No real thoughts tonight, and that’s the point.
Spent time at the cafe tonight, and even though I sat with people I knew, I didn’t talk. Said few words. Earbuds and a book. Left early.
Sometimes, I just want to exist in the presence of people, and not be expected to stroke their egos.
Just once. Can I have that?
On a warm and hazy Friday morning, July 28, 2000, I pulled in to Austin in my red ’94 Mitsubishi Mirage with my first carload of possessions, just in time for my first big-city rush hour, with a wild dream but completely bedraggled from the overnight drive.
Twenty-one years later, I’m still fuckin’ tired.
I’m not sure why I honor my own Austin anniversary, but it’s something we do here, I guess. Marking epochs of time. But my love for this town is still unrequited (after 21 years, it’ll come around, right?).
Yeah, I’ve learned a lot about myself in this time and place. I’ve found lots of things that I like, lots of dreams that I could still fulfill, but I still kinda drag along the same carload of possessions — literally, and emotionally.
And it’s tiring.
What’s the future? Who fucking knows.
Alcohol is the catalyst which slows me down so that everything overwhelms me, by which the profane becomes profound, in which patterns emerge in the chaos, and for one brief moment I find god. Everything suddenly makes sense, because I am too incapacitated to hold all the infinite possibilities in my head.
Divinity by chemical Dunning-Kruger.
No wonder the Franciscan monks found god through beer. Take away all possibilities, and the obvious solution is the only path you can see.
God by divine chemistry.
Inside of you are two wolves:
One that wants to whistle at everyone that walks by.
And:
One that chews the other’s leg off because that sort of behavior is sinful and unwelcomed and oh my god you are such an asshole to even want to look at anybody in that way how dare you.
All I really want out of life is a pair of flapjacks and some Denver scramble in my face.
