Boulevard of Broken Dreams

When I was twenty-four I went on a road trip with my best friend, Matt. Matt was really cool. He was handsome and had a lot of girlfriends. We lived in the dorms together and would smoke cigarettes by the water. Me and Matt kissed once on New Year’s but it was gross. Like kissing your brother. I didn’t have a brother but I understood where that saying came from after that. It was awkward for a couple days but then we talked about it. Well, made fun of each other about it. And everything was back to normal. Before I moved across the country, him and I went on a road trip thru California. We stopped in cities along the coast and visited friends. We listened to Green Day the whole way and sang really loud to Boulevard of Broken Dreams. It was the only song we really liked. In San Francisco we went to a bar and danced. I was wearing a blue t-shirt and he said that I should buy more clothes in that color. I met up with a high school friend who ended up having sex with a college friend. But then he slept on the floor afterwards and she was mad. Me and Matt stayed up and posed for pictures in a towel. I don’t know why. But it was in reference to something, maybe a commercial. I remember laughing a lot. I had Oscar the Crouch on my underwear and he said he wanted to have sex with Oscar. I giggled nervously. I decided I didn’t know what he meant. We went to Santa Barbara and went to the home I was a live-in caretaker for a while. I took one of the ladies out to lunch. We went to the park and she was happy. Later that night we went to a house party. I drank too much knowing I might not ever see these friends again. A lot of them I didn’t. I kissed an old boyfriend. We went to San Diego and saw a friend who seemed sad with his life. He was a manager at Applebee’s. He had bigger dreams he said. We said there was still time. And it was cool he made a salary and had insurance. Matt drove me back to where my mom lived. It was a small place. She lived with a boyfriend I didn’t like. I slept on the futon. That night he texted me and it just said “I love you.” It made me feel happy. I loved him too. Four months later, after I’d moved to Baltimore and he was in New York, I visited him and we kissed again. This time it felt good. It felt like how it’s supposed to feel. We were at a restaurant so I blew him in the bathroom. I climbed on top of him in the patio. We kissed for a long time. After a while he pushed me off. He had a girlfriend. He wanted to see how it played out. He would keep me posted. They broke up four years later. By then we weren’t really friends. He’s married now. With two kids. We talk some. His wife is nice. It’s weird to see him as a father. He makes mistakes. I saw him yell at his kids once. His son cried. His wife jumped in and made everything better. He says he’s happy but I know he has the same sadness our friend had. Sometimes I think of him. And I wonder if we’ll have our chance again. And what I’d do if we did.

Cool Things Please Happen Today

I need a cool thing to happen today. All the things that are happening today are not cool. Or, maybe I have a bad attitude. Or, maybe I am stuck in a rut. Today is the kind of day I want to fast forward through. Not because it is hard but because it is boring. I guess being boring makes it hard. Because I am tired and I think I am getting my period and I would much rather be home eating Indian food and drinking wine and imagining myself as an adult being successful and busy but also incredibly fulfilled. But then I think. I am an adult. I saw a friend on social media talking about a play she directed at Harvard. I got really jealous. I want to direct a play at Harvard. I want to post an article about my directing job at Harvard and say something like "I'll take what he says about art for art's sake as a complement...ha ha ha." I didn't read the whole article but I guess she was too edgy for Harvard? I don't know. Anyway, it got a lot of comments. The last thing I posted on Facebook asked people to send me their bacon. Sometimes I think I tried to do too many things so I never was successful at one thing. Is that what people tell themselves when they aren't good at one thing? I like to send out stuff to people. I fantasize that on a boring day like this I will get an email that says my play is being produced and I am being paid thousands for it. Then I can post something coy on Facebook. I'll pretend not to care but I'll check the comments incessantly. People at school will be nicer to me and I'll be really humble. Then that show will parlay into another show and that will parlay into writing for TV. Then the TV company will ask me to move to Hollywood but I'll say no because I want to finish my PhD. And they will be shocked that someone so funny and talented is also so smart and would be willing to give up a TV career for academic pursuits. But I'll shrug it off as I usually do because I am so humble, you know. This is the thought that gets me through the day. This what I hope will happen to me today.

Do More

I have a list of things I need to do on Google calendar. Google calendar is how I organize my life. Sometimes I write myself a note on my hand but that is a really a short term thing. It will go into the calendar if it’s more than an errand I need to run that day. If it is a long term project then maybe I’ll write a post it note and stick it on my wall. I like to be able to visually see all the things I need to do. It is a reminder to keep moving forward. I have a lot I want to accomplish. And I think I will if I do all the things little by little. Sometimes I don’t feel like I do enough. I wonder how other people seem to get things done so effortlessly. Do they just concentrate on one thing? Am I trying to do too many things? It would be nice to be really good at something. I like when people compliment me. I don’t think I even have that many interests. I just want people to see me. Talk to me. Thank me. Sometimes I think about how if I stopped doing things nobody would care. Would they? I don’t think so. Maybe because I do the things no one wants to do. So maybe if I didn’t do those things they would have to do them and they would be sad or mad. And they probably wouldn’t do them again. And then I would do them. Because without them I feel pretty lonely. Sometimes I wonder if all my tasks is the reason I am still alone? I went on vacation once and the first few days I tried to do things, see things, be active. After day five I stopped doing things and I just watched TV. It was nice outside so I had to close the blinds. I watched TV for hours and hours and ate fast food. It was nice. I liked it. Sometimes if I am doing too many things I will drink too much one night and then call in sick the next morning. I feel bad. But I can’t work hungover and being hungover is kind of like being sick. Every few months I break and I have to reset myself. I feel a lot of guilt and shame that I can’t get it all done without breaking once in a while. But the guilt and shame motivate me so I guess they are there for a reason. When I have to delete Google tasks it makes me feel bad. So I usually move them around. I can always try to do them later. Maybe later. Yes, later. Right now I have too much to do. But, if I really tried, I think I could always do more.  

Hair Cut

I cut my hair today. I did it myself in the mirror with a pair of kitchen scissors. I think the scissors are designed for cutting plastic bags open. Or maybe for cutting meat? I’m not really sure what kitchen scissors are used for but I generally use them for cutting paper…and hair. My hair was really long and when I put it in a bun it felt really heavy. It was too hot to wear down. It was itchy. It made my head sweat which gave me pimples on my neck. The bun was hard and I couldn’t lay down with it in. So I had to take it out. Then put it back in. The take it down again. If I put the bun on the top of my head it didn’t hurt as much. But people looked at me strange. But my hair was pretty. That’s the only thing that made me think twice about cutting my hair. I don’t know if I have any other physical qualities that are unique. Real show stoppers. At least, not like my hair. When I was younger my dad wouldn’t let me cut it. It was long and red and I guess he liked that. I wanted to make my dad happy. But I don’t care about making him happy anymore. I had a lot of split ends. You get split ends when you don’t take care of your hair. At least that’s what people who cut hair say. So I would always cut my hair myself. I hate when people lecture me. My head feels lighter now. And I don’t have to worry about putting it in a bun. I think it looks good. I hope it grows back. 

Bailey

Last night I dreamed of my friend Bailey. We met in high school. He was kind of nerdy and so I was I. But like cool nerdy. He had long hair and played music. He had an above ground pool in his backyard. We wrestled in it once and he got a boner. He never said anything about it and neither did I. In my dream I was driving to his house. We were going to prom together. My mom and sister were also in the car. I’m not sure why. The car we drove was pretty dumpy. The breaks didn’t work so I had to spin the car around to make it stop. I almost crashed a couple times. When I got to his house I realized I wasn’t dressed for the prom. I thought he would find that insulting but he didn’t care. I asked him if he could drive me to my dad’s house so I could put on my dress. I said it was pretty. I said it would be worth his while. At my dad’s house I slept in a coffin. My dad said I needed to clean out my coffin because there were bugs in it. They had all circled around an old jigger I guess I left in there. Jiggers are used for measuring liquor. I work at a bar so I know that. Not because I drink too much or anything. After I took out  the jigger all the bugs left. After that we went to the prom and I think I ditched him. When I woke up I googled my old friend and saw that his dad died a year ago. It made me sad. But then I thought how my mom was dead also and figured that these things happen. It’s not a big deal. It’s not like we’re young anymore.

Ashes

I can never find good movies on Netflix. I guess I watch too much tv because when it takes me to the section of recently watched there is always a lot of stuff in it. So I guess maybe the problem is that I can’t find anything new to watch. Sometimes I look for actors I like and then I find movies that way. That’s a good way to find movies. Lots of times the movies I like only have one or two stars. I guess other Netflix users don’t like the things I like. That’s okay. I feel like the Netflix rating system is rigged anyway. I recently watched a movie where some fat lady got skinny and then carried around her burnt up skin in a vial around her neck. It wasn’t as creepy as it sounds. But the whole time I was thinking…that’s not a very big vial. I mean, for a whole bunch of loose skin. I watch a lot of weight loss shows so I feel pretty confident about my assessment. Then at the end of the movie some other lady spread her dead husband’s ashes in the ocean. They made it funny and the dead husband was an asshole but I guess she put his ashes in her friend’s Tupperware and the friend was kind of mad because it was part of a set. But when my mom died the funeral home put her ashes in a box for us. It was a shitty box because we were broke and inside the box was a plastic bag and when my sister and I spread her ashes we had to put them in something more aesthetically pleasing but we didn’t think about it until the last minute so we had to put them in a birthday gift bag we found in my sister’s car. And we transferred the ashes into the gift bag in the parking lot and some of them flew onto the sidewalk. So I guess a little piece of my mom is still there. But in the movie she put them in a Tupperware container which means that either she transferred her husband’s ashes from one shitty box to another or the funeral home just handed her a bunch of ashes. Like with their hands. Into her hands. I thought about it a lot. And then I wondered what I’d like to happen to me when I die. I feel like it would be silly to bury me in a box that will eventually just have some building over it or something. And I don’t think I am going to have any kids to visit my grave or anything. The thought of burning sounds pretty awful and I think they mix you up with other people. I think I’d like to decompose in the woods and just be brought back into the cycle of life. But probably a hiker would find me and they’d think I was murdered and then there would be an investigation into my murder and eventually someone would go to jail for dumping me in the woods. So I guess I’ll take being burned. And then hope I have someone who wants to spread my ashes.

Adulthood

Adulthood isn’t really what I thought it would be. I mean, when I was younger I thought by twenty I would be married with kids. When I was twenty I thought by thirty I would have a great job and be a success. I’m thirty-five now and I don’t have any expectations for my forties. I hope that I have some job. I hope that maybe I’m in a relationship. I don’t want kids anymore and I don’t plan on being too successful. Do people retire in their sixties? Or seventies? How am I supposed to save up enough money to retire? I remember when I was young and my mom used to stay out all night and when she got home she would say “I never had a childhood.” I was mad at her. I didn’t choose to be born. She must have chosen that, right? I thought she should take care of me. But I sort of get it now. Stuff just happens and then you make the best of it. Like, I think about how my dad worked at 7-11 and the tobacco shop and I used to think he was so much more qualified than that. He was an adult. These jobs were for kids. But I guess he wasn’t. He was just some forty-year old dude who never got his shit together. I see a lot of those dudes around and I hope I don’t end up with one. But, at the same time, I sort of relate to them. And some of them are nice.