Sunday 25 April 2010

Skinny Jeans

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

Looks like the joke's on me on again... Jesus, when will I learn? If I mock, deride or make fun of something, God seems to find it endlessly amusing for me to walk a mile in the jeans that I find so amusing - pun intended. Skinny jeans in this case. Before I moved up here last year from Austin I was working in a bar where half the IDs that came through were held by skinny jean wearing hipsters from NYC. When I moved to Williamsburg I realized where they were all coming from and worried about snapping their tiny little legs like saplings, or sending them flying off the Williamsburg Bridge whining into the river as I passed them with my virile Texas energy. I almost felt sorry for them they looked so undernourished and pale. Sad pasty faced little victims of some sort of cultural psychic molestation or vampirism. Looks like the vampire is the City. I've been feeling it's impure effects for the last year now, breaking me down slowly, grinding my life force into a pulp, draining my psyche and withering my frame. I could literally see myself changing, morphing into a stoic looking statue with pools of sickly under my eyes as I stared into the mirror thinking, 'Man, I'm lookin' gaunt. My clothes are a little baggy. Maybe I should get something tighter? Huh?' It was a strange thought, scared me a little. Then I understood. The tight fitting clothes are a second skin in a futile defense that attempts to ward off the attacking elements, a futile attempt create a cocoon of safety, security in an insecure environment. It was happening. I was becoming a neurotic city dweller. Then I got a job where skinny jeans were actually issued. And I preferred them. I was becoming a New Yorker. It was official when I got my NY ID in the mail looking like a dazed and sallow numb scare crow as opposed to my passport photo that I got one year ago just after moving up from Texas - right before Marie and I went to Ecuador - where I looked like a slightly menacing formidable man. Welcome to New York City, man...

Love

Wednesday 14 April 2010

DEPRESSION

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

BEEN HAVING STRONG HOMESICKNESS LATELY FOR TEXAS. MADE DINNER THREE NIGHTS IN A ROW OFF OF HOMESICK TEXAN RECIPE BLOG. WANTING TO LIVE IN AN AIRSTREAM TRAILER IN THE WIDE OPEN SPACES OF MARFA, TEXAS AWAY FROM ALL THESE SALLOW PEOPLE. ALWAYS THINKIN' THE GRASS IS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE. MY PERPETUAL STATE OF BEING. IS IT EVER BETTER ANYWHERE ELSE? DO CERTAIN PEOPLE DO BETTER IN DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS? OR IS IT ALL IN THE HEAD? FEELIN' DEPRESSED FOR SAME OLD NAGGING REASONS OF WANTING A TRANQUIL AND PEACEFUL, YET INTERESTING LIFE DOING SOMETHING THAT SEEMS MEANINGFUL. ALWAYS SEEMS TO BE A MIRAGE IN A FAR OFF FUTURE. MARIE SAYS ATTITUDE IS THE ONLY THING THAT CAN CHANGE. KNOW SHE'S RIGHT. TRY, BUT DEPRESSION SEEMS TO BE MY DEFAULT. WHY? WORRIED ABOUT RUNNING HER OFF. THINK I SHOULD GO BACK ON MEDICATION. BEEN TWO YEARS NOW. DON'T FEEL MUCH DIFFERENT. DON'T LIKE FEELING THIS DOWN. SOMETHING ABOUT THE CITY SEEMS TO EXACERBATE IT, I THINK? SEEMS TO BE WORSE HERE. A FRACTURED SENSE OF DETACHMENT REFLECTED IN THE COLD HARD STARES OFF THE WAVES OF PASSING PEOPLE SURROUNDED BY LIVING TOMBS OF STONE. FELT FRUSTRATED IN AUSTIN, BUT NOT THE DARK DEPRESSIONS THAT I SEEM TO GET HERE. DIDN'T FEEL THIS WAY IN ECUADOR. DIDN'T FEEL THIS WAY IN PARIS. DON'T SEEM TO BE CUT OUT FOR THIS GROWN UP WORK WORLD OF GOIN' THROUGH THE MOTIONS SHIT. FEEL LIKE MY ENTIRE ADULT LIFE HAS CONSISTED OF ME FLAILING THROUGH, TRYING TO GET A FINGER HOLD, HANGING ON ONLY TO THROW MY HANDS UP IN THE AIR IN DISGUST, LET IT ALL FALL TO PIECES, THEN PICK IT BACK UP AGAIN. GETS TIRESOME. THIS IS MY LATEST INCARNATION - GAUNT DEPRESSED CITY DWELLER. IS THIS THE GOOD LIFE? AM I LIVIN' IT? AM I IN LINE WITH MY DESTINY? MEDICATION? WHATEVER...

LOVE

Monday 12 April 2010

New York City Blues

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

Back in New York City and the Rat Race, feeling trapped, looking for a way out. School seems the only hope for meaningful change. Got a new job doing security. Steady paycheck. Decent, but late hours. May be manageable with school.

Marie's gone back to the event production thing. She comes home beat, a fatigued distance filling her eyes as she fades restlessly into sleep, the alarm clock urgently chasing her back out of the sheets.

She wakes me to watch her dress before she leaves so as not to go unseen again throughout her day.

We pass each other like ghosts in the waiting rooms of our lives.

I dress and leave. New Yorkers look like shadows searching for themselves in the subways and the streets as the darkness settles in.

At work the faces swirl, endlessly around me, lost in a sea of churning people.

Ennui settles in.

Keep thoughts on the horizon.

Write.

Deep burning red sunsets over great expanses of Texas sage and pine.

Love

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