Es mi forma de jugar

My life is such a shame, shame, shame.

I finished Kim Zupan’s The Ploughmen the other day.  Zupan’s story of becoming an author is inspirational but I was not entirely taken by his debut novel.  I guess that’s all I care to say on the matter.  The other night I began Marisha Pessl’s 2014 novel Night Film.  I have only read the first 81 pages but I can say with a shocking degree of certainty it is the best first 81 pages of any book I’ve read in years.  We’ll see how the remaining pages stack up. 

I am in love with Mavi Gioia.  I often dream of fleeing to Italy to engage in a life of international crime (art forgery, extortion, general cons, nothing murderous unless necessary).  Eventually Mavi’s path crosses with mine while we are both in Florence and we share a drink on a clear summer evening overlooking the Ponte Vecchio Bridge. 

I am convinced that serious long term relationships are an unnatural thing; a dubious construct built around compromise and insecurity.  I am consistently baffled and saddened by all the possibilities for growth and discovery – all the potential – people willingly destroy because they are terrified of going home to an empty house.  How can the center of one’s life be a romantic partner?  How can this satisfy all needs in an individual that their own life means nothing unless they have this other person?  These questions continue to baffle me.  Yet despite all this I still find myself a willing participant in this phenomenon.  This is quite a disturbing fact. 

Saturday night I found myself alone in my posh flat, sitting on my bourgeois sofa [where I sometimes play escondite ingles (or hide and seek for all you white Anglo-Saxon protestants) with Colombian singer Shakira) and watching Ridley Scott’s 2003 movie Matchstick Men starring none other than Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell and some other people (including Alison Lohman from White Oleander, which in a freakish coincidence I had just watched a week earlier!).  When the movie finished I smiled to myself and thought “My, that was a quaint little film, not one of Scott’s or Cage’s major works perhaps but still a very enjoyable effort” and then switched on an episode of Elvira’s Movie Macabre.  I put a load of colored laundry in the washer – including an orange sweater I earmarked for church the following day – and then resumed my position on the sofa.  The episode eventually ended and I was left with the standard feelings of dejection and emptiness which I feel several times a day everyday and I considered shooting myself in the head and imagined the stark contrast of my red blood splattered against the white walls of my flat.  I also considered downing a bottle of sleeping pills and washing it down with a bottle of cheap Moscato which I’d purchased at the corner Circle K earlier that same day.  In this scenario I merely drift off to sleep and eventually into the waiting arms of death while listening to one of my favorite albums – perhaps Una Pequena Parte del Mundo by Amaral or Low by David Bowie.   Instead I scanned the internet via my expensive cellular telephone and decided to read up on various urban legends, unexplained occurrences, missing person cases and other phenomena such as hauntings and alien abduction.  Unfortunately, though these topics fascinate me they also terrify me and it was not long before I found myself in what can only be described as a paralytic state of fear.  I was so terrified that even when I heard the washer finish its cycle it was hours before I found the nerve to leave the sofa and walk to the laundry room to place the clothes in the dryer.  I was convinced someone or something would be waiting for me in that room.  Eventually, my fear died away in anti-climactic fashion and I deposited the wet load into the adjacent machine.  However my fear had been so intense that my body was crumbling from exhaustion and I fell asleep on the sofa and did not wake until morning where I discovered the clothes still needed at least another half cycle in the dryer.  But since I was running late to church I was forced to grab the orange sweater and allow it to air dry while I drove like a mad man to my destination.  And thus I spent the morning wearing a damp, smelly sweater; the shame in my heart worn on my sleeve. 

Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith is a quite a good bassist.  I enjoy the work of these sturdy bassists like Cliff Williams from AC DC.  If only I could be like them.  I’ll never be an eighth as good a bassist as a Hamilton or a Williams.  I’m listening to Aerosmith’s 1976 album Rocks as I peck out this prose.  Sick as a Dog is a personal favorite.  Once the disc runs its course I will put on AC DC’s newest album Rock or Bust.  It is a raw and pounding slice of rock though not as compelling as Madonna’s new album which I am still feverishly listening to roughly 9 times a day. 

I was an outsider viewing something private.  I was filled with jealousy.  The intimacy on display made my throat tighten and brought tears to my eyes because I knew it would never be mine.  Your embrace.  That was all I wanted.  Does that sound better than “hug”?  Your hug.  I think embrace sounds more poetic.  Are they the same thing?  I think they can be.  I was staring through the glass.  In my dreams there are always two of you, one dressed in white and one in black.  I miss you dreadfully. 

Over 20 years ago 62 children all saw it in Zimbabwe.  They drew pictures, gave testimonials and were interviewed by well credited professionals in the areas of child psychology.  To this day none of them have retracted their statements.  This is one among many cases which haunts my restless nights. 

To anyone in the know I’m still considering a session with Lady Milady.  Surely one of you dear readers must have partaken in a session with her or someone comparable?  If so, provide me with generous details and an overall review of the experience that I may know if this is where I should be spending my hard earned dough.  I would ask her to squeeze my neck with her thick and powerful fishnet clad thighs while calling me “pathetic” and telling me what an ugly loser I am.  I would ask her to do this until I pass out and when I awaken I would ask her to spit on my face. 

I really like the name Yolanda.  I also like Lorena.  I’m not sure which one I like more, my opinion frequently changes. 

The other day I remembered seeing a tiger at the foot of my bed when I was child.  He was just staring at me.  I nearly broke down in hysterics when recalling this for the implications are both vast and terrifying. 

I only ever cry while watching movies these days.