LnB

come home to a cold room. everything right where i left it. even the chair in the same position at a slight angle from the desk. same spill of paper-mail across the end of the glass, left untouched from tens of other nights like this. or hundreds now, maybe. there are probably letters in there postmarked a year ago now.
not that i get real mail. pay-stubs and bills. input and output. I/O. though the odd missive does cross the threshold occasionally. blind squirrel and nut, etc. it’s always nice when that happens, but i learned a while ago not to count on it. you have to write letters to get letters, and i don’t write letters any more than i write here now. the words are few and far between. i am grasping at fog.
but there are so many words. i may have just lost my ability to let them out. there are things i say, or i would say, if only… (what?) if only i knew how to finish that sentence. i don’t know what i need. not any better than anyone else.
i have been driving more than flying for work, lately. circumstance has found ways to put me within stabbing distance of home more often, or at least stack the shows in such a way that i find myself with hundreds and hundreds of empty miles across the empty middle of america. most of the time i do it with the radio off now, unless i need the distraction to keep myself awake. then it’s talk radio, or maybe a preacherman turned way down low. i’m not religious. i just like the sound of a professional speaker.
spend the empty hours talking to myself. not out loud. that would be, well, crazy. spend the empty hours and miles telling the stories in my head that i don’t have to finish, that i can’t possibly finish. the stories with the huge gaping holes in them, waiting for the words to fill them on the page that never happens. i have as many stories as there are people, as there are miles, as there are hours.
in the car it’s easy to unfocus. it’s increasingly difficult here. here the text is sharply defined enough to hurt.

this started somewhere else, at a cold desk.
it’s still cold. breath steams. fingers can skate on the glass like the ice it appears and feels to be. bed in the corner looks inviting and revolting at once, sheets warmed by low light i know are ice cold.

i’ll be there soon, shivering, warming to my silent, empty house. words will come again.

i really need to finish my work here. code is sloppy. needs updating and cleaning. story of my life.

back to the grind after one of the most utterly relaxing weeks i’ve had in a very long time. it’s very easy to forget about things – even simple pleasures like spending the night on the couch watching television. it’s been a very very long time since i’ve done that.

got a lot of thinking done. got a lot of mental re-adjusting done. make a lot of decisions. disconnected and reconnected.

the last few days, however, have made me realize just how much more thinking i have left to do. my life is full of loose ends. physically, mentally, emotionally. brain feels like the code here. elegant stuff mixed with poorly written gibberish. jargon and comments in the margins. whole bits commented out for further work. risk breaking the metaphor to consider running a compiler through the mess. see what errors pop out.

then again, maybe that’s what’s just happened. hard to say. do feel like i’m in a state of error though.

“how many options do you have?”

she said. he said.

the trick is to realize you have as many options as you need. if they’re worth it to you.

i’ve always been pretty good at reinstalling. reinventing. we’ll see how this goes.

“The TV business is uglier than most things. It is … some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.”

- Hunter S. Thompson[1]

Richmond, VA.

I probably should have put this over on hateithere. oh, well.

i’m exhausted.

it’s not even nearly late enough for those words, but i’ve been exhausted for half a day already.

what a goddamned day. and my next starts six hours. i knew i’d be throwing myself back into this, but it wasn’t supposed to be quite this bad this fast. what a goddamned day. i’m not sure i’ve ever pissed off so many people in such a short span of time.

drama. drama.

bad day at work. i’ll leave it at that. my exhaustion craves a bed, but the hotel’s double queens look unappetizing. every muscle in my neck and head and shoulders and back aches. i entertain the idea that it hurts to think, but of course thats melodrama too. i’m just tired.
it’s possible to talk yourself out of exhaustion. for a while. i’ve got a lot of practice, which means i’m very good at it, but also very good at resisting my own convincing arguments. stalemate. meanwhile the eyes burn.

another blizzard coming. straight across the path i need to travel. pete’s stuck already. i won’t have to deal with it for a day or two yet. last winter my luck held out. missed every major issue. this year… well, i’m making up for lost time.
caffiene. ephedrine. keep moving. keep talking. keep thinking. keep the music loud and the cold air on your face. as the corporate saying goes ‘you ‘kin do it.’ we all run on it.

it’s not late, and i’m not bored. just a distraction. forced concentration for a few more moments. finish what obligations are left for the day.

watch the cars on the highway outside the hotel window. light and speed without sound. taken utterly alone, removed from all context, quite beautiful.

so. yeah.

it’s 2010. look at me rockin’ the web2.0 xhtml. i’m only eight or ten years late, right?

it’s official. i’m just tired enough, or drunk enough, or lonely enough, or whatever enough to put words here again. to even sit down and write site code at two in the fucking morning on fucking new years fucking day.

(fuck).

it beats staring a phone that doesn’t ring. beats thinking about sitting on the curb earlier, in the just-started snow, watching streetlights and trying to keep my mind empty for as long as i can manage at a stretch. few short hours from now i’ll dive back into work. travel. bullshit. keep myself busy enough to almost forget about all the things i don’t want to think about now. or to pretend to almost forget. there’s a mental duality there that i’ve been fighting since the day i became aware of it.

it’s so easy to upset people by telling them about yourself, your feelings, your problems. it’s even easier when they ask you to do it. don’t they realize…?

nights like tonight make me wish i had more addictions. something to fall into. but my only real good addictions are the non-self destructive types. darkness and silence and writing and you.

so. yeah. happy new year. new decade. further updates, etc, etc.