I have been keeping a journal for some time now, a small and convenient pocket size as well as a few other larger ones, all with the basic mission of improving myself as a writer. It has been a somewhat irrational fantasy on my part for most of my life that someday I could, while not becoming fabulously wealthy, at least make a living or supplement another job by pursuing some creative endeavor, be it writing, acting, cartooning, etc. While this has always been a notion, I did very little writing, but much "research", or at least that's what I called drinking heavily, living excessively, and just generally being what by most accounts was an aimless loser. If you look at it realistically, I sit here now an unaccomplished man with no home, no family of his own and no body of work upon which to look back on and assess. More than anything else, I've worked in retail for the most part and if I were hard pressed would label myself that way. I'm a stock boy. Certainly not a writer. If life is the great teacher I've always heard it to be, than the greatest lesson I've learned from this cruel schoolmaster is humility.
But it is never too late to be what you always wanted.
I don't date my journal entries for the most part, and find that it makes the journal flow nicely, like one big rambling narrative. I've picked these pieces at random and provided headings for this presentation of them.
To enjoy the first one might require a refresher course in the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh was a mighty king like unto the gods. His story comes to use via ancient tablets from Mesopotamia. At the death of his friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh seeks immortality but fails in the end. It was assigned reading when I was in community college, but I was too busy and too smart to be bothered with it. I read it some time late and enjoyed it very much.
Thoughts on Gilgamesh
And so Gilgamesh dies. Heralded and immortalized, but dead nonetheless. Thwarted at attempts towards immortality, lost and lonely with the death of his friend Enkidu, our hero discovers the only immortality available to man are the tablets, the stories he leaves behind. A strange amalgam of words and deeds. How many copies of this epic are in print? How many thousands of years ago did he die? Did he really live at all? The preliminary text mentions a king that, on official record, ruled for more than a hundred years. Each subsequent king ruled for a more credible span of time, but what was considered "ripe old age" for ancient desert peoples? Where did my mother go when she died? Inspired by the loss of a loved one to undertake a quest for, if not immortality, at least a better understanding of mortality. Yes, Gilgamesh, the dream is marvelous and the end of life is sorrow.
Children at Play
Pretty little blonde girl with big round rosy cheeks and pig-tails. Little blonde-haired brother with that typical wide-eyed confused attention that kids of his age greet all that comes their way. Yes, we were all that small once. Someone loved us, or at least thought enough of us or of human life to provide for our basic comforts and see us through to where we are now. Me? I had love-a-plenty. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, this life. Just as it is and as it may become. Changes, come as you may. I'm still here.
Notes on my first visit to New York
Too busy hiking the Big Apple to write anything down as it happened, but here's what I saw today: The lions, named Prudence and Fortitude, guarding the entrance of the New York Public Library. The 9-11 memorial. Security was very tight. Waterfalls cascading down once and down again into nothingness. The stillness, the glassy water as it approached the edge, then the sound of fury of it as it poured into nowhere. The view from the Empire State building. The courthouse, upon the steps of which we made "Law & Order" gavel banging jokes. Trinity Church. Wall Street, where I saw the great big brass bull with his great big brass balls. The beautiful golden Prometheus at Rockefeller Center. The Stonewall, where gay rights were born, was as a dignified a little building as red neon and drag show flyers can allow a building to be. The Stock exchange, and two poor working stiffs buffing the floor on the set of the Today show.
Working Life
The new girl was young, thin, pretty, and cross-eyed. It was hard to notice right away because her eyes were a pale almost silvery blue and the iris didn't stand out very well against the white. I'd see her in passing and smile and maybe every other passing she would smile as well. It wasn't long before the younger men and a few of the more optimistic older men descended on her and through flirtatious chit-chat ruined whatever mystery her newness lent her and she became just another cashier. Nothing special. Work was a process in which one went about little chores in exchange for money. Loyalty was loosely defined as the lack of intention to find another job. Wages and spirits were low, and everyone did what they could do to distract themselves from the doing of their work. The greatest compliment you could pay to the task at hand was that it made the time go by. Work was not joyful. Shifts seemed to drag by and days off flew by too quickly. The meantime was a surrender to the present. A complete surrender and the understanding that what you were really trading for money was time, and that was silly because how much time do you have, really? The new girl had a boyfriend who worked at another place across town. Her mystery gone, her affections unavailable, her crossed eyes became a point of ridicule. She quit some weeks late and was probably better off.
Brief Encounter
Well, crossed a bridge just now, but it felt a little more like a mine field. I saw her. Walking to lunch. I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't wanted to see her. She's changed her hair. It's lighter now. She seemed like a different person, not the girl I'd known at all. I said "Don't freak out" and she laughed. Again with the borderline indifference. I was just someone she'd known sometime ago. We exchange "how are you's" and "goods" and that was it. It was all I could take before I slunked away. There was another brief passing. "See ya" she said and I smiled, I'm sure dumbly, but I was going for polite. What a difference a few weeks can make. What'll I tell my therapist?
The Friends of Eleanor Rigby
The Beatles sing "Eleanor Rigby" via satellite radio. Poor Father Mackenzie and his sermons that fall on deaf ears. Poor old Miss Rigby, gone, forgotten, dead in a more real and lasting way then the rest of the lonely people. It's hard to be alone. It's hard on nights when there's nobody there and there's laundry to contend with, but let's face it, if you don't knot your socks, nobody's going to do it for you. And then the fundamental questions: Where do we come from? Where do we all belong?
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