tomato can

The feeling of rejection. It comes all the time for me.

Most of the time, it’s my own mind rejecting something I’ve thought. Or done. Or thought about doing.

Sometimes, it comes from the outside.

A girl may reject me.

A job may turn me down.

A bird might shit on my shirt.

Who knows why rejection comes so often. But it does.

It’s how you react to it that makes something interesting. Or not.

Take my last job interview. I was trying to get a job back that I left years ago because I was horribly miserable. I associated so much evil with that job -- my breakup with the “love of my life”, the death of journalism, and the little twat that I hired that couldn’t write a fucking sentence without an error in it to save his life.

So why the hell did I even want to go back there?

Well, 14 months of unemployment makes one do and think really off the charts dumb.

I remember sitting in the main part of the interview, the moment isn’t exactly clear, but I just felt stupid. The questions shifted to things that they should never have, and at that moment I knew I wasn’t going to get the job. No matter. If fucking Jason Blair was my competition, he’d be there right now making shit up.

Yet I was bitter when I didn’t get it.

And I beat myself up about it. If only I’d been nicer years ago. If only I hadn’t hired that weasely little prick, who uses such gems as “yet alone” instead of “let alone” and invented the “man-to-man zone defense.”

He continues to do what I gave up so much to have a shot at doing.

But really, it doesn’t matter. I type more in a night that I erase or feel like wiping my ass with then he does in a week.

Then there are the times when I’m writing something. Anything.

There are times I am a complete hack. I know it. I read it and see it. Right in front of me. Then, someone will say “that was a pretty good story” and I don’t know what the hell they are thinking. Take this bit of prose right here. It’s meaningless, really. I can’t fathom why anyone would take a minute of their life and toss it into the garbage bin to finish it. But it happens.

And then I’ll write something utterly brilliant. And read it a day later and laugh at myself.

It’s all rather silly isn’t it? Searching for a story that actually is interesting is a folly. The only way to write is to write. It’s either good or it isn’t. And it doesn’t matter.

Or maybe I try to meet a girl. She’s younger than me. With kids. Is quirky. Things seem to be perfectly normal. We’re chatting via the intrawebs. Then, out of nowhere, she stops.

Why? I begin to wonder. Did I bore her to sleep? Did I offend her? Did I come off as a complete dolt?

More than likely, she’s single with kids for a reason. So run away.

But I still think about it.

Or a girl gives me her number. Tells me to call her the next time I’m in Raleigh. I know full well I won’t be in Raleigh for months. And if I am, my blackened teeth and empty Velcro wallet will go a long way.

Once again, defeated before taking a swing.

Tomato can they used to call people like me.

Now I’m mad because I’ve only written 595 words. Now it’s 604. Ooops, 609. This could go on all night.

My brain hurts. Not from thinking or reading or anything swell. No, I drank three beers and stopped. Cheap beers do that to a person.

Back to rejection. Or did I ever really leave that subject.

I avoid it, yet cultivate it. The idiocy of it amazes me. I know all of this, and sometimes rise above it very well.

Then I look at my giant pile of dirty clothes that I can’t afford to wash and start to wonder if I really ever do?

Such a dumb thought. It has no value.

Self loathing and self pity hang out with the one’s self. It’s not an interesting party. And I’m sure you’ll roll your eyes and stop reading soon. If you didn’t a while ago now. Or do you enjoy the train ride for the train wreck?

What?

And why are you so obsessed with your damn teeth? And that fucking redheaded bitch that decided you weren’t even worth an explanation? Issues, brother. Issues.

i'm scared.

The opening of the novel, the memoir, the whatever, was supposed to be “I never should have left New Orleans.”

It fit. So perfectly. Those words spilled out of my lips one spring afternoon in Austin, Texas. I was there for my best friend’s bachelor party. I said them in some throwaway moment. But my friend, he understood the importance of the words, writing them down immediately. “That’s the opening to your book,” he said.

“My biography, written by you,” I responded.

And thus, “The Adventures of Alligator Jones” was born.

It never lived beyond that moment.

Fear has crept in. A little at first, but more so now.

I guess the old belief that you get more cautious with age has sort of come true. And I only have myself to blame for it. I dwell too much. I wonder what if too much. It’s silly really. I know this. I even pronounce the words of no regret a lot. Yet, I don’t live up to it.

Take now, for instance. Things should be going one direction. They aren’t. Or they are at a snail’s pace. Actually, something slower than a snail, but that’s what comes to mind. Why? Because it’s the cliché.

Inspiration also seems to have slipped a bit. I have ideas. Pretty good ones, too. But when I sit down to try and expound upon them, they fade. Or they turn into nothing. Or into Jello.

I look at my past and I see things that make me wonder about my ability to commit. At least when things are good, or looking good, or becoming good.

My journals are, and were a perfect example of this. When I am moody, depressed, unhappy, whatever -- the words flow like the Mississippi. When I’m happy, content, joyful, etc. -- they stop.

Maybe I just believe this myth. Maybe it’s true. I don’t know. I just know that when the tap turns off, I’m almost always enjoying myself. So I ignore what I want to do.

Discipline is the key, I think. I don’t have it. I need to get it.

Or maybe I just need to be miserable. Which, of course is a self-fulfilling kind of deal.

I remember the first time I seriously read my journals from cover to cover. All of them one night. It was 2000-something or other. I’d had my heart broken, and broken a heart. I didn’t understand what had happened to over a decade of my life, so I thought I’d read about it. It’s why you write it down, I told myself.

Much to my surprise, there were huge gaps in my journals. I knew I got lazy sometimes, but really this was ridiculous. In one of them, I went almost three years with about 15 entries. In another set of them, I went five years with very infrequent ones. In between those two periods, lots of writing. Before and after them. Lots of writing.

Then came the purge gal. The one I threw it all away for. I wrote a lot before, and a lot for the first few weeks. Then it became laborious. A chore. Almost a bother. One reason was the expectation. I have only myself to blame. I showed this one my writings. Something I’d never done before. She wanted them to be about her. Not about any one from the past. But I couldn’t do it. At least not knowing she was reading.

After she dumped me, I wrote more than I’d ever written. I almost killed myself. And I found a bit of a voice inside me.

Then, she came back for a moment. It stopped momentarily. But came back with a vengeance when she disappeared for good.

The period since has been full of peaks and valleys. I started a roadie with my dad, writing furiously. Slowly, it became fun. Something I didn’t expect. And the writing stopped.

Now, I’m in a place of change. A crossroad, I guess. I can chase something and see what happens. I can let it just play out. Or I can run away. I seriously sit here and think which would be better. Knowing which would be. Unless…

And this writing could have been better too. But I was scared to chase the idea that was there. Of girls, exes and twisted metal.

Maybe next time. If I remember.

All I know is there’s a killer line from a song written by Joey Kneiser. “I want to curse at the world, with my arms around you.” For years I searched for a perfect line to say to a woman that I loved. That one, I think, is it.