The madness of monotony makes me itchy

The madness of monotony makes me itchy.

It also makes for bad things. My mind doesn’t work the same when the body is unoccupied with something. Even as little a something as watching television or washing the dishes or picking my toes. It’s why winter is the least favorite month. I stay indoors. I sit under a blanket on my couch, staring at things. Thinking about the past, not enough about the present, and certainly not the future.

Plans aren’t my strong suit. I once had a plan. It worked out well. Until the bottom fell out.

Sitting here in my underwear, hoping that my tooth stops hurting enough to make it through the day, I wonder why I had to look.

Maybe it all stems from that wandering thought that popped into my head for no reason the other day. Over six years later, standing in a lukewarm shower on a frigid November morning, it dawned on me. She didn’t cry.

Every breakup that I think of ended with both parties crying. Well, except for the first one. But she was a toad.

But the one that “matters” to me. The obsession one. The one that friends are even too scared to say “get the fuck over it” about, she didn’t cry.

And that all of the sudden matters. For days I’ve been mulling over that fact. Something glossed over in the depression immediate, and the depression that followed. The depression is over, but some of the thoughts stay. It’s like I’m Jim Carrey from the Truman Show. Hopelessly wondering about some part of my past. Unrequited love and all. But it’s a sign of mental illness, no?

This latest thought revelation has helped me. I know that my way of looking at life is strange to most. You fall in love with someone, you don’t fall out of love with them. Either you change or they change. The person you were in love with, or the person you were, no longer exists. So, one or the other or both move on.

I think this thought has let me move on. It’s been a lingering thought, that’s been trying to bust out for quite a while now. I didn’t let it until that morning in the shower. A calm came over me when that idea was there.

There’s other things important now too. It always helps. This one is different. I feel it. And I know it. That’ll reveal itself soon enough.

So, what do I do to drive away the monotony? And with it, the evil that is my warped brain? No idea, really. But I’m working on it.

Drinking alone is no longer an option. I do it when I watch a game or cook out. But not when I’m just sitting. I’ve not learned how to open the floodgates of my head without the lubricant quite yet. It’ll happen. Or it won’t. That’s when I’ll finally realize that writing isn’t my thing. It’s been too long since I tried to write something other than a journal entry anyway.

Those cats on my stoop. They howl at night. I’d let them in, but they don’t like me. They just stare in disbelief or jealousy. Not sure which. Not that it matters to me. Or them.

Two glasses – Abita pint glasses – sit on my coffee table. They both are dirty. They both have apple juice in them. Apple juice used to be my friend. Now I’m told it has arsenic in it. Guess I’m full of arsenic. So don’t try to kill me that way.

My boss is a homophobe. He’s also a terrible boss. I’m going to close off the work world starting today. I want to leave. Need to leave. And the excuses for still being there are about as sturdy as dollar store paper towels.

I’m out of Pop Tarts. That makes me angry.

I haven’t shaved in two weeks. And while the sight of me is quite awful, even to mine own eyes, I don’t do anything about it. It just seems not worth it at the moment.

I don’t like being a passenger in my car. I freak out. It has to only be the fact that I don’t own it yet. And won’t for quite a few more years. I wonder what that says about me? I trust someone to drive it, yet I don’t like it when they do? Control freak? Nah. Just an idiot whose values are a bit warped.

Can you tell I struggled to make it to the end? This story had no meaning. And the rambles at the end were just that, blank rambles. Getting back on the horse. It’ll take some time. Maybe it’ll take a shot of whiskey or three. I just know it feels better this way.

A story? That’s the next step. Gotta involve the road, bars and redheaded women.

a poor excuse

Get up. Shit. Shave. Shower. Eat. Read the newspaper. Get dressed. Drive to work. Work. Go home. Watch TV. Sleep.

Get up.

I’m not meant to do this.

You notice I didn’t even put in the “kiss the wife” or “pat the kids on the head” part of the cliché-ridden American Dream. Why? Well, those aren’t part of my reality.

And with my latest move, Watching TV has fallen off as well. Although I still watch programming on my computer, so that has to go to.

I do the other things, however. With the added bonus of jamming to Rick James’ “Street Songs” every morning. I decided to do that one morning, and every morning since has not been worse than the one before it. So, I take that as a positive.

The beard went today. Well, elongated “Lebowski” goatee, went.

Woke up too late today to get my hair cut. There I go, routine-ing myself again.

Ugh.

I read a quote last night, on a Facebook “friends’” page. I put this in quotes because I’ve met this person all of twice. Never had a conversation with her, yet for some reason she deemed me worthy of Facebook Friend status. Whatever that is.

Like most things that I don’t write down, I have no idea what the quote was. But the impression it made on my mind has lasted. I’ve got to get out of this rut and make what I want to happen happen.

Yeah, psycho-babble for the most part, but I need to take control of things again.

I’d kind of buried myself in this almost Unabomber code. Don’t shave the goatee until I find another job. Well, I’m not looking for a job, but the goatee grew. It was cool and all, don’t get me wrong. But, it pretty much did eliminate one other part of my quest at the moment -- finding a date.

There really aren’t many non-biker chicks that dig a long-ass goatee. Well, that’s not true, but I don’t run in the circles of Alt-Country musicians quite enough to find those women. Add the minor factor that I don’t play in one of those bands, and you get my point.

The image of Hal Holbrook from the movie “Into the Wild” constantly haunts me. He seemed kind of happy; living out in the desert by himself making leather belts. But he was tortured by his past. And that’s no way to live, trust me. The past made me who I am, but it can’t control who I’m going to be. Unless, that is, I let it. And I do.

It’s why every day I wake up and I know I have to go to work, I loathe it. I stay in bed too long. I linger by this computer a little too long. I play that extra CD -- right now it’s “Something Old, Something New” a mix given to me by the redhead of drunken blackout fame. And I think seriously about just not going -- Gibbonsing it. But I never do. Not yet. But there I go. Saying I’ll do it later.

The 23rd is looking like an excellent day to skip class. I’ve racked up an amazing 2.5 sick days so far. Isn’t that sad? The company only gives 5 sick days a year. Cheap bastards. But, that’s the way of the world now, isn’t it? At least that’s what folks with the stocks and bonds want me to think.

There I go with the crazy, old-guy conspiracy talk again. Who am I becoming? A sane man? I crippled man? Just a man?

Nope. I’m just Randy. A broken-hearted, naïve, silly wanderer who is stuck in place for the half-decade.

Time to Ride On, Bon Scott would tell me.

Excuses smell, ya know. Because they are assholes. Pity the fool that sits on his ass while the world keeps running. He ends up atrophied, insane and useless.

Set a goal. Achieve it. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

It is.

I just want to own a bar. With a 45s jukebox. And a dog named Sydney.

Still.

I talked with a bar owner about it. He saved up money for 12 years to get to the point of being able to start his own place. That he rents. That’s encouraging and discouraging at the same time.

There won’t be any saving up plan here. I’ve got to come up with an investor. Or 12.

I’ll take care of the jukebox and the dog.