Mark

What a different week from last week and the last what seem eight trillion or so. Started a new job and it’s been good so far. I’ve been there all week, and it’s been interesting, hard, easy, strange, and everything else in between. It’s a small place and it’s basically physical labor. The last two days I spent on my feet the whole time. It’s been an odd adjustment going from sitting around doing nothing to doing actual work, but I enjoy the challenge. Even though I got laid off a while back and then spend most days just sitting at a computer at home, or out and about with the laptop, the last few years of my job were spent pretty much doing nothing as well. In fact, I am starting a new blog kind of about this very thing. My time doing nothing at my last job, getting laid off and then the long ass time between then and now and some of the stuff that happened in between. I hope to make that one humorous for the most part since this place has gotten kind of out of hand.

A few thoughts since I started. I post too much shit on Facebook all the time, which I don’t really care or think about that much. I sometimes put some “personal” normal stuff up there when I am not joking around. I try not to complain or put anything passive aggressive up, but maybe every 29th post may be something like that, whatever. Other times, I’ll put something personal like I quit smoking for however many days. I put something up when I started work this week and then a couple of subsequent posts referring to work and a few people asked where I was working. I think I decided since this job is mainly to earn money I don’t really need to tell people about it, it’s nothing exciting, it’s warehouse work and it is supposed to turn into a more important warehouse position, but I certainly don’t want to be defined by the job. I always am bored to death when people want to talk about work. In Los Angeles, every person you meet asks you what you do for a living, which basically means they want to see how you might be able to help them out, or what they can sell you. Anyway, I’d rather talk about other shit “I’m up to” unless of course I start making lots of money doing interesting things.

The people I work with all seem pretty okay, it’s a warehouse environment, and there are only about five or six people in there at a time so it’s pretty quiet aside from the music which may or may not become a problem at some point. The first day was mostly your basic rock and roll station on FM for most of the day and eventually that got turned into modern hip hop complete with vocoder songs, etc. I honestly can’t stand this shit at all. I’m pretty open minded about most music, but I can’t really handle that stuff at all. There is quite a bit of ball busting going on in there, the crew is three young men in their early 20’s I guess who are typical teenagers (I guess), talking about Call of Duty (I shouldn’t have mentioned I play) and smoking Newports on break, and liking that horrible music, a seemingly bitter guy in his late 30’s who is helping out there until they move him into another position, the boss who is cool, and then a guy in his 30’s (I think) who is also really cool, likes good music and seems to get annoyed to all hell with the younger guys and their antics. I’ve tried to keep to myself for the most part until I figure out what my role is there. I haven’t really gotten that friendly with anyone aside from small talk. Oh yeah, and a young man working part time that started the day after I did, after some talking he goes to the Jesus college I talk about on here sometimes and his girlfriend works at the coffee shop I go in daily. Small world. He’s a nice guy and I can’t imagine what is going through his head listening to some of the conversations going on in there.

As shitty as I’ve felt the last few months, I don’t feel that much different really. I guess my mind is elsewhere all day, but on the other hand, interacting with people all day is making me almost not want to do anything at the end of the day. I may just be feeling tired right now though. I feel generally better off though. I enjoy the physical labor more than sitting there at a desk, and as soon as I get a little money together I am going to join a gym and start working out again since I am so disgustingly out of shape now. I am clean of everything at this point, but look and feel horrible and fifty-eight years old. I almost don’t even want to go out right now because of it. I feel a little disconnected from everyone and everything as well. For a while I thought I wanted to do music again for an outlet but now I don’t even think I want to. I guess the way I know this is, when the band played their last show last August I never took the guitar out of the case after that show. Playing that show in October with that other band I used to be in was fun, but I haven’t even thought of picking it up again. Usually if I even think about playing the guitar it’s because I hear a song and think “ooh, I’d like to learn that” and then realize I could just listen to the song and have a better time. I think I’ve managed to tell twenty six different people I want to start a band with them yet have no desire to really. Perhaps in thirty minutes I’ll feel different about this.

Looks like shit is still the same I guess.

Feelin' (like a ) Demon

Most nights for however many years now I barely sleep, or I think I barely sleep. Lately I barely sleep though for real. I feel fine throughout the day. I don’t smoke anymore and am slowly going to try and just stop doing anything. I already don’t really drink aside from maybe a sip or a shot here and there, and that’s usually because someone offers me something. I would never in a million years order a beer or a “drink”, especially at this point. Even weed at this point, it’s kind of a useless thing. I don’t really do it as I never have it anyway, so if I can get rid of all of it and be free of everything aside from caffeine I’ll feel even better every day. I can’t imagine walking around with any sort of leftover feelings from a night of too much of anything. even something as insignificant as cigarettes, there were nights I just smoked so fucking many of them, the next day I really felt like shit. I want to get back to one of the original reasons I hated doing all that stuff for years...because I didn’t want to miss anything.  Every girl I’ve ever dated, I’ve never been drunk around any of them. I was always drunk in times when I was single. I wanted to be able to remember all the times I spent with them, so being wasted or buzzed or whatever didn’t even sound like an option. To me, spending time with people and being high or drunk around them basically means you are bored with them and need to escape. No? I’m not that bored with people I spend time with that I need to be there I guess. Who knows. I think this makes sense to me. I never really go back and read this stuff, but I think I made sense.

I’ve failed at being able to create anything in a long time now. Without a comfortable place to work it is growing increasingly harder to think of anything worth sharing. I know they say you can’t write too much. I kind of think I do right now though. In writing about nothing I am not creating anything aside from just channeling every thought I have down. Either here or on my own machine. Trying to decide what to put here is easy, if it’s vague it goes here. If it says “That dude Carl is a shithead” or whatever, it doesn’t.  I need to travel more, have some more experiences that afford me the luxury of something to talk about. I enjoy talking to people who have a million stories to tell, or have been to a million different places or had a million different experiences. Everyone else is boring.

I don’t and probably won’t trust anyone ever again, and don’t really give anyone reasons to trust me at this point. every single person is full of shit and selfish. I guess once you figure this out, you’ll just have an unfulfilled life full of failed relationships and never really have the ability to tell anyone the whole truth, nothing but the truth and so help you god whatever else you’re feeling. nobody else does anyway. I watch all these other relationships and can easily see right through them and find all the faults and whatever is wrong with them. Nobody is happy regardless of what they try to think themselves to sleep with at night. I’m kind of an empty cold person and then realize at the end of the day everyone is kind of the same, shallow and does their own thing for themselves. How this will ever change is beyond me, but really, I can’t take thinking or talking about it anymore. I may/should just go back to talking about traveling or being funny in here and destroy any vague references to anything remotely about people, etc. It’s tired maybe?

Esc

Now it’s starting to close in here, the winter. I hate this time of year here. Cold and painful weather every day of your life for however many months. Meaningless holidays. People driving like shit. I feel like I do things a little different than most people, and not better or worse, but just have different ideas of what makes me happy. I think there are a few things I need to do to get back to there.

I rather enjoy a shadow falling on me
Being a stranger for 26 hours a day
Inventing personalities
Inventing ideas
If I can hold my breath for a week at a time
I can keep my mouth shut for a week at a time
I can avoid clocks and newspapers and looking at the sun

I spend way too much time in these songs reliving some long lost feeling from twenty or so years ago. None of this music means much to me now, there are no connections. I try not to be one of these people that needs to relive my youth. I hated my youth for the most part I don’t want to go back there. These folks they want to remain children and not get old. It means nothing right now to me since I have done some things, and want to do some more things and I do some things.

I could go for a week of the unknown
Strangers and even stranger roads and places
I need this one more time before I stop
Before I slow down

My moods start to become more abrasive this time of year. Looking for an outlet or five I can spit venom out of. Looking for ears and eyes to listen to read what crap I have to say. In time this will all be an embarrassing blemish of eighty seven thousand words written and spoken at the same time to people who really don’t want to listen. I apologize in advance I guess? Growing more tiresome I guess are the ones trying to get me to join their party. Or trying to get into mine.

Texas

Like a ten thousand foot tidal wave coming over me, here it is again. I’m never able to stop it though. I can’t really control any of it and then everything turns to shit. I am trying to stay away from anything and anyone when this happens as I just end up saying the wrong thing. It’s easier this way in the long run. I think?

In the meantime. Had a dream I was trapped in some gray colored city, buildings as high as the eyes could see, temperatures as low and uncomfortable as you wouldn’t want them to be. Not a person or sound anywhere. Like one of those apocalypse scenes in a film. You spend so much time listening to other people as well as yourself going “boo-hoo I want to be left alone” until you experience having a nightmare about it. Sort of frightening and peaceful at the same time aside from the lack of nice colors.

So this place I hang at, this national coffee place. I guess I come in here almost every day. There are a couple of colleges nearby. One of them, is a big Christian college. A good amount of the people hanging out in here on a daily basis are students from there. At this point I just assume everyone in here is a Jesus person. Whatever the opposite of one of these people is, I guess I am the opposite. I don’t believe in anything I can’t see or that hasn’t been proven by science. Generally though, I just don’t even think about this stuff at all, and the fact that people study it seriously is beyond me. Perhaps someday something will click with me and I will get it. Regardless, there are thousands of books written about all of this stuff by people far more intelligent than I am so maybe there is something about it. It just doesn’t really interest me I guess.

I come in here during the week and write and umm, “work”. I have gotten to know all the people who work here, some of them are also students from that college. Recently a couple of people have chatted me up and asked what I do while in here. Seems a little odd to ask someone what they are doing. What if I worked for the government (maybe I do!)? What if I was some kind of a fucking asshole who didn’t look like I liked being talked to? I kind of look like that, so it always surprises me when this does happen. Usually when I am by myself I tend to put on some sort of “mean” face so I don’t get strangers talking to me. When I am traveling, sure. But if I am a regular somewhere, I sometimes don’t want to make regular friends with anyone beyond a “hey” You run the risk of conversation starters that are uninteresting or some sort of running joke. This phenomenon has recently happened on Facebook with a line I use quite a bit over there. Some people will comment randomly using the same joke and while some people usually are pretty funny, others are just beating it into the ground and making it harder for me to continue using it. I guess everyone can’t be as funny as I can be.

A few weeks ago a young man came up to me. I always see him in here with a group of friends, male and female studying. A friendly looking kid, good looking, outgoing and generally someone you would want in the kind of situation where I don’t know...if you just got shot in the neck, this might be the kind of dude you want cradling you on the ground telling you everything will be okay. Also the kid you’d want helping to rake leaves in your grandmother’s yard. So I told him I “write...and am also looking for a job” The latter part of this is true to an extent, but I hardly do that while I am in here. Sometimes though. I asked him what he does and he mentioned he is a student and is studying, etc. Exactly what I imagined. Nice enough guy, and now every time I see him he asks me how the job hunt is going and I ask him how school is going and that’s that.

I love heavy metal music. Selected stuff though...I think if I was to label myself as something it would be a metal/punk rock guy which obviously could mean hundreds of things. As much as I love metal and wear heavy metal shirts all the time I don’t listen to it as much as I used to. One thing newer bands have been doing is doing spinoffs of other logos or fonts and adapting their band’s name to them. I’ve now seen two bands use the Boston first album cover (two great bands: Unearth and Torche). Torche are one of my favorite bands, and although they get thrown into the metal realm I think of them as something beyond metal. I can’t explain it. Last year they were selling t-shirts that were a take off of the one of the bands responsible for inventing death metal, the Bay Area band Possessed.

I of course had to have one of these. Aside from loving both bands, the thought of having a shirt with an upside down cross on it seemed like an awesome idea at the time. I even wore this shirt when I drove across country a while back. I literally stopped before I got to the Texas border and put it on. My original plan to wear an Eyehategod shirt the entire time in Texas but it didn’t work out as I couldn’t find it, so this was the next best thing. (now that I am remembering that stop, hmmm...I stopped for three things: to change a windshield wiper [obviously wasn’t rain, but to clean bugs], put that shirt on, and get high on medical marijuana I had taken back from California. In the fifteen or so minutes I was there I literally saw a tumbleweed, a guy in a cowboy hat and a cactus. The following picture is from that very stop

I got all my shit together and drove on)

So I stopped by this coffee place the other night, not to stay though, just a quick stop. I was wearing this upside down cross shirt under my jacket, but you can still kind of tell what is going on. I saw my buddy in here, and waved to him as he was across the place. He got up and came over and started talking to me. Asking about my job hunt, I asked him about Halloween and then briefly wondered to myself if these students even celebrated Halloween, or is it not allowed? Apparently it is allowed. At the end of the conversation as he was walking away he told me he would pray for me for an upcoming job interview and then winked at me. During that whole conversation which was all of maybe seven minutes I kept trying to keep my jacket closed. In a way I can’t imagine anyone would care. I guess if I was a Satanist (which in a way seems even more ridiculous to me than being a Christian/Catholic or part of any organized religion) I wouldn’t be talking to this young man in the first place. I did feel slightly guilty though when he mentioned he would pray for me. Not as guilty as walking into a temple with a shirt with swastikas on it, but I was self conscious about it. The end.

Oh, here I am with the shirt on a few hours later...