when you are old

I used to envision myself, fifteen years ago, as having finished my doctorate and happily teaching knucklehead freshmen the importance of the English Language and the Written Word. I should have seen where things were going when in my own freshman lit class there was a reading selection from an episode of Northern Exposure.

I don't say this in a bad way.

Coleridge. Spenser. Yeats. Byron.

J.M.W.Turner. Bacon. Monet. Lichtenstein.

Theroux. Chandler. Chatwin. Palahniuk.

I had a library of nearly a 1000 books. Now I just copy and paste:


When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

*

Yeats, before he got all mystical and crapped out some of his best work. Ha. I used to have Sailing to Byzantium memorized.

How far we have fallen.

---

---

*

it makes me laugh at how absurd the interview process can be sometimes. i pretty much have a job finally (fingers crossed) simply because i just let it all out. and it's not really about being yourself. it's about taking care of those that take care of you.

*

i spoke with the temp regional, bypassing HR entirely due to time and other such idiocy. she shuffled me off onto him and it turned into nearly a three hour interview where i talked with the GM for a bit, joked with the already hired staff, kinda flirted with the only girl in the room (red head...mid 20's...and she said hi first...i'm screwed).

there are times when you are "on". and then there are times when you don't miss a beat, don't miss a single thing and everything you say sounds like vocalized gold. that was me today. having connections with the company, yes. personal history, yes. interacting with the hired staff and them nearly inviting you to their own private party...yes.

*

i've felt ok about previous interviews, but i have never felt good about one. this would be the one i feel good about. one doesn't go through this kind of idiocy for three hours for nothing. and then essentially get hired on the spot aside from minor followups.

*

and yes. no title. my mind is spinning.

standing by the back screen door watching you wash dishes

writing love letters to others just for kicks

*

i wanted this to be about something that it's not.

*

i dropped off the niece and nephew at the bus stop, my sister in law at work, and got into DC by 10:45. a bit ahead of schedule. i checked the empty mailbox at my old home and, having nothing better to do, sat in the car and screwed around with the phone. email. voicemail. messages. check the unemployment filing status. etc. wasting time. but my appeal reappointment date came, i had played my cards and i won for once: the mail always comes before 11:30.

i drove off, wandering in circles around Eastern Market aimlessly. another half hour wasted. parked, checked out two books at the library and didn't even look at her place as i walked by it on the way back to the car. i had already taken the long way around once and the shortest way between two distances was how i got here...

*

the jPhone (not a typo...some people have iPhones, I have a...) has great GPS, and while i am a firm believer in real maps this thing was kind of handy. i mapped out all my routes into DC and then improvised continually, finding better ways that shaved 5, 8, even 10 miles off my travels. do you really think i am going to go through Georgetown to get to 395 at 4:00?

*

so i made it up to Bethesda, scouted the area, found where to park, and it was still only 12:45. screw it. looked up where i was at and ended up at the Harp and Fiddle. hadn't been there in two years. nursed a Harp while i jotted down directions back to southern MD before my battery died for good. Forty-five minutes later i'm still 50 minutes early. this is why i stopped at the library. decided it might be time to re-read Fight Club. three chapters in the car, one last smoke outside before heading in and grabbing a coffee. 'cause i need more caffeine at this point.

i grab a booth that faces the HR director and her candidate. debate the business morality of such a decision, figure it makes sense to see the competition for once. also note that she runs long with him.

whatever.

thirty minutes later i think, that was a decent thirty minute interview.

i also think about why i just wasted my last $40 until tuesday morning on gasoline to get here for this interview.

*

on the way into DC i listened to the radio, NPR and then classic rock. and in between singing along with the songs for once i tended to say, as i passed various landmarks both personal and public, Hello (Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, NE DC library, Chet's Liquors, favorite 7/11, not-so-favorite 7/11, etc.). all along the way to Bethesda and back out of DC. it's ok if you talk to yourself. it's when you start answering yourself is when you need to start looking for a good shrink.

*

and i'm realizing now that while i may have moved out of the District a week ago, today was when i said goodbye.

so like the fool i am i decided that i was finally tired of classic rock and put in a random cd from the pile i brought along with me. Steely Dan, but that's just more of the same. Whiskeytown nearly has me sobbing. i end up listening to three Radiohead tracks off of OK Computer endlessly for miles.

all those miles traveled. all this time wasted. all these years for naught.

Columbus Pittsburgh Toledo Madison Chicago Charlotte Atlanta Bethesda Arlington Evansville and finally DC. and finally, at the end, because my heart and life are broken, i can't pay the bills, i'm left with what few possessions i care to hang on to stored in my brothers garage and living in his spare bedroom.

*

it was a beautiful day. sunny, cool but not cold, warm but not hot. the perfect weather. i walked around the dog park, just a block away from her, and felt nothing. not then. now...i don't know. it seems so distant. just another life.

another lifetime. one more failed relationship for the books. one more you can learn from this from any number of friends and family and what have you.

one more try. one more battle cry of i will win.

*

but it's so hard when you're defeated.

*

it's my heart and it doesn't fit yours.

badge

last week this time i was able to write out 15 pages in three hours. tonight all i've done is have long conversations with myself about how i ended up here. the conversation i used to have with one of my old GMs on monday morning as we are finishing up inventory for the week is that we would look at each other and say "you look like a shell of a human being."

*

i don't think i'm that bad right now, there's still a lot of pressure, get a job, get out of this restaurant thing, get your shit together...and i'm doing better. keeping those interweb connections better connected. guess who's on linkdin? who want's to be your new facebook friend? it never stops. and i've cut so much out. my true social life is non-existant. i keep in contact with anyone via phone, text, or the aforementioned social networks. it's good and so bad at the same time.

*

i found myself looking up her picture online the other night. and i just left it there on the screen for a half hour. i tried to dredge up some kind of emotion. anything.

it's a frightening place to be in when you feel nothing. i just don't know how to drag it out any more. i need to get it over with, face the music, give it the good pathetic tear or five that it deserves. but it just isn't coming. maybe i'm too old to feel nothing but indifference anymore.

*

my niece and nephew, 5 and 8 respectively, try to see how long they can stand on my toes or fake punch me at times and then ask "how did that not hurt?". they ask about the scars on my face, which is always fun, and ask "did that hurt?" and all i can say is that yes, it did back then, but not anymore. the wounds heal, but there is always a reminder of what used to be.

*

and i'm thinking 'bout the love that you laid on my table...

If there's no one beside you

When your soul embarks...

*

A long time back, geez, over five years ago, I wrote this:

http://smithsfamousfarm.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html

Someone I don't know responded a couple months later and left an email address asking about Jared. I never did send a reply until just now. And I wrote how I still remember that phone call...and I remember how angry and sad and just a mess for a bit, because he was a good kid. We had some screwed up times, but the good by far outweighed the bad. Even now I'm kinda pissed off, a useless, pointless suicide. I was told he was having issues with his girl.

Let me tell you about issues...

*

I don't usually have poor choice in picking titles for these things I write, but it was the only one that came to mind. I've never known anyone before or since Jared who chose to leave us in this way, and I hope I never do. He had a great laugh.

Kinda smiled when I typed that. If you had known him you would know this to be true.

*

Then I'll follow you into the dark

I'm in a mood for you...

And running away.

*

I've been up for three hours. It's 5 in the am. I've made the appropriate calls, talked with family. I've accepted defeat. I have clothes in garbage bags, just waiting for the move. Listening to mid-90s REM. Smoking my supposed 17th last cig. The half full case of Yuengling still in the fridge. Sometimes it's just the scenery that changes. For all I know this might as well be 2001 instead of 2011.

Only difference would be location and the women in-between.

Well, I do have a pretty comfortable couch. It's the little things.

Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling...

Tell me baby, where did I go wrong?

*

I sleep all day. And night. I'm sure a clinical psychologist would say I'm depressed. I'm surprised my family, usually pretty up front with such things, hasn't expressed their opinion yet. The two friends I talk with the most have said it, in so many words.

I'm tired. Frustrated. Unlucky in love once again. Unemployed. I'm collecting unemployment and somehow this is supposed to make me feel better but it only makes me feel worse.

I don't care.

*

I wrote 15 pages the other night. I have a title, and finally a format that I think I like. Character development isn't an issue so much as I just need to work on dialog and scenery. It's a diversion, on I'm sure my shrink from way back would say is a good one.

*

I just feel. Lost.

I've had God as the defining point in life and that didn't work. Work didn't work either. Love, well, just read everything previous to see how that ended up. Even had the combination of all three. That was a disaster. Even had school thrown in for that equation.

I'm sitting on the side of my bed, no lights, Burns & Allen on the tv, my crummy DC English basement apartment that I've always paid too much for but love regardless. And I'm wondering how much lower it is possible to sink.

*

There's a scene in "The Fisher King" where Robin Williams is in the psych ward, and he finally wakes up. And he asks Jeff Bridges: is it ok to miss her? Is that alright?

I'm not too sure of the answer for myself. But I know this: I miss her so much. And my eyes clouded over as I typed that last sentence. And my nose is wanting to betray me. But I'm not going to cry.

No. Fuck it. I've enough idiocy. I'm not gonna cry.