Seventeen Tracks And I'm Tired Of This Game

Being raised in a not particularly religious family, Christmas was never that big of a deal for me. Don't get me wrong--presents are nice and I manage to spend Christmas day with family and/or friends. But if I had to spend Christmas Day alone, no biggie. For some reason though, the day that really freaks me out, the day (or to be more accurate, the night) that I absolutely cannot spend alone is New Years' Eve.

I don't know why this is. Maybe it's the need to divert my attention from the fact that another year has ended and that I still haven't found the one who has made me stop looking (or for this year, that I found the one but she needed to "explore" after I helped her get out a dead-end relationship). Maybe it's all the media images of Times Square that has foisted this image of crowds and merriment that has imprinted on my weak mind. Maybe I'm just a needy bugfuck prick.

In any event, except for the last two years, I've been able to find parties to go to. I manage to pass the New Year without being too maudlin or weepy. However, it seems like my group of friends are beginning to treat New Years' Eve just like any other day. One friend is chillin' by his lonesome at home. Another friend told me that, prior to getting married, he spent a couple of New Years' Eve by himself. Is it that after turning 30, we're just winding down? Is is that a West Coast New Years' Eve is a bit of a let down after seeing the ball drop in Times Square at 9pm local time?

Anyway, I'm not about to bust the balls of my friends who have invited me to hang at their pad this year--especially considering is the alternative is drinking at home with nothing to keep me company other than thoughts of Her in Las Vegas having fun. Those type of thoughts without adult supervision could lead baby getting into the pills, and having my stomach pumped isn't an attractive option.

There's a little annoying spark of something that purports to be the voice of reason in my head. It says, "Well Marty, if you'd rather go out, then why don't you? Go out to a club, open your wounded heart to all the love flowing within, become a he-slut and hit on anything without an adam's apple! Open your inner sexy beast and be a fuck machine for tonight, forever and always!"

Sounds reasonable, donnit'? Argue against this voice, and I sound like some lameass FOB trying to justify being a lameass. But you know what? Fuck it. My heart still feels like a sucking chest wound. You can't run a marathon the day after being shot in the leg the day before. You can't be a sexy beast with rabies. So maybe I need to be a lamess. And maybe that voice of reason is just morphine.

John Of The Dead

95% is in numb shock still. 3% is in absolute shaking anger. The 2% snarkiness clinging on to life wants to bring you this witty observation about one of life's cliches. Here it is:

You know that saying that goes something to the effect of "Well, everyone has been through [insert painful thing that everyone has been through--e.g., a broken heart, getting fired, awaiting for the results of an STD test]." The purpose of that statement is to make you feel better by letting you know that you are not alone. Here by example is the inherent weakness in that statement. If everyone had their left testicle squeezed in a vice at some point of their life, that doesn't make getting your left testicle currently being squeezed by a vice feel any better, does it? No, instead you still are going through excrutiating pain that shoots through your body and is so intense that your left eyeball feels like it is going to pop out. (I understand that this analogy may be lost on any female readers, but fuck it, I'm a heartbroken mess so pardon me if I can't think of any unisex analogies).

What, you'd rather have the 95% back writing this blog? Nuts to you (no pun intended).

Le Juge

"You need to find peace. You need to move on from me."--Snippet of my last conversation with Her.

Times when I had peace in my life:

I was nine. A school day off due to snow. I spent the whole afternoon with the neighborhood kids building snow forts and sledding down the hill. Night came early, so by five, all the kids started to trudge home. My house was at the end of the cul de sac, so there was no hurry to get home before dinner. I could take my time. The sodium street lamps flickered on. There was just me under orange lights and the winter darkness, watching the snow fall. In the quiiet, I swear I could hear each snowflake fall, sounding like tiny little bells as they hit the ground.

Junior year of high school. Listening to "Carolyn's Fingers" by the Cocteau Twins as an afternoon spring breeze blew through my bedroom window.

New Years' Day, 2002. Driving up the 5 from Orange County to Sunnyvale on New Year's Day, traffic suddenly halted four hours in. From my car to the horizon, all I could see was a still line of cars and red brake lights on asphalt dividing bare earth and harvested farm land to the east and jagged brown hills to the west. Fog slowly crept down the hills. Winter sunlight, gold and buttery that cast a fine sheen of nostalgia over the California Central Valley, started giving way to clouds and the beginning of a blue dusk. I had Zero 7's "Destiny" on repeat.

November 2004. I was at Her apartment, watching TV while She slept. As soon as I tunrned off the TV, She said in a sleepy tone, "Come here baby. You have no idea how much I love you." Then we held each other listening to each other's breathing slow until we fell asleep.

"She betrayed you and you never understood why. And you kept on loving her."--Valintine Dussaut to the Judge, Trois Couleurs: Rouge

Under Pressure

More later, I promise! But for now, a list of what has happened to me in the last two weeks.
1) Admitted into hospital for malignant hypertension (fancy schmancy way of saying fucking high blood pressure). The norm is 120/80. Mine was 250/180.
2) Spent a night in ICU, though I got to watch the Duke v. Valparaiso game in the morning with an IV drip in my arm. Surprisingly, no one complained about my yelling (it helps to be the only ambulatory and conscious patient in the ICU).
3) Not just one, but TWO twenty-four hour urine collections. AKA Hey, I'm peeing in a jug!!! AKA My imitation of Howard Hughes. AKA I will never be able to drink Gatorade again.
4) Not showering for 4 days due to the electrodes stuck on me. AKA Look at me, I have the sanitary habits of a Frenchman! AKA Dude, what smells like a cheesesteak hoagie stuck in the sun for four days? What, oh, sorry man.
5) Taking enough pills to lower the blood pressure of a stressed out elephant.
6) Having my blood pressure get lowered too much due to aforementioned pills.
7) Feeling really faint due to lowered blood pressure. AKA My impression of a sensitive lily of a southern debutante hearing something just simply scandalous. AKA My God, it's full of stars!