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Michael considered fate at 18:14   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

I should be in a much better mood than I am right now. Worked like a mofo Saturday, Sunday, Monday forever to make sure Tuesday's demo went well with the big wig clients so the O.T. dollars will be flowing like mad come pay day. From 10am Monday till 1pm Tuesday 25.5 hours worked out of 27. Felt like ass. Nausea, empty stomach.. too much coffee. No sleep. Decided - fuck it. Switched my weekday into a weekend trip to camp and brought along a few pals to help pass the time. Swam a mile across the lake, finished off a handle of Jim Beam, drank some beers, ate some grilled pork, grilled corn, and some cous cous. Drank some beers. Sat in front of the fire pit until an ungodly hour talking of stories past and then finally, fell asleep snoring. Woke up the next day and did it all again. Enjoyed the great weather, perfect for some time at camp.

I should be in a much better mood than I am.

Came into work today at 3:30pm just to put in a few hours, see if everything was going well. Tomorrow I get my ass out of bed at the ass crack of dawn (okay, more like 7:45am - early for me) to make it to the monthly company meeting and enjoy my last day of work. Will probably have to listen to a bunch of fare-the-wells and good-lucks and maybe get a beer with the company president. Maybe listen to some stories about his younger days, about living in a fraternity next to a wayward girl's boarding house - not the best juxtapositioning. Maybe - just maybe - walk out the doors of this establishment for the last time in my life.. maybe not. Still, the last day of work for a long time.

I should be in a much better mood than I am.

The free car, a 1987 Saab 900 S, is running well despite it's rough-starting issue and the four brand new snow tires look as kraggy as ever - quality rubber for sure and I'm already excited to go bombing through the northern New Hampshire mountains in some godawful blizzard come wintertime. The bike is running great, as well, despite my concerns about the potential oil leak. It's running smoother than it has in a long time and I'm gonna miss that thing come next week when I'm hoofing it around Montreal the old fashioned way : with bipedal power.

I should be in a much better mood than I am.

I have this strange feeling - an emptiness inside, really - that I can't quite explain. It's a feeling of displacement, really, that isn't clearly connected to any one emotion or subject matter. It's in there somewhere creating this hollow feeling and it's eating away at me. Snacking on my good spirits.

Goddamn I can't shake this. Can't explain the rot. Don't know what to do.

Wondering now, more than ever, if I'll ever see her again and thinking - my usual cynical self - probably not. Most likely not. Wondering if things will go down just as they have in my head a million times before, played over and over again, the fantasies. Thing is, you'd think the fantasies would be good ones. You'd think I'd dream of sleeping with her in a big king sized bed with a huge picture window at the foot, wide open to the ocean breeze, with sailboats bobbing on the water. You'd think I'd dream of a long lasting loving relationship, the kind i wish so badly could have started back then, a full year ago. You'd think I'd dream about her with a smile on my lips.

A full year ago this month, on a Saturday evening - August the 9th to be exact - I wandered into Bull Feney's bar and resturant on Fore Street in Portland Maine. I took the stairs up to the second floor, bought myself a PBR pounder and one for my friend, and smiled inwardly to myself at the two picturesque women warmly smiling at me from the bar. When I pointed them out to my friend and jokingly suggested he should chat the bigger one up so that I could talk with her friend, he laughed his big-man laugh and we went to listen to the band play so I was surprised when they walked in the room, sat down behind us, and my pal turned around and struck up a conversation. It wasn't too long after that when I found myself in story telling mode, talking about my hiking adventures in Virginia, all the while watching her electric smile - electric like a tube amp with it's warm tones and clean sound - a smile so big it hurt my insides in that hurts-so-good way. Forever has that face been burned into my brain and forever will I suffer the hurt, so good, the pleasure within the pain of something loved and lost. A bummer, man. A real bummer.

So when I dream about her I don't dream the dreamy thoughts of a man in love but the broken ideas of a man enslaved. I picture myself graduating in two years, having made a new name for myself in the international city of Montreal. I see myself rising out of the ashes of my slovenly slacker self and becoming motivated, successful, a wonderful man of might, mystery, magic. A man she should, would, could only dream of herself. A man that I want to be. And there, right then, as the diploma is passed over to my open hand I'd already be on a plane flying to her where she might be in two years, going despite the fact that she is married by this point or that I haven't seen her in two years or that she hasn't returned my calls. All the while thinking about the plan that I've been planning and thinking about for two whole years, the end game - the that's-it-it's-all-over play, the finish, the finale. I dream about checking into a hotel wherever I might find her and sitting down at the desk with a sheaf of hotel stationary and a good pen and writing for two straight days. Not so much quantity as much as quality but a substantial amount of work none the less, a work explaining my person, expounding upon my pure love for her, examining the amazing life we could have together, and, ultimately, a work accepting her likely response to it all - a predicter of the future. I dream about this more often than not and I dream about leaving the hotel and walking through the city, through the strange streets I have no familiarity with, and finding a strange house that is oddly familiar. I imagine walking up those steps with a large manilla envelope in hand, ringing the doorbell, and waiting. I think maybe I'll be sitting on the stoop at this point as no one was quick to the door but when it opens it is her looking out, inquisitively, for her visitor. My voice will fail me here and I will offer the envelope, passing of the weight of all these years and it will make me so light I might actually fly off the porch right there. I will turn away, walk down the steps one by one, and head down the street. She might call to me, but I won't turn around to face my failure. I will walk away from it, back to my hotel room, and I will wait. At the end of my novella will be a note that I will be staying at such-and-such hotel, that I will be there for one day, that I will be gone after that.

For one whole day I will lay prone on this hotel bed waiting for her but really waiting for the inevitable. I will wait patiently and, by this point, with little emotion. The clock will finally strike noon the next day - check out time - I will raise from the bed, pick up my already-packed suitcase, and wander out into the light of the day. The sun might be shining an incredible brightness but I will be dark through and through. The bottom of my stomach will be rotten, my written words will rattle in my brain haunting me like ghosts. I will hate more and more. I will walk away never to think of the possibilities between me and her ever again but I will hate more and more. My soul will be black with hurt and red with anger and green with the envious sadness killing me from the inside out.

These are the dreams I dream of her, sitting in my car driving to work in the morning, sitting on the stoop after a long run listening to CCR tell me that Someday Never Comes. These are the thoughts that run in my head like greyhounds circling a track, chasing a none-existent rabbit. I dream these dreams because, like the greyhounds, I am a fool and fooled and I know that if I could only catch that rabbit, sink my teeth into it, I would awaken from this nightmarish reality - I would realize that there is no rabbit. Futility. A worked piece of metal on a track. I will realize these things and my eyes will be opened to the truth. No longer will I have to listen to my inner dialogue trying to justify her, trying not to believe that she is shallow and malicious, trying not to believe that she is as fake and phony as they come, trying not to ruin the only girl I ever loved in this whole big great world.

I should be in a much better mood than I am.