Attention Whoring, comedy, Indignant, Lazy, My favorites, Pathetic, Selfish

Honesty: My Excuse

I’m often reassured that I’m the only one that enjoys myself. The mirror is the only audience I respect because it is the only audience that reacts appropriately to my misfortune. I see myself as powerless not because I aspire to be the victim, but because I aspire to fit in with the majority’s perception.

These oversimplifying statements of self deprecation mixed with self pleasure aimed at analyzing my neuroses are necessary cathartic lies.

After every sentence I want to stop writing because it feels like saying anything more would be giving too much away – taking away the journey that a reader has the opportunity to go on and making them see what you see as an author, as a creator of this story that you are supposed to paint a picture of because you have taken up the responsibility of leading this audience and asked to be paid attention to – to take time away from others’ lives in order to participate in your own because you believe your’s to be far superior, at least for the time being, and with that great demand comes great obligation to maintain enjoyment, but isn’t giving them, the audience, an invitation to join you as the creator the most selfless way to enjoy an art with someone? Probably not.

I ask myself stupid questions about when form and message intersect because I’m a stupid person with stupid thoughts. My answer is always that they do, but typically it is not a premeditated desire. In my case it is nearly always an accident. I’m still pleased with the result.

My work is almost always reddild with mistakes. ecause I only want to write about what I’m writing aboute. I start feeling dishonest when I’m presented art that has been edited. If that art is about me, ten it must be about me. I typed this entrie paragraph with my eyes losed.

Mrs. McIntire was my typing teacher in high school. Later she would become the vice principal for a year, but for now she only taught typing – a class where maintaining a watchful eye over child-soldiers completing mindless, useless tasks is your only duty. I was and am a good typer (or typist depending on which one is correct) and was/am able to complete my tasks at such a speed that large portions of class time would be/are dedicated to me finding other ways to occupy my time besides staring at completed assignments. This led to the game Wiz3. Whose instructions read/read: Guide Wizio the Wizard as he journeys through a magical land. Collect the potions as you go to create spells that will help you on your way. Use the keys to enter locked doors and hidden treasures. Throw the levers to get to reveal new routes and bonuses. It was a great game that I played/play well and played/play loudly. I liked/like perceiving the anger Mrs. McIntire directed towards my playing loudly as jealousy towards my playing well. That made/makes the competition more fun. She won/wins of course. She was/is the teacher. She instituted/institutes a rule wherein every time a student finished an assignment she would have to check over their entire homework before they could play games. Those two minutes of class where she would be/is hunched over my shoulder breathing in my oxygen displaying my total inability for full control were the worst two minutes of school every day.

I struggle with tense often in my writing, which I think is because I’m never sure whether I’m reliving by writing or perceiving by writing. My biggest struggle with writing is which version of myself am I. Since I can only comprehend the idea of writing through a self-manufactured lens that looks upon myself, my goal becomes to bend the funhouse mirror in a new and interesting shape. It’s selfish: the inability to focus the mirror elsewhere, but focusing it elsewhere sounds mean. Maybe that person doesn’t want to see themselves in a funhouse mirror. I’ll take the bullet. The selfish bullet.

I worry that humans won’t exist when I die, but that’s only because I define humans as me.

Depressed, Lazy, My favorites, Pathetic

Future-Past

Yesterday I got fed up with the fact that my computer sounds like two tractors doin’ the dirty. By “doin’ the dirty” I do not mean hauling mud and gravel places, I mean fucking. Why does it sound like this? Because my computer’s fan must always stay on in order to maintain a heat level that is below hell temperatures and that fan that is constantly on has something stuck in it that makes it buzz like a drill being dropped in a hornets’ nest. I decided I was going to fix this once and for all.

The reason I decided this needed to be fixed yesterday was partially that the sound has gotten exponentially more intense over the last week. Mostly though it was because of “future-past.” For those of you who haven’t spoken with me for longer than an hour and therefore aren’t familiar with the concept of “future-past,” it is the idea of living your life not in the past, present, or future but rather living your life so that in the future you may tell tales of your past. I decided to fix my computer because I figured the adventure into the wonders beneath the metal scraps that enclose my life (aka: my computer) would be both an adventure without much movement and still an adventure.

Boy was I wrong!

Putting exclamation marks after depressing statements makes it look like you are able to make light of your depressing failures. This is the “future-past.”

I’m going to stop putting quotes around future-past because in order for it to become coined as a real phrase it needs to be treated as such.

My first failure was my failure to not have to move much. Obviously I don’t own a small screwdriver. I don’t know why I thought I did, but I really, really thought I did. I scoured my apartment like Gollum looking for the ring, then made lazy similes based on cultural references that everyone will think is personal despite the fact that I don’t really like the Lord of the Rings books.

Then I walked to the pharmacy. I hate the pharmacy near me. I love where I live, and I even love my tiny 4 bedroom apartment with walls the thickness of construction tissue. I like the bars closeby and the restaurants a little further away. But the necessities (bodega, pizza, pharmacy, grocery store) that have to be within a block according to Brooklyn cultural law in my area suck. My bodega’s cat is mean, the beer selection sucks, the juice selections sucks even more, and they constantly run out of crumb donuts. The grocery store is cold and disorganized, closes too early, and has really slow cashiers. I’m pretty sure the pizza place just closed down because of the latest health inspection.

The pharmacy has the worst employees. And not nearly enough toys. My perception of pharmacies is that they need to include basic medicinal needs and lots of useless toys. Maybe this comes from lollipops at doctors’ offices.

I found the mini-screwdriver and headed home. I unscrewed the back panel of my laptop. I unscrewed the metal container around the fan. I brushed out enough lint to make a cotton candy prop in an early talkie. That wasn’t what was making the noise though. I kept unscrewing. Even my newfound virginity (that’s a joke with the word “unscrewing”) couldn’t get my fan to stop sounding like a meat grinder being attacked by a jackhammer. It was the fan itself. It needed to be dealt with.

I followed the wires that plugged the fan in. They seemed unpluggable. They were unpluggable. I unplugged them. There were five wires that I unplugged. Pink, orange, and white all went to the fan. The two black wires travels around the fan and attached to a ball of something hidden by black electrical tape and attached to a copper tube that created a diagonal across my computer. With the black wires unplugged the copper diagonal rose in heat. A lot. I quickly plugged the wires back in. The dogs chewing on metal rods with motors continued. Maybe I could clip just the three wires that connected to the fan. I pulled a knife from my set of kitchen knives that I bought drunk off the internet. I mean that both in that I was drunk and buying things on the internet and that I was drunk on internet surfing. I cut three wires in my computer.

This may be one of the stupidest things I’ve done. But, y’know: future-past!

The computer won’t turn on. It knows that the fan isn’t connected and doesn’t want to ruin itself. I can trick it. I hold the wires together as the computer turns on and then let go once windows has started up. This way the computer doesn’t have a chance to save itself. It overheats and shuts down.

I have fixed my computer and am typing on it now. There are three small pieces of duct tape inside my computer making sure it works, the tractor orgy is still loudly happening, and there are screws missing from the inside of my laptop because, c’mon I was supposed to keep track of those tiny pieces of metal. Also, I’m worried that the duct-tape holding the electronics of my computer (aka: my life) is going to melt soon, so I haven’t screwed the back of my laptop back on and instead attached it with duct-tape.

So, what has the future-past done for me?

I have a computer held together by gluey strands and a constant fear of losing my life’s work. … !

Lazy, My favorites, Pathetic

I Always Hated Having to Pee

When I was little I used to get these pains in my side every couple of months to a year. I would be thinking at the time; “Man, I really have to pee.” And my kidneys would feel like they seized up and my body would turn a paler shade of white and my mouth would start salivating large balls of drool for my body to deal with swallowing. I would pee, then find a place to lay down and within an hour or two I’d be fine. The doctors never found out what was wrong with me. They speculated that possibly I had “kidney pebbles.” “Kidney Pebbles” was the cute, tongue-in-cheek, name that they came up with for my distress.

It’s Saturday night in Brooklyn. It’s about five minutes ago. The sounds of people excited for the weekend surround and infiltrate my space because the walls separating my space from their’s only obstruct the visions of what are on the other side and not the sounds. I work most on the weekends. I closed shop today and will open shop tomorrow. I party on Tuesdays.

Every bus ride was scary for me. Every bus ride meant that I would have to hold my bladder closed for a very long time. Nobody takes bus-rides for short amounts of time. On multiple occasions I had made the entire bus pull over on the side of the highway so that I could pee in the bush on the side of the road. They always told me that what they were doing was “very unsafe.” We were in Maine. In Maine there are barely any cars on the highway. There is never enough traffic for pulling over to be “very unsafe.” We were very safe. And we didn’t have pee sloshing around on the floor of the school bus, so that’s good too.

My roommate was in the shower. I hadn’t thought of it at the time, but now I realized I had to pee. I realzed that because I had opened my window and was on the verge of opening my fly. There is a padlock, a gate and a window to get through before I can crawl out onto my fire escape. I did all the tasks, shaking wildly below the waste because now the pee wants to come out.

I had to pee so badly, but I was embarrassed. People would hate me if I admitted I had drank liquids earlier that day, right? I sat down on the bench of the mini-golf course and could hold my embarrassment any longer. I peed, left to change clothes, and did not acknowledge that the first had happened. Obviously I had saved myself from embarrassment.

With toes dangling off the edge of the fire-escape, I let fly a golden stream of my extended manhood unraveling its way all the way down three stories of a building to the ground. I felt relief in a way I hadn’t thought possible since the last time I peed. Fear of pain had led to a fear of embarrassment, had led to shame. None of those emotions are fun, so I won’t have them. I will have relief instead – this involves peeing all the time, anywhere.

My friend once pushed me against the wall when I tried to pee on the library because it was the closest building.

Attention Whoring, Nostalgia, Pathetic

Recycley Unproductive IV (Random)

I was supposed to meet this guy to show him around the city. Big Mistake.

I forgot to give any indicators as to what my appearance would be, and he did as well. So, here I am, asking people if they are Daniel – the guy I’m supposed to meet.

I’ve past this guy thrice on my awkward trips to the water fountain attempting to make him initiate eye contact with me – this guy with the skinny jeans who looks 20 something and vaguely Swedish – this guy who fits the undescriptive description that I have of the person I’m supposed to meet.

Finally I ask.

“No, why do you ask?”

What the fuck kind of question is that? Who cares why I asked? What other option is there besides that I’m supposed to meet someone named Daniel here. “I just thought you looked like a Daniel.” “I’m doing a name survey.” “I’m going to murder the first person I meet with that name.” Asshole.

This woman is very self-conscious about her teeth. Laughing is such a chore. Too bad she’s talking to someone she finds so funny.

I realize why I want fame. I want people to have the same instant reverence and disgust for me that I have for them. I am constantly frightened, nay sure, that people hate me, and yet I hate them back. I strive for equality. I want people to look at me and assume they are not worthy, yet look at me and think: he isn’t worthy.

It is also how I see myself. I am not worthy of the barrage of compliments I silently give myself.

Lonely, Pathetic

I Wouldn’t Want to be a Part of Any Mile High Club That Would Have Me as a Member

On the back of my seat on this Iceland Air flight to Stockholm it says: “Good Night is ‘góða nótt’ in Icelandic. It has a soft and cuddly sound.”

This is not a reasonable thing to say, and definitely not a reasonable thing to write.This is subjective. It is a subjective thing to say about words. It also means nothing to me. Unless góða nótt is pronounced oooohawwnomnomsmawwow, I don’t understand what this means.

Let’s all get distracted by the couple next to me whose actions could be described as similar to the sounds of good night in Icelandic. Airplanes are the only time I want a girlfriend (even when I have a girlfriend). Two people in two seats with two armrests is way more comfy than two people in two seats with three armrests. Of course it’s not only the armrest that separates you from the stranger laughing uncomfortably loud at Fools Gold starring Owen Wilson. I always force myself to lean as far away as I can from my neighbor in an attempt to distance myself emotionally from the mouthbreathing moron ordering Jack Daniels and reading a paperback cookbook.

If I had a girlfriend I could sleep on her shoulder drooling on her open copy of a book I lent her while demanding that she borrow my headphones to listen to “this Robyn song” and “this Robyn song.”

Sometimes i think i just want a younger version of myself to convince to grow up earlier.

Sometimes I ant something soft and cuddly.

Those time only occur when I’m 3000 feet in the air listening to the very un-soft and un-cuddly sound of my ears popping every 10 seconds. In other words: Hate, disgust, and discomfort drives me to relationships.

Pathetic

The Life of the Accidentally Romantic

We were standing in the hallway outside my apartment. I turned to lock the door and then turned back to see her crying. We had been dating for between one and five months based on how scared of commitment we were feeling when asked. It was her birthday. I had created a shoebox full of presents. She was crying tears of joy.

I tell you this not solely to brag, but to point out that I was not expecting that reaction – to point out that her tears filled me not only with pride but also fear because I was scared that she might ask why I got her those things and I would have to admit that inside jokes were not just touching but also cheap and this birthday present only cost $5. That was why I had made her a birthday present.

Romance doesn’t come easy to me, it comes accidentally to me. In most relationships I avoid romantic urges because I find them to be a cheap substitute for real connections and because I don’t want the girl to think I’m too into her, but that’s impossible. I always seem desperate because I think desperation is sexy and I do want to look sexy.

My assumption that others think at all like me is a stupid assumption, but I will continue to do it because I don’t want to have to worry about other thought processes besides my own.

This entry sucks. I’m bored. I hate my writing.

The point is sometimes I try to make myself despicable and I fail. I don’t like failing – instead I quit.

I quit.

Lazy, Pathetic

Very.

I left my window open because it was hot. And humid. And I haven’t taken out my laundry in a while.

At 3:44 am I woke up even hotter. I was burning. I was itching and burning because I had just had a mass of mosquitoes attack the entirety of my skin. As I slapped my ears and face in attempts to slap the miniature fans that were buzzing in my eardrums, I realized I wasn’t getting back to sleep.

Above my head was the last couple spoonfuls of chocolate jalepeno ice cream melting in it’s pint container and a drink I had tried to cool down with a popsicle. I didn’t have any ice cubes, nor any refrigerated drinks so after making my Emergen-C with luke-cold water, I threw an open popsicle in it. It was gross and I didn’t finish drinking it. Now I had two gross decisions reminding me of my failure at life resting above my head.

I switched sides of the bed.

That didn’t help with the itching and the scratching.

I needed to get cooler.

I stumbled out of my room toward the bathroom and turned on the bathtub faucet. On cold. It was very loud. I use the word “very” despite its lack of detail because it wasn’t anything besides loud, it was just a lot of it. I couldn’t hear anything else, but that was nice because all I could hear before was the sound of insects looking for my blood.

I slowly let myself down into the ice water bath that was draining out because our bathtub drain doesn’t work that well. It was very cold. I shivered. I let my sack shrivel up into my body. I let my dick scream out that I was torturing it. I let my knees shiver together. I let my back and neck be released from the torture that was the heated bumps of itchiness that had become my life for the past 13 minutes.

I had substituted heat pain for cold pain, and I was very happy and I fell asleep.

Why isn’t it winter yet?

Lazy, Media, Pathetic

AHH.. My Life is Over

I went outside and walked in the park sometimes. I wrote a little bit every once in a while.

That was before the incident.

Now I lay bedridden with my laptop bag molding at the foot of my bed and my clothes covering up the floor so that “stay out of the lava” is a really easy game. It’s scary how much this incident has affected me. It’s frightening to notice that the only outside I’ve seen has been what can be glanced at over my shoulder and out my window. It saddens me to think of how little of the outside world I really know.

The incident I speak of is Premier Week. I had to watch Glee, Castle, and Chuck over the past two days and I did not enjoy a single moment of any of it. This new influx of television added to my already annoying obsession with drafting fantasy basketball teams has made me some sort of hybrid between a hermit and a hobo. A hobo because I’m sure that a hermit at least finds the time to shower or eat, but the internet is not allowing me to. All the wonderful auction style drafts and pre-rankings I can do, all the hulu and megavideo I can watch. This is terrible. My life is over.

Depressed, Nostalgia, Pathetic

Me: In Cars

Instead of discussing the New Orleans style flood of emotions that has occured upon coming back to Maine – a place I’ve hated my whole life – to realize that it is simultaniously as beautiful as everyone says it is and as horrible as I always said it was, instead of discussing the fact that the familiar water pressure of my childhood shower nearly brought me to tears, instead of discussing how free food and Tivo is making me rethink every decision I’ve made in life, I will be discussing why I don’t like to drive.

Driving is boring.

I love how in New York no transportation is wasted. I get on the subway only to write, read, and occasionaly masturbate. I can do none of those things while driving. Driving takes up the entirety of my energy. I have to stare at a road and hope that my destination comes quickly. In the car I had in high school I could adjust the display so that it would show how many miles per gallon I was getting at each second. I used to turn that on and then try to be the most efficent driver I could be. The problem occurs when you crash because you are paying attention to a small digitally displayed number as opposed to the road.

$3000 is the amount I’ve lost because of speeding tickets and cars I’ve crashed. That is about 10 times the amount of money in my bank account. Being back in Maine frightens me because most of this money was spent here as I would drive 80 mph on roads I knew well at 2am where the only other car out was the cop who pulled me over. This is why I moved to New York – so that I wouldn’t have to drive anymore.

I hate driving.

I also hate crying in the shower because the water pressure reminds me of waking up for high school, but I do it anyway.

Horny, Lonely, Pathetic

Me: In Relationships

There is food in my bed a lot. People are all trying to take my money. Nobody wants relationships to last the way I want them to.

This is like that game two truths and a lie, except all of them are true. Instead it’s two bad things and a good thing. I like having food easily accessible.

I love being in a fully formed relationship that feels like you two can finish each other’s sandwiches (I should eat breakfast). I also hate when that lasts more than a day. It gets boring, routine, monotonous – much like a list of synonyms. The interesting part of relationships to me, and really anything to me, is that they are constantly transforming. They must constantly move forward otherwise they die. I can go through a relationship quickly. I need not three months to hit all the main points. I treat a relationship like a pithy writer treats an essay – make sure you get everything in, and put nothing else in.

My point is that I love relationships. I love all parts of relationships, and that’s why I don’t get into any of them. They’re all structured wrong. We should have fully formed marriages and divorces that last a week, or maybe a day. That’d be awesome.

Also a transgend’s girlfriend put a knife to my friend’s throat when we tried to stop her from beating the shit out of homelessman.

That’s another truth. Not sure if it’s a good or bad. They’ve obviously been in a relationship too long.

Nisse Greenberg

Category Archives: Pathetic