Sketchy

Draft from March 29th:

I walked into the bookshop last night to prove a point. A couple of points actually. A-current fuel prices are making me the queen of mobility. B-I’m committed to buying the book I’m required to buy for class.

What do you mean it’s “censored?” You have The Lion of Jordan and you don’t have The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy?

I ended up buying The Lion of Jordan even though I am not a fan of reading about the ruling family. Figured my father might enjoy it, at any rate, it makes for a good addition to my small library. It’s way down on my reading list though, right at the bottom.

I forgot where I parked my car. I went to the wrong level and imagined that my Havana got stolen. Then it occurred to me, I should have washed her at least. I spent a solid five minutes running around in circles, panicking, imagining life without my car, before realizing that I parked somewhere else. I found her at last. Sweet reunion with my mechanical companion.

I spent the rest of the night acting strange. In a sort of a well-meaning sadomasochistic mind fuck I messed myself, and another person, up. I can always trust myself to do something of the sort, it’s that damned, characteristic way of thinking (or not thinking) that makes me behave in the oddest manner. But this time I’ve outdone myself. It’s typical of me to do something that I don’t really want to do, for the sake of an image in my head, and then force myself to stop doing it and want it all the more after it’s gone. The continuous resistance-submission-withdrawal cycle has finally caught up with me.

At 3 AM I woke up, checked my phone for any incoming messages, read one and lost my appetite for sleep. Tossing and turning. Who knew images were so powerful? I stayed up until around 6:30, listened to my parents waking up for their morning prayers, and suddenly fell fast asleep. I’ve always hated waking up early, all the more so since I started working. My mission in life has been to find jobs that don’t require me to wake up early, and if so, once or twice a week. At 8:30 the alarm sounded, I dozed off until 9:15.

At work there was no place to park as usual. En route I grabbed my phone, wrote three different messages to the same person, saved them as drafts so I can decide which one to send. I settled on the last one, sent it, then went through that ugly phase between hopeful expectation and rational reservation. The girls from class kept SMSing me, making my heart skip a beat every time my invisible male secretary said “Excuse me boss, you have a text message.” That’s what my phone says when I get a new message. That, my black corset velvet jacket, and my shoes usually give people the wrong impression about me. Or not. Who cares?

The talkative new lady at the office was, well, chatty. I heard the usual complaints about the dirty windows and the unorganized surroundings, and nodded in agreement. Why didn’t you come in on Saturday? and then she clarified: I was here from 9 to 4. I didn’t really care, I don’t go to work on Saturday and the issue is out of the question. I couldn’t tell her that to her face because then I would have been sabotaging her innocent commitment to our mutual workplace. She’ll get it in time on her own.

That episode from two days ago kept playing again and again in my head the whole day. It got amplified and I felt something heavy lurk on my chest for the rest of the day. Nothing excites me anymore, not even honesty. I wonder when exactly it was that I abandoned optimism and simplicity. I wonder when it was that I realized that I don’t understand why I do the things I do most of the time. It’s all terribly garbled, makes me feel like my brain is a bowl of an infinite supply of Indomie. It’s the only kind of noodles I ever have.

I want to be de-noodlified. As my personal adviser, I decided that the first step is to distance myself from my phone and then wash my car. The second step would be to stay abreast of current news and diversify my activities. Finally, I decided to believe that when I close an old door, a new one opens. If not, then I’m pretty screwed.

Today’s input:

Well what do you know? A couple of new doors opened. Hah! Good thing I blogged this. Take that, destiny!