einstuerzende neubauten / perpetuum mobile | sonic youth / murray street | walkmen / everyone who pretended to like me is gone | radiohead / ok computer | crime / san francisco’s still doomed

sympathy for the mobile had waken up paranoid hotwired like a strawberry

gao bao
li lao

fukkin

like a king, u can rule

Vicious cycles suck.

I’m trying very hard to be okay, but really I’m just very lonely, and some moments I think I’m losing touch with reality. It’s not enough just to have a friend or a significant other on the phone every now and then… to get through life, you really need deep, regular contact with people that you care about and trust, and that care about and trust you. They have to know something about what you do every day, about what your life is like, and they have to be interested in hearing you talk about it, and it has to happen often enough that you don’t feel isolated. And you have to be able to touch them on the shoulder, or shake their hand.

I haven’t seen a single living soul other than much older, married co-workers, at work, and of course myself in the mirror, in a very long time.

Easy to say that I should “go and make some friends,” but of course new friends are not what I need right now; old friends are what I need right now. And to make matters more complicated, there is the old problem: I grew up with four sisters and a stay-at-home mom. I’m not good at (or comfortable with) making friends with men. But to start pounding the pavement for female companionship while my girlfriend is away just because I’m lonely is somehow a little troubling and inappropriate.

I think too much.

And I’ve now been on hold for a very long time, which sucks. Nearly forty-five minutes now. The recording that tells me how much they value my call is beginning to drive me fscking nuts. The IRS is not a friendly bunch of people to deal with.

Part of the problem with my state of affairs just now is that there are far too many things going on in my life over which I have no control, and about which I hold nothing but uncertainty. This is leading to a pervasive anxiety response and futile attempts to either a) exercise some limited control (even when I know it’s silly to try) or b) avoid having to face anything at all (which basically means staying as drunk as possible as much as possible). My body and mental state are, however, breaking down rapidly as the result of these two types of responses.

I think a better avenue out of the maze of my present is to make a list of things that I do have total, radical control over (i.e. posessions, current job, car, physical location in space, etc.) and attempt to think strategically — what combinations of radical changes can I make in the things over which I do have total control, in order to have the best chance of affecting for the positive, or at least creating the most fertile bed for, the rest of my life, including those other things over which I have little or no control?

The thing that is most obvious is that changes are needed, sooner rather than later. Not any specific change or set of changes, mind you — instead, I suspect that simply being successful in exercising some type of control, some measure of autonomy, over anything and to any end at all, is enough to make things seem better and dig me out of the helplessness hole.

Thanks for being my girlfriend. 🙂

three steps from sunlight,
near the end of shadow,
you pause,
fearful.

it’s been!
it’s been
a

long time since you were

touched
touched by golden droplets of raging sunlight, gentle tyranny, soft domination,

e n d l e s s  b u r n —

you take the next step
you take it and you
take it and it
touches you and
it touches you and it
touches you and

you smile, like,

like,

(like so many times before,)

,,

   w i d e .

three steps from sunlight,
near the end of shadow,
you pause,
fearful.

it’s been!
it’s been
a

long time since you were

touched
touched by golden droplets of raging sunlight,
gentle tyranny,
soft domination,
endless burn —

you take the next step
you take it and you
take it and it
touches you and
it touches you and it
touches you and

you smile

, like,

wide

Nearly 3.30 in the morning. I have to get up at 6.30.

Today she sounded different, a distant twenty-something woman with a deeper, professional voice and an unfamiliar, bemused laugh. As can happen during separation, the generousity of closeness has for an afternoon or two been mislaid.

Sometimes talking to her is just like it always was, like reaching out and touching her, like she’s not that far away at all, and then I can’t help but smile in spite of myself. But other moments, it’s clear that we’re separated by a lot of highway and a lot of new experiences, that new accents and new colloquialisms are now at play. At those moments there’s no getting around the fact that I’m thousands of miles away, in every sense.

Sometimes I tell her when she sounds different. I know it makes her uncomfortable, though she doesn’t say it, and then I feel guilty and strange because I know it accomplishes nothing. It happened last summer, too. I remember when I first arrived for my midsummer visit and saw her in a new place with new people that she was sharing a lot with, and in a way we were strangers, awkward and uncomfortable. I was an interloper in space that belonged to she and her travelmates, two competing worlds that neither she nor they were quite prepared to integrate so completely. The strange new guy had stepped unexpectedly out of the safety of “back home” lore to invade, to violate a comfort zone that they all liked. I was the unfamiliar thing, and I stood fifteen feet away from everyone that day and well into the next.

By the end of the week, though, everything felt good, and I knew that I loved her as always. I think that visit carried us through the summer. I feel bad or nervous about saying that I want something similar once again for some reason, but right now I’d kill to hear the voice and see the face of the girlfriend that I know and love. And lest I forget, this summer’s scheduled to be longer and more stressful than last.

—

I know I’m more sensitive to this stuff than other people. I have the physical scars to show it, some old, some new. I wonder why I sense it more than others, rather often in fact. I wish I didn’t. But at the same time, it’s the sole reason I ended up in sociology/anthropology, so I suppose I should thank my sensitivity to the subtleties of relationships and feelings as one of the biggest motivating factors in any success I’ve had in the world.

—

I’ve got to stop drinking in and go to sleep so that I can go to work in an hour or two.

—

God I’m lonely nights. Having someone you love nearby can make everything — work, unfamiliar places, money trouble, etc. — seem deceptively easy. In some ways, being in a close relationship makes me much more capable. When it’s right, it’s a great source of strength. When they’re farther away, you catch some glimmer once again of how much the world really is a tough, unforgiving place.

—

Thanks, J—–a, for being my girlfriend. I love you.

—
—

One final note. I am also quite sensitive to the fact that the people that currently surround me in my day-to-day life are not my people in any way. And I am not one to live disingenuously, at least not for very long. In fact, despite the consequences, I am generally incapable of “sticking with” things that don’t please me overall.

And the current state of affairs in my realm of day-to-day face-to-face social interaction does not please me at all.

I don’t care about work. I don’t believe that “work” even exists, other than as a structural category. And that, right now, is a huge problem.

Said it before, will say it again: changes coming.

—
—

God, life is full of drama if you’re as loner-cool as me.

—
—

To the world: I often claim to love you, in spite of the fact that you clearly do not love me. In fact, I don’t. I do, however, love all of your children, and your decorator.

The hardest thing for a twentieth-century western person to do: let themself be loved, simply and acceptingly, without freaking out in one way or another.

—
—
—

Over 300 entries now in Leapdragon ’05.

Nearly 3.30 in the morning. I have to get up at 6.30.

Today she sounded different, a distant twenty-something woman with a deeper, professional voice and an unfamiliar, bemused laugh. As can happen during separation, the generousity of closeness has for an afternoon or two been mislaid.

Sometimes talking to her is just like it always was, like reaching out and touching her, like she’s not that far away at all, and then I can’t help but smile in spite of myself. But other moments, it’s clear that we’re separated by a lot of highway and a lot of new experiences, that she’s on the phone because she cares about me and has a vague understanding that I miss her and that it’s important to me. But at those moments there’s no getting around the fact that I’m thousands of miles away, in every sense.

Sometimes I tell her when she sounds different. I know it makes her uncomfortable, though she doesn’t say it, and then I feel guilty and strange because I know it accomplishes nothing. It happened last summer, too. I remember when I first arrived for my midsummer visit and saw her in a new place with new people that she was sharing a lot with, and in a way we were strangers, awkward and uncomfortable. I was suddenly there where she and her travelmates were, two competing worlds that neither she nor them were quite prepared to integrate so completely. The strange new guy had stepped unexpectedly out of the safety of “back home” lore to invade a comfort zone to which he didn’t belong. I was suddenly the unfamiliar thing, and I stood fifteen feet away from everyone that day and well into the next.

By the end of the week, though, everything felt good, and I knew that I loved her as always. I think that visit carried us through the summer. I feel bad or nervous about wanting something similar once again for some reason, but right now I’d kill to hear the voice and see the face of the girlfriend that I know and love. And lest I forget, this summer’s scheduled to be longer and more stressful than last.