[2nd Leaf]
I'm sitting in the window of my first floor apartment while I write this, watching the sun set over Central Park.
Except that's a total lie. I'm watching the brick wall next to my apartment through a layer of iron grating and storm proofing, duct tape and caulk, standing perched above the measuring tapes that now criss-cross the main room.
I thought I was over this.
And in fact it seems pointless. That last wall is gone, I know this.
So why the tape measures?
I don't know. Maybe she's right. The not-knowing is what makes it ok. These little defenses to keep the cascade of too much knowing from devouring me inside out, the flood of information I get every time I meet one of you. Too much, now.
Hiruma's already kicked me out of his apartment, the pointy-toothed bastard. That's okay. I forgot to warn him about the screaming and really, this is better treatment than I've gotten from my other landlords. I think he does it because he thinks I'm entertaining. Funny, somehow. His new pet project. Or he enjoys how I confuse the hell out of everyone but Delirium, Tank, and Tyler. Maybe I've missed someone. Either way.
I actually don't mind. Living with those two was a little weird. They're both college age, and while Axel's seen the blackness on the other side (he is that darkness) they're so young. Like living with a couple of frat boys. It reminds me of Lude, really, and while I miss the crazy bastard I'm not in that place anymore. I was never really in that place. Mother always said I was an old soul, that the doctors proclaimed me ancient the day I was born. And if it wasn't true then it's true now. I'm ancient. I creak. And staying there with a hollow man and a vibrant wild soul is... not quite right. Not for me.
Fuck, that'd depressing.
That's not really why I started writing this post, is it? The reason most of you seem to put these things up is to bitch and whine about your sorry lives, so I guess it's time for me to do the same thing.
See, I've been trying to get a job. Tattoo parlors. I said I'd swear off that, but I need the money and it's what I know. What I can do. So I drew up a portfolio, sketches and drawings, the beasts of war rendered in ink on paper, dragons and wolves, ravens hungry for the eyes of dead warriors, shields and ancient roods scrawled across sheets of thin parchment, straggled trees and the marks of dead lands, and finally stairs (or ftairs, if that's your thing) and black hallways, squiggly labyrinthine designs that don't mean a thing to anyone but me but which I drew anyway, and at last, of course, text, always text, because some dumb shit is always going to want 'Claire and John Forever' across their left asscheek when 'forever' really means 'until next Tuesday'. It's funny how the meaning of time changes when love and hate is involved, from eternity to the blink of an eye, little moments fleeting in the darkness.
The first place I went to was a fat slob of a man, his body covered like some Yakuza out of a bad action flick, except that the layers of his flesh slid over the edges of his chair as he pulled the cigarette out from between tobacco stained teeth, greasy hands pawing at my art as his beady eyes looked over it. Unlike my last boss however he seemed to approve (maybe the tattoo artists in New York just suck. Suck eggs. Suck balls. Suck air.) until he got to the calligraphy.
"What the fuck is this bullshit?"
What the fuck is this bullshit indeed? I shrugged. "My handwriting's not the be-"
Except the asshole cut me off. Threw the binder back in my face. And that's when I saw it:
Every last one of my carefully crafted calligraphic words, from ambigrams to old English script, spiraling Arabic words and interlocking modern punk designs... every last one was now written neatly in Courier typeface. As if some monstrous typewriter had gone over all my work, all my artistry.
It's the ultimate irony, the ultimate 'fuck you' from both Iron Man and my editors. It was their choice to make my font Courier, not mine, and here we are, here I am, unable to write in anything else. How the fuck am I supposed to make a living as a tattoo artist if I can't even write? Seriously? I'm going to need a new job.
No.
What I need is a lawyer. A prosecutor. Which is pretty funny since it seems like I pissed off the best one in this fucking city.
See. My books is out there. House of Leaves? My name is on that fucking book and I could be making money off of it. Which is weird, because apparently I don't exist here, and neither does Mark (I didn't even know who Mark fucking was until I came here, of course, but he doesn't exist here so whatever) and so... who is making money off my fucking book?
How do I even prove I wrote it?
Granted, that thing is more than money. Much more than about some stupid pieces of green paper that in the end of all things mean a whole lot of nothing, that book was about a man's life, it was about salvaging... something. Actually, I don't know what it was about, but it was something and it was never mine but...
But the problem is, I need money if I'm going to survive, unfortunately enough, that's a fact of life. And if there's going to be a work with my name on it here then I'd better be the one who gets something from it, not... whoever is making the money in my name.
I don't even know anymore. How is my book here? I wrote it elsewhere, but why here?
But I already know the answer. [7]
[7] Mr Truant declined to comment on the length of this post. He also declined to use the cut feature. We apologize for the inconvenience. - Ed.
I had a dream last night that I was giving relationship advice to a chair about its love affair with a house. Said the house was capacious, flighty, and above all empty. The chair seemed to think he could change the house. I said you don't change the house. The house changes you. Allways. [8]
[8] The editor is tired now and is going to go to bed.- Ed.
Except that's a total lie. I'm watching the brick wall next to my apartment through a layer of iron grating and storm proofing, duct tape and caulk, standing perched above the measuring tapes that now criss-cross the main room.
I thought I was over this.
And in fact it seems pointless. That last wall is gone, I know this.
So why the tape measures?
I don't know. Maybe she's right. The not-knowing is what makes it ok. These little defenses to keep the cascade of too much knowing from devouring me inside out, the flood of information I get every time I meet one of you. Too much, now.
Hiruma's already kicked me out of his apartment, the pointy-toothed bastard. That's okay. I forgot to warn him about the screaming and really, this is better treatment than I've gotten from my other landlords. I think he does it because he thinks I'm entertaining. Funny, somehow. His new pet project. Or he enjoys how I confuse the hell out of everyone but Delirium, Tank, and Tyler. Maybe I've missed someone. Either way.
I actually don't mind. Living with those two was a little weird. They're both college age, and while Axel's seen the blackness on the other side (he is that darkness) they're so young. Like living with a couple of frat boys. It reminds me of Lude, really, and while I miss the crazy bastard I'm not in that place anymore. I was never really in that place. Mother always said I was an old soul, that the doctors proclaimed me ancient the day I was born. And if it wasn't true then it's true now. I'm ancient. I creak. And staying there with a hollow man and a vibrant wild soul is... not quite right. Not for me.
Fuck, that'd depressing.
That's not really why I started writing this post, is it? The reason most of you seem to put these things up is to bitch and whine about your sorry lives, so I guess it's time for me to do the same thing.
See, I've been trying to get a job. Tattoo parlors. I said I'd swear off that, but I need the money and it's what I know. What I can do. So I drew up a portfolio, sketches and drawings, the beasts of war rendered in ink on paper, dragons and wolves, ravens hungry for the eyes of dead warriors, shields and ancient roods scrawled across sheets of thin parchment, straggled trees and the marks of dead lands, and finally stairs (or ftairs, if that's your thing) and black hallways, squiggly labyrinthine designs that don't mean a thing to anyone but me but which I drew anyway, and at last, of course, text, always text, because some dumb shit is always going to want 'Claire and John Forever' across their left asscheek when 'forever' really means 'until next Tuesday'. It's funny how the meaning of time changes when love and hate is involved, from eternity to the blink of an eye, little moments fleeting in the darkness.
The first place I went to was a fat slob of a man, his body covered like some Yakuza out of a bad action flick, except that the layers of his flesh slid over the edges of his chair as he pulled the cigarette out from between tobacco stained teeth, greasy hands pawing at my art as his beady eyes looked over it. Unlike my last boss however he seemed to approve (maybe the tattoo artists in New York just suck. Suck eggs. Suck balls. Suck air.) until he got to the calligraphy.
"What the fuck is this bullshit?"
What the fuck is this bullshit indeed? I shrugged. "My handwriting's not the be-"
Except the asshole cut me off. Threw the binder back in my face. And that's when I saw it:
Every last one of my carefully crafted calligraphic words, from ambigrams to old English script, spiraling Arabic words and interlocking modern punk designs... every last one was now written neatly in Courier typeface. As if some monstrous typewriter had gone over all my work, all my artistry.
It's the ultimate irony, the ultimate 'fuck you' from both Iron Man and my editors. It was their choice to make my font Courier, not mine, and here we are, here I am, unable to write in anything else. How the fuck am I supposed to make a living as a tattoo artist if I can't even write? Seriously? I'm going to need a new job.
No.
What I need is a lawyer. A prosecutor. Which is pretty funny since it seems like I pissed off the best one in this fucking city.
See. My books is out there. House of Leaves? My name is on that fucking book and I could be making money off of it. Which is weird, because apparently I don't exist here, and neither does Mark (I didn't even know who Mark fucking was until I came here, of course, but he doesn't exist here so whatever) and so... who is making money off my fucking book?
How do I even prove I wrote it?
Granted, that thing is more than money. Much more than about some stupid pieces of green paper that in the end of all things mean a whole lot of nothing, that book was about a man's life, it was about salvaging... something. Actually, I don't know what it was about, but it was something and it was never mine but...
But the problem is, I need money if I'm going to survive, unfortunately enough, that's a fact of life. And if there's going to be a work with my name on it here then I'd better be the one who gets something from it, not... whoever is making the money in my name.
I don't even know anymore. How is my book here? I wrote it elsewhere, but why here?
But I already know the answer. [7]
[7] Mr Truant declined to comment on the length of this post. He also declined to use the cut feature. We apologize for the inconvenience. - Ed.
I had a dream last night that I was giving relationship advice to a chair about its love affair with a house. Said the house was capacious, flighty, and above all empty. The chair seemed to think he could change the house. I said you don't change the house. The house changes you. Allways. [8]
[8] The editor is tired now and is going to go to bed.- Ed.