11:02 am - Sun 12/21/03
I Wrote This Very Fast On Purpose

And then what? Sometimes the "answer" to "How did things go wrong" can be much simpler than all that�"Thing went wrong because you didn't learn to drive until you were 27". And it's true�when most people were dating and mating and relating, I was, quite literally, not in the driver's seat.

I'm babbling, but that's kind of the point, I guess. I was seconds away from pouring out...whatever last night, and I actually did sit down to write, but all I ended up writing about was how the "right" has done a real hatchet-job on Christianity�My gut assumption about Christians are that they'll be tight-assed, narrow-minded, judgemental assholes (I'm honestly surprised when I find out someone I like is a Christian. Kathy B., for example. Anne Lamott for another). But now I'm thinking it's like any other prejudice, of which I have many; I have to just be honest with myself and admit that I have the prejudice, then determine to fight against it when meeting new people (But it's interesting to think that I've let the "Right" determine how I feel about things, in spite of myself).

Anyway, I was thinking about that, and reading Blue Shoe, and feeling sorry for myself, and wondering why my life continues to seem to small, so very thin, and some of it seemed like good, viable Diaryland material, but at the same time, it feels like the same old shit. "Boo hoo...why is life not what I want it to be? Why am I so alone? Why am I such a fucking mess?"

Why ask why...?

But asking "How do I get out", even though it seems to be a more productive, proactive type of question, hasn't seem to do me any good either. Cause I'm apparently just too ingrained in my weaknesses, my problems, my "issues", my whatever. And even saying that is a sign of the problem�I can't just tackle my problems, but instead, I get angry that I have them, I get angry that I can't "overcome".

And right now, I want a Hostess apple pie. And I haven't weighed myself in years, but I know I'm as fat as I've ever been, and I don't like it, but I can't seem to stop eating. I guess at some level I feel like "What else is there?"�I'm not having sex (I guess for the rest of my life), I don't have very many interesting things to do, I don't have much in the way of human contact. Why not eat a fucking Hostess apple pie if it'll make me feel better? But as I already know, this makes me feel better now, only to make me feel worse later, which sort of makes it...perfect.

I found out yesterday that Ian is leaving the bookstore. Ian works at the caf�, is very funny, very cool, and if I say he looks like Johnny Depp and that I still really like him, you may get some idea of how cool he is. He's an actor, though I don't think he's making the same kind of effort as Bryan K. or myself, but mostly, he's just someone who was fun to have at the bookstore, because I laughed a lot with him, and I'm big on laughing a lot with people (I thought last night about how the bookstore was kind of like M*A*S*H�A group of people someplace they don't want to be, doing something they don't want to do, and about all they really have to sustain them is each other). But Ian quit yesterday, because they didn't approve his time-off request to go visit his family in Tennessee, but he'd already bought a ticket. They said "If you go, you're fired" and he said "Actually, I quit anyway".

When I heard, I was more upset than I would have expected. I think it hit me, after Bryan K., that I'm tired of having people I like leave, even if it's just the bookstore. And even though there are still people at the bookstore I like, it makes me feel like everyone I like is going to leave and I'm going to be there, "the old man of Borders", with a bunch of kids I don't know.

Anyway, trying to figure out if I have anything else I want to say here...Just finished Blue Shoe a short time ago. In a way, Ms Lamott's book prompted some of this bad feeling, if it is in fact, "bad feeling"; I know it's just a story, but the messy-but-full life of "Mattie" in the story, as un-fun as it was sometimes, just made me feel sorry for myself for how little I have, for how little I've managed to bring to the party, for how little I've managed to keep with me as I've travelled along.

Why why why? How how how? Blahdeblahblahblah.

I was thinking, after writing about acting, that I can actually envision being a successful actor easier than I can imagine being in a relationship at this point. I know I've said that before, but just because I've said it before doesn't mean I can't say it again, because I'm sure enough thinking it again. I just don't know how things are going to move in a way that lonely old Jim ends up with someone to not feel so lonely with. I'm not getting any younger or better looking, and sadly, I'm not really growing any wiser either. And even the idea that I'm going to do any better financially is..up in the air at this point.

Running out of juice, and my left hand's falling asleep besides, and I still want that Hostess pie, and I want to start reading that Roger Ebert book I checked out. And I have to go back to sleep for at least a couple hours, because some asshole woke me up needing to be let into the building.

This wasn't exactly "automatic writing", but it's about as fast as I've typed a D-land entry. I'm a little embarrassed to post it in Diaryland, both because of what I might have inadvertantly revealed, and how ragged it probably is. But hey, it's a journal, not ....well, just put the name of your favorite well-written novel here.

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