7:43pm
How curious that today, the day after I first propose the idea to myself of giving up this experiment early, would be the most profound day yet. (It happens to be my most social day yet, as well.) Whether it was the being surrounded by strangers and being unable to speak, or the mass amounts of walking, or the circumstances beyond my control which affected my emotional state, or the small amount of coffee I drank to the detriment of my New Year’s Resolution for the month – what is clear is that today I have regained my inner monologue, the one I seem to have misplaced for more than six months, the one I perhaps misplaced along with my “self” when I finally latched upon a lover. Hello, there, inner monologue, it is so nice to see you for an extended period of time, gushing, as you used to, when stirred up by whatever ridiculousness life doth throweth your/my way. When stirred up, this inner monologue repeats sentences it declares divine over and over in my mind, until finally I have the chance to set them to paper. What I am left with is a close approximation to those words formed at the moment of creation –but who am I kidding; the repeat messenger loses efficacy over time, forgets what he set out to do, becomes lost in the flurry of other words which snowstorm upon him furiously. But so it goes.
Today I became frustrated upon discovery that I, in my folly, somehow destroyed a large section of the REDEFINE website. And with my confessed nubbery at properly updating, backing up, and restoring data, I have little concept as to why the things that are broken are in fact broken, and as every fucking developer knows, backtracking without revision control may be the world’s greatest bitch, a true slog through a terrain called “fucking waste of time.” So, though I am now vastly improved upon my older self in terms of archiving my projects, the truth is that I am still a piece of shit in this regard (and I say this without especially intense degrees of self-loathing, though it may sound like such; it is simply true) which will make my task tomorrow absolute hell. Made all the worse, really, by the fact that the fucking internet in my house is displaced; the router we paid $100 dollars for merely two days ago decided to give up its ghost the day after it was purchased from its former master. Some kind of allegiance, you router, you guy.
But anyway, back to destroying my own website. Ah, yes. I fumed and fumed and got kicked out of the coffee shop I initially went to, Backspace, and cursed myself for going there although I knew instinctually that I would get kicked out before the desired time – as I do every time I go there these days, since I only seem to do so during concert days. Internet-homeless, I decided to head to the downtown Stumptown, which is usually also a gamble, with too few seats and limited plugs. I lucked out, but this time, I desired not to talk to anyone, so bothered I was, and I instead bought coffee – since the system allows for the purchase of coffee without one’s speaking to anyone, without one’s need to write notes explaining an incapacity to speak. And anyway, coffee is cheaper most of the time, a primary annoyance that has made me want to resume drinking it rather than tea, even though it makes me feel like shit, or at least buying it and sitting with it just to save a few nickels and dimes… but that solution is just too ridiculous.
Where was I. Without being able to talk, I internalized my frustration, which is something I have learned to be good at ever since I was a kid. But I learned today to internalize in a Buddhist way, I suppose. I subscribe to many Buddhist beliefs already; I am pretty good at letting go and living in the now now now present moment, I believe – but today, I swallowed and internalized to another level. Freaking out, breakdown-impending, and then realizing… who gives a shit. Who gives a fucking shit. One more day of broken images will not kill anyone if it hasn’t killed anyone yet. And besides, there isn’t much I can do about the situation in the immediate, lacking internet and brain and all, and worrying fixes nothing at all. With such calmness in my possession, I soon moved onto the work I needed to do for University of Washington while simultaneously downloading the files I needed to restore the REDEFINE website properly, at some later point, and worked on articles that I hope to publish tomorrow. I ignored looming shadow overlord crisis A and moved on to solutions B and C, and it felt great. Not that there isn’t perhaps a cyst growing somewhere inside my body because of ignoring overlord A, but at least this kind of separation and categorization lets the living, active mind move on and become productive when circumstances are simply not adjustable at the present time. It sounds pretty good to me. (The cyst is unsure.)
Now to recap on some of today’s social interactions. Today was Research Club Brunch, and as such, I saw many new faces and many old faces. Old faces mostly instantly understood my project and were receptive. Some were better at charades than others, with Ezra reigning as fucking king over all others and with Nim coming in at second – but there were some skeptical strangers, to be sure. I count two supportive strangers, who asked questions, but let’s talk about the skeptical ones, because they’re slightly more interesting.
Today was yet another time that I heard someone be shocked that I was doing a “vow of silence” but could still communicate via writing. These humans are absolutely incredulous that writing would be allowed when… wait… isn’t it fucking called a “vow of silence”? Come on, people! I don’t know how the Buddhists or Catholics practice it or whether they write or not, but you know, I don’t care! I think if I didn’t at least write, I might literally explode. I think I would undoubtedly learn more without writing as an outlet – that or I would go absolutely mad – but it is simply not in my interests. And I am not ascetic, and I have shit to do and businesses to run, I’m not about to give everything up in my life to take a bloody vow of silence. It seems to people who wouldn’t dare attempt the same project themselves judge plain ol’ silence as much too easy. Oh no, they say, you must give up all other forms of communication as well… but humph, I dare them to attempt that for themselves! Or to even just give up speech! Skeptical friends! Reign in your skepticism!
One lady was sure to ask if I found myself attracting more attention because of my silence. She said it almost bitingly. On the contrary, woman. I believe this sort of self-alienation leads to isolation by inconvenience; no one likes to play charades when they are put on the spot. No one cares enough, really, to play 20 questions with a mute. Trust me. Very few people take the time to give you more of the time of day when the conversation is one-sided. Seated at a table today, surrounded by strangers who knew of the situation, I was a source of interest for only about ten minutes. Text-based communication and minor charade-based communication lasted for about two lines per person. Beyond that initial curiosity, no one really attempted to speak to me again. They had nothing more to say, and didn’t really feel that curious about asking me more. And I don’t blame them, but it’s proof that speechlessness does not attract more attention. At least, not in the long run. Perhaps in the short run, in the shiny, “Ooh look, piece of candy!” kind of way, it does – but certainly not in the, “Oh really? Tell me more!” kind of way. And really, we all know the latter is the only one worth any kind of a damn. The candy-discovery route is temporary, a small talk piece of bullshit, a fleeting verbal glance. Suck it, me! And suck it, skeptics! No one cares!
I wonder as I’m writing this – more appropriately, I wondered as I was chopping garlic and am still currently wondering as I am writing this – if Henry Miller was constantly caffeinated, or if he was eternally doped up on something or other. I am currently reading Tropic of Capricorn, as I have been off and on, and the parts that are brilliant in that book are absolutely mind-blowingly genius genius genius. But the parts that suck really suck. But I just don’t know how the dude can write whole pages without a paragraph break and often without even any kind of continuity between sentence to sentence. I’m sure there’s continuity in his brain, somewhere, but I guess what I’m supposing is that dude must have been on some drugs. (This will need a little bit of research to ascertain, to be ascertained perhaps tomorrow, when I have internet again, when I can post this again.)
I’ve been obsessed with fish sauce and those Cambodian noodles I’d previously mentioned. Suck it, vegetarianism! Upon rediscovery of fish sauce I just need to have it! That being said, there is vegetarian fish sauce, and I actually imagine I should just do that – but the nearby supermarket didn’t have it, so next time – as I think it might actually be better. Real fish sauce is just ever slightly too fishy, go figure. But fuck man, toast some garlic and it is just sooooooooo good. I hardly believe it’s truly truly fish anyway; it’s probably the dregs that no one would eat anyway. It’s like the mechanically-separated chicken of fish. I’m merely guessing. Isn’t that stuff brewed underground? Anyway.
I suppose I will spend the remainder of my evening – as I am feeling adequately literarily awesome – editing my stupid book to try and level out the voice of it, which fluctuates from really awesome emo to really loving emo to really scientifically recollective. The variations of emo are by far the best, as they are much more composed immediately and in the moment. The variations of recollective are way less interesting, read a bit more like an essay, and need updating, stat, before the book can ever go one to greater and greener New Age pastures…
But before that, one last point. As I was walking downtown to Research Club, a random man stopped me. (Hey, that reminds me that another man, I swear, a giant huge black crack head dude – or at least he was on something – said to me last night, “Hey baby, want a cigarette?” followed by, “Want a coffee? I got money.” Yeah, baby.) I had talked to this particular dude before, perhaps on the same stretch of road, too – I can’t be sure. He stopped and asked me where I was going. I pointed downtown and started walking away. Then he asked me what my name was and I stopped and turned around and put my hands up in true “I don’t know” fashion. And he looked super confused and was like, “Are you deaf?” and I made the same motion, to which he responded, “Why don’t you try talking normal?” and I just kind of shrugged again and walked away. Fun interactions! I remember his teeth, though. That’s why I know I’ve met him.
Oh yes and the worst thing. I woke up this morning to the WORST dream. Because I had earlier woken up to the worst things: a story of sickness about Troy’s roommate puking and feeling horrible; a graphically loud sex session with Troy’s ex that I really, really, really, really fucking did not need to hear. I am the worst at sex and visualizations. This was pretty horrible. Nightmare fodder. Big time. Fuck. The end.
My noodles are totally delicious.
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