Sketchbook Aug 18 and 19 2008, Writing Aug 19 2008

The days slither in and out of each other. I struggle to keep my head above water.

He's leaving me. He's really leaving me. I had denied it. But he said the words and my heart instantly shattered into a million crying pieces. I had loved him arrogantly, anointed him with my artwork, striving for the piece that would convey my affections so that everyone could know them. It is only in losing him that I can finally find the lines, finally find the words.

There are no angry words, only a quiet good-bye, and I linger on the phone until he hangs up. True love is desiring only the best for the object of your affection - even if the best is letting go. The spirit screams as it leaves my body. I am left withered and weak.

I wander alone in a hazy land of eternal night. It is everything all at once that brings me here.

I just wish I could find my way out. I imagine myself as one of King Arthur's knights who set off in a blaze of sunshine to seek the Holy Grail. But I have come under an evil spell and, hunched over my steed, I cannot find the road.


Sketchbook Aug 18 2008

Cool. I've never been good at keeping it. I've been good at being it, but keeping my cool? Never. I spend a night with a fellow and when he doesn't return my phone call, I fall apart terribly ungracefully.

The most difficult aspect of sliding into alcoholism is learning to keep your cool. This is so that no one ever suspects it. Suspicion is worse than outright accusation because it breeds paranoia - and that's worse than finding yourself drunk and alone at 8:00pm on a Tuesday night.

There's a place where everything is okay. Where you are just removed enough to not mind the fucking shit and toil. By the logic that two bars of gold is much better than one, you keep imbibing, and by 8:37pm you could classify yourself as "fucked up." The true difficulty is rising from the couch when your roommate comes home, to quietly excuse yourself to your bedroom. Okay now, just keep your cool.

Without turning the light on you drink some more and dial his number, confessing all your sins to his voicemail. Then you continue drinking and the next thing ya know it's 7:30am on a Wednesday morning and you're going to be late to work. Again.

Writing Aug 19 2008


Sketchbook Aug 19 2008

The best ride is coming home from my friend's house in Hollywood. It is all downhill and I fly down La Brea in the twilight, faster and faster and faster. In my head the soundtrack from E.T. plays. Though I typically despise Spielberg's brash sentimentality (I know! Film school heresy!), the scene where we jump cut into Eliot's wide eyes as the bad guys pursue him into a corner and the bicycles suddenly take off into the sky, lifted on John Williams' lush score, always sends shivers down my spine.

Speeding down La Brea, daring vehicles and traffic lights, I am Eliot on a desperate flight. And suddenly my bike rises into the sky, the violins cresting, and as they break into brass, I sail into the sunset, and the world and all its troubles are far far away from me.