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December 2nd, 2020 @ 9:42pm
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( Oh, Darling! )
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| .SPAM. |
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October 20th, 2020 @ 11:01pm
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| New year, new you. |
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January 1st, 2011 @ 9:44am
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You'd think by now I'd know there are better ways to spend the start of a new year than hungover. I haven't. I have, however, learned the following:
-No matter how well peach brandy and champagne and peach brandy go down...it does not come up well.
-Don't hit on the girl that has a boyfriend. It won't end well.
-When you run into a fellow partner at a bar (especially a female one), just turn and go the other way before you're seen. It's best for all parties.
Normally, I'd talk about how much I feel like shit, and what that shit feels like but for once in my life, I'm pretty sure about a quarter of the population feel the same so I'll save everyone. I wish I had some cure, some way of making it stop. Getting sick helped for about two seconds but it was so miserable that I'm not bothering with that plan again unless I have no other choice. For now, it's just water, water, and more water.
No, actually, I am going to talk about how much I feel like shit.
A whole fucking lot. Someone fucking shoot me.
I've been thinking about giving in completely, just finding a home in Stowe and moving there full-time. Maybe I could open up a small law firm, but God if I don't want to give in that easily. I mean, fuck, I love Boston. I love being near my kids, I love working at a big fucking firm and being the one in charge there. I love having a condo in a high-rise and a Starbucks in my lobby.
You know how I said I wasn't going to puke again?
I think I lied. We'll see.
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December 1st, 2010 @ 1:30am
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Briony’s hair is smooth in my fingers, almost glass-like. It’s turned from the blonde of summer and her toddler years to a dull brown that soaks up the dim light coming off of the Vick’s humidifier sitting in the corner of her room. I marvel at her, this little body snuggled in against mine. There is so much child in her face, in the roundness of her cheeks and nose and mouth and yet I am completely aware of how soon she’ll start developing more defined features. Soon, she’ll have cheekbones and hips and a whole slew of things I don’t particularly want to think about. She snores gently in her sleep, turns into me and pushes a thumb into her mouth without ever really stirring and I am tempted to reach over and pull away her hand but I can’t force myself to pull her out of the infantile, or risk waking her. Noel would never let me into his bed like this, refuses to listen to stories and turns instead to his T.V. His feet are too big for his body, arms and legs lanky and out of proportion and he seems to trip over himself more often than not, but he still has enough pride in him not to be around his old man too much. I push off the twin bed I am in, the springs digging into my fingers as my weight shifts and the wood creaking. Briony, her eyes still shut, reaches for me and murmurs the word Daddy sleepily but all it takes is my hand on her back for a few seconds and she is back to sleep and I am free to head back to my own room. In the hallway, my fingers find my cell phone and the contact that I once saved as ‘the bitch’ but now simply save as ‘amada’ after Noel found it and got upset. My thumb lingers over send, pushing down just enough that I can feel the key but even as I can feel the bile and vitriol rise in my throat I know I won’t make the call. This is because of her, all because of her and I hate her for it, but the state of my bedroom is enough to remind me why I don’t see the kids more than every other weekend; living out of a suitcase, nothing quite clean because I’m never spending time here and never bothering to make it a real home. I let the phone fall onto the nightstand, crawl into bed, and fall asleep to the flickering light of a muted T.V. I will never make that call.
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November 25th, 2010 @ 5:23pm
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It's raining and I'm so hungover that halfway through town I have to pull over, and get sick on the side of the road. The vomit is white and acidic, and I can feel the eyes of the people from the car or two that pass me but I am too preoccupied to care or even lift my head. I am shivering by the time I get to my mothers, and take a second to light a cigarette and enjoy it before getting out of the car and scurrying through the rain to the food that's in the trunk. There will only be five of us today, her and me and my brother's wife and two children, but I don't feel particularly thankful and I don't want to be here with a full spread but it may well be her last, so when she asks for a turkey, we cave at her request. There is canned cranberry under my arm, bread rolls and a salad, all things I could get without having to use a kitchen. Amanda has everything else covered, and for this I am at least marginally grateful. This all ends, however, when I enter the house.
The lights are off, and she is sitting in a chair, slouched down low. "Mom..." Softly at first, then again, louder. She doesn't respond and though it's worrisome, I drop the food in the kitchen and rummage in her bathroom for mouthwash before I even attempt to pull her out of her own world. "Mom, Amanda and the kids are going to be here soon..." And she comes back, her eyes still slightly glassy, and tells me that she got the jacket she is wearing on sale, and that so and so died, and someone else is in diapers because his kidneys aren't working, and did I know that he makes 800 pounds of peanut brittle a year to sell, but so and so said the piece she had was undercooked, and anyway, they weren't sure how he was going to be able to make all that because of how he is, and all those peanuts and that sugar. I nod along. It is my duty, and within minutes Amanda is sweeping in and the children are hugging their grandmother and turning on football.
During dinner, she picks absentmindedly at her food and doesn't take in any of the conversation. She calls my youngest nephew by my brother's name, and suddenly he is almost in tears because he misses his father and Amanda is having to juggle the boredom of her oldest and reassure the youngest that his father will be back for Christmas. Food is ate. The turkey is dry, but I say nothing, and afterward, Amanda and I do the dishes and the boys go back to watching football and my mother sits at the dining room table, staring at nothing. Her mind is going, and I should pull her back but I can still feel the burn from being sick in the back of my throat and I'm working on two hours of sleep. I drift in and out of a nap in a chair, and then the boys and Amanda are leaving and I am checking on her one more time. Is the oven off? Has she taken her pills? She asks to play a card game but gets restless and goes to watch the T.V. partway through and I leave, because I can't be here anymore.
I am not thankful. I am not thankful at all.
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November 24th, 2010 @ 5:08pm
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I've failed at this. Now I need someone to shoot me.
Such is life.
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November 19th, 2010 @ 1:48am
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I've spent so much of my life avoiding pain that even now, as I try to be conscious of it, I find myself checking out. I have no acid, nor any desire to find some but that damned movie has me thinking and so I twist my arm around my back and lean into it until I can feel my shoulder crack and I am already gone, no longer forced to work on getting to my happy place
My happy place, though, is no beach or bar, no harem with women surrounding me. My happy place is black and blank. Should this bother me? You go running. Your lungs hurt, your side, your legs. You shut your eyes as much as you can, and think about a triangle, and think about putting your pain in that triangle. Compartmentalization. I don't remember when I crossed from having to wish my pain into that triangle to it automatically going there. Still, there's that millisecond before, the second where you can break. I don't have the emotional strength anymore to fight that point, and so for now I am thankful that my brain seems to kick in during the easy stuff (or is it shut off?), freeing me from that decision.
Maybe I'll run tomorrow, get to the gym. I haven't since I've been here, not even on my trips home. No time, no motivation. I can think of a million excuses off the top of my head, but the most resounding one is simply because it hurts and it is easier to avoid pain than have to battle through it or compartmentalize it or give in to it. A masseuses in Portland said I was one of the most tense people he's ever worked on. Tension clings to pain and drains away but even as I sit here missing the burn, I can' take that first step.
My mother is dying, and I find myself more concerned with the slight rash I'm developing on my arm. Allergic reaction to my antibiotics? God, what a pain in the ass that'll be if it is. I want to go running because this feels like forgetting to breathe. I concentrate on anything else, because I know that once I start running again, things will be released that I'm not ready to gather up again. I don't want to push my pain into a triangle; I don't want it to come at all.
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November 7th, 2010 @ 4:48pm
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I've seen better days. |
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I forgot it was possible to be this hungover. Damn, I'm classy.
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November 2nd, 2010 @ 11:26pm
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Thank fuck elections are over. That is all.
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October 25th, 2010 @ 1:58pm
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Does this count as a new da since I slept between? It has to, has no other choice. Her name was Bella or Ella or Ellie and she sucked me off like a champ. She was from Oregon and had no job to speak of, just a newly minted college degree and a trust fund. I didn't sleep with her because she was surprisingly funny (though she was) or had a nice smile (though she did). I didn't even sleep with her because she reminded me vaguely of a world war two pinup, all breasts and hips and red lips. I slept with her because she was there. Period, full stop. I suppose I should add willing as well, because otherwise I go from average male to rapist, but there you have it. She was there, she was willing and at the end of the day, nothing else really mattered. It never does when you're sitting in a hotel bar at 9:30, or anywhere else at any other time. We're silly, desperate creatures, men. Rarely faithful even in the best of marriages, easily tempted, complete dogs when we're free of the constrains of matrimony.
I've been looking at design blogs all afternoon, putting off work for the aesthetically pleasing. Most are focused towards women; children's wallpaper with big, graphic animals and sugar bowls with the word 'shugah' printed on it because it's 'Brooklynish'. I'm not hip enough for the latter, but I find myself shopping for wallpaper because while the majority of the stuff is too feminine to even go near, the kids stuff is decently cool and I figure mine'll eat it up like 'shugah'. Do I really need to spend an afternoon pasting on wallpaper at 165 dollars a roll? No, but I'm going to anyways, because that's what guilty fathers do. I watch a video from NPR and Radiolab and wonder when I've turned into a Goddamn hipster. Maybe Ellie or Ella or Bella rubbed off on me, maybe they all have. NRP turns into another clip from "In the Loop." Fucking funny movie. I buy a poster from the New England Aquarium. More hipster shit and it's almost three so I guess I should at least pretend to do work. This is my destressing, not typing but looking, not thinking.
What has my life become?
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October 25th, 2010 @ 3:44am
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I can’t sleep. I can’t say I’m surprised, just mildly annoyed. I crawl into bed exhausted then spend hours tossing and turning and counting backwards from 1,000 while breathing deeply, or I get to sleep and wake up two hours later and can’t get to sleep again. There’s a gnawing feeling right beneath my rib cage, hollowing out the center of my chest where my stomach should be. It’s normal for this time of night and comforting if only because it’s not that kind of gnawing, the kind that means yet another ulcer. It’s not sharp, burning, hellish. I keep a bottle of prescription-strength heartburn medication on the bathroom counter. It feels nothing like heartburn but the pills do the same thing and as long as my puke isn’t black they work until I can get something more substantial done. The images they show on Google are horrifying, but then again, what images of the inside of the body aren’t? We’re disgusting creatures if not for outwardly appearance and I wonder what sort of miserable life makes a person get these fucking holes in their insides time after time when I realize that you should never remove the word “stomach” from the Google image search of “stomach ulcer” and that it’s my miserable life that makes a person get those fucking holes on their insides. My doc says they’re not from stress or alcohol or spicy foods. Not from stress my ass. I have a bottle full of antibiotics and the funky taste in my mouth to prove it and the fuckers still come back. I drink more water, buy a pair of organic cotton jeans, and exercise until my body burns. I’ve given up fatty foods and heavy beer and munch on salads with leaves I can’t pronounce in them all for the American dream of being healthy and good looking and so I can claim to be things like cleansed and pure and balanced. I am no less stressed and don’t sleep any better, but now it fucking hurts to walk, I piss far too often and have hands like a girl. But hey, I bag girls half my age, and that’s all that matters, right? Except you screw them a few times, and you’re having breakfast with them and all the sudden you realize they’re talking about shit you stopped caring about two decades ago and you really have nothing in common and you’re going to have to sit there for another twenty minutes pretending you do. They’re so cute with their issues and insecurities and boundless eagerness to please but all it does is make you their damn father in the end. My bottom lip is chapped, there’s nothing on T.V. I’ve turned into Andy Rooney sometime between 3:30 and now and I really don’t give a damn because I still can’t get to fucking sleep and now I’ve gone from mildly annoyed to downright agitated and that sure ain’t gonna help anything. God help us all if this is really supposed to be the thing that helps me become a better person. Shit ain’t gonna survive a week.
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