Nymphomania or Narcolepsy? 2.0

Today is my first day at TigerBeat/Bop. I am posting this from work. I don’t really have anything pressing to mention, but I need to say HOLY SHIT–WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY THINKING WHEN THEY HIRED ME. AWESOME.

jonathan taylor thomas aka. JTT FOREVER!

I am obsessed with a lot of things and by obsessed I mean thinking a lot about stuff that generally takes up more time and space in my head than should be viable or necessary–while I should be doing important things like work or driving. Or other important things like sleeping or having conversations with “adult” type people that usually are weirded out by me. I like counting. I like doing it a lot. I count whenever I am walking around or suppose to be mind numbingly quiet. I just count. I like the numbers. They are calming and make me focus. I used to do this a lot when I would freak out with panic attacks as an overly dramatic child. I also like to pretend in my head that I am a prophet and I make all sorts of wild claims and wonder if they will come true. If I am lacking in sleep severely or drunk I oftentimes express these rarely shared prophecies. Don’t laugh, one day we might realize they are true and your religion may force you to pray to me–which would be awesome on so many levels that my head wants to explode merely thinking about it. I am midly obsessed with Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin. I have this fantasy where I will learn the entire piano part for it and then sit down at a piano in a bar and just start to play. Since I have no formal piano training all my friends would be in awe and tell the other patrons that they have never seen such feats of awesomeness. And then an entire orchestra would show up as I was really getting into the music. I would act really very shocked and surprised. I would be drinking heavily the entire time, before and during I performed the entire 16 minute piece. I also like to match my toe nail polish to my current emotional status. When I came home from visiting back east this summer my feet were 7 different shades of blue in a 4 week time frame. I like to make sure my silverware is all neat and perfectly lined up and then I like to eat with my fingers. I have to order a coffee, an iced tea and a water every time I go to a restaurant. Even if I only want one of them, or none of them. If I forget something I have to go and look in the fridge until I remember what it was. If I have one drink I will end up drunk all over the place. If someone starts a physical fight with me I never fight back. If I bump into your car I wont leave my info, I will blame you and say I am calling my attorney “Who is on speed dial” and nine times out of ten you will tell me to forget about it because you don’t want to deal with any of the trouble. I still haven’t put the plates on my car and I have owned it since April. Shit, I don’t even know if I have plates. If you ever do karaoke with me, I will not share the mic. I will act like I might at first, but I am a mic hog and a show off, and I can singer bigger, louder, and better than you. And I will. Around 3 a.m. most nights with good weather, I will go and lie in the grass in my front yard and feel really alive and peaceful. After I do this I can almost always fall asleep. Two words: Nash Bridges. I can’t actually quit a job. I just stop showing up. I would much rather someone break up with me than have to do it myself. Sometimes, I just gotta dance. Don’t get in my way when this is going on. Periodically, I say something wild like “I am going to kiss every man in this room.” Then I do it. I have to read at least one book a week. On a good week I can get through 4-5 books and still be partying all night. Making jokes about my mom. Always, always being stalked.

Some people, they are morning people. I am not one of them. Not because I hate mornings–because I don’t, quite the contrary really. I love mornings, but I love them most of all spent lingering in bed. Usually, I roll over. A lot. I do a lot of rolling over when I know I should probably be getting up. While I am rolling over I do a quick inventory in my head of exactly how late I can be to any given event before I am going to be “extraordinarily late” and in the case that I am going to be that tardy, I start coming up with an excuse. Upon dealing with this in my head I go immediately back to sleep because I am obviously not yet capable of dealing with the up and coming issues of Monday, Tuesday, Friday or whatever day. Life. My life. Productivity. Stuff that is not lying around. I do this, the waking up rolling-over non coherent dance, 3-4 times before I even fathom actually getting out of bed. Then I roll over one last time, kick my right leg out of the blankets until the cool morning air slowly invades the comfort of my makeshift cocoon. I move around a bit. I wiggle my toes. I stretch my body until it is long and loose like warm honey poured from a jar. But I am still in bed. Perhaps I get up. Probably not. Usually, this is the point where I see if I can call and get out of whatever it is I am suppose to do for the day. If I can, I get on the phone and blame my: neck, brain, life, mother, brother, friends or nature. Then I spend the rest of the day in pajamas doing less-than-nothing.

I remember the way the water soaked against the hem of my jeans as I slugged along the streets of New York. I remember the way my mother called me to tell me there was a pterodactyl scooping up fish out of our pond. And I remember telling her to lay off the hallucinogens and her getting angry and hanging up on me. I remember later, discovering it wasn’t an extinct dinosaur-bird, but rather your run of the mill turkey vulture. I also remember the way my insane mother chased after it with a broom saying she would kill it to protect her “fish-babies”. I remember finding a gay bar somewhere in the valley that had a dollar drink night. That’s about all I remember. For 20 dollars, not including tips you can get pretty wasted and maybe you can end up dancing all over the bar while hordes of gay men look up to you in disgust. And maybe this is what you remember because it is what you’re told after you wake up the next day on the floor of your best-friend’s bathroom with nothing on but your underwear and they are inside out. I remember all the times, waking up at my best friend’s house. In her bed, on her sofa, in her bathroom, turning to her and asking “What is it that I should remember?” And her saying, “If you have a hangover, you’re being reminded of enough.” I remember all the other times and places I’ve woken up on the brink of death induced by mixing massive quantities of vodka, whiskey and tequila. And I remember getting into the shower and sitting down and praying in a sort of chant to God, that I’d quit drinking for good if he made it all end, the head pounding truth of the life I was living. But I never did quit. Because where would I be without those mornings? Those desperate lonely mornings, where even when you wakeup next to someone you are the single most solitary person on the planet—driven to prayers of peace because you remember what you may or may not have been up to the night before. And more so than anything else, it’s those memories that wear on you. More than the drinking, and the troubles and the wasted money are the memories and the lack thereof. The whole charade can make you crazy in a way that alcohol only electrifies. So you start thinking to yourself, “Maybe I should quit drinking.” But you only say this as you are starting into your first drink and remembering what you did the last time you were drinking. By that time you are well into your first drink and on your way to forgetting, which is better since remembering is a lot like chasing your own tail—it gets you nowhere.

Somedays, I wonder if I should have stuck around for the last act instead of taking off like I did. Would things be “that” different or would I still find myself wondering this same thing some many years down the road? I remembered that last night at the dinner table. Mother and I looking down at our plates as Big Mike said grace. I prayed for freedom while we shared the discomfort of heavy silence like we did the mashed potatoes. And in my head I chanted for freedom until my head throbbed and big tears poured down my face. Mike spoke first, bursting through the remote stillness with his boisterous words, “I think,” he said pausing shortly for dramatic effect. Suddenly,the tea kettle bellowed in the background, a siren exclaiming an unknown danger. Mother jumped, suddenly remembering she’d turned it on before dinner, bumping the table and knocking over my plate in the chaos. Big Mike immediately started in on her before the plate hit the ground, crashing. The noise ruminated in my ears like yodeling in the alps and I knew it was my last night in that house as I watched Big Mike hover above mother, screaming as she crouched down to collect the pieces of my last meal.

If given the option, I would just choose to lie in bed–professionally. I am sick, not just in the head, but really sick. I haven’t updated either. This is obvious as there are no posts from the last two weeks. And to be honest, I didn’t feel like doing it. Probably because I was busy having fun and probably because I just didn’t have the time to waste. Also, because I didn’t want to write about my adventures while on hiatus because I am not so much into self incrimination anymore.