There are things I want to say.
I'm done with my dating phase, which lasted a brief month and a half. Most of it, I'm guessing, was spurred on by that phenomenon called "the rebound". But there was some genuine interest and excitement in the opposite sex. At one point, I said to a friend that life was, at it's core, terribly dull and monotonous, and the only relief from such an unbearable existence came from the charms of a woman and her mysterious ability to distract us men.
While this may be true, I have no desire to entertain the notion any longer. I've enjoyed the time I've spent with women, but I'm prepared to not have to rely on their attention to keep me fully engaged in life.
You can read from my last post that I seemed to have fallen into a state of dissolution. This state threw my father and my ex-girlfriend into a panic about my welfare. Was I using drugs again? Was I drinking?
I candidly told my father on the phone that he had to let me make my own mistakes. "I'm turning thirty years old in July, Dad. Don't you think it's time to let go." But my father worries, like all fathers, and plus, he has seen me through a serious drug addiction.
That was ten years ago. So, not to get off the subject, but I had fallen into a state of dissolution--not unlike that of a depressed person who sleeps for two weeks straight, or an over-eater who binges on ice cream and Twizzlers every night before bed.
I flirted with toxins. I drank cocktails at night, and smoked cigarettes. Nothing more, nothing less. It may not be the healthiest thing in the world, but it sure ain't a crime.
Now, as I was saying, I don't want to date anymore and I also don't want to go out of the house unless I absolutely have to. The truth of the matter is I can't bring myself to seeing anyone right now.
For about four months, I've had a certain routine. I wake up (at whatever time of the day) and I drive to a local Borders to have my coffee and read the newspaper. I read the Sunday New York Times and I read the sections all throughout the week, which generally breaks down to about one section per day. After this ritual, I return home for breakfast if I've not eaten yet and then I begin my work. I work as a freelance writer and Internet marketer for several companies and individuals. I'm proud of my work. I love what I do. And frankly, it keeps my life in check. Even during my dissolution, I got my work done. I never drank while I was working.
After about four hours of work, I eat dinner and then return to Borders for an evening coffee and more New York Times. When I'm fully satisfied with my reading, I go back home, where I work for another four hours or so.
So there you have it. That's my life in a nutshell. The dissolution and the dating occurred on the side, either on the weekends or after my work was done.
The reason why I suddenly cannot go to Borders anymore may then seem a mystery. This was my routine; nothing could tear me from it. Bars and women, I could survive without, but the New York Times, Borders, and a fresh cup of industrial strength coffee was my lifeline.
I don't want to be seen in public now.
If I must go out, such as to get groceries every week, then I will. But I already bought a bag of Breakfast Blend coffee beans from Starbucks which should last me approximately twelve days if I have exactly four cups each day.
If I tell you why I have this sudden urge to stay at home and not go out, you will undoubtedly think it is the silliest thing you've ever heard. And to be sure, it is. To anyone who has lived outside of my world, and to everyone else in this world who is not me, it is indeed the most deplorable, ridiculous, need I say, pathetic reason to not leave the house.
A good portion of my history as a human being has been pathetic and so I'm not discovering anything new. Nevertheless, I will say that my insecurities are not abnormal. I've just taken my insecurities to another level. Well, I only have one insecurity that really dominates my life and has since I was sixteen.
I will reveal my insecurity to you in a moment--the insecurity that is baring me from leaving my own home. But first let me say that I'm not depressed, I'm not angry at the world or myself. In fact, I feel a great amount of self-possession and even contentment right now. I'm at peace.
It is almost as if I needed this poor excuse to escape from the world and to be alone for awhile. And not even "alone". Alone suggests that I want people to leave me alone, which I do not. I welcome people to call me and talk with me. If a friend wishes to stop by, I will not prevent him or her from coming in the door.
But, as I said, I do not want to go out in public unless I absolutely have to. And so, I will conduct all of my business from home, which I do anyways. But I'll also confine myself to my home, which means no coffee runs, no late night drinking at the bars, no meeting friends for dinner.
Whether I should try to give up smoking during this interim is a good question. I might want to take advantage of that. Because it's one less place I would have to travel outside of the house--to pick up cigarettes.
It gives me great satisfaction to think that I can do everything I need to do from my home. An incredible self-sufficiency. If I need to shop for groceries, I'll do so at a later hour, when not many people are crowding the aisles, and at least the ones who are in the aisles look scarier than I do.
Like I said, I'm content, marvelously content, even exuberant at times being here in my house. By not rushing out the door for every little thing, I will have the opportunity to read in abundance. In addition, I will write. I've already gone back to my novel, Lethe in Spain, and expanded the second chapter.
I'm starting to think about the Spain novel again because the illustrator Gerar Gonzalez is swiftly moving through my second novel, Lethe in Vegas, and he will soon be taking up the pages of "Spain" to translate them into graphic form.
But beyond that, I'm experiencing a transformation in my poetry. The poems tumble out of me every couple nights and I have a renewed interested in the literary arts webzine I edit called, Escape into Life.
None of these items should distract you from my original purpose of writing this blog post, which is, to illustrate the state of consciousness I'm currently absorbed in.
I truly look forward to being banished from the public eye, albeit a form of self-banishment but banishment nonetheless. And where I would typically have been bored to my eyeballs by the prospect of not leaving the house; instead, I'm giddy and consumed with my own fantasies. Of course, this might also have something to do with the caffeine I drank only an hour ago, but it couldn't have everything to do with it.
I have no lofty goals for this period of banishment. I suppose I'll write more poems and make more progress on my novel. But I do know for certain I won't be drinking because drinking saps my appreciation for the New York Times and literature in general. It also fogs my mental eyeglasses when writing.
No, I'll stay home until the pimple on my face completely disappears, which, I assure you, will not be any time soon. See there, I've slipped my insecurity in between the lines; probably when you were least expecting it. This saves me some embarrassment because if you are still reading this essay then you are probably willing to know a little bit more about the source of my constant anxiety.
There are no high and noble aims behind my self-banishment. Only a pimple or two or three. I even have a plausible explanation for these tiny, imperceptible whiteheads which have chosen to conglomerate on my bottom lip, right under the lip line. I used Chapstick, many Chapsticks, all winter. I abused the balm and now I have to deal with this buildup of balm. Indeed, the pimples are small. But a couple of them seemed to have joined forces under my lip and formed a somewhat larger pimple.
This to me was a traumatic experience for the last month and a half--because it has been there that long. But I strengthened my resolve and would not give in to such petty preoccupations. That is, I left whatever it was alone and I went out in public as normal people do.
Not only did I go out in public, but I dated, and not only did I date, but I enjoyed a season of illustrious love. This, then, is terribly ironic, because during a time of heightened insecurity, I was actually wooing women. The most beautiful woman I have ever been with, adored me, in spite of my blemish. Until one night I brought it to her attention, for perhaps the second or third time, although surely not the fourth, at which point she called me "selfish". I jumped from my spot on the couch, as if I'd been pierced in the gut. For the rest of the night, we hardly communicated.
Strangely, it was that same woman, who, the first time I pointed out my pimple said, "It adds character."
I want to know why trivial things occupy us human beings.
We have the ability to scale such heights with our dreams and ideals. Just as easily however we plunge into a miasma of the silliest fears and preoccupations.
What are your preoccupations? I want to know. Are they like mine? Are they pimples? Or perhaps you have much more serious matters to deal with. That was Sarah's issue with my bringing up my pimple. It angered her that I was fussing about a blemish when she had far more important worries on her mind.
How does a pimple elicit the same wave of intense emotion as news that a friend has cancer or that you're on the verge of bankruptcy? Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's wrong of me to suggest it could. But emotions don't discriminate. And often, they arise from something superficial. But buried beneath that superficial symptom is a history of trauma.
I've received a variety of reactions to my obsession. Another woman I recently met-- Well, before we met, we talked on the phone and I told her that I couldn't meet her. You see, we had a date.
She asked why we couldn't meet and I struggled for an answer, when at last I broke down and told her about my insecurity.
"Unless it tries to talk to me, I don't care what it is," she replied.
It took me a couple seconds to get the joke, and she had to remind me to laugh. But then we met and everything was fine.
The dating is over. I can't date in my condition. I can't leave the house. For over a month, that conglomerate of whiteheads haunted me. I checked the mirror every morning to see if it had gone away, but it hadn't. It never budged. It remained buried in my lip line like a determined foe.
One side of my underlip is now red from the marks I made.
I left the house once--to pick up coffee for the week. I drove to the opposite side of town because the Starbucks has a drive-thru. When the cashier handed me my change, I turned my cheek to hide the other side of my face.
More Essays . . .
ARTWORK BY THE GOOD MACHINERY
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"The Artist and His Museum" by Charles Wilson Peale
Ole Worm's cabinet of curiosities, from'Museum Wormianum', 1655.
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