Returnedness, Withoutitude, Float On

The holidays are almost over and I am especially happy for that. I'm back in California, and it’s weird to not feel cold wind on my face. I made it through to the other side of Christmas in the same bat-house with all my nutty relatives and it was not unpleasant. I was worried when I left that this trip would be tough for me.

The last time I went home it was, well, difficult. I was 18 years old. Recently flunked out of school. Had no place to stay and as happy as everyone was to see me they weren't exactly thrilled at the prospect of me moving back in. I had been living alone for the better part of a year so I had acquired habits that I had to surpress in order to fit back into the old framework and mold of how the machine of my family automates, and that was frustrating and angst-ridden.

No more staying out till all hours of the night. No more spiking every drink I have in the fridge. No more bringing back random girls to make out with on the sofa. No more getting away with one meal a day and weighing a measly 129 lbs. No more sad smoky Pink Floyd sob sessions at three in the morning. No more masturbating with the door open. No more 3 hour phone calls to girls I'd just barely met. No more long therapeutic weekend cathartic showers. No more stumbling into bed whilst reeking of cigarettes and spilled drinks. No more playing twister with your imaginary roomate on ecstasy. No more not thinking about your family except the one day of week when you call them up and lie to them about everything being fine.

Didn’t have a lot to keep me hanging on. By the end of it I was spending significant portions of every day sitting for hours watching Entertainment Tonight and playing with “Busy Beetles,” a neverending puzzle of Escherlike interlocking plastic insects.

So I was basically half batshit.

I’m glad to report that that did not happen this time around. For one thing, I’m older now and a bit calmer. For another, I've been successful lately and have only good things to report. Third: booze helps.

All the worries about being back home have been replaced by other more surface worries, like 'what I am going to eat tonight' and 'which girl am I going to take out on New Years Eve', and 'what exactly my ex-girlfriend was thinking in showing up at my house while I was home and my family was opening gifts from my new girlfriend', and 'why do I snigger whenever I hear or smell chestnuts roasting on an open fire'?

It might sound like I’m being flippant from where you’re sitting in your comfortable computer chairs with your pants down, but I assure you, these are actual worries I have now. I worry about these things with about as much vigor as you might worry about things like “What is going to happen to me?” and/or “How am I gonna pay for this knee surgery?” I’m serious. I worry about those things. I’m all caught up in minor logistics.

And with that, I'll fade away. These blog entries are like waves on the ocean. They billow in and carry you along for a little while but before you know it they vanish into the surrounding sea and you can't distinguish where they were or how they are any different from any of the other waves on all sides.

The holidays are almost over and I am grateful for that. I'll wish you a black and white new years. May the world around you be clear and ellucidated, and may you never know the painful burden of living life under a mask.