What a Day…

I can’t update too much about what happened today, but my friend Mario was involved in an accident that was partly due to the presence of a spider on the dashboard of his car. While he came out fine, the automobile (and presumably the spider as well) were totaled, and he has lost his car. I received word of this this afternoon while I was at Sunday dinner, and it indeed frightened me, for he was very close to dying.

My little brother got VERY drunk and became hysterical this afternoon–drinking the entire remnants of a half-drunken bottle of Jägermeister, two cans of beer, the remnants of a flask of Hypnotiq, bitters of cognac, and four tablets of muscle relaxers, the last a means of ending his life, and passed out. When I found him on the floor I thought nothing of it, but a two hour struggle to revive him ensued, which occurred in the backyard. To make matters summarily better, my aunt, her daughters and her grandchildren showed up, and saw my younger brother in fits of hysterics outside, amid futile attempts to bring him out of his delirium. Upon my mother’s quick arrival at the house, I laid hands on him, invoking the Precious Name of The Lord Jesus to drive out the demon of drunkenness. I am not sure, as my Christian Humility will so direct me, that my efforts were successful, but I am relieved that he is now in a state of consciousness, though very vexed at the presence of other people. I have resolved (and may God be my Solemn Witness) that this house will be forever a dry house, and that no impure drop of alcohol stain my family again. I only pray that this experience will direct in my brother a sincere love of life and its delicious pleasures, and a humble conversion of the heart to an upright and resolute existence.

General Update

The long-awaited cooler weather we had been expecting for some two months finally came two days ago, on Monday. I don’t really have much to report aside from the usual awkward complaints that I have about being lonely; recent attempts to alleviate my social situation have failed. I’m staying positive though: the last thing I need right now is more complications related to people.

I believe the last time I had written in this journal I had not talked about (but intended to) new friends; having met so many this year alone, I guess I should go at length on the subject.

This season has turned out to be generally an enjoyable one, with many people who have taken an interest in the goings on of my life.  My nights are filled with conversations, both phone and otherwise, and even though I don’t get to go out that much as I used to, it’s still nice being able to hold decent conversations with people who are interested in the same things I am.

I have rekindled my good friendships with Carlos and Chacho; though I have not heard from Chacho in awhile (and as Johnny tells me, neither does he). Just yesterday I played Jobim’s Tereza da Praia for him over the telephone, singing the lyrics in the jazziest voice I could muster.

As for my problematic relationship with Kevin, conversations have cooled somewhat between us, since he told me that our plans to open up a skate-shop wouldn’t pan out due to my unprepared life skills. I guess it’s not “problematic”, but rather of a different character, since my recent opinions of religious experience are becoming less grounded on basic principles of Protestant or even Catholic Christianity–for example, I’m beginning to question the practices of the conventional churches and denominations, particularly in the dog-and-pony show style of Pentecostal Christianity that I’ve shied away from. Even more alienating is his disapproving stance on homosexuality, which I have felt at certain points during our excursions (he even asked how I knew so much about gay bars in town). Nonetheless, I still continue to talk to him every now and then, and maybe he’ll come to visit, but not in the fashion that we used to speak to one another, and no longer in the frequency with which we used to do so.

I thought I would just update for now. I don’t think I have much more to indulge myself in.

Vertical Thoughts

I took the weekend to reconsider some options as to the subject of my friends, and made some major changes to my various social networks, getting rid of some of the friends that I no longer spoke with, and just generally changing things around for my benefit. This comes after some time of deep thinking with respect to the subject of friends, and of their summary importance to me.

I decided to keep the good friends, that is, the friends who haven’t used me like a junkie during my history with them, and I got rid of all the other people that made me feel like the so-called “intellectual pickle jar”, who just picked whatever they could from me and didn’t ever bother to put anything back. I related to Ryan once about how he seemed to do this, and he replied that he only did so since he thought I would be a lucrative partner on Jeopardy.

I want so much to have good friends, like the ones that I have now, but closer. Since we’re splitting up as a family after Christmas, I’ve decided that wherever I move to it’ll be for good, and that I’ll have a lot of friends. Either way, if I do move, I think I will be alot happier just doing what I please, without the critical reception of my family, or the complaisant acceptance of people (like Ryan) who have no feelings for me whatsoever.

I’ve had good friends come around though. One of them is an artist named Frank who has been just great. He and I will talk and talk about practically everything under the sun, and I think in alot of ways he and I just meet each other along the same seams and interests. He has an abiding love of nature which is apparent in his work–he comes from a well-to-do background in taxidermy–and he just loves me. It’s good to know that friends like that are out there, and that they exist.

Brandon has been my best friend, hands down. His nickname for me is now the moniker that I’m the happiest with. I am The Yumminess, and he is The Mookie. Simple as that.

Earlier in the week I talked to a lawyer from McAllen named Leonard, who aside from making very good conversation concerning the law, has an abiding fetish for BDSM. Yesterday he infuriated me by attempting to send pictures of the buttocks of an intern of his he and his boyfriend were ministrating over; this latter attempt to appease whatever sexual connotations he has derived for me disgusted me wholly. This is so far the second lawyer who has disinterested himself from conversation with me, due to the outrageous extremes of his intellect and the base desires of his sexual instincts. Why do people do this? It seems to me that whenever someone comes onto me, they prove their absence of intellect and of civility rather than an abundance of it. That kind of thing doesn’t make me think of you as being too terribly smart, or together; that makes me think of how much of a raving pervert you are and how much I hate perverse people altogether.

I don’t know if it’s the borderline talking or not, but I now see people as generally atheistic, amoral, nymphomaniacal beings suffering from either so much desperation that they turn towards improper methods of excitement to bring the little joy that results from it into their boring, material lives, or so self-deluded that they simply redistribute the abuse they’ve experienced before, or just bored of the sordid lives they lead that they ultimately go about ruining the lives and hopes of others. People nowadays aren’t beings with tangible emotions or rational feelings; they’re commodities in a neverending game of lies and pretenses meant to benefit the profiteers of those running the game. Corporate America does it, the Government does it, Religions and Sects do it, and even neighbors do it to one another. We are now in a period of our history in which our mutual cruelty to one another is seen as a sort of sick delicacy, served up to us in the most presentable fashion. You can have a degree, and look good, but it’s almost expected for you to be shallow, fascistic, and arrogant.

I’ve spent so much of my life being a victim that now I feel like I have to fight back, almost in a vigilante sense. I want to do so much to hurt those that hurt the people I love, or that attack me for my intrests and loves, or virtues, or even vices; I want to institute a revival in consciousness that excites the peace and love in people. I have been downtrodden all my life–now, though, in the most prescient way, I feel like I have to do something to make the world a better place, to address the evil and counter it with as much good as possible.

151

God, Ryan hurt me so much. Maybe I just hurt myself more than whatever I thought he did.

We talked tonight and it was good; I felt like I personally had come to some degree of closure as to the possibilities of a romantic relationship between us; however this doesn’t mean I’m going to stop being friends with him, as he is probably a best friend, inasmuch as he talks circuitously about many, many things.

It’s so different when you realize that you don’t love someone anymore, and in this case it feels good; I don’t have to try so hard to make him like me, nor do I have to worry about incessantly hurting myself over and over again so that I can continue deluding myself with this fantasy of being able to have him as a permanent fixture.

I came to this realization when he sent me pictures of himself and I found them unattractive, especially one of his privy member. It freaked me out at first, but I later realized I no longer had any sense of attractiveness towards Ryan, and for the first time ever I realized I didn’t love him. It was sad at first, but then very comforting knowing that this would be one of many great things to come, and that it was probably better in the long run to talk to Ryan more as a friend, rather than to heap up so many frustrated hopes for a future life together.

I’m ready to close this book and move on. I’ve convinced Ryan that things are good, when I don’t even know for sure if they are good or not. I would rather not have him know the final truth about me–whether I’m “going to be okay”–as opposed to the actual, unknowable truth, which I don’t even know.

I’ve reached a point in my life where emotions–big and small ones–are beginning to lose meaning for me. I have grown so much now in terms of my ability to cope that I no longer look for these drastic displays for a sense of condolence, or maybe even of happiness.

I don’t love Ryan anymore; I thought it would be so disastrous in the end, and it isn’t; it actually feels good to let go and just flow with things. I know in my heart he wanted it the same way.