Sick with your own echo

I'm floating through another period of unemployment. The production industry likes to do this to those who have no established position or talents. Putting you through the ringer, seeing how bad you want to be there. It's such a great opportunity, you know? To stand there on a set, drinking coffee, standing striking distance from some movie star as he or she sleepwalks through their job too. Such a great fucking opportunity. Truly blessed all of us in the industry must be.

I don't want to keep spitting that "in the industry" phrase. It means less than nothing. The remedial jobs I've worked as someone's assistant or office gopher are no different that things some intern for an online advertising company would do. You just get yanked around. Do this. Do that. All with a smile on your face and a manufactured enthusiasm for your workplace. I'm sorry to tell you this but no occupation will make you genuinely feel that. The alarm clock sounds the same for everybody's job and you'd rather spend the day in bed watching cartoons. I promise you.

But this is America and so much must be achieved. You must wear the uniform of the 'go-getter' and make a name for yourself. You must earn your possessions and your female companionship. You must earn your weekends. You must earn the free time you get to invest in little hobbies. Then you must wave the flag of all that in someone else's face - because that's how people should act. A long stream of never-tiring accomplishing, punctuated by milestones and victories, undeterred by momentary defeat as that will only propel your further and faster into the next great challenge. This is the disgusting disease you have to live with as you take down your boss' breakfast order and skip off to Subway...so fucking grateful for these intial opportunuities to prove your mettle.

I'm dreading the next phone call. The next job. "Are you available? Can you start tomorrow?" They will ask. "Yes sir! Of course!" I will answer as another fate will get sealed. The machine will start to rumble as the gears stutter into motion. Back I will go. Into the grinder. Another couple months of being yanked in a hundred different directions. Everyday. For nothing. When I hear that phone ring that is all that I really hear. The death machine charging up. You have to earn that next couple weeks of unemployment, after all. So in you go.

I know this as I lay in bed at night, unable to sleep. I know it is coming. My mind wanders into other arenas like how the woman I want isn't there. Or how I need to fix a dozen things with my car. It tries to justify the great leap into that next hungry grinder. Maybe these things will make it worth it. Truth is, it probably won't. A couple more months without sex or any type of affection. Let's add a couple more. Meanwhile, back into the grinder you will go. Twelve hours minimum everyday at minimum wage, earning your keep. To come home to nothing. To reach out for nobody. To be awarded with the vague promise that you'll get to do it again. They'll starve you just enough so you will say 'yes' one more time and the nail can get driven in a little deeper.

All I am is an expense on somebody's budget line. First name, last name, middle initial. No mention of the broken heart. Broken spirit. Broken hope. I hate every moment leading up to that phone call as much as I will hate every moment that will follow it. But the key will go into the ignition. The engine will turn a few more times. I'll find myself somewhere. Being talked at. Going through the motions. Doing as I'm instructed. All with a feeling of perpetual loneliness. Disconnect. Abandonement. Swinging so hard with an axe made of air.

But that's working 'in the industry' and I should glow with excitement for such a chance.

Shit on the world.

Labor Day

I was driving back from a Labor Day pool party. A festive occasion in name only, I assure you. My two roommates were cheerfully inebriated and I was stone cold sober, swerving out of one kind of chaos and into another. It wasn't because I had assumed a stoic duty of not drinking. I'm just in the midst of an unemployed streak where drinking is simply not a viable option. It grates on you, trust me. But like the convicted, eventually you get the hang of it. You're at a party, swinging back and forth like dead meat. Not saying anything particularly clever.

This drive back home was colored in with a conversation about my current sex life. A personal matter, I know but you can't help but be amused when the spectators chime in. I'm involved with someone who is involved with someone else. Wax on. Wax off. I have hope, you see. My roommates felt differently about the situation. As exemplified by their graceful input:

"Oh no, Josh. You're fucking her. You're only fucking her."

They don't seem to hold the same kind of hope for my delinquent relationship status. They were drunk too. But that didn't matter. In the midst of me defending my position and why I'm doing what I'm doing - I had a bit of an out of body experience. Very dangerous while driving, mind you. But I was sober. So whatever.

I began to hear myself talk. I didn't like it. I was listening to my own arguments about how eventually this girl was going to leave her well-to-do boyfriend for me in the near future. Until then, I was just riding it out. They (my roommates) didn't understand the kind of relationship I had with this girl. They were just going off the facts. What they knew. What they saw. That's how I usually operate. By being fucking reasonable. If something isn't working then fuck it, put it down and find something else. They were on that level as they projected how fucked I was in the long term. I didn't hear them. I only heard myself.

And you know what?

I started to feel really fucking stupid.

That's not good for anyone. I don't like feeling stupid. Like someone else knows a little bit more and they are maneuvering reality around me. That's not having control. That's pretty pathetic. That's sad. The more I listened to the nonsense drip out of my mouth, the more it really sank in. Every relationship ever. The same kind of rhetoric spit out over and over until the eventual conclusion. It's always the same. I found myself watching it all unfold again. It's the kind of cinema you only earn by getting older. A big joke was getting told and I was the last one to get it. It hits pretty hard.

At the end of the day, there is still some comfort to be had. The friends who were drunkenly jibing me in that car ride are still going to be there for me 10 years down the road. Maybe 20. Or 30. The woman in question, or all the women to follow her, may not be. In fact, I'd bet on it. So while it hurts to know you're stuck in the same situation where you are just being used...that the people you confess your love to just string it along until they've gotten enough...these friends are always around. They are not to be taken for granted. These gentlemen and I will surely survive the decades with true, meaningful camaraderie. This woman, who I will not name on this blog, may not see such distance.

I would do anything for her and she knows I'm there, waiting, ready to be taken seriously. But her and everybody else should know...

I'm not that stupid.

Can't help but wonder...where I'm bound, where I'm bound...

I could tell she was watching me from across the patio. It was the middle of a party but I could tell she was watching me. I'm not bragging or being too optimistic about the situation, I'm just saying I could tell. My intuition is usually dead right and in those passing instances, I could suss it out. It made me think:

"This is what you wanted, isn't it?"

I'm sure she thought the same thing too.

I tapped my friends on the shoulder and told them we had to leave.

I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Hold position. Position held.

For whatever reason, I have somehow aged into a 65yr old man who sits around watching war documentaries all the time. I never used to be interested in these things. I don't understand it. Maybe the suicidal monotony of life has finally pressed into a fascination with more violent matters. Maybe I've just watched and absorbed EVERYTHING ELSE and this is all that's left. I minored in history, though. So I could just be making up for lost time. Whatever that's worth.

I believe most of all I like the cold precision of military movements. I've always conducted myself as such. Maneuvering through life with carefully planned calculations, accounting for possible challenges and preparing yourself in advance. As written in the blog before, that's practically impossible. You cannot ready your body or your psyche for impending trauma. It's a game of nerves, discipline and flat out fucking chance. Still, I'd like to think that I am ready. I suppose cognitive dissonance is my principal field commander. I'm sure everyone else can go along with that.

One predictable situation is that I always go into these introspective periods during long stretches of unemployment. As in, if I ain't busy making sure I'm somewhere for X hours a week...life turns into this black tunnel towards oblivion where there doesn't seem to a point to anytime. With General Cognitive Dissonance still standing on the parapet giving orders, you find yourself conjuring a point. Something. Anything.

I'm doing this right now. I'm finding a reason to continue. Or at least a reason to push forwards and flourish - not just get by. I've been doing that for a while. I'm looking at a map and I need to put together the next attack. This past year has kind of served as some sort of haphazard vacation. I've done a lot of hard work but in general it hasn't really felt like I've gained ground. I could be wrong. But it feels as if the BIG assault has yet to be made. I can feel it coming though. A shadow on the horizon. How things are now can't possibly last. This has held true for every circumstance I've been in. As a result it becomes like a race to arms. Will I get there before the enemy does? Will I know what to do? Will I be prepared? It's so hard to tell even when I have these large stretches of introspection. Things don't necessarily become clearer in times of peace. Sometimes a hard line in the sand is absolutely necessary.

Sadly, when I do step out of this comfortable trench...whether I face victory or defeat...heavy casualties are expected.

The Nervous Inability to Define Failure

Failure is a curious thing
A very finite word
a punctuation, almost
at the end of a sentence
or series of sentences
or life
as we understand it

most importantly
it seems to be something
only someone else
can identify
while we are left open ended
questionable
and as I stated
curious
until that someone else
comes along
and points it out
to us

only then does the abstract
crystalize
only then does failure
pull itself out from the floor
its black shadow
finally manifesting
before our eyes
into this creature
9 or 10ft. tall
wildly imposing stature
staring down at us
hot breath dripping
while we struggle
to make eye
contact

everyone hates to see it
everyone hates to see
most things
the footsteps they have made
scattered towards
an inevitable horizon
now crowded by the millions
of other footsteps
all trophies of a million
of other failures
our own voices
no longer audible
in the white noise
of the crowd

be very grateful
such a force exists
such a force that I'd guess
is one of the most
powerful
in our known universe
a million black suns
blazing
their gravity pulling us
towards black oblivion
while failure's curious shape
stands
and smiles

I used to think
such a process
could be avoided
like a lawn chair that spilled
out of someone's truck
and now sits in the middle
of the highway
but that isn't so
mostly all of what I thought
just isn't so

my own voice
has bled into the white noise
the shape has formed
the curtain has been raised
and I can't tell
my footsteps
from the others
failure has arrived
in the death mask
of oblivion
for us all
the final insult
being lack of prejudice

we can't even own
our own failures
they belong
to all

how disgusting

Well, that's how they do it...

It was a mystery I always wondered growing up. I'd look at every empty shell of human being and wonder what the fuck happened. Where the fuck were they when that hammer came down and beat the last shred of teenage, juvenille, ignorant ambition out of of their Dover body washed bodies. What was the straw that broke that fucking camel in half? I'd be bitterly chomping away at some bullshit job and I'd encounter these much older (or maybe even only slightly older people) that seemed to just not have it anymore. Whatever IT was. They resigned to this shit life that I was only considering as a transitional period for myself.

I guess that's where the problem lies with most people in my generation. Or fuck that, any generation. This disgusting, self-focused regime watching their life clock like their fucking KENO numbers are going to match up when that fucker strikes midnight. This delusional belief in self absorbed predestination that everything we are doing is leading to some grand climax. That our lives are indeed like the fucking movies we fill our deflated basketball skulls with on an hourly basis. When we lay in bed and play out our memories, they roll by in cinematic fashion - and accordingly - we plot out stupid hopes (fantasies, by and large) in the same manner. Something is coming for me, you think. Oh yes. I am suffering now but its just a slow burn to that delicious moment of glory.

So you work in those trench jobs. Or whatever you consider to be 'back breaking' based on how much money your mom and dad had when they raised you, and you analyze your peers. Surely they don't have that same destination ahead. You will be the one with the brass ring. All the miserable folks you've met along the way were just the wise old janitor that you gleaned a life lesson from before you've moved on into the  next stage of your bullshit movie. Everybody else gave up along the way. But not you. You had that deep rich intestinal fortitude....that gritty work ethic...instilled into you by years of toiling away. You have the edge. That's why THEY won't get and YOU will.

Something you never consider though is the slow Chinese water torture of time. It makes a grand canyon of your brain. Drilling the same dullness into over and over. I'd say for the first 25 years you accept as a necessary lesson. But the grand deliverance never arrives. And the patience runs out. And the energy of youth burns the candle down to the bottom. Maybe there is no exact moment of epiphany. That's to say there was an exact moment where a 'lake' gets large enough to be called a 'sea'. It happens so slowly like the wrinkles on your face. One day it's just there. Or in this case, it's NOT there.

Now I understand why people just give up. Why they just slog away in the routine. Why they are content with that steady paycheck, as pathetic as it may be in amount. When you are younger the word content is so evil and compelling. Its that awful thing you're fighting. Fuck, you're still perceiving life as a fight. There's a world outside your window that has challenged you and one day through precious due diligence you'll be awarded the title belt. Just like that.

The problem is along the way, you get teased with so many little victories that your appetite just gets soured on the whole thing. You win the talent show once but no great door suddenly blows open. You bang the belle of the ball and fucking tomorrow arrives anyway. You save up for the new car and now you find yourself struggling to afford new tires for the fucking thing. The prizes you set for yourself, the spoils of your personal war, end up not being worth a fuck. This revelation comes timed perfectly with all those natural processes in your body slowing down. You creep toward middle age with not only the desire ripped out of you - but now not even a trophy worth stepping into the ring for.

It's nonsense. Bullshit. Imagined by others and handed down like a fucking pocket watch from a dead  grandfather. Even that fucking pocket watch is meaningless. The intrinsic value of things evaporates too. You find yourself just sitting on the steps outside whatever domicile you occupy, staring blankly across the street. You're think "Man, I should probably be thinking something important right now" and nothing ever blips across the screen.

The imagination doesn't suddenly surge into motion.

The career decisions never satisfy.

The people come and go. The family members, the friends, the acquaintances, the fucking morning traffic.

It's a long stroll through the museum of life's empty experiences. All failing to deliver on some transcendental promise. You don't even know why you think that. You just do.

So now when you look across the assembly line and into the eyes (if you can even bear to look in someone's eyes) of your fellow human ilk, you don't feel different. You don't feel as if you're moving past them. You recognize yourself. They recognize you. You put your head back down. You go back to work. Probably doing something you never dreamed you'd be doing.

And you'll think "Man, I should probably be thinking something important right now - like a way to get out of here forever." And nothing will happen. Nothing will change.

Because everywhere is here and here is forever.

The Two Heartbreaks

Everybody is allowed two heartbreaks in their lifetime.

Two.

That's all you get. Don't fuck up.

Now before everyone starts pitching a fit about their own unique experiences, let's examine what I mean by the word 'heartbreak'. This is a dicey task because as I was typing "definition of heartbreak" into Google, I was worried about what awful bands that may exist using that as a name, album or song title. Thankfully I got shot straight to Wikipedia. After redirecting me to 'broken heart', this is what it had to say:

A broken heart (or heartbreak) is a common metaphor used to describe the intense emotional pain or suffering one feels after losing a loved one, whether through death, divorce, breakup, physical separation, betrayal, or romantic rejection.

Metaphor? You mean it's not real? Nope. Not at all. In fact, historically, I'm inclined to believe that anytime a coroner wrote down 'broken heart' as a cause of death - you know, like when your grandmother dies a few months after your grandfather - he was just making a very dark, hilariously awesome joke. It was actually a heart attack that killed granny, kid. Or pancreatic cancer. Something like that. I'm not sure. What I can tell you though is that it definitely wasn't the body's most important muscle deciding to stop because it was bummed out. That doesn't mean a 'broken heart' isn't an actual psychological condition. It is. And what gets broken is far more important than your little blood piston. Your ego.

You see when a romantic entanglement you are involved in gets suddenly ended against your wishes, that sickening emotion you are feeling is insult. You have been used and discarded, champ. All those wonderful qualities - your talents, personality quirks, sense of humor, appearance - were all fully taken in by another living creature and then happily returned like you were Best Buy the day after Christmas. For whatever reason, you weren't good enough to hold someone's attention longer than you did. Don't dwell on it or fret about it, though. This happens to everybody. In fact, it happens to everybody twice.

The two heartbreaks. The two instances in your brief existence where your precious ego will take a head on collision with the sweet indifference of reality. Two concussive blasts from an enemy bunker. I'm only talking in a romantic sense. I can see that Wikipedia's above definition pulled death and grieving into the discussion as well. That's cold, harsh reality too...but I am limiting this to tales of love and rejection. The two kinds of which you will endure at some point on this planet. This is what they consist of:

1. The Sad Puppy. Invariably this will always happen first. You really fall for somebody else based completely on non-sexual activities. For lack of a better term, you have a crush. You are not physically involved with the person at all. Yet, you are around them. Probably a lot. Enough that you develop these feelings and it really affects your life. As in...you tell other people you are in love with this person. The key here with The Sad Puppy is that you are not viewed in any serious, 'loving' manner. You are in essence, a puppy to the other person. They like having you around but it doesn't run any deeper. Thanks to your ego running wild though, you went a whole lot deeper. So even though you never have a physical moment between you and the other person, you still plead your undying love to them. They are baffled. They turn you down. You slink home and suffer...thinking you were robbed of some Olympic medal because you were as sweet as can be and still came up empty handed. Oh, gotta love that ego.

2. The Used Car. Eventually, through sheer time and numbers, you will get sexually involved with someone that you actually like. It's rare but it does happen - if only to fulfill the prophecy of the 2nd heartbreak. It may not necessarily be the first person you copulate with but if I were to ballpark it, I'd say this experience is somewhere in the first 25. The worst part is, the moment you start swapping fluids with the opposite sex, this experience waits for you like a skinned knee after your first bicycle. There is no way to avoid it. You will get really attached to someone you are sleeping with. They will at some point move on before you are able to. You will be devastated. Sorry I had to be the one to tell you. For some reason the added physical intimacy of this heartbreak will make it appear harder than The Sad Puppy. This is just an illusion. They are two sides of the same coin. You thought you were doing your best in a situation, then when the coach posts the final roster on the bulletin board you find out you didn't make the team.

Ideally, one should get these out of the way as quickly as possible. For me, I got The Sad Puppy at 18 and then The Used Car at 21. In between I remember thinking that I was due for #2 but even then, in full awareness, I wasn't prepared. No one can be. Even by reading this there is no way YOU could use this information to protect yourself. I'm just stating one of those unfortunate truths of the universe.

Keep in mind, just because there are 2 finite forms of heartbreak doesn't mean they won't stop happening after you have already survived them. You could still fall for someone from a distance and get spurned. You could still develop feelings for a fuck buddy. Who knows. The point is those new experiences won't be as hurtful to your ego. Your ego will have already survived its bootcamp into adulthood. Think of it like a piece of burnt wood. Have you ever tried to ignite a piece of burnt wood? It doesn't work. When those circumstances crop up again, you won't really be all that bothered. You have learned the most important lesson of all: nobody gives a fuck about you.

Now, as for there being a possible 'third' heartbreak....there isn't one. Just a 'first' suicide.

Oh that wacky ego.