Have Masked will. (Travail)

Where do I find myself tonight? At home chewing on a textbook trying to catch up on studies and almost dead. Something about Logical Positivists. My academic attention span is rather obstreperous. I'm Not what you would call a diligent Student.

Current project: overdue. Thoughts: new novel forms of expression; since alternative communication gimmicks and the like are getting harder and harder to come by why not try older methods? Is it too late for me to go back to school, but this time perhaps attend some kind of English boarding school, in England, so I can work Lacordaire, Guizot, Radcliff, Montalembert, Zurbarán, Quarles, King Aethelbert, Trahernem, Huysmans, Vaughn and Carlyle into casual conversation? Like Dyer or Fermot did?

No? Well hope springs eternal.

Usually it's better for me to be left entirely alone, as I will be, than to go out where my disconformity embarrasses me, but sometimes the savage weekend rage slaps me in the gut and gets me out of my hut out looking for the fidgety fix. In other words:

It gets hard wearing a mask all the time and sometimes you want to get out and let people percieve that you are feeling vulnerable. And then you can focus proper.

So. Down Main Street, or Market is it after raven midnight with a brand new pack of cigs and a cramp in my gut as I steep precariously forward, counting steps because I have this obsession with numbers at the wee hours of the morning, (remember to adjust for drift in declination though) still, did I mention how tired I am? Oh. so. tired..

It starts to rain.

"I'm not Lonely. I'm just alone."

- Neil Macauley (Robert DeNiro), Heat

It's one thing to be alone in the world alone. I can keep myself reasonably and sustainably amused.

It's another thing to be in a crowded room and feel alone. It's awkward, and it happens, and it's why I generally keep my own congenial company, more or less. It's difficult for me to connect with others overall anyway. But it started to rain lightly and the street grew slippery and then it rained harder, the drops denser and colder and denser until I could hardly see anymore. So I acceded and decided to take Refuge with a friendly bunch I know out past the Cortland crest on Mission. I stepped into the threshold and shook my shiverring shoulders. Outside the wind bristled and howled aspostatically.

There is a second story party going on.

“What gets you somewhere is exactly what holds you back once you've arrived.”

-James Fallows

A curious and oft-observed quality about music is how communal it is. Even bad music like that gruffled-hipster “DJ” was spinning and listeners are packed, literally! A dingy room jam filled like sardines in a tin container, there is of course the everpresent strong smell of beer, body odor and just a tint of Parliament cigarettes. A mass of people dressed in dark colors with outrages hair styles and covered in piercings and cliche ironic tattoos.

I squeeze in and drape myself against the window with a can of lite crapturd beer and happy to be in out of the gale I let the music work its spars over me. The night goes, there is talking, and laughing and such. My mind. It wanders.. .

I know some of them here and yet still feel the vague tug to sneak away. I intuitively fear something bad ever about to happen, even around my friends. I don't open up to people, I've realized my life is a series of boringly told talestories involving oddsituations that I have been in because of flimsy, or unsupportable motives, sometimes for no reason at all. Perhaps there is something wrong with me. I'm good looking. I'm intelligent. I have both some book and some street smarts. I'm unique... just not any more unique than everyanyone else.

My internal interlocution was cut off by a big barrel-chested guy staring down at me, not an easy thing to do, as I'm 5'13&½ ", intoning some hollow bombast in his jackhammer voice that sounded startlingly like a threat.

Now, I'm not a fighter, 1anem hairy macho unkempt bone-breakin nut-bustin furry rut pushy butt rippled motherfuckin sonsabitches. No. I'm not a figher or even one very good at protecting hisself really. I's given more ta grandiloquence than any kinda visceral clip. And I said this too him too I said “I's more given to grandiloquence than any kinda visceral clip, is it too late to step outta this?" but the music was loud and I don't think he heard me. He barqued something else, sounding like a tow barge on a swell and I was starting to freak out a bit as he blew his fists together, about ready to shed my fear-tightened skin and run for it when no sooner did a girl throw herself between us and say something calming that seemed to defuse him and he shrunk a bit from his former height, cowed and bowed, stuck out a steak of fettered flesh, his hand and we shook then he billowed away and vanished, the music still so loud that I had no idea what any of it had been about.

“You scrofulous took!” I yelled out after him to becalm m'self once I was sure he was out of earshot.

He didn't hear.

She did.

She was a bit of a waif, I noticed, a few choice bones poured into nice clothes. Tall, slim and quirky-gorgeous. With dangerous dark eyes. I mean intense. She had a calm sooty demur demeanor now as she smiled at me and I mumbled a thank you, but I don't think those sharp eyes of hers missed any detail. Nice teeth, slight overbite. Not a tiny mouth, but right, with somewhat pouty lips. Pixie nose. Fairweather skin, tawny, sinewy almost.

Now, just to be open and upfront about this: I don't have a very detailed or nuanced sense of how things work in the domain of the feminine brain — which makes negotiations in congress with said parties all the more hardwrought. But she took care of all that by grabbing me by the funny bone and dragging me into the kitchen where at least I could hear every third or fourth word. She introduced herself and poured some shots, the first of which we barrellshot back quickly and the second set we nursed while she conversed and I listened. Her eyes glistened.

She knows french, loves to surf, makes a mean breakfast smoothie, and has an ear for the next indie musician. Not to mention, she has retro inspired wardrobe that can make any vintage lover go gaga, or so she says, a tattoo of a del Toro devil on her shoulder and a fishing lure on her ankle, she didn't say why. All proof that San Francisco attracts some intriguing individuals.

I felt a bit like a shy deer in the headlights. Fuck the headlights.

"What about you, who are you kid?" And there it was.

"I, uh.. . .. . uh I like uncrustables and shopping at target."

A silent moment followed filled with sound. Several boys floated in and squeeze between us falling over everything for the liquor. We braced on opposite sides of the tumble, they smelled like motor oil and cold cotton and I was finding meaning in every momentary glance we stole.
They made no indication wanting to leave the kitchen so we left. She grabbed me by the elbow again and we went out the front door into the stairhall where I followed her up up around and up, to the rooftop access where scrawled on the heavy door:

electric spaceheaters of the world, ignite!

Electricspace heaters of the world, goodnight

Shut the door behind us and found ourselves open to the quietude of eternity, sort of, the rain stopped, sky was chillyclear and the roof was covered in small stones where others were already havened, smoking weed and playing roof top pool on a table godknows how it got there. We joined and laughed, guarding our secret despairs and disappointments until she found a comfy chair and guided me over where we could share it.

"What were we saying?

"I'm feeling rather acualine at the moment.

"Are you just making up words or does that mean anything?"

"I'm sure it means sumthin to sumbuddy"

"So tell me about you,"

"I waste time because it's mine to waste."

"Not when you're talking to me. I've wasted enough time already. That's why I came back to the city."

"Where were you?"

"Wasting time. Following my amazements. I guess I found that I couldn't really be comfortable trying to be amazed all the time. Everyone is amazing, sometimes only at first, and some some time later. I was only intermittently at ease, really. With myself and with being loved by others and so I needed to make a change. I'm discovering I can never really be at ease." She got up and perched on the edge, staring out over the dark houses and bright streets.

"We all resort to what's easy don't we? What's comfortable. What we know.”

"If you're not going to push boundaries you might as well may be dead."

"I don't want to die."

"That's not apparent."

"It's getting late."

"No.”

“It is.”

“No it's not we gained an hour."

"Oh right. Oh! Great! Well let's go lie down downstairs anyway I'm getting-

-An alarm and a flashing light. Some sort of fire we guessed, the trucks showed up in less than a minute and we cleared the roof, down dark flashing stairs and strobe chambered corridors to the mass of people huddled up across the street by the Deli Mart. People were screaming, running and jumping over us and the police were yelling at us to sit down and be calm and I went into the Deli Mart when it started to rain again feeling incredibly tired because I had not slept in...
but I started having trouble breathing and I never know what to do exactly so I went back outside and put my head down and blocked everything out, my world shrinking, shrinking. Walking around helped, I could see my own breath which felt okay and I walked and felt surer and safer and walked and I started to forget anything was wrong. Seeing your breath is validation. Where was I?

Oh right well, I couldn't find her again but I walked until it was nearly dawn anyway, searching I guess, but concluding the mission in banishment to the solitude of my leaky garret once again where I feel, alas, comfortable. Comfortable not to have to face the tyrannic expectations of social venality for another week.

Weekends only come around once a week.