JOURNAL #52
March 8, 2010—
4:37—WSQ—
Debt collectors calling, calling, calling...Vultures circling everywhere in the Poison City. Down to a single bar of “charge” on my cell-phone battery.
Trying to conjure the Springtime into existence:
Eating compulsively—out of pure neurosis.
Park cooling off as the sun goes down one more time...
Phantoms pass by, sit for a while, and then move on into the oblivion of the late afternoon.
I suppose I’ll be heading up to Barnes & Noble pretty soon—it’s too cold and windy out here now. Fear is ascendent! I am afraid all of the time. Maybe I do need some kind of medication—nah, that stuff never worked for me.
Heading to B&N...
Tuesday, March 9, 2010—
8:28—In the C-Muffin—
Fear, fear, and paranoia—too many things conspire against me—I almost choked when I read that article yesterday about how American Grid conspired with Con Ed and Morgan Stanley to rip off customers in an elaborate scheme that netted them millions! I guess I shouldn’t be shocked or surprised, but I was—the lawlessness and corruption are out of control—it filled me with fear and disgust. This country is absolutely doomed—the depravity is beyond belief! I knew that that American Grid was f*cked up when that psychopath started yelling at me over the phone last year—I felt like I was talking to the mafia or something!
Book #52: Tales of Fear and Disgust!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010—
11:25—On a Q heading to 14 St.—oh, no—wait a minute! I’m on a B! Christ—where should I get off?
1:21—WSQ—
Trying to decide if I should call that debt-collector scumbag back. I probably shouldn’t, but maybe I should at least call them once—I don’t know what to do. I’m really in too fragile a state of mind to be bullied and interrogated by some thuggish debt collector. The back is hurting a little bit but not too bad—where is my PT? I ought to hear from them this week—gotta get that ultra-sound going...
... and I’m sitting in WSQ on a chilly day—not really that comfortable. It’s too fucking cold! I gotta duck inside somewhere... I’m tempted to seek refuge in The Temple... or perhaps... the Albatross...
4:13—Clocks stopped at inconvenient hours.
Endlessly repeating fragments of myself in a spectral Union Square
Still-frame from "The Periodic Table Contaminated in a Dream", 2010
I wanted to take a walk down to Mosco Street*, but it was too cold.
Sinking into junk-food narcosis.
Everything is rapidly coming to a head: the looming implosion of America and the descent into chaos/police-state/breadline anarchy! Lord!
6:02—In the Faux Viêt Huang Trang Restaurant on Baxter Street.
I order #194** from the menu—I always order #194. But that waiter has begun to anticipate my order every time I come in here—"194?" he asks. And do I detect a slight smirk when he says that? I may have to stop ordering #194... that's the only way to break this vicious circle...
The Temple has closed! Another one of my old haunts is gone forever!
Dusk down in Chinatown—always a melancholy undertaking. A thousand memories down here—perhaps I should walk over to Mosco Street just to take a look.
6:18—Just finished eating my #194—it was half rancid! Bastards! I have calculated that I run a 50-50 risk of getting food poisoning every time I order food in here (or anywhere)—but that those odds are favorable enough for me to keep on ordering.
Just like old times, yes. The decor in here makes no sense to me whatsoever—Liberace on foodstamps...
Now I have the mother of all indigestions! Christ! What a mistake! Horrid filth! This could take all night to die down...
6:32—I am totally pissed off at this f#cking place—I’m ill!
I am really in an angry pissed off mode these days—all I do is walk through the streets cursing to myself like some old beggar-idiot! Lord! The drooling baby family across the aisle is in for the f#cking long haul—they’re making a whole night of it! Of course!
My stomach is totally rebelling at the filth I just shoveled down it!
The problem with indigestion is that it overpowers everything else!
6:45—Should I jump on the Q train and head back to Ditmas Park?
Ancient insults torment me—why did I put up with them?
The unnatural lifespan of an insult...
* Mosco Street: the last remnant of the old Cross Street which ran through the Five Points.
** Chicken with Ginger and Scallions w/White Rice
*** Numberless poisons commingle in our innermost dreams.
Which came first, I wonder. Reading Pessoa or developing your writing in this style. Google Reader presented me with your March 12th post (Handyman) though you have deleted it. (I love this quirk of GR.) I hope you are continuing that project, with its excellent writing.
ReplyDeleteVincent, thank you for your kind remarks! Very glad that you appreciate my efforts.
ReplyDeleteAll of my writings have their origin in my journal entries, which I started about ten years ago. I discovered Pessoa about two years ago, and "Disquiet" quickly became my favorite book, as well. It kind of encouraged me to continue in the direction that I'm going.
I'm not certain why I decided to delete "Handyman". It somehow didn't feel right to me at the time——possibly because it was too personal——I don't know. It's actually a short story that is 95% finished—just needs some editing.
I will certainly check out your blog, Vincent...
Thanks again!
~Brian
I've mentioned Pessoa several times in my blog since discovering him (via another blogger) in 2009. A search on "Pessoa" brings some of them up but not this one.
ReplyDeleteI've also had certain experiences as an amateur handyman myself, and mentioned them in my blog, which a search on the word can reveal. I would have written about them more, but felt bound by confidentiality as I was a volunteer for an old people's charity; and didn't want to write about jobs I'd done for one or two neighbours either.
I find doing home improvements a perfect displacement activity for postponing the effort to write.
As for being too personal, you have illustrious examples in the form of Charles Bukowski & Fernando Pessoa, both of whom used the thin cloak of fiction. Your writing also evokes Bukowski quite strongly, not quite in style, not in content, but as a sort of life-affirming via negativa. Not in the theological sense, but by a complete inversion and subversion of the all-American notions of "ambition" and "success". For in that inversion, in this perhaps toxic reality, one discovers the only wealth and fame: being alive now.
Vincent, I am indeed a big fan of Bukowski—read most of his books.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you have ever read "The Golem" by Gustav Meyrink? Probably a big influence on me, along with Thomas DeQuincy, and a few others.