Close the Window

No, no, no, no
--Smog

I see my end has been here from the start
--Her Space Holiday

The blinds on my large windows have been shut for sometime now. I didn't notice until I was digging through the leftovers in the fridge after a night of drunken contemplation with Remington at the bar downstairs. I haven't answered the phone in days, and all I seem to do lately is spin my dvd player. I am banned from every movie store in the hometown, except a Blockbuster in the west side that I got a membership at when I went to Ananta's for dinner so long ago now. We watched Closer, then had sex on her living room floor, and I never felt so far away from the normalcy that has alluded me for longer than I can remember. That Blockbuster is the last place that will rent to me, if I mess up my account there, by keeping movies longer than I can afford, I will have exhausted every video store in the hometown within a reasonable distance. I am a bad renter.

I have gotten more emails than I care to mention telling me that I am a fucking loser, and that my writing is shit. The only response I seem to be able to muster is, what took you so long to notice? Sometimes when I am dancing alone on my concrete floor with my favorite shoes on, or when a pretty girl walks by and I can smell her slipstream of loveliness for at least three or four steps after she has passed; words fill my head, but it's all too brief. What you are reading are my attempts to get some of those words back. People seem to like me, I sound really smart at parties when I am stuffing olives in my face and slurping back someone else's drink I assure you, but it all falls apart, right here, right now. I can never recreate the moments when emotion fills me, and tears form in the corners of my eyes. But perhaps there is something to be said for failure in the grandest sense. I am here to entertain you gentle reader. To make a fool of myself, to live in a constant state of excess, to have drinks thrown in my face, to fall in love three times a week, and to live reader, LIVE! Please treat me kindly, I am a lost soul. I don't know who I am anymore.

The blinds are closed, and the movie is about to start. Last night I watched The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, and found it very unsettling. Sellers' endless cast of characters hid his family and friends from who he really was. The concept is terrifying and enticing all at the same time. Tonight, I am about to watch Jacob's Ladder, a film about alternate realities, fear of death, and the reluctance to let go of the past.

When I am in bed, staring out at my empty home, I often feel like I am caught in a dream I do not understand, and that I could awake any moment to the smell of bacon and eggs and singing in the kitchen. But my slumber continues, and all the windows are wide open.