Alright, I just got back from staying at home for the holidays, probably for
the last time.
Unless, you know, I’m in a coma from a suicide attempt gone wrong—but if I
manage to stay away from home, I’ll probably have no reason to try to kill myself
in the first place... So then this is all just a fun hypothetical situation
for ivory tower intellectuals.
I’m twenty two, nearly 23. I know my romanticism is nearly run out. If I
don’t end up a neo-beatnick poet with intellectual groupies, treating me like
Rousseau, laying about my place like they’re in an opium den, a harem, or the
back of ’72 Volkswagon bus—in ’72! If that doesn’t happen to me… I know I’m
going to end up accepting things like fate, futility, failure, and that “intellectual
groupies” is an oxymoron.
Because come on people. Isn’t that what getting older’s all about? Accepting?
Accepting car payments, commitment, alimony, retirement, and ultimately, come
on people, all together now. DEATH.
Yes, that’s right. Death.
Yes I’m going to talk about death. But not in that Richard Brenner “oh my
god the germs on this toilet seat are going to kill me or give me some socially
unacceptable disease” way.
I think the fear of death—or the preoccupation with it—is like a bell curve
over the span of your life. At the middle, you’re young, and you least fear
death. I think I’m there cause I think:
I could get shot right now. Here I am walking around my downtown apartment
neighborhood in my sweatpants at 4 o’clock in the morning looking for my cat
under hobos and hookers and other urban flotsam and jetsam. But I could just
as likely die in my next breath from an unexpected, instantaneous nuclear holocaust
that could wipe us all out in seconds.
But I’m a post-cold-war kid so I thought about it for like a few months growing
up, then got over it. I.e.:
Oh my god, I’m having impure thoughts to commit sinful acts…
Oh my god, I could die tomorrow in a nuclear holocaust…
Oh my god, I just did a sinful act…
Oh screw it.
I’m also over the whole god thing—and all you unsympathizers can go trade places
with any kid raised in any heavily culturally Catholic country. Foolish Protestants,
you probably think you can sin and still get into heaven. Hahaha.
Getting back to those “sinful acts.” I started this love affair with myself
as early as 6th grade. Because I was one of the few kids with the
internet back then—and mind you, this is like early 90s—when the internet was
just porn. (And people wonder why it caught on.)
So, I’m like 10 or 13 or something, let’s see… Okay, this requires math, and
I’ll go back home before I’ll do math. Of course, then I’d have to kill myself.
But as we’ve already established: Eh.
In the course of a year I went soft-core partial nudity, to full nudity, to
lesbians, to multiple lesbians, to multiple lesbians in exciting outfits, to
hardcore, to three-some four-some more-some, to bondage, sadomaso, sodo, beasto,
nechro, scato, techno, I don’t know—as long as it was unnatural, immoral, and/or
illegal, it got me at least slightly aroused, or disgusted, then aroused. I
mean, I was desensitized to the 2-D world. But 3-D, well, a close brushing-up-against
was still enough to do the trick back then. Who am I fucking kidding. It still
does.
Well, “doing the trick” lead to a lot of issues for me. Example, and this
really happened. I went to a Catholic school so we’d all go as a class to
confession… Yeah, field trips were to the missions and camp was a retreat to
the seminary, fun! Anyway, it was my turn and I got stuck with some priest
from another catholic school that I didn’t know:
“bless me father for I have sinned, it’s been um, as long as the last time
they took us to confession since my last confession. I was once, um, dishonest
to my parents, I once called someone a horrible name, and… uh…”
“Yes?”
“some other thing, and I stole a cupcake at the church bake sale…”
“Son, if you don’t tell me, I can’t absolve you.”
Alright, at this point, this could turn into a really creepy story that ends
with “and that’s why I can’t be in small confined spaces with men in black uniforms
anymore.” But it doesn’t. But for all I know this guy could be internally
salivating, cursing, condemning himself and condemning that little red demon
thing in his head that sold him on this little-boy-meat-market bonanza of being
a priest at a catholic elementary school all at the same time.
But no. I think this priest was just a dick.
“What is it, you have to tell me.”
He’s impatient, probably because he has to hear this same stammering from like
the other 8 boys waiting in line behind me. Either that, or he’s really
salivating, and can’t wait to see the next boy-meat package get all vulnerable
and guilty. “They’re so hot when they feel naughty.”
“It’s… not something I feel like I can…”
“Well, I can’t absolve you… and then god can’t absolve you, unless you tell
me. So, either tell me or accept…
The eternal internal indelible mark of shame that is burned into your soul
that is a sin, a lie against god, which is like lying to yourself, except with
someone who actually matters a damn. OH and speaking of damn, yeah, no amount
of hail mary’s and our father’s are gonna save your ass, unless I give em to
you, and you first have to give me all the details of your sordid licentious
scrumptious, boy meat tender… *gargg smack smack*.”
Anyway, that was traumatizing, and I didn’t tell him, it was easier just to
accept God didn’t exist. But, I didn’t really get to that point until high
school, so I had plenty years of guilt… Not that I really was unprepared for
guilt. That was much earlier in my childhood development. I.e.:
Oh my god, I’m having impure thoughts to commit sinful acts…
Oh my god, I could die tomorrow…
Oh my god, I’ve just lied to my mother…
Oh wait, I’ve been doing that for like a few years now. Scratch that, okay,
continue with sex guilt…
Oh my god, I just did a sinful act…
Oh screw it.
Anyway…
Oooh, right, I’m just remembering how I started this whole thing. I was staying
home after 3 months of no restrictions, after 3 and a half years of freedom,
i.e. 3 years of infrequent and 3 months of frequent pot use… hey, come on, I
go to a UC. UCSD, in fact. But that really doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter
it’s a UC, probably doesn’t matter that it’s a university at all. My guess
is you junior collegers probably know what I’m talking about best of all. And
you trade schoolers… Shit, I’m surprised you guys aren’t right now flipping
and tripping and popping and OH MY! And so I’d been at home, what, 3 weeks?
333. 3 3’s. Oh my god…
See, 6s, 6s I can deal with, that’s not necessarily religious, that’s like
culture now, it’s like 666, devil, woo, you can get a sassy tank top from hot
topic with that on it. But 3s those are like 7s and 40s. THOSE ARE GOD NUMBERS.
*Shudder.*
Anyway, I’m getting sick of being a spy. It seems so ridiculously WHITE to
pretend to be something your not to your parents. But if I tell my mother I’m
an atheistic pot smoker, she’ll have a heart contraction, a conniption, collapse,
and as soon as she gets up, I’ll be out of college and given the option REHAB
(for pot, I’d get laughed out) or worse yet, LIVING AT HOME. And you know what
would happen then.
That’s why I need to get a job. And that’s why, right now, since I don’t yet
have a job and financial independence, not only would it suck having my mother
have an aneurysm, I’d have to work for my father and go to some local community
college. And damn if I wouldn’t rather Raskolnikov’s fate at the end of Crime
and Punnishment. I can take Siberia over fucking Huntington Beach, Orange County.
Because I know I’ll go insane there before I’d catch hypothermia in Siberia.
Sorry, I know this wasn’t much of a “comedy routine” but fucking deal with
it. And if you don’t find my situation pitiful, think of it this way. Isn’t
it even more pitiful that I’m white, middle class, in one of the most influential
states, in the most influential country, with opportunities and easy routes
to middle-class stability at my finger-tips, with both parents still married,
no siblings in jail, I’m not fat, I’m not extremely ugly, and I’m not retarded.
And here I am, feeling absolutely pitiful. And isn’t that truly, truly pitiful?
And isn’t it so affirming that you can be deserving of the title pitiful, if
only you pitying yourself? And thus others can pity you; after they see you
pity yourself. And even if you’re the only one who ends up pitying you, then
you are truly pitiful, and even more deserving of the title.
And you can always have that.
Not that you think you deserve it.
Alright, let’s get back on track, let’s track back here. Ah fuck it.