10:54 p.m. - January 21, 2005
I still imagine contrary things
There is a stain on the driveway where the Jeep's water pump discharged its parts and contents yesterday, an event which went unnoticed until I saw the temperature gauge buried in the red zone screaming overheat as I drove to work. Nine hundred dollars later I have a new water pump and coolant system and while I worry I was taken I did my homework and the symptoms and prices fall within the norms generated by Google searches, but all in all it is the stain on the driveway that bothers me most. Detergent + few days = removed stain so despite how I've settled on this as a priority worry awareness of the other worry skulks like a mangy cat wanting to rub its body against my leg but biding its time. When I dropped off the vehicle and walked home, I thought about how I didn't have anybody I could call for a ride or worse, anybody to simply share the event with in the beer-at-a-bar-with-good-friend sort of way where the trivialities minore and majeure are bandied about like leaves in a rain-filled gutter, slow and meandering and in no rush to be anywhere else other than where they are at present.
Thinking, or writing, about being alone is not anything new. If I were to write an abcedarium of my life, it might begin like this: A is for alone: Jason is alone. B is for boy: Jason is alone and a boy. C is for cowed: Jason is alone and a boy, cowed. D is for dying: Jason is alone and a boy cowed and dying. There is no room for 'cedarium melodrama as my boat is already full. Moving on. Try as I do, I have yet to accept / become used to / become inured to / become settled with solitude, with raising a glass to myself and feeling this is right, this is the way it is supposed to be. I'm struggling in my self-sufficiency. The small steps of asking people for favors, of calling them up just to chat, inviting them out to dinner, of putting myself out there have not been disastrous over the long term, though when I asked A[deleted]a and her boyfriend out to eat that night and they glanced at each other before declining, that was enough for me to slap the voice that said Just say it! and God knows I won't ask again.
Objective, think objectively, Jason: If one is disatisfied with solitude, one should / must exert effort to counter the fog of acquiescence. Logic never prevails over emotion so I think subjectively: I am alone because - I don't know. When I think about it on a good day, I think it's because I might / want to die soon and attachments are difficult to leave, or perhaps there is some greater good upon whose trail I may stumble some day, or maybe it's because I've used up my allotment of non-solitude and attachments before. And on bad days I think I'm alone because that is what was meant for me and that's that. I tell myself it's about becoming comfortable with myself, that contentment / happiness does not lie with comrades and fellowship or wanting romance; that instead it should - isn't it? - be nestled in the concatenation of days on days with people and events and thoughts and loves combined together as in a blender making a sensuous, appealing scent that tickles and invites speculation and pleasure.
I set the volume high enough that the table shakes with the bass and I'm looking out the door into the backyard where I can discern what I know are the bright yellow daisies and white calla lilies beyond. Earlier I heard the Canada geese honking, a glorious cacophony. Spring is coming, the blossoms have opened on a few trees I pass on the mornings I take the train, the hills are green from the December rains and today I had a view of the sun shining on the bay. These are all such beautiful things to me that I like to ponder them, think nothing beyond the silence that arises when confronted with peace. I just wish I could see something of beauty in me that would fill me with that same peace so I could just sit here and enjoy myself, a quiet night at home, a welcome respite from the peopled spaces of life. I yearn, I yearn so much it breaks my heart and once again I raise my glass with the monotone toast, as long as you need, you won't have, so move beyond needing and wanting what you can't have, you pathetic fuck.
