Glamorous Reconciliation

No need for clever beginnings. I somehow managed to fall asleep around six this morning, and slept until 9 o'clock. An entire sleep cycle. Then I... I killed the morning and the afternoon. I played some guitar and didn't even consider going outside. It was the last day of fall break and it was overcast. At least I think it was. I hadn't even bothered cracking a single shade open to look out, but there were no yellow glints and there was no tender warmth in the light. Just a pale light, limp and with a lick cold and clammy.

I watched some porn around one because sometimes it motivates me. Some people watch porn for pleasure, but whenever I look through it I look for the complete amateurs and I search their faces. Their flat faces on the screen with looks of indifference or botoxed seduction, bad acts at being sexy. Pouted lips and wide smiles, wide mouths and wide lips. It's hard for me to reconcile their motivation for life. It's hard for me to reconcile my own. I make the same faces as them, indifferent and wide pulled up by strings attached to ideals held on high. Nothing but show for a melted candle-wax audience.

I found some motivation, and took a shower.

Late afternoon brought with it a few rays through dramatic clouds so I got ready to go out and planned on not going to little Italy and buying cigarettes and then smoking a cigarette on my way to the library, where I was going to finish finding a scene to write my film paper on and then feel accomplished and have an excuse to smoke another one. But my plans don't quite matter.

A strange number began vibrating at quarter after four and it turned out to be Melissa. I hadn't received a schedule this week for work at the cafe yet, and it so happened that indeed the cafe was open during fall break, and I was scheduled to work it that late afternoon. Wouldn't ya know. I probably could have gotten out of it but went in. I didn't have to not buy those cigarettes, and I wouldn't have to go to the library. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's procrastination. At work I even told Melissa about the problem I had with my I.D. and the paper I had yet to begin, and she tried to convince me to go do it. The irony in that situation is brighter than suns blazing in hilltop fields outside of Pittsburgh.

There wasn't really anything to do at work except begin closing for the night. Melissa and I talked about films and music, I told her about Fear(s) of the Dark and Synecdoche, New York. The sky had become very dramatic in the early evening, almost like nature liked to fool me. The most beautiful scenes seem to only come when I have to work. What a farce.

A man in a red bandanna came and asked for a cup of water then heard Melissa and I discussing music and the record industry. He came up and said that our intellectual conversation intrigued him and he wanted to join in. At first I thought he might've been quite sincere (and he was), except it was small chat, and nothing too deep. He was clearly swimming in cloud nine, having quite a trip for himself. He talked about playing the saxophone as a kid, and how his uncle played the keyboard. He then proceeded to go stand outside and sip from his cup, before wiping the bandanna from his head to the ground. He proceeded to the other side of the patio and dumped the contents of the cup over his head. I have a feeling the cup was empty as he did this. He then walked towards the parking lot and disappeared, leaving his red bandanna on the ground. Melissa was a little crept out, and I thought it was something I might have done. It seemed exactly like something I would have done.

Eventually Katie came in and we left. I didn't bum a cigarette off Melissa and then we both walked and smoked. I told her I found comfort in smoking cigarettes because I knew they would kill me. I didn't tell her that this certainty was a constant I could believe in. It's funny when death is the only thing that keeps you on your feet. I talked a lot, more than I had with any peer in-person for a while. I think I talked about films. It was bizarre.

I got home and killed some time. My mum called and we talked more than we had in perhaps a year. More than an hour and a half. What's wrong with me, I never talk this much to anybody.

My dad got home, and we argued about school, how I won't buy books for my classes, how I was screwed because of my skewed miserly habits. It's hard for me to reconcile spending money on myself. It's hard for me to reconcile how to spend my life, whether it's best to spend it quickly or to spend it glamorously.