I should probably just get a blog. Oh well, you can read about my day here, and be wiser for it. I have a shitty writing style, but it doesn't matter.
Godammit. This always happens. It only took maybe two pages this time. Usually I think it takes a lot more. Or at least it used to when it started. I'm reading "Catcher in the Rye" and it only took maybe two pages for me to switch brains with the author. "Godammit?" That's not mine. That's his. I guess I've lost my mind. It happens all the time. I guess it happens more when I feel some kind of connection to the author. Or the main character. I watched Spider-Man twice in two days this weekend, so up until I became Holden, I was Peter Parker.
I woke up at one o' clock in the afternoon. All I wanted today was to read this damn book. It took me until about 5:45 to actually open it. Too much mess that got in the way. I guess most people just up and read wherever they are, but I haven't been able to read at home very well for a long time now. I usually go to the mall, or the park, or just somewhere far away. It's not about distractions, I just hate it here, and maybe I just feel freer when I'm out of the house reading. I used to love reading at USF. I loved reading or writing. I remember once I had to wait for my friend Dave, just about my only close friend at that school, for about an hour, so we could go get lunch. He had a class, and I had nothing. Or I might have had a class that I didn't feel like going to. Either way, I just sat on a little circle-chair they had in the park. That school was all parks. It made an environment very conducive to just sitting around and reading and avoiding class. I think the little circle chairs were all supposed to be atoms. They were all around the Physics building. I waited there a lot, because Dave had maybe one or two classes in his entire curriculum that wasn't in the Physics building, and even if it were, it was still close enough. So I just sat on top of Carbon or Boron or something, all half-Lotus style, and read "The Turning Point" for a solid hour. Just sat there and read it. I got a real kick out of that. I think it was more headway that I'd made in it than I'd made in months. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever finished it. I never had a bookmark. I don't think I can read books very well without a bookmark, unless I read them every day, like I would for class in high school. Otherwise I have absolutely no idea where I am in the book, and I opt to re-read old pages rather than skip even a slightest little bit. I feel like I couldn't say I read a book if I don't read every sentence. Which is funny, because sometimes I say I've read books that I've read only a few pages of. I guess some books I feel I know after only a page, and some I won't be happy with until I've read every bit. "Catcher in the Rye" though, I'm reading that for the second time through, because the first time, I definitely missed a lot of it. I remember some of the beginning, and some of the end, and not much else, other than the part where Holden gets with the prostitute. I guess at fifteen anything involving a prostitute has a way of gripping the mind.
I decided to go to Sim's Park to read, down by the lake. I would rather have driven to the mall to read, or to another park than this one right down the street from me, but my parents both had a car, so I had nothing. My mother said I could have waited until six for her to get out of a meeting, but with my mother six means at least seven, so I figured I'd read some in the park, and around six I'd meet her at her meeting, because it was only about a mile away. I had all my stuff in my backpack. I like the idea of a backpack, because I always want to have stuff with me, but more than my pockets can carry. I have this camera bag that I kind of use as a handbag sometimes, but I had a book with me, and it wouldn't fit in the camera bag. I actually have a camera in the bag, and it's the main reason I carry the bag, since the camera doesn't fit in my pockets too well, and it's also better to carry a camera bag, because otherwise I'd be carrying a purse. Damn, people never let that go. I carry some stuff in my pockets still, so it's only like my camera, and my notepad and pen, and my medicine for my asthma in the bag, but people always like to call it a purse. I think most people just find it too good an opportunity to pass up. People will do weird things just because they don't want to pass up the opportunity to do them. I remember a long time ago, back at my cousin's in Jersey, we were all hanging out in the basement playing pool, or videogames, or whatnot. They had their basement all decked out like a gameroom, and while it was hot as a dungeon, it was better than doing anything else. So my brother was playing some arcade game while we were playing pool, and my cousin gets the idea to poke him with the pool cue, right in the butt. My brother jumped and kind of yelped, but not in a hurt way, more like how you'd yelp if someone touched you with ice, kind of playfully. And I couldn't pass up the opportunity to laugh at how gay he was for getting poked in the butt with a pool cue and acting playful about it. Terrible thing, right? Calling my own brother a faggot, but it was just too much to pass up. Guess people can't pass up calling someone else a faggot when they have a good case on it. And I'll admit the camera bag gives people a good case, because I don't really wear it like a camera. Across the chest and to the side, which I think looks pretty hip, but I guess it's kind of effeminate. But I'll stick with it for awhile. But I couldn't fit the book in it, so I just put the smaller bag into my backpack so I wouldn't have to take all the stuff back out and put it back in my camera bag later. And I like carrying around a backpack, because it gives me a place to put my hat if I don't feel like wearing it for awhile. Of course, I couldn't find my usual Superman hat, so I just put on my Iron Chef hat and hoofed it to the park, backpack and all.
On the way there, all I could think about was this net cartoon I'd seen, and a song that went along with it, called "Alright 4 2Nite". And it got me thinking how much I loved the phrase "alright". Like, "Driving in a Corvette and feeling alright." I don't know what it is about it. I guess because I always use the word to mean "fine" in a dreary sort of way, like when people ask me about my day. But back like thirty years ago, people made it sound like it was a great thing to be. All right. And I couldn't decide if it was "all right" or "alright". And I remembered that I learned awhile ago that one of these two phrases wasn't even a real word, or wasn't the right word, or something. But I couldn't remember which was which. I hate that. I'm always remembering that two things are different, and remembering that
one of them is right, and that I know which it is, but I don't actually know or remember which it is. Only that I do know, or at least used to know.
It was hot as all hell. I only own a few pairs of shorts, and they were all in the wash. I probably would have worn pants anyway, because that's all I ever wear, but I wished I'd had shorts on then. In New Port Richey in the summertime, mid-summertime, it gets so hot and humid that just standing around you can't help but sweat. In the shade or whatever. In the sun it's just sloppy. I'd just gotten out of the shower before I left, so I felt bad being all sloppy so soon. I sat in the shade of this big monument thing about twenty feet high. I've lived here my whole life, and I was fixated on that thing as a kid, but I couldn't tell you for the life of me what it says, or what it's about. All I know is that it's made of big flat misshapen sandstone rocks, and it has a big star on top, surrounded by like a crest of olive branches or something. And all around its base it has a brown shelf that works as a bench. So I sat on that and started reading. Half the time I was either thinking about how I recognized what I was reading from the first time I read it or how my back hurt, and how there was no comfortable way to read in the world. You're either bending over or you're holding a book over your head, and either way it's a pain in the ass to do it for more than a few minutes. I was thinking about how I read a lot on the internet, and how that's always comfortable, and how if they only made books that were held up and flipped for you as you read, that it'd be great. But translating a book onto an internet screen always takes something away for me, because I never read anything very
long that's written on the internet, and propping a book up seems like it'd annoy me, too, so I dropped the whole idea. I'm stubborn that way sometimes. I try to come up with a solution, but that bratty kid in me just almost
wants to be unhappy and crabby about it, because I'll just reject any solution just from having a kind of bad feeling about it. It always makes me feel like a kid again, which always depresses me a bit, so I guess I just stop thinking about it after awhile.
I kept checking my cell phone for the time, but I didn't want to do it in a way that stopped the stream of words coming into my head. I realized I'd have to stop reading for a second to check it, so I was very apprehensive about it for some reason, but I switched to the phone and back to the page pretty well. I usually have a problem with that. But eventually I saw that it was close enough to six to go, so I started walking. I grabbed my hat, which I'd taken off because it was too hot and put on the bench next to me, and my sandals, which I'd also taken off for being too hot, and started walking. Now, I usually put my hat on forwards, because I figure I look like a dink any other way, but I was holding my book with one hand and I can't put it on very tight and adjust it and everything with only one hand, so I just plopped it on backwards and kept going and reading. For God's sake. I must have looked like such a douchebag walking down the street, in my plain clothes and sandals, and my backwards, sloppy hat, reading a book in one hand and sticking the other in my pocket, with my backpack over one shoulder. With five-day-old stubble even, for fucksake. I definitely didn't belong in this town. In this town you walk around looking straight forward, usually pretty fast. Because even though it's a nice looking town, nobody who lives here can appreciate it because they've been here long enough to know how much it really sucks under it all, and that there's no point in walking slowly to take it all in, or enjoy themselves. They just get to where they're going as fast they can. But me, I belonged back at USF. I should have done things more like that when I was there. Walking around reading, with a backwards hat and glasses. I was still a highschool student when I was in college, and now that I'm not in college, I look like a college student.
I just walked and walked, only taking up my eyes from the book to see if I was about to walk into a speeding bus when I crossed the street, or to turn the page, or stopping when I actually did walk into an overhanging plant or something. And God was it ever hot. I was a sweaty mess by the time I found my mother's car outside some indiscernable house, and sat by it waiting for her to come out. It was about six at that time, so I figured maybe she wouldn't be long.
I sat on the car reading, and the heat from the car nearly killed me. I rolled up my pants like highwaters. I didn't care at that point how I looked, if I ever do, and I actually kind of liked the look. I don't think I'm too savvy about dress, or that I dress all that creatively, but highwaters are at least one area that I can kind of call my own. At least my own here. Nobody seems to like the look but me. I first wore them back in Senior Year at Gulf. We had our Homecoming Week, and every day we dressed in some pre-determined, goofy style. There was Tacky Day, where the idea was to dress as tacky as possible, but most kids just decided to slop on as many mismatched clothes as they could. It kind of became more like Clown Day. I think only me and Kevin Seeber really got it. Kevin showed up in a Mr. Rogers type sweater, and I dressed pretty much like a cross between a European tourist and my dad. My dad is one tacky fuck. So just like him, I put on a polo shirt and cotton exercise pants, and some sandals. Then I touched it up with a fannypack, and some other shit. Funny, because I think a lot of what I wear to this day was inspired that week. Like Decade Day I wore this tight green button-up shirt for the first time, as I went with the fifties, and it's still one of my favorite shirts. Then on Patriot Day, which came around the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, I bought my Superman cap that's my favorite cap to this day. And then there was Island Day. Me and Kevin Seeber decided it'd be a kick to dress as Gilligan's Island. Make no mistake, I looked quite a bit like a young Gilligan, and he was a bit paunchy so he went as Skipper. Also, that's just how we were. Like a modern-day Gilligan and Skipper. I was always being goofy and he was always being annoyed by it, although underneath it all it was kind of an act. At least on my end, but I think he got it. A lot of people didn't, so they probably just thought I was actually a moron, but it was all just in fun. Of course, when you get right down to it, I guess there's not much difference between acting like a moron all the time and actually being one. To everyone else at least. But the pants I wore I'd gotten from a thrift shop, because that's the only place you can find clothes like that now. They were a lot shorter than they should have been, but I still needed the look. I really looked the part, aside from my pants being too short and my shirt being too long. But about a month or so later I realized I still had the pants, so just for kicks I wore them to school one day. They rested about two inches above my ankle, and since then I've liked the look and the feel of pants that wear like that. I have a pair of orange corduroy pants that wear like that, and every once in awhile, when I'm feeling really goofy, I'll wear them. It mostly ticks people off, but people shouldn't take pointless crap like that so seriously anyway.
I called my mother to see if she was about done with her meeting. "I'll just be out in two minutes," she said. I knew that meant at least ten, but I was still wanting to read a bit so I didn't hurry her up too much.
"I need the car so I can go to Wal-Mart," I told her. "Er... maybe Target," I added, as I recalled that I was supposed to hate Wal-Mart. Actually, I do hate Wal-Mart, but I think I kind of enjoy going there. Like how there are those people who you hate, but you enjoy seeing them sometimes, either to revel in your hatred for them, or to annoy them. So I suppose part of me likes going through Wal-Mart and finding something new to hate about it, or annoying the salespeople. I don't actually harass them, and in fact I've been told that my manner in speaking to associates and waiters and the like is actually much more congenial than you ever hear nowadays, but maybe that's what annoys them so much. I imagine that for someone who works at Wal-Mart, talking to someone who is mannerly and sincerely friendly must feel like a real burr in the ass.
"Okay then, I have to get back to the meeting, but I'm finishing up, so I'll see you at home, soon," my mother said. I just agreed rather than correct her about me actually being right outside, because I didn't see the point.
After about ten minutes, though, I eventually I got tired of sitting around waiting, because I wanted to get to Wal-Mart, or Target, to buy some socks before I went out, since I had no clean socks. I'd just bought a whole bag of socks before my sister's wedding, but I brought the whole bag with me rather than take them out and decide how many I'd need, and when I came back I'd lost the bag. And I wanted to have some clean socks because I was invited to go bowling, and I couldn't wear sandals to bowl because you have to wear bowling shoes, and you need socks for those. I almost never wash my socks because I can never find them. I should probably put them in the hamper or something, but often I just take them off and throw them somewhere and forget about it. Seems like I'd find them eventually though, but my dog has an affinity for eating dirty socks, so maybe that's what happens to them all. Anyway, I went inside to get my mother. I knocked once, but then I saw a little sticky note that said "come in
," so I just opened the door and went in. I made my way to the living room where I saw some old ladies I didn't recognize talking with my mother. Very casually, though. That seemed weird to me. My mother is involved in a lot of serious, pseudo-political events and businesses around my town, but this seemed very casual for something about business or politics. It wasn't like a business meeting as much as a club meeting. Like a book club, or some other kind of thing that middle-aged women get involved in to pass their time. I wondered what it was about, but I almost never ask that kind of thing. I realize just before I ask that I don't really care, and that the answer won't really change anything, so I don't bother. I just walked through the kitchen towards the group of them, and stopped at the counter because there were some grapes and cookies laid out, but not touched at all. I guess someone took them out and just didn't bother to move them to where they were actually having the meeting. Probably just started gabbing and couldn't stop, and forgot to move the snacks. I'm usually shy, but I just didn't feel like stopping myself from grabbing some grapes before I greeted them. I don't think my mother even noticed I was there yet, only some of the ladies. It made me laugh on the inside to think what these ladies must be thinking. Some bum walks in to their house and starts eating their snacks. I was kind of hoping one of them would yell at me before my mother broke the ice and told them who I was.
But they didn't. She just got up, and fiddled with her things, and began introducing me to all the ladies in the room. I knew immediately that it was a waste of time, because I didn't remember a single one of their names even a second after hearing them. I just waved a bit and turned back to the grapes while my mother tied up everything so she could leave. One of the ladies said something about knowing me from the wedding pictures, which I found unsettling, but it also answered why they weren't all that shocked to see me walk inside and eat their grapes. That disappointed me a little. As I was eating, I overheard my mother take down one of the women's e-mail addresses, and now I remember her name at least. "B.J" was at least her initials according to the address, and things like that still grip my mind, so now I'm forced to remember one of their names. Initially I'd almost intentionally forgotten as soon as I heard. That's kind of a hard thing to do. Forgetting something on purpose. The trick is to distract yourself before you even hear it, or right after you hear it, kind of derailing the train of thought before it gets to your memory bank. Trying not to think of something is almost impossible once you've already got it in your head. I remember when I was younger I was scared to fuck of slugs. They still creep the hell out of me, and when I see one I still get kind of paralyzed in phobia or whatever, but as a kid I thought about them all the time. In my sandwich, in my soda, I was afraid they'd be everywhere. And I tried not to think about them, which always made me keep thinking about them all the more. The only thing that helped was fantasizing that one day I'd be able to round up all the slugs in the world, and have them all put in a rocket and shot into the sun. I figured it probably wouldn't upset anything ecologically, because slugs don't seem to really do anything other than freak me out.
We left, and my mother told me on the way to the car, "You're very rude, [my son]." It's funny, because in that split-second between "very" and "rude" I had assumed she was going to say, "polite". Maybe just because the ladies were so polite to me, I figured I must have been polite to them as well. Or maybe I figured that since they were nice and happy, it didn't really matter how I acted, since the end result was them being nice and happy either way.
"You didn't even say goodbye or hello to any of them," my mother added.
"I said hello!" I shot back, but in a defeated kind of way, because I know I didn't actually act very polite at all.
"Well you didn't say goodbye. You just walked out like a lump."
"Whatever," I sighed, and tossed my bag into the back seat. Then I adjusted my seat and got in the car.
In the car my mother told me I'd have to drive her to the library for another meeting with my Nana. They were going to some Italian-American Women meeting. I thought it was funny that even with all the serious, business-related meetings my mother had, that she still felt the need to network through pointless bullshit like the Italian-American Women's Caucus, or whatever the hell it was called. Once I'd done that I could have the car, she said, which made her wonder where my dad was. "Where
is your father?" she asked. I felt like saying, "He's probably having an affair," but I didn't. It's funny, because that's actually what I was thinking. He's not a cad or anything, my dad, and he's never cheated on my mother, but for some reason it wouldn't surprise me. I guess I'm just that cynical. I didn't actually suspect him of being a cad, but I think if I ever found out, I wouldn't be too shocked. But I'm never too shocked by those kinds of things that people always seem to be shocked about. I think that the big events of life, like marriage, new babies, deaths in the family, all that stuff just seems to have lost all relevance with me. The first time something like that hit me, when my grandfather died, it was a wallop, and a hell of a wallop, but I don't see how someone could go through their life and not get numb to wallops like that, especially since they happen so damn often. I recall wondering what the hell all the buzz was about when I got accepted to USF in the first place. But I guess that's just how some people get their kicks. I can't really blame them, since I get my kicks from news like a new Spider-Man movie coming out, and nerdy stuff like that.
So she started talking while I was driving about some completely pointless story. All I could think about was how what she was saying could be replaced by any of a million other completely pointless stories, and I'd feel exactly the same about it. She was talking possibly about a conversation she'd had with one of the ladies in her meeting, and the kicker had something to do with a guy in some group of hers that was a wiccan, but I couldn't see the relevance to my life, so I just chuckled a bit, or maybe I didn't. I can't remember. Either way, I tried to drop her off, but she told me that I had to take her and my Nana to the library myself, which was a lot longer drive than I was up for. At this point I didn't even want to go to Wal-Mart anymore. I just wanted to go home. The book had a firm grip on my brain at this point, so my whole head was echoing with Holden Caulfield's observations, and I felt I had to write things down. That's how life is for me, and it's why I have that notebook in my camera bag. I'm always thinking things, and I always make a note to write it down, but by the time I get home I always lose the stream-of-consciousness and I end up forgetting the whole thing. I hate it. I go through it all, and one thing leads to another, and brain cells are firing and everything's mixing and bubbling up, and there's nothing to do about it other than put it in a pot and save it for later. And then when later comes it's all cold, and I don't even want it anymore.
"Ok forget it all. Drop me off at home and you can have the car and take Nana to the meeting," I said. God was I ever frustrated. I felt bad about it, because I know she didn't understand my desperation about getting home.
"What? What'll you do about a car? I thought you needed it."
"No. Nevermind. Just... let's go. I don't want to drive you all the way there. It's too far. Let's go." At that point she conceded, and we started driving home.
"
Where is your father?" my mother asked, as everything would be solved if the other car was at my house. He'd been gone all day, and nobody knew where he was. He didn't answer his phone, he didn't tell anyone where he was going before he left; he just disappeared. I guess I must get that from him, because I'm always disappearing. I can disappear all day long just to do something pointless.
"He's not answering his phone. Where
is he?! He didn't even go around and pick up the banners!" my mother said, pointing to a banner on a fence advertising the Main Street Blast, a concert that my mother's business coordinated that weekend. It started me thinking about all that she did at her job, and all the responsibility of it. My mother is the director or Greater New Port Richey Main Street. Basically what she does is coordinate festivals and other likewise events in Sim's Park about once a month. She has to pretty much oversee every detail that goes into them. She gets the food vendors together, maps out where they'll put up their stands in the park and how much they'll pay for it, she books the entertainment, she finds the volunteers to set up chairs in the park and put up tents and otherwise, and then a million other little details that I don't even want to try thinking about. Stuff like that makes me sick just to perceive. But she does it all the time, and we'd even had one just that weekend, and so there were still little signs and flyers and giant banners all around town, needing to be gathered up so they could start advertising for the
next event.
And I just kept thinking about how just that last week I'd had my cousins down from Washington, and that I'd racked my brain to think of something to keep them entertained for just one week, and what an absolutely terrible activities coordinator I was, even though my mother was pretty much the activities coordinator of my whole fucking town. And then I kind of felt cold and disconnected, and depressed from it all. I realized that I didn't really seem to gain any traits from my parents. Except of course my father's tendency to wander around town all day, wasting his life.
#
#
#
#
#
I talked to another guy and he said the same thing happened to him(well, he has a weaker mind. He's been to mental institutions and takes anti-depression pills often). Anyway, it seems to always happen and I smiled as I skimmed and read the first sentence of every paragraph 
The thing is...you have to talk about more controversial/involving/wittingly woven together stuff to be interesting like Salinger. Or else...
#
#
store, and youR weakness is a C word, referring to a blackish blemish found internally, and externally. What's that word again? OH YEAH, CANCER! CANCEROUS CANCERING CANCER!
