, it mainly makes me impatient. But I have the sneaking suspicion that I am ceasing to exist. That I am less important to the world of “other people” (i.e. other than myself) than I have ever been in my life thus far, and that my own head is in turn emptying of everything but my own voice, particularly since I left Chicago.

In some ways, it feels as though I’ve always felt this way. But I know that can’t possibly be true.

—

Seems like I post this Swans piece every couple of months. But here it is again.

when… when we were young
we had no history
so nothing to lose
meant we could choose
choose what we wanted then
without any fear
or thought of revenge
but then you grew old
and i lost my ambition
so i gained an addiction
to drink and depression
(they are mine…
my only true friends
and i’ll keep them with me
until the very end)
i’d choose not to remember
but i miss your arrogance
and i need your intelligence
and your hate for authority…

but now you’re gone
i read it today
they found you in spain
face down in the street
with a bottle in your hand
and a wild smile on your face
and a knife in your back
you died in a foreign land
and they found my letter
rolled up in your pocket
where i said i’d kill myself
if she left me again

so now she’s gone
and you’re both in my mind
i’ve got one thing to say
before i am drunk again…

god damn the sun
god damn the sun
god damn anyone
that says a kind word
god damn the sun
god damn the sun
god damn the light it shines
and this world it shows
god damn the sun

—

I upset her tonight without meaning to. Notre Dame lost. The laptop part I’m waiting on still didn’t come. I have indigestion. My cat doesn’t sleep with me this visit. I haven’t painted a canvas in years. I’ve been invited to Nicaragua, but I won’t go. My car is a mess. It’s raining.

I used to love it when it rained on U/U campus.

I still love so many things… but things are somehow submerged tonight, in a way.

I want to call her right now, just for the company. But I don’t know what we’d talk about. And anyway, it’s late, she’s either asleep or out.

I should have gone out.

Hindsight.

I’m lonely.

I’ve been lonely for a lot of years.

—

I am in a bad mood.

—

People are driving me fucking crazy. Ennui.

—

I am impossibly unhappy right now, for no particular reason.
Fuck everyone.

On a local radio call-in show today, talking about the disaster: “I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Now at least the rest of the world maybe knows how we felt on 9/11.”

On CNN, which is at least better than Fox, talking to an American in the area on the phone: “We understand that phone use in the area is being limited to five minutes per person, so I don’t want to take up all of your time. Tell us about how the waves sounded.” (That’s right… Not “tell us how the people in the area are coping” or “tell us what’s most needed in the area you’re in” or “tell us what people at home can do to help in the recovery” but instead “use your rationed phone time with other survivors waiting behind you and tell us how the biiiiiig wave sounded.”)

—

Dear America,

I hate you.

With no regards,
Aron