All my words

I have never learned to love anyone but myself. When someone says “I would die for you” or displays any enthusiasm about self sacrifice for some person or some cause, I am thinking: How. Why.   May be because my parents were divorced and instead of separating to hate each other from afar they decided to stay physically together and broadcast a great example of how not to love someone for like 20 years.

it’s one of those nights where sleeping in the proximity of another human is somehow impossible, so i lay awake for hours, tossing and turning, just slightly uncomfortable, feeling scammed out of one of the few simple pleasures that is supposed to make adult life worth it: the feeling of falling asleep with the person you love.   so here i am in the bathroom, the only other room in my apartment, typing on my phone, fully awake, 2:49 AM on April 26th, 2023, regretting my decision to be a good guy and tell her yes she can stay over night and that it’s totally fine. she’s hesitant to ask, she knows that her presence in my bed has the potential to flat out annihilate my chances of sleep, and every time the question is on the table I assure her that no, it’ll be fine this time, don’t worry, you can stay. yet here i am again.  

I’ll show up to the Cafe, where she works, on Valentines Day, with a bouquet of roses, hand it to her in front of everyone. All will see what a great boyfriend I am and she will be so happy and maybe i’ll post a picture on social media and get even more good boy points on the internet from people I barely know and maybe even some strangers as they scroll by. And also everyone at her job will know that they can’t fuck her, because she has a Great White Boyfriend.  It didn’t go as planned. They were super busy, like 8 people working behind the counter, which is too many people behind the counter at Starbucks, you only need like four, so a bigger audience than I anticipated, and she was actually in the back, so I went up to one of her co-workers and said:  “This is for Netanya.” She was like aww, that’s so sweet. Are you her boyfriend? And I was like “No, I’m just some random guy” and she was like “oh… okay…” her cheerful expression died instantly. I backpedaled: “No, no, I ...

with love and hope, and a bit of fear, knowing that one day someone will mess him up real good and theres a good chance that someone is me.  

I’m getting old enough to feel nostalgic pains for those perfect summer days in Ashaway, Rhode Island, before I had responsibilities or insecurities or any kind of “work.”   When my only job was to play outside and look at people and smile and learn about the world around me.   Nowadays I’ll plan and coordinate for months and spend hundreds just so that I can spend a couple days outside with my friends and we call it “camping” or “going to a festival” and then we go back inside to our separate living compartments for the remaining 360 days of the year.  

for the dullness you feel when you’ve come into a boba shop or a diner or something like 15 minutes before closing and the cashier-waitress-food-slave-attendant is somewhat pretty and clearly tired and you feel so bad for her so you just want to turn around and go home, but you don’t, because that would be stupid, so you tell her what you want and try to smile and try not to say “sorry” or look too deeply into her eyes and feel any more guilt than absolutely necessary to complete this cursed transaction.   there should also be a word for the type of guy who goes into dining establishments such as bars, bakeries, etc, doesn’t buy anything and just sits in the corner on his laptop observing people for free. a free live show. terrified that someone who works here will venture over and notice that i am freeloading and politely with a smile ask me if i’m planning on purchasing anything to which i would respond “nope, just chilling.” but i know they don’t want to have that interaction so...

someone starts nodding at me mid-conversation, in a subtle caveman attempt to get my consent, it makes me want to shoot them in the face

o ne night in college, a few of my friends and i were loitering unsuccessfully outside a big frat party, and one of the Bros came out from the house and said Hey Man didn’t you do stand up last week, at birds nest cafe? and i was like Yeah. and he was like You’re really funny man, you and your friends can come right in. and they all looked at me like I was Hercules.   the second best moment of my life was at the gym, early last year. finishing up a work out. a girl came up to me as i sat idly staring into space trying to avoid eye contact with all women and she said: hey, i think i saw you doing stand up at jai thai last week. you were really good! i said i’m glad you think that. and then nothing else happened.

I think the face is what makes you want to be around someone, talk to them, know them. The body makes you want something else entirely. Face masks dehumanize people. We become mannequins. Disposable. Bodies. I can’t get to know someone wearing a mask. We may as well be texting. It’s not worth it. I can learn so much more about someone when I can see the bottom half of their face, my monkey brain thinks.  

diagnosis: inability to be independently present, always aware that other people see you, becoming accustomed to it. needing it, needing to present yourself as some kind of comprehensible human character. It’s not “what do I want to do” but “how do i look while doing it” even in my fucking dreams.

Sometimes he smokes a little marijuana and goes to the gym and immediately regrets it because then he looks around can’t see nothing but a whole bunch of insecure young people running from their inevitable decay and death.   Despite their bodies, the insecurity shines through in their eyes. In their posture. Or maybe it’s just the decision to Go To The Gym in the first place. Nobody goes to the gym because they’re pleased with themselves.   Sometimes he thinks that the only people who are pleased with themselves are those who dedicate all their time and energy to their favorite thing, and have real lofty goals and friends with similar goals and find relative success and status in their chosen niche.   And all this running through his head in between sets of dumbbell curls makes it really hard to get any work done in there, not to mention the endless parade of yoga pants waltzing around in every direction.  

My friendship with my barber Andy might be the singular positive, regular, long term business-patron-type relationship I have in the whole city of Seattle after almost two years of living here.   Andy is Snickeldorf-esque: blunt, easily amused, maybe even kind of simple. He likes The Beatles and “European Short Films” and stories about the places he’s lived, so he can point out the streets and say to himself “I know that street!” Andy works in Pike Place Market and does the cheapest haircut in Seattle — $18. Today I overheard him tell a customer he “doesn’t know how to use a computer,” which checks out, because his shop isn’t on Google Maps. Or at least it wasn’t when I miraculously stumbled into it one day after being rejected by three trendy $40 Seattle Barbers on account of “We don’t take walk ins.” I’ve never waited more than 5 minutes, and I’ve never made an appointment. Plus I have an excuse to go to Pike Place and walk around every time I feel like getting a cut. And the hai...