It’s been a few months since I’d last held work in my hands. I recently left my job to look for better opportunities. So far, my applications have been unanswered. A risky move, really. Knowing that I have a son to support, a family to help and a promise to keep. I can’t say that I’ve been that much of slacker, I can’t say I have been the opposite either.

My hiatus in almost everything has brought about realizations and pained truths. In my relationships, self-appreciation, pride and on areas too many to mention. It hasn’t been too hard nor has it been too easy. It is a pedal malfunction. Way too many things unattended and undervalued.

I had suffered a few setbacks in my relationships. I’ve fallen out with people I should have taken care of. I’d lost the respect of people I have looked up to and have been forever indebted to. The factors in maintaining good relationships have risen up and my scores are on an all time low. So much for my investment in people. I have reduced myself to a mere companionator – not in the sense of a movie quip that meant “pimp.”

A funny thing really, I find myself good company – maybe too good of a company even for myself. I scare people and the book of Neil Strauss isn’t exactly helping me acquire the necessary social skills I need to work in the real world. Too much theory, I’m too afraid to put it to work. I’m starting to ask myself how I had managed to hold on to these people, and how, for that matter, did they manage to be in good ties with me for so long? I think I am now getting the response.

This is nothing but a diary entry that has been long overdue. It feels normal. A soliloquy but not in the poetic sense – more on the depraved and desperate sense. All I have are my caps to block people’s looks and my glasses that have been scratched way more than they need to be. My playlist consists of good melodies and my head with the fantasies I fail to keep even in my dreams. What fucking luck – I don’t even believe in that shit. 

Fucking. 

Useless.

I can’t say I’ve invested my time and resources in the wrong people, it’s just that they could be made on a more reasonable time. I’ve had lapses in judgement, I don’t deny these things. The only worse thing I can do is deny myself of the justice that I’ve paraded in the faces of people all these years. You don’t get that fucking low. Clearly, I have anger issues. My good friend had said it to me once, jokingly. I felt flush. Depressed and angry. What a fucking nice mix. There’s no way you can drink around that.

domesticated

A friend and I got together over a bottle of drink and a shared meal of chicken patties and sweet bread. I think it was day-old, though still good and filling. I couldn’t complain. We have gone back and forth on many points of discussion and agreement that night: past experiences, people we last talked to, friends who are too good and those who can’t make the cut and the definition of the term “in-between-jobs.” It was a fun night.

I believe that they are enjoying their life as a married couple. It is a life they shared with their son. I was blessed enough to be there to celebrate their union and their son’s coming into the religious world. As a past-professional who used words for a living, I can’t quite figure out how to put my thought process on this thing. I am just proud and happy to see them enjoying their current status.

The night started with a glass of chocolate vodka. He said it reeked of drink and apologized for the apparent ratio. It was nothing to worry about. I didn’t come for the drink... those of you who have followed this ‘acrid’ blog would know that I just lied. It was a good mix, I ought to make something like that one of these days. We shared the dim night with a few more swigs of the stuff and went on with our like-minded take on the topic of intermediate school and the people and doctrine that filled it. We could swear that we would have ended up way different than what we are now had we gone to the same campus in college. We shook our heads to the possible outcomes.

He’s a freethinker – though not the kind that shunned deities or religious beliefs. He just took things into stride and made use of aspects that would best set him a good view on things. We should’ve known each other more in the last seven years. It would be a huge relief to have a fellow spirit. He’s a shot away at being in a better disposition than me. I’m a walking spent shell.

The drink went on and we couldn’t clink glasses, we used just one glass to fill our already warmed up guts with more drink. Nostalgia sets in. We used to drink this clear blue stuff more back in the day. Feeling old gets old. It’s a good thing we can’t go back, that’d be too easy and stupid.

Hipster couple. That’s what I called them. Talented writers, too. Now, they're a domesticated hipster couple with a charming son. They quipped that no one ever really tells them from whom their son took after. “They always say it’s a mix.”

Something's wrong with my thought process. It's something that I always say to people when I talk to them as I almost chase them off with the nonsense that comes out from my mouth. And it has been finding its way to my writing as well.

Having fun is something of previous stranger to me. For the longest time, I avoided going out with friends though I find myself getting sucked in anyways. I had a weird thinking that when things are getting good, it can only get worse from then on. It was a constant gnawing feeling. It is an itch, dangerous to scratch. Whenever I down a bottle or enjoy a cup of coffee outside, I just get this feeling at the back of my head and the bottom of my gut. It's like something bad is going to happen.

I had held on to this thinking for a very long time until I forgot how it felt like to be down. The regular questions as to why shitty things happen were a ruse to the more serious problem. I was just having too much fun. Everything was just a blur. Even the problems seemed like a math problem, no worries since I can deal with them mentally. The thing is, I suck at math. Suxxxxx.

Apparently, the feeling is shared by my mom. She told me that she was exactly like that when she was in college. The big difference between us is that she was put together more than I ever was and am now. She's on a different league and apparently, everybody else but me.

I'm sorry. This is just verbal abuse. It's a waste of code and memory. Here's the only place that I can't hurt or maim someone else in my release process. I'm a mean drunk at times.

clocking in

Great writers, who are known to be the pillars of this adored but left out profession are all gone. Though there are some who are still standing, I think the prospect of being immortalized in the cult following of the literary world is one to die for. Look at David Foster Wallace, for example. His untimely and self-imposed time out from this life only made Jonathan Franzen look bad. Not that Franzen sucks at making worlds out of paper and ink (he’s one of my favourite) but DFW’s demise only made readers want to know more. It’s like there’s a vacuum of necessity that pulls reader to the dead authors. The lost are celebrated in more grandeur and regard than those who are yet to write their best works.

Ian Flowers, a respected tattoo artist in the U.K. said that he still hasn’t found his best work yet. Maybe, he never will. Another good point. Maybe it’s not death that truly gives way to the best works in the eyes of the author or artist. Though, what makes something a genuine success or a hit? Maybe there are more than a few classification or unit of measure. You just have to churn out more pages if you still haven’t found it yet. It’s always a good practice to outdo yourself every time. A scarcity of pats on the back is something that every creator must live with. It is in the presence of mundane and undeserved praise that makes mediocre work and ballooning egos.

This fascination with people who left a great deal of an impression in literature maybe comes from a series of unresolved conflicts. The lost always make a great topic. You can almost always fit it in everything you say, think or create. I’m afraid I am part of the “lost generation” as coined by John J. Hypocrite. I am part of an era that loses delight in hard work – though I think, I have a problem with it. I’ve forgotten how it is to work for something I wanted. It has taken too long to be reminded of the more important things. Work felt like it stemmed from need and not from the desire of a better day. As I am writing this now, there is a gap in what I want to put in and what I need to say. Help. I am lost.

I am just rambling. 

J.J. Hypocrite is long gone, too. His last peek was into the barrel of his own gun. It is far from over. I haven’t completed my hard work yet. It is not yet time to collect my social security nor cash in my retirement pay. Doomed generation, that was Hypocrite’s exact words. I got too stuck on the less precise word “lost.” I’ve just punched in.