The good times are killing me

I should be editing my theses so that I can turn them in tomorrow.

Instead I am procrastinating by going fucking crazy.

I feel like my insides have been carved out to make room for more space. Needlessly more efficient in one sense. My eyes are itchy. They won’t stay dry.

I feel like a song by the Presidents of the United States of America.

Lump lingered last in line for brains
And the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane
Small things so sad that birds could land
Is lump fast asleep or rockin’ out with the band

I mean really, what the fuck?

Kitty on my foot and I want to touch it.

I repeat; what the fuck?

Every time this happens I can feel it coming. I spent as much of yesterday as was humanly possible alone in my room, studiously copying J.D. Salinger in his cowardice. Sometimes I need days off. I can’t bear to be around other people. Or do anything productive.

I mentioned to one of my closest friends today that I was looking forward to therapy tomorrow because of all of the things from my past that I’ve been reliving this week. He laughed at me and said, “We have such tough lives, you and I.”

That man is a fucking genius.

And that was the essence of the matter. My life is the only compelling argument that can be made for an ‘intelligent designer’. I am cushy and coddled by all of life’s eccentricities. I am probably the luckiest motherfucker ever to have been conceived.

And yet.

Sometimes it takes me a while to shake it all off. It reminds me of when I used to pole vault. Because nearly everything does. Every now and again, especially when you are as inconsistent a person as I am, you have a terrible vault. You’ll end up gasping for breath staring up at the sky covered in bruises and scrapes laying on the ground somewhere surprisingly far from where you meant to land. And it’ll take you a while to get back in. In high school I helped coach the new kids. Every time one of them would have a truly disastrous fall we would tell them, “Okay, now you’re a real pole vaulter.” In the end, you knew who were the best vaulters, not necessarily from how high they could vault, but from how quickly they could brush themselves off and get back on the runway.

I remember days when I would fall every time. I was getting on a stiffer pole or something and every fucking time I jumped the pole would spit me back out onto the runway as if I’d just slapped its mama. And every fucking time I would pick myself back up, sometimes bleeding, sometimes bruised, and get back behind the pole until the coach told me to stop.

It’s much easier to throw yourself twelve feet into the air over and over again without knowing if you’ll land on the mats after having fallen a few times than it is to throw yourself back into life after having fallen a few times. When you fall in pole vault it makes you angry and excited and you need to keep going until you get it right. What the fuck is right in life? Pole vault is so much less ambiguous than other things. Questions like, “were you doing the right thing?” boil down to, “are you bleeding?” Very easy to tell.

I want to punch the world in the face. I’d give up my easy-ass life if everyone I came into contact with could have an easier life. Why doesn’t life work like that?

Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?

Hey! Hello in there! Hey, what’s so important? What’cha got here that’s worth living for?

All that I need to know in life I’ve learned from movies. However, asking a Mostly-Dead man such a tough question is pretty unfair. Most Not-Even-Somewhat-Dead people can’t answer that question on the spot. Trust Westly, the man in black, the Dread Pirate Roberts, to nail it on the first try. While Mostly-Dead.

Though that is one of the few parts in The Princess Bride that I don’t at all jive with. Okay, so Westly answers Miracle Max with, “True love.” But who the fuck would love Buttercup? Not only is she marrying some other guy, but she is fucking miserable for the entire movie. What a terrible character! Fuck, I would prefer to marry Inigo, motivated my revenge, or Fezzik, motivated by friendship and love, than Buttercup. Why is he so in love with this bitch?

Consider the following: Buttercup bosses Westly around incessantly in the beginning of the movie. Apparently Westly is already in love with her at this point and this bossing does not deter him. Why the fuck not? She is being mean! Has he no foresight? This will come back to haunt you after the passion has died. Believe me, man, I’ve been there.

Next: She agrees to marry Prince What’s-His-Fuck. Why? Because “according to the law of the land, he can choose any bride he wants”? Are Florin and Guilder code for Saudi Arabia and medieval France? And she takes it? Balls.

Next: “Will you promise not to hurt him?” Once they escape from the fire swamp, Westly is ready to fight and if need be to die in order to stay with the one he loves. Buttercup pretty much gives him to a man that she knows she can’t trust. Jesus.

Next: Only AFTER a fucking nightmare about being publicly shamed for her misdeeds does Buttercup realize that she can’t marry Humper-Fuck. It takes her conscious manifesting as an external character (“Bow to the Queen of Slime, the Queen of Filth, the Queen of Putrescence. Boo. Boo. Rubbish. Filth. Slime. Muck. Boo”) for her to man up and tell Humper-Boy no. And even that she fucks up. She speaks in ultimatums. Either you call off the wedding, or I’ll off myself. How tough is it to counter an ultimatum? We’ve been in Humper-Slut’s shoes before. Just step to the left and parry. Hmm… Cake or Death you say? Well, I’ll have the chicken then. Easy fucking peasy. Whatever peasy is.

Next: At the end of the movie that bitch jumps out the window and falls for like a full thirty seconds. If there is anything that I have learned from Monty Python and the Holy Grail it is this:

Sir Bedevere: There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
Peasant 1: Are there? Oh well, tell us.
Sir Bedevere: Tell me. What do you do with witches?
Peasant 1: Burn them.
Sir Bedevere: And what do you burn, apart from witches?
Peasant 1: More witches.
Peasant 2: Wood.
Sir Bedevere: Good. Now, why do witches burn?
Peasant 3: ...because they're made of... wood?
Sir Bedevere: Good. So how do you tell whether she is made of wood?
Peasant 1: Build a bridge out of her.
Sir Bedevere: But can you not also build bridges out of stone?
Peasant 1: Oh yeah.
Sir Bedevere: Does wood sink in water?
Peasant 1: No, no, it floats!... It floats! Throw her into the pond!
Sir Bedevere: No, no. What else floats in water?
Peasant 1: Bread.
Peasant 2: Apples.
Peasant 3: Very small rocks.
Peasant 1: Cider.
Peasant 2: Gravy.
Peasant 3: Cherries.
Peasant 1: Mud.
Peasant 2: Churches.
Peasant 3: Lead! Lead!
King Arthur: A Duck.
Sir Bedevere: ...Exactly. So, logically...
Peasant 1: If she weighed the same as a duck... she's made of wood.
Sir Bedevere: And therefore...
Peasant 2: ...A witch!

That bitch floats. She’s a witch. Burn her.

In conclusion, I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s so important. What do I have here that’s worth living for? It would be interesting to have to justify your existence every now and again, even if it was to Billy Crystal dressed up as an ancient Jewish grandmother. I think I’d be able to answer the question. Maybe not if I were put on the spot and Mostly-Dead.

What do I have that’s worth living for? Other people. Unfinished and never to be finished work. Potential. The sheer amount of great films I haven’t yet seen or books I haven’t yet read. All of the experiences I haven’t had yet. All of the places I want to go. All of the things I could begin enthusiastically and end cynically. All of the problems I haven’t solved. All of the Mondays I have yet to hate and all of the Fridays I have yet to enjoy. The kids I want to have. The sorrow and despair I have yet to feel. The videogames I have yet to play. The love I have yet to make. Every grey hair and inevitable lack of hair I have yet to earn. To feel my body begin to lose its grip, and to know that every wrinkle, scar, paunch, and loss of motor control was worth having had those things. All of the music I have yet to listen to. All of the fights I have yet to have.

That kind of stuff and some more.

I wonder if Miracle Max would have brought me back, if my cause would have been worthy enough. Or if I would have grabbed his ass by the throat (strange visual, no?) and demanded my life back.

Jesus balls.

Memorial

And so it came to pass that they did gather together to mourn his passing.

The memorial was yesterday, and it was beautiful. Quite a few members of the literature faculty were involved. Very few broke down while they on stage. The readings were moving and varied, centering around his tastes and what was important to him.

Trying not to cry for over an hour is pretty exhausting. Every tear that escapes your control feels as hot as blood. Every tactic you use to keep from breaking down (breathing deeply, distracting yourself, biting your finger, concentrating on something simple, and finally, looking up to keep the tears filling your eyes from spilling down your face) ends up taking much more energy than it's worth.

And in the end, who cares? I was trying not to cry because I knew that if I was to start crying I would be A) loud and B) unable to stop for some time. But if I could have done it quietly, if I could have sat there and leaked stoically for an hour and a half, I would have felt so much better after.

I hate to be touched when I am not feeling good. When I am sad, upset, depressed, frustrated, angry, whatever. I hate physical contact. I didn't realize that until yesterday. When I'm in a good mood I want nothing more than to touch, to hold, to brush against, to cuddle, to fight, to play. In a bad mood nothing feels good or comforting. I'm realizing more and more that I am the only person that can bring me back around. If I get upset, I need to be the one who calms myself down and sets myself straight. That used to be my mom's job. Strange, right? You only realize when you grow up all of the things that were done for you as a child.

It's too easy to stay in a funk. A man that I admired, a man that inspired me, a friend of mine is dead. I have no possible future with him in it. I can no longer send him articles from the Times that I found interesting. I can no longer expect snarky return messages that point out eight things I had not even begun to think about. And I treasure that sorrow. But I also get this picture of my head of Steven looking at me mourning him and saying in that characteristic Steven manner, "Well? What are you waiting for?"

And so I reorient myself, forever changed and forever remembering, but moving onwards, towards the goals he helped me set.

Damn I miss him.

Haec credam a deo pio, a deo justo, a deo scito?

Back to the use of the word ‘I’. Have you ever noticed the possessive sound of that word? I lost a friend recently. It was my loss, my grief. You can't have any.

As if no one can ever feel what you are feeling.

I get sick of people who feel they are unique. I got sick of myself feeling that I was unique. That somehow I had the very hardest life imaginable. That my regrets were somehow especially regrettable, my dark past even more mysterious and ominous. We get lost in the myths we create for ourselves. I know people who have had lives that are more terrible than get described in the most intense novels and movies, and I know people whose lives are worse than that. I understand that, “someone else has it worse” is no comfort to anyone, but when you’ve seen it yourself (I’m not talking even about experiencing it), it makes it more difficult to dole out the same sympathy.

I do feel sympathy, and I am sorry for their loss, but I am also more aware of the greed involved in grief. Death is a difficult subject. A lot of people try to avoid thinking about it. When someone dies there is inevitably a vacuum where they used to be. The rest of us stand around that vacuum thinking that we’ve just lost something. But we never had it. Not in the abstract legal sense like your home or your person. We had it in the fleeting, temporal sense like the water flowing down a rushing river can be said to be water rushing down a river. Sure it is, right now, but in moments it is vapor, or water pooling into a pond, or water cascading down a mountain. Your house is yours because you paid for it (hopefully). Your person is yours because of your inaliable legal rights granted upon birth in this country (Locke did specify Life, Liberty, and property, but Limb was included in his discussion in the second Treatise). The more temporal loss is healed by memories and such. The more abstract is healed by replacing the object lost.

So we lose people. I lost him. But some people do both. They lose him, and they lose him. They lose the temporal, fleeting ownership and the abstract ownership. The former is constructed of interactions and communication, the latter of a kind of objectification. The person lost becomes less than a person to someone who held onto them as property. They are then like the house, owned but not respected, mourned until replaced by something else to mourn about.

What I'm trying to say is this: There is always an element of ownership in our relationships with other people. It doesn't have to be objectifying ownership. Death makes us come face to face with how we own people. I think Paul Varjak put it best in Breakfast at Tiffany's:

You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.

Drink all day, 'cause the country's at war

I didn’t know you could cry in dreams.

I had a dream not long back wherein I sobbed like I do when something breathtakingly bad happens. I was crying because a friend of mine, who I recently lost,-

Notice the use of the word ‘I’.

-was there. I don’t recall what he said or did. He may just have stood there, just slightly to my left and facing me, and said nothing. I knew he was dead in the dream and that was why I was crying. I remember vaguely that when he first appeared I was overjoyed to see him. But then I remembered that he was dead and the conversations that I wanted to have with him died on my tongue.

And I sobbed. I cried so hard in that dream that it hurt. When I woke up I realized that I had been crying into my pillow. Real life being a slightly easier environment to control yourself in, I quickly got a handle on myself. My friend had been dead for weeks and I was beginning to move on. At least consciously.

So that’s when I learned that you can cry in your dreams. I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised. I’ve had sex in my dreams, I’ve been stabbed and shot in my dreams, I’ve been dumped in my dreams, I’ve fallen from great heights in my dreams. Why should crying be exceptional? But it was.