pyjama shambles

Unconscious. Comatose. Something not entirely right with my brain. From time to time it plays nasty terrible tricks on me. I have to spend a lot of time second guessing it. Flipping channels on the television seems to work. Wiping tears from my face I see there’s sports on one channel. Are there any sports I like? Only certain moments, when you see the bullfighter get gored by the bull or a racing car explode into a ball of flames. With one hand over my mouth I switched the channel with the other. Do you like Fashion TV? It can only be watched in one way. Really? How’s that? Muted. There’s irritation in my appeal to most things. The executive decision to lay in bed and hole up the day away or pick up that phone and dial someone who cares. The whole afternoon I had taken a break and from time to time I would surf through my e-mail. “Anything new?” someone had asked. Noticing that my posts were getting fewer and further between, I asked myself what was cutting into my blogging time. I’ve got to cut it straight, I’m a astronaut by day and a internaut by night. Most of the space I occupy may very well be inside a bottle set afloat in the ocean.

I have this feeling that everyone who has happened to have encountered me in the past and present has something satanic to say about me. I clear my throat now and again and curse in my cowardice to protest but I know there is something satanic about myself. It’s not a coincidence I stepped into that elevator. Up or down, no one knew where it would go. No matter the circumstance, it is all behind me. That what doesn’t make any sense in the first. The silence that gathers so I could hear my own heart beating.

Maybe it would help if I clarified like a hot knife through butter. But I won’t talk about myself, about personal things. The past full of blanks and gaps. Don’t expect me to tickle your idle curiosity. Dare I divulge like some old fogey. Not a chance. I was raised by a pack of liberal wolves premature to thoughts of conservative surroundings, prejudice to the bone who can’t stand the new generation of consumer products and unintelligable diction and garish clothes of mutiplied brand names. Inferiotated by older generations too, the Establishment, especially law firms and drug companies.

One day I was asked, “Do you ever actually think... or do you just spit out words like a wired doll? Prejudices, sweeping statements, generalisations-you never seem to get beyond that.“

“Sweeping statements are the only kind worth listening to. It seems to me balanced opinions are for bores and third-rate minds.“

“Must you always talk in aphorisms and faux profundities? Who are you trying to be? And who made you the grand arbiter of taste and beauty? Who gave you that title? Why do you despise people who are different from you?“

“I despise people who are like me as well.“

“You hate everything and everybody. Soon enough, if this keeps up, you’re going to be nothing but an embittered middle-aged cynic.“

“Middle-aged? Please, I was a cynic in kindergarten.“

I suppose I have just as many if not more distractions that tinker away from my usual. It’s life in general. Its the wear and tear of things picking up and moving. Like walking without being against a tide of conditions. Right now I’m with it, by that I mean myself and nothing less. That’s not to say that everything is hunky dory, or that I’m getting anywhere, only that I’m getting nowhere faster than usual. Faster than lately, I should say. Who ever gets anywhere anyway?

Someone has to say it, so it might as well be me - man isn’t entertainment these days just embarrassing. I went into a convulsion of endless possibilities. To when I was younger and I thought art would fill the vacuum of my space, the void opened by decay. That the world’s problems could be healed, or alleviated, by art… that great non-dogmatic portal to something recaptured or invented so beautifully. That, and who thought it would be a good idea to put Ben Mulroney on television? Talk a while, have some coffee, go to the toilet, talk some more, have lunch, make some phone calls, talk some more, another 1000 people die, have a breath mint.

I hear about those people I once knew, I hear “They’re really going places!” Maybe, but they’ll be back.