My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

If I don’t wake up and get back to being my old easy-going, intelligently optimistic, delightfully melancholy self, Sara and the terrorists win. Losing isn’t my way. so it’s time to wise up, as Aimee Mann once wrote.

So, I’ve slept most of today, which is bizarre at best, but last night was kind of… bad. I didn’t end up falling asleep until about 6 AM. I’ve been having odd dreams. I’ll wake up in my dream and find that can’t reach the little switch that controls my computer, and I can’t yell for help. Then, in the dream I tell myself it has to be a dream, but I can’t make myself wake up. Lots of other bad dreams, just fragments about Sara. I hope that these fragmented nightmares give me something good to write. I dreamed the beginning of a short-story too, but just a few lines.

He looks at you through cold blue-green eyes. The light has gone out of him, but he’s not dead.

I really like the sentences, but I don’t really know what’s next.

I’ve been thinking about this post for awhile, it just wasn’t particularly clear enough to write. Some friends came over before the big turkey dinner for a movie, The Royal Tenenbaums. I hadn’t seen it in years, but this time it felt rather different.

A few years ago, there were some things I didn’t really understand. I obviously knew about addiction and suicide, I knew people got lost in both, but I didn’t understand why. I guess I had sympathy without empathy. I always thought it ridiculous and sad that someone would do anything to chase a fix, or want to die, and then make it happen. Both things are still sad, but I don’t think they’re ridiculous. I don’t look down on people who do such things and wonder, “why?” I get the whys now, whether I want to or not. 

Sometimes life feels so painful, so wrong, all a person wants is a break, anything to feel some sort of comfort. Drugs and alcohol provide that comfort, they make that pain stop for a little while. While a person’s high on whatever they’re on it seems like the best idea in the world, everything feels so perfectly clear, and safe. Of course, this is temporary, everybody comes down, and the life that felt bad before feels even worse with the contrast. Each fix feels a little less great, and the next fix feels a little more important. If one’s fixes don’t result in accidental death, maybe they get help. Or maybe they don’t.

Sometimes life hurts so much, one feels so entirely lost and alone, that bleeding in the bathtub honestly seems like the only fix. Everything feels empty, highs are temporary at best, and one knows it. Suicides are missing a spark, that little voice that says tomorrow will be better. It’s terrifying when that voice is silent.

I understand why people fall down and stay down. It’s totally sad when it happens, but it happens nonetheless. It’s absolutely sad, but it’s not nonsense. Not to me, not anymore.

So, it’s Thanksgiving, again. I don’t feel like I did last year, I’m much more tired. I miss last year, but such things are pointless, what’s done is done. I am tired though, it’s difficult being thankful, which is horrible of me. Still, I can’t feel what I don’t feel. Hopefully, someone will get ridiculously drunk at dinner, or some such.

I’ve accidentally created one of the saddest, most depressing mix CDs of all time. I’m not saying it’s the saddest, I can’t verify that, but I can safely say that it’s in the top five. I was shooting for relaxing, but relaxing flew by, and we ended up at astonishingly sad. It seems to be the perfect balance of Elliott Smith and Aimee Mann, a distillation of their most melancholy work.

Perhaps, one day, this mix will be responsible for the collapse of society, like The Signal…

Yes, I’m back, and it was magical. العاب سلوتس I got an i.v. in my thumb, which was exciting. The nurses are always terrified to stick me because, for some reason, they feel like I can’t take the pain. It’s a little ridiculous, considering the giant poppy I have tattooed on the top of my hand.

I’m off to the e.r. because I’m not breathing so great.

I really enjoy it when homeless people stop me to ask how my girlfriend’s doing and if she’s treating me well. I don’t particularly feel like alphabetting I a m s u r e s h e i s g r e a t b u t  s h e d u m p e d m e l i k e a s a c k o f b r i c k s, so I just nod in affirmation and give him five bucks.

My friend, Ziztur, is a spectacular photographer, and last night while experimenting with night-time photographic techniques she…

…wrote my name in LED light. I’m pretty flattered.

So, after I decided to quit the Ativan, I pretty much quit sleeping entirely. Seeing the clock tick 7 AM three days in a row really was not good, not good at all. A fellow starts to have shaky, unpleasant thoughts between 3 and 7 AM, odd waking dreams. I felt like I should be chain-smoking in some shit-hole diner, muttering nothings and ordering cups of black coffee. No sleep is a bad place. I kept thinking about one of my favorite scenes from Stay. Sam (Ewan McGregor) is talking to a strung out Beth (Janeane Garofalo). She’s just had a nervous breakdown and has taken a liking to liquor and pills. Sam sees her table-top pharmacy and says, “you can’t drink while you’re taking these,” to which she notes, “apparently, I can.” He drags her into the bathroom for a shower she needs, but doesn’t want, she looks absolutely exhausted. She says, “I need to sleep, please.” I kept seeing that scene while not sleeping.

Last night, however, I re-introduced myself to Ativan and actually fell asleep before seeing the sun. I definitely can’t stay on the Ativan forever, but until I get something else, it’ll do.