2003-06-28 - 11:30 p.m.
Joe said something really profound to me tonight, as we were ruminating on everything two morons with nothing better to do with their lives at 11pm on a Saturday night in a pissant little town with no life to it at all tend to ruminate on when they think they're being really clever and, well, profound, but when in reality they're just being a couple of massive douches. (That's the new term I've picked up from some of the folk in the falls. Douches. Not douchebag, just douche. It's a good term, though I don't believe it to be one deserving of capitalization.
Anyway, Joe said that all men are destined to become pussy-whipped. It's our role in life. While this sentiment was crude, even considering Joe's BAC of 9.something, there is a great nugget of truth to that. No matter how free-spirited any guy seems, there is always one girl in our life (not necessarily limited to one per lifetime, just one at any given time) who just has this hold on you. Some guys I think get confused as to which girl this really is, but other times it's painfully obvious. It's the girl you want to cancel all your other plans for, even if you're not actually dating at the time. It's the girl you break up with and get back together with multiple times.
It's a complex relationship, that of a man and his Tamer (now there's a term) Some guys marry that girl. Other guys freak out that one person can have that kind of hold on them, and the relationship goes who knows where. But you all know what I'm talking about. You know you do. I know you do, and you and I both know that we know we do. That one you can't stop thinking about, even if it's thoughts of conversations in your mind with her, telling her all the good and especially all the bad things you've ever wanted to say.
Is this person the one for you? No, not necessarily. But she has an impact, and you damn sure will never forget that. And she's the one person you can never entirely let go of. You can make peace with all the other relationships in your life when they eventually end, but there's always the one that no matter how things have gone before, you find yourself thinking, "Maybe this time..." or something along those lines. Whatever. I don't even know why I'm blathering on and on about this, except that Joe said it, and it calls to mind recent turmoil in my relationship with my Tamer, and conversations with friends about theirs. As per usual, you get no more detail than that, because I like to delude myself into believing I'm being at least a little bit discreetly vague here. But what the fuck ever.
You know, I have a really great knack for taking a simple concept that everyone already understands in their hearts and overexplaining it to the point of making it sound extraordinarily crappy and stupid. Then I have this other really great knack for writing it all down here in an even more Hallmark Hall of Fame style. I seem to be incapable of expressing honest emotion like love and regret and sincerity without feeling cheap and cliched and phony, at least to myself.
Am I really that cynical? Have I lost myself to the dark side to the point that I am truly incapable of looking at love or any other kind of emotional openness as anything other than cheap, forced, insincere tripe? Is it just me feeling like a douche for saying shit like this? Am I capable of more and I just don't know how yet?
Jesus Christ, even that last paragraph started sounding so phony to me that I had to insert a couple jokes and some vulgarity just to be able to be moderately comfortable with writing it down.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I'm going to leave you now and go back to my little actor's nightmare. I'm going to leave you with a song I've been listening to a lot lately, but not the original version. The Johnny Cash version of this song is the one that speaks to me, and if it never existed, I wouldn't be so attached to it.
I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way
Ken
�
