Shabby as a Harlot's Painted Face at Noon

Part Un: Panegyrics

I'm in a very strange, yet positive, mood. I'm fairly certain it's because I'm wearing pants.

I had forgotten how pleasant wearing pants can be. Also: pockets! My hands have their own personal blankets! Pockets are a very useful invention. That being said, I don't think I want to wear pants more now; it's possible that the pants were (I took them off) pleasant to wear because I don't wear them very often, or, really, at all.

Or, and check this out: maybe it was the specific pair of pants. Maybe this pair of pants puts me in this strange mood. Maybe a different pair of pants will put me in a bad mood. I wonder if, someday, when I am displeased with the mood of that time, I could slip on those pants and everything would be okay. I wonder if, after today, I could condition myself so that that could actually be possible and not fucking ridiculous, like it sounds. I wonder if, eventually, I could just think about wearing that pair of pants and my mood would be automatically ameliorated. That would be useful. More useful than pockets, really. If pants can change your mood, then what the fuck? Really. I should be able to look at my goddamn curtains and think about how life is wonderful. Maybe now I will. I think the Pants Effect (...actually has a ring to it...) is wearing off. Or I could just be on my period.

I bet you're wondering how this fits in: cats don't wear pants either.

Part Deux: Calumnies

I realized yesterday that, in a nutshell, food courts inspire me to reflect on my life. That's really not true. But what is true is that it is in food courts (and food courts alone, it seems) that I really get just where the hell I am. I am the most cognizant of the fact that I am in Vietnam when I am in one. Most of the time, it strikes as a dawning, slightly upsetting revelation. What the fuck have I done? How have I knocked my life off-kilter? When did I wind up in Asia? Better yet, how did I forget? Can you imagine if I (you) had to spend all my (your) life in a food court? (Stu: I was with Hien. I had Wrap 'n' Roll; it wasn't good. She had Lotteria. We had an incredibly depressing conversation, not at all inspired by the roll of beef fat in my cold bun thit nuong.)

That same day (not a good Vietnam day), I ventured to the 4th floor to buy a Christmas card. It was like being in a film. As I recall, it was a horror film:

Bam! Hit 'dem little crackas with a freeze-pop!

Shop attendants (of varying degrees of same-ness) are standing in the empty aisles in front of their empty stores not talking to each other. IMAGINE IT. Every 5 feet is another Asian person, facing forward, staring off into oblivion, ignoring the person 5 feet away from them, not twiddling their thumbs, humming, or even attempting to entertain themselves. Either there's a cult leader in the back sitting in a swivel chair, smoking cigars, and watching them on a giant security camera, or they've all just lost the will to live because of their propinquity to the food court. Someone put them there in the morning and someone will dismiss them at night. Living, breathing mannequins daring you to spark them to life with your dong. I got my Christmas card and I got the fuck out.

Part Trois: Threnodies

I take a break from my conveniently-removed, pseudo-cognoscitive anecdotes to give you this timely excursus into topics with hopefully more pertinence and lesser fugacity:

And yet with jaundiced eye I gaze upon all the beauty and wonder about me, and with jaundiced brain consider the pitiful figure I cut in this world that endured so long without me and that will again endure without me.

-- Jack London, John Barleycorn

I've sat here for the past five minutes attempting to put into words what it was I really came here to say. I've fiddled around with loose metaphors, vague aphorisms, blasé attempts at honesty -- all of which fail to encapsulate the way I promised myself (and maybe certain bald-headed friends of mine) I would write. I figured this recent string of events would be convenient for this purpose and this purpose alone; alas, I seem to be wrong. With the arrival of one thousand emotions comes the perspicacity of none. 

Yesterday, this little boy I had never met before stared at me for a long, long time. He stared at me unfettered and unabashedly, content with saying nothing. Unlike all the other children who divert their gaze when they don't know an answer, he stared at me happily and I more than happily stared at him back. It brought tears to my eyes that awkwardly rested in my eyelids, like so many have been wont to do lately. When's the last time you bathed in someone else's naïveté? When's the last time you stared at someone else without pretense, without shame, without worry? When's the last time you sat across from someone and simply thought about how they were alive? Why does this strike me as so beautiful? Is it my lack of intimacy with others that makes these small moments so quietly powerful?

Maybe Stu was wrong and there should be no conclusion. We never really conclude our days; we simply go to sleep. We never really conclude our thoughts; we simply partake in and get distracted by new ones. We never really conclude friendships, we never really conclude ideas or philosophies, or even selves, though those, too, often come to an end. 

Maybe my conclusions are questions. Charlie and Stu are always quick to tell me that I'm still in that phase of my life where I do that a lot; I sort of resent that. I don't know if it's because I yearn to stop questioning and to start knowing or if I think they're feigning wisdom (eat it, suckers) and I believe that one should never stop asking questions. I'm not sure if 'knowing' even really exists. There're a lot of questions in that paragraph that I didn't pose as questions, I know. That's either meta or just plain ol' irritating. I'd stop if I could/wanted to.

So, I guess I'll leave you with this: when's the last time you allowed yourself to feel what you wanted to feel? (Why didn't I phrase that as, "when's the last time you allowed yourself to feel how you felt?" Those are two very different questions.) When's the last time you wanted something and didn't want to want something? When's the last time what you thought would make you happy made you happy and what you thought would make you sad made you sad? 


Huh?
 

Such a beautiful word for such a disastrous thing.

xoxo.


J

How do you stay faithful in a room full of hoes?

It's question day, sponsored by Kanye. That rhymes.

From this point forward, your measured approval of this blog post will only decline.

It took me being in this curiously strange mood to look at this large mug I stole from the Hofbräuhaus in München to think, "I should drink outta that." How is that possible? Most of the time I think, "Oh, that's right," or, "Oh, that's right, I'm awesome," when I see it. Never anything in regards to its utility. Maybe I just wasn't thirsty enough. ...Now there's an apt metaphor for you. Full circle I just went and I bet you didn't even catch it! That's a fucking conclusion, Stu! Maybe you just don't know it! When I go three exclamations in a row, I like to make it four!

A) Moods are so stupid! (Or five.) I put myself in this mood! If I want to be like this forever, I could be! Right now, I want to be able to look at every glass ever and realize that I can and, more importantly, should drink out of it. I could've drunk out of it this whole time. Also: am I going to drink out of it? I'm not sure. It's quite large. If she said that, she was probably lying to you.

B) Are we capable of watching ourselves? Are we capable of both knowing what's about to happen next, it still happening, and thwarting it?

Do I like Phil Collins? I have two ears and a heart, don't I?

'My friend Stu' was talking to me the other day about this blog. I really like it when he does that; he generally has nice things to say about it and getting him to stroke my ego is harder than pulling teeth. He's also quite a good writer. Now that I think of it, I feel similarly about his writing (what little I've seen of it) as he does about mine: it's a bit removed. He remarked on how I never use names and how I blatantly cannot conclude things; he suggested that it was because I never fully commit in the first place. My retort was that my blog is my thoughts -- generally not a concrete replay of events -- and therefore no real conclusion can be written, as my thoughts on most issues don't have any real resolution in sight. He made some convincing arguments about how that's not entirely true -- if thoughts don't come to a resolution in your head, you'll be bothered by them until you sort your shit out. In addition, he inadvertently challenged me to end my next post with a legitimate conclusion. Hopefully you'll find a satisfactory one at the end of this page. Though, as of this juncture, I know not. I hope future me doesn't let present me down.

This seems like a useful segue into the 'why I don't mention people' topic. For the record, addressing this seems unnatural and against the grain. But, alas, the reasons are fourfold:

a) If I mentioned people by name, talked about the shit they said and did, it'd be like telling stories. It'd be like listening to myself talk, which I do all the time and have no desire to do any more of. I do not, however, get to listen to myself think (insomuch as you can't really hear yourself speak) -- and that's how I feel it doesn't quite fit into this blog. What's more, I'm pretty sure that if I did quote-unquote tell stories, I would bore the shit outta myself. I have this dreaded fear of being boring; or, at least, people finding out that I am. Maybe you already knew? If so, thanks for not telling me. You're welcome for returning the favor, probably. Burn!

b) If I mentioned people by name, I would feel obligated to explain what they are like. Not doable. There are people I am around all the time that I couldn't answer the simplest of questions about. With anything resembling confidence, at least. I have a hard time fitting people into boxes, giving them adjectives. Giving them adjectives with any sticking power. I could talk about what they say and do, sure, but that's not really writing about them. Not writing about them in the respect they deserve.

c) If I mentioned people by name, I would feel obligated to explain how I feel about them or how I feel around them. Not doable. Though I suppose doing 'b' would greatly allude to doing 'c'--therefore letting 'c' off the hook--I still feel like it would be the cyber-elephant in the cyber-room. In order for things to make it into my blog, they have to be truthful and I have to find them interesting. Any of my thoughts regarding other people that meet those two requirements are generally not blog-acceptable. A story Charlie told me about 'feeling shame for your words' has been on my mind a bit lately. I don't think it's shame in this circumstance. It's a little fear, maybe some cowardice, sure, but it's more general practicality. I think you get it.

d) I don't explain people in my thoughts to myself. Doing so in my blog would be out of character, if my blog could possess that.

The only reason I dislike Lori Singer is because of that one scene in 'Footloose' where she needs band-aids over her nipples.

I didn't drink out of the mug. Yet.

I'm gonna go drink outta the fucking mug.

It's so big it's burdensome. But I regret not my decision. It would've been an enjoyable experience had my maid not thrown out my only goddamn straw. As it stands, it's merely moderately remarkable, solely due to its size and nothing else. That's right.

It's about that time. If I address the conclusion in my conclusion, does that negate the necessary conclusion-ness of said conclusion?

I'm gonna try to give people names. I'm gonna try to put myself in strange moods more often. I'm gonna try to look at things and drink out of them, straw or no straw. I'm gonna try not to talk in crappy New Year's Eve resolution-al metaphors. At least, until the next Kanye lyric that strikes me or the next picture that makes me sad I'm too young to know anything about hotter, younger Alec Baldwin. I'm gonna try to get those dudes that never told me they had the hots for me to tell the next guy to balls up. I'm gonna try to not walk out of parties without saying goodbye. I'm gonna try to not split infinitives. I'm gonna try to do small things until they don't feel big anymore. And I'm gonna try to cook pumpkin sometime, I think. I'll at least let you know how that one goes. I might even give the pumpkin a name.

xoxo,

J