the problem with stories

In stories, everything happens for a reason. In stories, when everything is perfect, it really is, and when everything goes wrong for no reason, that's because, in the end, everything will be okay. The real world doesn't conform to narrative structure. In the real world sometimes everything goes from perfect to terrible and it just stays that way.

Like the story about the guy who fell in love with a girl right after the worst summer of his life,
and she helped him out and they became fast friends and then they started dating and then he proposed and it's coming up on four years now, but it still feels like only yesterday, and they have the whole world to look forward to.

Only sometimes he doesn't meet the girl and he never gets over that summer, or he does but on his own, or because eventually he just snapped and decided to stop caring. Or he does meet the girl but they have a fight and never talk to each other again, or he gets afraid that it's going to be the same as last time and dumps her so he doesn't have to put up with the pain. Sometimes he meets the girl and still doesn't get over it because he's so lost in himself and his own world.

But the whole time he's looking for stories. He knows how the stories go. They start like this and then this happens and then it all works out. Somehow he thinks no matter what he does the story continues and works out in the end. Then he makes a bad decision without thinking and suddenly that matters and suddenly that's the only decision he's ever made. So he wonders if it could have been different or if it's like a story and could only have been that way--and he can never quite remember that life doesn't work like that.

existential angst at a bus stop

A man at the bus stop said something to me while I walked by yesterday. I didn't hear what he had to say--it rhymed with twain. I think twain might have even been the last word, but I don't know why. What could he possibly have said? Was he talking about Mark Twain? It was after midnight and I was the only person in earshot. Was he talking to me? I thought. I turned to look at him for a moment, about to ask him to repeat himself. But I didn't. I kept walking. My thought process now baffles me--I assumed that there was nothing interesting about me, so he must not have been talking to me.

I was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and Converse all-stars. I had a red t-shirt rolled up under my arm, or possibly in my pocket. Do I look approachable? Do people often start conversations with lines that I can't make sense of? Why didn't I stop? He didn't look threatening. But I couldn't think of any words that rhymed with twain that meant anything to me. I kept walking.

the perfect girl

I had a dream about the perfect girl.

But not like that. I was trying to describe exactly what I wanted in a girl. I don't know why. I kept picturing this girl with a French name that sat next to me in my English class, and a girl I passed in the street a few days before, and the only girl I'd ever loved, who went from pretty to beautiful while I wasn't watching. They were all on a type, variations on a theme, but it seemed like I couldn't make up my mind. The girl I'd been seeing didn't make the list--I remember making a note of that in the dream. It's not that she is anything less than perfect. She just isn't variations on a theme. She isn't a skinny, shy, dark-haired girl with dark eyes and a name I'll obsess over. I think I'm okay with that.

nobody home

I moved to an old farming town recently, population two hundred. The locals are friendly, though they wonder what I'm doing here. I tell them I wanted to get away from the city, and they act like they understand, but that's not the real reason. I can't tell if they know that or not, but we both go on pretending.

I guess this used to be a big stop along the railroad, with grain elevators and silos and things like that--there's still a lot of wheat farms, for a town of two hundred. I'm not really sure what they do with it. I guess they sell it still. Sometimes I wonder if any of the bread I used to eat in Seattle came from here. Was I buying their livelihood indirectly? I'll probably never know. I could ask, but I'd rather not.

The local kids confuse me. Not the really young ones, but the ones in high school, or the ones that should be college-aged. I think I confuse them, too. They don't seem any different. When I lived in a small town I was just like them--only there is nothing to do in this town and there's a good chance they all know each other and there's an intricate social structure I'm missing.

I'm not really sure why, but I took one of them on what I guess you could call a date to the local cafe--delicious food, made fresh. The owner knows me now. I guess the whole town probably does. I'm not getting looks anymore. She had brown hair and a practiced smile. She seemed friendly enough, but distant, like one of us was missing the cues. Was she trying to tell me something? Or was I trying to tell her something?

She smiled one of those smiles that usually sends books worth of messages to someone, but I couldn't read them. I was thinking about something else. It's almost Valentine's Day. I'm not home anymore. And moving here didn't actually help. She picks up the tab, and I thank her and say that's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me, and we both know I'm not talking about paying for dinner. I take her back home and she kisses me on the doorstep.

I thank her and say that's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me.

I'd say I never saw her again, but that wouldn't be true. I saw her a lot. I never understood her, but I think she understood me. I almost wanted to leave right there, but there was nowhere else to go. Anyway, I can't leave until I tell someone why I'm here. Even if she already knows.

wallets and identities

I lost my wallet the other day, but it was a few weeks before that that I forgot who I was. It's one of those things that creeps up on you. One day you know who you are, the next, some pretty girl who's always smiling says, "So tell me about yourself" and you realize you aren't sure, you don't know. Do you make something up? Of course you do. You tell a story that's true but doesn't really mean anything, isn't really about you, about something that happened a while ago--a mix of wit and misfortune, something carefully engineered to get that girl who's always smiling to smile specifically for you.

I was nursing a Maker's Mark and Coke, and she'd gone to the washroom, when I started to really wonder why I bothered. All my efforts to get her to like me (and I think she did) didn't matter much because, I mean, I wasn't sure who 'I' was. I was concerned that 'I' would impress her and that 'I' would look good and 'I' would enjoy myself but I didn't know who 'I' was, and that made it all seem cheap.

And I lost my wallet, and I just told her that on the phone--"Want to go hit the bars?" "I can't, I lost my wallet." "No worries, I can spot you some cash"--and I realized I worry too much. This was no time for existential angst.

dreaming about forgetting myself

Sometimes I have these dreams where I'm not the main character, and it's got a narrative structure with conflict, climax, resolution, and so on. This wasn't one of those. I was in the dream, but I wasn't really there. No, this one was all about you. At first I was talking to you but as time wore on you just became more and more the object, and soon I just forgot that I was there. You went about your life and I guess I followed you--like you only could in a dream--and watched you. I don't really remember much about it, actually. You didn't do anything remarkable. In that perfect dream-like way, what I remember most is that I forgot that I was there. Don't let me do that again, okay?

nice

Another evening pretending to read Hemmingway at the coffee shop, and I know, or part of me does, that it's not going to happen, she's going to call me an hour or so after we were supposed to meet and tell me she has other plans and I'm going to say "it's okay" or "don't worry about it" or some other stupid fucking thing because I'm nice and I say that and I don't want to call her a liar when she could be telling the truth--maybe she's busy?

Nice. It can be such a burden, being nice--letting people walk all over you and smiling and telling them it isn't a problem and worst of all thinking you should, like you owe it to them--you don't owe them anything. You stupid fuck. Grow a spine.

I thumb over the same passage over and over again. I feel like someone's staring at me; I don't look around. I'm pretty sure they know I'm frustrated, I just hope they think it's the book. People get frustrated at books, right? Are nice guys even allowed to get frustrated? I'm not even sure I am anymore--except maybe at myself for being frustrated in the first place.

Maybe I really shouldn't be so angry. I mean, being nice, letting it happen--that's me, right? That's what I'm all about. It's just--sometimes it doesn't work out like it should. Sometimes I want my due consideration. Sometimes I wish that being nice paid off.

I wouldn't change anything. Maybe. Well, okay. I'd like to be able to focus on this goddamn book. I order another chai tea to go and give up on reading for the moment. I give the barista a big tip. I'm nice like that.

ghost stories

When I was a kid, my sister said she'd seen our mother's ghost, and I believed her. I'm not so sure anymore, but I believe she meant it, anyway. I don't know if there's ghosts anymore. There's lots of things I'm not sure of.

I thought, do I want to believe her? Or maybe I didn't. Think that, I mean. I'm thinking that now. About believing her. About, well, wanting to believe.

I've got this photograph sitting on my computer, or above my desk, or something. It's her when she was young--my mother, I mean--like about twenty something, maybe. She was beautiful. I think of that picture now when I think of the funeral. I wonder if that's what she'd look like, as a ghost, I mean. If there are ghosts. She would be a good ghost, I think. If there even are good ghosts.

Ghost stories never frightened me. I always thought they were sad. People who died before their time, wandering around, doing whatever it is ghosts do. What do they do, anyway? It seems they would just appear in the likeness of a sigh, some sad story that doesn't have an ending. You know how when you're really upset you can never sleep? Or at least I can't. Like that. Delirious, never quite aware of what's going on, and when you pass out from exhaustion your dreams are haunted by it, and you don't understand but you have to keep going, keep walking, keep repeating it, some Sisyphean task only you're dreaming and don't know who that is.

He was Greek. The gods punished him. Sisyphus, I mean. Nobody's sure why. He tried to cheat death. I wonder if he was a ghost. I wonder if he's the template for ghosts. He had to push a stone uphill forever. It kept rolling back down.

But I was talking about ghosts. Creatures of twilight and darkness, right? The hours I can't sleep anymore. I listen to them, sighing past, creaking. I want to tell them it will be all right.

excerpts

Or was it that she had been wrong all along? Amy found herself smiling for the first time in what must have been weeks. It was all so simple. She'd been so busy trying to prove--even if just to herself--that she was right, she never even considered what would happen if she wasn't. Yes, that must be it--she had been wrong. Everything seemed to click into place retroactively as she thought about it. Of course it would be another evening to make sure, but she was confident this time. She smiled and poured herself a glass of wine. This had to be it.

Then she frowned. And if it was? Did that change anything? Did that nullify what he'd done, or how she'd felt? So she had been wrong--nothing changed because of that, did it? No matter what frame she viewed it from, it had still happened, hadn't it? It still hurt, didn't it?

. . .

"Nothing she was saying made any sense anymore. It seemed like halfway through a thought she went from 'I love you' to 'I hate everything you've done to me' and this happened several times in every increasingly incomprehensible phone call. And was she crying because she was angry or because she was sad? I'm not sure even she knew. So what else could I do? I stopped answering the phone. I locked the doors. I only went out at night. I cut off contact.

"And I couldn't stop thinking about her. I never--you know how I never used to have any dreams? Now I kept having them. She would be there, smiling, happy, like she used to be. And during the day, the phone kept ringing, ringing, and what am I supposed to do about that? At least in my dreams she was--I'm rambling, aren't I?"

"No, it's okay."

"Sorry. I haven't talked to anyone in two weeks."

"Anyone at all?"

"No."

. . .

"He's not answering anymore." Amy sighed. "It's not right, him hiding from the world because of me."

"I don't think it's your fault."

"Yeah?" She smiled. "I'm not sure anymore. You know? I'm not sure." There was so much she wished she could say--"I've changed, I figured it out, it all makes sense," but that wasn't right, either. She didn't figure anything out, really. But she was happier knowing that she didn't have the answers and hadn't made sense of everything but--how could she communicate that?

"You--well, he took it pretty rough."

"Yeah. Listen, tell him nothing makes any sense and I'm okay with that. If you see him. Okay?"

"If you want."

"Thanks. It means a lot to me." She wasn't sure what, exactly, but it meant something. "It's a place to start, I guess."

a man without a plan

I've been worrying about success lately, because I know I'm on the wrong track to a corporate job with a suit, a tie, and a salary, where I'm respectable and reliable and have a week of paid vacation days to save up for something special. Something special. I imagine myself taking a week to relax in some stereotypical vacation spot like Hawaii or Florida or taking a cruise to the Caribbean so I can rest from work and I can even see myself enjoying it but then I realize I've forgotten that it was supposed to be something special. And then I wonder if I really want to succeed at all. At least I still have special occasions.

This was probably spurred by losing my very-much-an-in-between-jobs job, or maybe it was the conversation I had with my ex a few weeks ago. We both said we were happy and I think I meant it, but she's on a good track. It was seeing her so confident in both of us that did it, I think. "I'm glad everything's working out for you," she said. And was it? What was working out for me? Was anything going well besides myself? I'm single and unemployed--the difference between me and many other people is I'm happy about it.

So I wrote her an email because I was worried and she said "Maybe it's not about status. You just want to be happy--and you've succeeded at that."

Maybe, I said. I didn't say that there's a lot of things I didn't succeed at. Maybe she knows. Maybe success is all about pretending.

waiting room

She said she didn't think she'd ever waited in the DOL for so long. I nodded. She said she got a new ID 27 times in one year, once. I nodded. She told the lady next to her she had a nice tan. She nodded, and pretended she needed to make a phone call.

"Drive 'em off," she said. I noted that I would not be able to use that out.

She told me some other things. I nodded some more times. I didn't really figure out what she was getting at, but I stayed anyway. She smelled like bad cigarettes--and sounded like she'd been at them since she was twelve. I couldn't figure how old she was, but you're never too young to wash up. I've been afraid of that for a long time.

nouvelle année

At six I asked to stay up watching the new year. I imagined a swirl of lights and colors rushing past, some dazzling display when the clock struck midnight. My family explained that it was mostly just sitting around and watching the clocks, so, naturally, I envisioned a landscape of them rushing past.

I've since learned that there is no magic to the new year. If there is a dazzling light display to be had, it is pyrotechnical in nature. It is not a holiday to honor gods or encourage virtue; there is nothing sacred about it. And yet, people celebrate and make resolutions, welcoming the new year with champagne and old traditions--and ushering out the old year, whether it be a fond farewell or a hateful parting. It's a celebration of potential, of changes, of traditions, of starting over, of starting anew, of the past, of the future--a celebration, in short, of humanity.

I fully expect that 2008 will be a good year; I wish you all the very best, as well. So, happy new year, everyone.

in front of me

The first time I saw her, she was standing in front of me at a show. I was afraid to go talk to her, compelled though I was--later on, she said she remembered seeing me, too. We were friends for a while, past tense, had an argument, stopped being friends--my fault, her fault, it doesn't matter. Nobody's mad anymore, is what's important. So it comes back to me that our relationship will end just like it started: she's standing in front of me, but I'm too afraid to talk to her.

classy

A bottle of wine (Chardonnay) is roughly sufficient to accomplish a lot of things, most of which involve forgetting something. I was about a bottle into the evening when a friend of mine came by for an unexpected visit. I was, of course, trying to forget something (a bad day) and told him as much (because I was a bottle of wine into the evening) and he shook his head at me and told me I was like any given white trash getting trashed on a twelve-pack of Bud at the end of the day. I shrugged and told him there's a difference, and he, incredulous, asked me what it was.

With wine, I said, it's classy.

go have fun

I went to a party. It was in my honor. There were lots of things I wasn't sure about: whether I deserved it, whether I should pretend I deserved it, whether I should just say hi to everyone and slip away quietly. And there was a girl, I didn't know her but she knew me, who told me I would go have fun and she told me to go have fun, dammit, and pushed me into the crowd, but I didn't want to. I think she knew that. She was hoping I'd cave under pressure, but instead I just sneaked out, because I was afraid of her. She saw me go. Our eyes met; she looked, not hurt, but disappointed. And we both knew I didn't deserve it.

out, out brief candle

Lately I've been haunted by this feeling I've done something wrong. I couldn't put my finger on it--at first I didn't even understand it. I was upset. Not angry or irritable, but I felt as if the world was wrong, as if my life were going the wrong direction and I caught a glimpse of it. Smiles I once thought were friendly seemed mocking now--were they laughing at me? Had I got it wrong all this time?

That feeling came from somewhere, I knew. I knew I'd done something that led to this. But where? And did I do it recently or did I only just now start to feel it? What caused this feeling of dislocation?

I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure out why nothing made sense anymore--why even my own smile felt forced, uncertain, forbidden. Then the dread took me. I had been wrong about everything. I'd blinded myself, ever since--yes, that was it. In the end, all of my problems went back, some two years prior, when I made the mistake--not the biggest of my life, but the keystone, the mistake that laid the foundation for a hundred others.

The worst of it was, I couldn't stop myself. I had developed such incredible inertia, that though I knew what was happening I had no control over it, as if it were written in the stars--but I was the one who etched it in there, long ago, not understanding the significance of my words, like some mad oracle who spoke cryptic words that only made sense once the event had come to pass.

I curse the black and midnight hags that ever hailed me king--and damned be him that first cries "Hold, enough!"

the internal inconsistency of dreams

I've started keeping a dream journal. At first the results were sketchy at best but I've finally started remembering them and writing down details and one thing has stuck out to me: my dreams are not, in fact, internally consistent. Just lately I had a dream where I was driving a car (and a modern car, at that). Later on we were loading up our horses and--I remember this clearly--at this point my consciousness revolted and said, "These dreams have no internal consistency! I should be driving a car! We don't use horses anymore!"

My subconscious resisted my consciousness's attempt at guiding the dream back into internal consistency. It decided that this was the ideal time to make the dream genre fiction set in a steampunk world. It has become evident to me that my subconscious is willing to peddle any lie, so long as it doesn't have to admit it's wrong.

smile

I once had a friend tell me I was always smiling. She said it looked like something was wrong if I wasn't. I thought that was odd, because I don't smile very often--and I forgot about it for months and now it's bothering me. Maybe something is wrong. Maybe she saw me for one of those few moments something wasn't wrong.

I've started keeping a log of when I smile. The last time was Sunday, 14 October, 2007, 23:43. I smiled several times that weekend. Nothing since then. Sometimes I try. I'll smile in the mirror--those don't count, of course. It doesn't look right. There's something missing. I can't make it look right when I smile but I know something's wrong when I don't.

Lately I'm starting to wonder if I've ever seen myself when I'm smiling. I'm working on it.

dreams of drowning in paper

Work on Thursday: paycheck.
Trip to the bank Friday, before work: cash, deposit slip (discarded).
Lunch break (fast food), Friday: receipt (discarded), change.
Dinner Friday night: receipt (signed, returned with tip, customer copy discarded), napkin (used, discarded).
A birthday party Saturday night: sticky note (with directions, discarded), scrap of old paper (with phone number, given away).
Breakfast Sunday morning: receipt (signed, returned with tip, customer copy discarded), napkin (with poem, left for the waitress).
Lazy on a Sunday afternoon: notebook paper (trying to recall the same poem), journal (fiction, the same poem).
Returning home from work Monday: junk mail (discarded), bank statements (tossed aside, ultimately discarded), a personal letter (disappointed at return address, read briefly, forgotten).

the impossibility of ignoring dreams

All it took was some whispered advice from someone I never trusted anyway to get me started on the dreams again. I have heard the tired speeches from Shakespeare and I agree, I agree--but I am a man desperate for the beautiful, am I not? Yes, yes, I am nearly certain I am wrong, fueled only by wishful thinking--but if I am right?

I have no plan for that eventuality. So let it happen! A fleeting glance, a tap on the shoulder, a smile, and the hand-off. And then I must plot a course past my dreams.