An Entry to Kill Other Entries
It's gotten to the point where midnight comes around, Richard goes to bed and I've watched all I'll allow myself of Red Dwarf, or Anne of Green Gables, or whatever shit on Adult Swim is now popular... it gets to that point in the evening and I find myself actually resigned to it. I actually sit down with myself and ask:
"All right, what will it be? How will you get the money this time? Do you... win some moderately healthy amount through the lottery? Will you sell your first book and just up and go with the advance? Or do you simply squirrel for an unknown number of months and use credit?" It matters a bit. In my brain, I can't continue until I know how I funded my shenanigans. Tonight I decided I will have used my current income. (I know people who have done it [more than once], why can't I?)
"So, you have a little money that you saved and you have a magic credit card," which I know I wouldn't be able to get, but I ignore this for now. "Where will it be tonight? Mumbai perhaps? Dresden? Paris? Athens! Amsterdam! Orrrr maybeeee Birmingham?" My brain loves teasing me about Britain, but that's another story. Tonight I indulge myself and pick London, mostly because I think checking out the theatre scene would be extraordinary, and I am on such a stupid kick.
"When will you go? How long will you stay?" I am usually very careful about this, the fantasy absolutely hinges on me going around the right time. Normally, it is the universal off season - fall to winter, mostly, although sometimes it's winter to spring, depending on the climate. My daydream will be ruined if I become lumped in with the tourists. Since it is the UK, I decide to ease myself into the weather and leave right after Burning Man: September 17th, because I like traveling on Thursdays. I think it might be an OCD thing. Maybe. The time I spend there is also important. This is not allowed to be any ordinary vacation. I choose the minimum six months, since I am taking this trip with "real" money. No orange 500 dollar bills means I might want to take it easy. But really, my plane ticket is all I'm worried about.
"Just that easy. Now we're off." And away we go... I am going to London, on my own, totally alone and... relatively unattached (more on this later). I can sit for nearly an hour while my trip unfolds. Tonight I was staying in a hostel for two weeks, getting my bearings and seeing the sights, sleeping less and less and visiting every pub I came across. Everywhere I went, I took a sketchbook, and when I wasn't walking, I wrote. I wrote on buses and trains, on benches and in restaurants, coffee shop after coffee shop after smokingapackamorning coffee shop. In my third week I luck out in the Southern part of the city and actually am able to rent a studio for the rest of my stay from a horrible old Hungarian woman for a reasonable price after passing a drug test and explaining that I know no one in the area, so you know. No parties. (I also suck up quite a bit. Like a lot.) It's directly above a fish and chips place, and the smell is pretty terrible, but I refuse to mind. I hole up in my meager little living quarters and paint and write and sleep a little more than usual. I use it as a place to stash what little I have so that I can take day trips all around the UK, seeing as much of the countryside as possible. I am all over, I am manic, I am splat... back home to the studio to writewritewrite, working on a few projects at once because that's how I roll, oh, and don't forget the Anglo ass I'd be letting myself get at. One night stands, maybe a fuck buddy or two, and definitely, DEFINITELY a torrid affair. Torrid.
And after everything, in February, I go back home. And life picks back up. And it's all exactly the same. Only it's better, because I know that I am independent, I am my own person, and man, I am a fucking fox.
This was essentially the entry I deleted a week ago. I felt so alarmed by this, so selfish, so AWFUL that I just couldn't stand myself. So I went to Marly, like I said I would, and I told her, and I cried. I said I thought about it all the time, followed by compulsions to hurt myself I felt so disgusting about it. I told her that it wasn't just that I pictured it... it's that when I do. When I do, I want it. And not just a little bit. I want it more than I've wanted a lot of things. That was the most horrible thing.
And when I got done with all of this, the woman nearly jumped up and down with joy. She beamed at me for this. There's no other word for it. She sat there, beaming, and told me that was the healthiest thing she had ever heard me say.
Man, I just don't know what to do with that. She also said it might be something I should do someday. What even am I supposed to do with this shit. I told Richard. I explained what I wanted to do, and I cried again, because I hated that he would take it the wrong way. But he didn't. Fuck him, he said it would probably be good for me and he's not happy about it, but he's going to be supportive. Richard, proving himself once again to be the most amazing person in the world, not only forgave me for what I did to him two years ago, but he's willing to just let me go off for a while, do my own thing and then come back, no questions asked.
What am I gonna do with this.
Quack quack quack. I think one of my main issues is the fact that I hate it here. I'm allergic to here. Every second I spend here is fucking poison. Here is like the white noise that you hear ghosts through. Dead brothers, emotionally stunted brothers, myself at age five, eight, thirteen. At least last time I was here I had a job. I had places to go. I keep telling Marly I should get a job but she just keeps telling me to wait. Wait for what? I don't think I'll ever be better enough. And I can't give up the money I'm getting, it's probably more than I could get at a stupid fucking minimum wage gig.
I have been sick every day that we've been back here. I can't even breathe. Feels like everything is just choking me. All I can think about to make it go away is OUT OUT OUT. At least now I have a future to look forward to. Plans. Good plans. Plans that are good for me.
It fucking burns my bonnet that I have to keep reassuring myself. I'm sick of me and my worries and my little brain games. (I started the clock game again. The fucking CLOCK GAME. I have to fight the notion that I'm regressing.) I'm sick of trying to escape, I want to just hurry up and be FREE. I want this part to hurry up and be over.
But you probably just think I'm whining, and you're probably right.