Two blogs for the price of one!!

So, this is two separate entries that I am forcing to coexist in the same space, because I think that the two, when presented back to back, clearly illustrate the dichotomy that is the true nature of my fucked-uppedness. Heartfelt apologies to the young lady who I sort of squashed in the process of coming to certain conclusions about myself, and especially for uttering the phrase “on paper” aloud, to you, the night I caused you to run out of the restaurant and subsequently delete me from your Myspace and write a blog or two about me and how your friends were kind enough to offer to TP my house, as if I were the Vice Principal at Belding High. So yeah, sorry about that. I’ll discuss that one soon. But this is about my feelings and not those of ones I’ve run roughshod upon, be it intentionally or accidentally.

12/3/07

I really wonder about myself sometimes. Is it that I am unwilling to make meaningful contact with other people (close friendships with anyone of either sex fall under this aegis), or am I just unable to actually connect with anyone who isn’t the person I’m concentrating on at the time (in a perhaps not-so-friendly way)?

I moved to the city because I felt alone and unhappy (I’m not a suburban guy, it’s just not in my nature. You can ask my uncle who lives in Chelsea about his hatred for Long Island as well, it just might stem from the same place, although maybe a little to the side), and now, like in a Dan Bern song, I’m in a city of millions, more connected than ever, and I’m still lonely.

I came to this show my friends (well, slightly more than acquaintances, but not exactly my close friends, but hugs abound when we hang out, which granted, has been a lot more infrequent since they left Long Island a few years ago)were playing, instead of going to my usual comedy show because I wanted to see familiar faces that once brought me a casual joy, to remind me of what it feels like when that human contact is made. But after the initial warmth, I’m not sure there’s anything real left there -- nothing presently, anyway. We left Long Island far behind, not just physically through all the miles we each of traveled across this great land, but emotionally and metaphysically -- the new lives, the significant others taken in and let out, new friends and jobs and the whatnot of modern existence. I used to be a part of these lives and vice versa, but now there’s this invisible wall where a common feeling once was...

12/9/07

(written the day after a wonderful night spent reconnecting with completely different friends from back on LI, some on purpose, some accidental, all leading up to my walking home practically skipping (and me a grown-ass man of 34 no less) with a shit-eating grin from ear to ear as Rosanne Cash belts out “Tennessee Flat-Top Box” on my iPod, followed, i shit you not, by Sly & The Family Stone singing “Hot Fun In The Summertime” in December as a chill wind takes the temperature down a notch from already cold -- well played, oh sardonic iPod, well played.)

Sitting in a corner café in my adopted home, sipping my mocha cappuccino and reading On The Road - The original Scroll, not focused on anything but, when the Chinese Bootleg DVD Guy (CBDG from here on out) asks me if I want to buy a movie. I absent-mindedly said “No” without consulting myself. That certainly would never happen at the Brown Dog Cafe, where all I ever saw was some group of middle-aged potential pinochle players pretending to be a book club of some sort. I know it was just a cover for them to get to know each other well enough to invite each other to clandestine swingers parties on Avenue K, on the other side of the tracks. Of course, the Brown Dog would also have delicious soup. Since this is but the first stop on my journey, I’ll make do without the soup.

It’s funny, reading this rough draft of On The Road since it’s been so long since I’ve read the published version. At least I can still hear Kerouac’s actual voice in my head as I read, from having listened to the many recordings I once owned, now lost to the Gods of the War of the Sexes, too kindly I gave these up, still wish I’d gone to Buffalo soonthereafter, broken in to take what was rightfully mine. Too much I gave up, none of it did she deserve -- in retrospect -- but so be it, may Jack’s estate benefit from my follies of youth. I wonder how Dr. Sax is these days, if Dr. Sax still is these days. That kitty cat adopted us, and I was sad to have to leave him, packing up that banana yellow volvo deathtrap for my new old life -- pressing a virtual reset button, living and working right where I had left off 4 years later.

But what I meant to say, reading this now, is that I feel like I am On The Road myself, even though I am in one place, but it’s still a foreign place, filled with secrets and mysteries to be discovered and uncovered, so much to see and do and be, I embrace it all -- so excited to just be new, or at least be the same old me in a new context. My wanderlust given room to roam, even though I have a home -- it all feels still like camping out, albeit with an urban feel, perhaps that is the wave of the future knave -- urban camping -- I am testing my mettle, seeking my limits -- how much can I afford to go out, financially and physically, before I become spent and useless, broke and toothless, traversing this vast concrete jungle that is infinite within its finite measurements, with a skip in my step and a song in my heart, so eager for the new, anticipating the old mixed in like the fruit in the bottom of the yogurt that they are now saying is bad for you because of all the sugar -- hate to say I told you so, Yo...plait dead!