Most people enjoy New Years, the idea of starting afresh. They see it as the dawn of a new era, a means to close a chapter of their lives and begin the next. I’ve always found it strange how easily people compartmentalize their lives into numerical categories. January 1st: I will quit smoking. January 1st: I will cut back on fatty foods. January 1st: I will be more ambitious.
The last one is mildly ironic. The goal to be ambitious is in itself ambitious, which leaves one to question: Mission accomplished?
Of course New Years resolutions aren’t necessarily so logical. Going to quit smoking, huh? What’s your plan? Cold turkey? Gum? Start chewing tobacco? Most people don’t find it so easy to just suddenly quit, but maybe you’ve got that all figured out, yes? Also, as a New Years resolution, does that imply that goal is simply to quit by the end of the year? Wait it out until December 30th so December 31st you can say your year was a success? And what’s the punishment due for failure? It’s rare that you see people plan such goals logically; they’re more blind statements with hopeful fulfillment for the future, but there’s no one your accountable to but yourself, and really, what do you care?
I’ve never been fond of New Years, and the act of “New Years resolutions” is not tradition I’ve participated in before. The difference between December 31st and January 1st isn’t one that I believe is quantifiable, and thus holds no more significance than the difference between November 10th and November 11th, two dates that, I suppose, more significant to me as one is just a day and the following is my birthday. And yet even then people talk about certain ages as if they held a more specific amount of weight in their lives than their age now: “21 was a great year for me; 24 was the worst year of my life.” I find it unlikely that I’ll find any resolve between today and tomorrow, and if tomorrow is to be my birthday, well, what difference is there between 24 and 25? November 10th or November 11th?
Of course, my birthday is now a week gone, having already given up 24 in favor for 25, and the date is November 18th, 2013, and despite my views I too have fallen victim to the expectations of time, age, and growth that are grown from societal norms.
“What is it that you do?” asks Norm. Norm is a thirty-something-year-old sales rep. He’s a humble man, not one you’d call simple but rather uncomplicated. He’s a father to two boys, husband to a wife named Tessa, and speaks fondly of his time home. Like me, he’s flying because of business, but unlike me, he’s flying to rather than from.
“I probably should say I’m a student before anything else, but that’d seem a little misleading,” I say.
“How’s that?”
“Because I’ve started my degree three times over, having been studying on and off for five years, and my workload varies from four subjects a semester to sometimes only one or occasionally none at all.”
Norm laughs. When Norm laughs he comes across as Santa on his day off; he’s a large man, and though beardless and in a suit, there’s a quality of ‘jolly’ to him that reminds of ol’ Nicholas. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about. Sounds like you got it all figured out.” I laugh with him. As tired as I am and as much as I wasn’t in the mood for pointless chit-chat (I’m not exactly an extravert), I find Norm almost endearing, as though he’s not just a father to his own two children but to anyone he meets as well. “But you said you were here on business?”
This is where I sell myself. “Well, sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“My degree’s in the arts, but aside from studying I do in fact do art.”
Norm smiles at me, his pat-on-the-back smile that awards you for good effort rather than success. “And you had business in town doing art?”
“I manage shows from time to time. It’s a means to get artists’ work out there, exposure and what-not, but also to get mine thrown in the mix.”
“Smart idea, son.” I like that he called me son, not to mention the words of approval.
“So what are you worried about then?” he asks. “You seem to be doing what you want to do.”
“Norm, with all travelling expenses and the rental for the space to hold the exhibition, I just spent over a grand to have people stare and ‘appreciate’ my hard work.”
“Sounds like the life of an artist.”
“No, much like a writer isn’t a writer until he’s published, I’m not an artist until I’m making money from my work. You know what I am, Norm?”
I laugh, as I find the words to come out of my mouth amusing. “I’m a barista.”
Norm erupts with laughter. “Like I said, the life of an artist.” Father figures: always hanging shit. He’s a prick, but I like him all the better for it.
“Enjoying yourself there, Norm?”
I laugh with him. “Asshole.”
“Well, what about your degree?”
“What’s taking you so long?”
I shake my head in uncertainty. “Fuck man, I don’t know. I hate it, I love it, I’m bored when I don’t do it and it’s boring a fuck to do.”
Norm settles his laughter, looks at me, his big second chin sitting in place as his skull turns with his eyes. “Well, what’s the goal?”
“Do you need a degree to do art?”
“Maybe. I mean, no, but to get a job doing graphic design or cinematography or something like that, a piece of paper is fairly helpful.”
“That what you want to do?”
“Yeah. But not really for anyone else.”
“You want to be self-employed.”
Norm leans back into his seat. “You’re not old, buddy, but you’re moving away from being young. Don’t be so stupid to think of yourself as over the hill. Us who are, and I’m saying this knowing full well that I barely am, will disregard you. But don’t be so naïve as to think that you’ll be young forever. Twenty-five isn’t that important a year of your life, but then again, what year is?”
I look at Norm, and he returns the stare. “What was the most important year of your life?”
He chuckles. “Twenty-five.”
“Twenty-five was when I met the destined to be Mrs. Norm.”
I nod, leaning my head back against the seat. “Ah, I see. So love is the goal.”
“For me, yeah, definitely.”
“And you’re doing what you want to do?”
“I wanted to be a teacher.”
I look back at him. “Really?”
“Probably at university. A lecturer or a tutor or something.”
I pause; trying to contemplate the idea that here sits a sales rep on a business trip that had dreams of being a history lecturer at university. The idea itself wasn’t necessarily so farfetched, but somehow it struck me.
“I met Mrs. Norm,” he answers.
It occurs to me that Norm hasn’t revealed his surname. This doesn’t bother me so much, but I realize I’m talking personal matters with someone who considers me a stranger and is very much intent on keeping it that way. I may have personalized my side of this conversation a little too much for a short, one-off conversation on an airplane, but then again, it’s in my nature to be open. As I said, I’m not exactly an extravert, but nor am I closed-off. I enjoy my solitude and my privacy, but given the opportunity to speak freely I tend to venture off into my world, and take anyone who’s with me for the ride.
“So what? You got married…”
“Got married, had a few kids, settled on a career.”
“How can you settle on a career like that?”
“You got to understand, buddy, my goals are different to yours.”
“No, but what I mean is, history is a passion of mine, but I enjoy it all the same at home on the discovery channel or on a plane ride in a book.” I notice a book, ‘Repression, Resistance, and Women in Afghanistan’, sitting in his lap, his finger holding his place. Norm is a nice fellow, and has been humoring in conversation for the majority of this trip, though it was hardly his intention. “I don’t need history as a career. It would be fun, sure, but I don’t need it. My wife though, my kids… My family I need. My family’s the goal, and whatever job helps fulfill the goal is a job I’ll gladly do.”
I sit and I stare. “Damn, Norm.”
“It’s just a little beyond me, is all.”
“Well, you’re young,” he says. “One day you’ll meet someone who’ll change your perspective, or you’ll have a couple of kids and suddenly a job will just seem like a job.”
“See, that’s where I sit a little differently to you, Norm.”
“I’ve no interest in that stuff.”
“I have an acquaintance.”
Norm laughs. “Right. And you’ve no interest in developing that? Aiming to get married?”
“Can’t see a reason why I would.”
“Really, Norm. No, my intentions lay in my development. Concepts of love and grandeur are not tangible for me to lay my worries with. I turned twenty-five a week ago. Age should hold no importance to me, as whether I have my life together at twenty-five or thirty-five, it doesn’t matter, so long as I eventually have my life together. But then age does matter because that’s an aimless life ambition, and I need to start aiming for things. In a year I’ll be twenty-six, and I’ve got no reason to believe right now that I’ll be any different a man to who I am now.”
“Career or no career, degree or no degree, you are who you are buddy. Change doesn’t come with a job title. Change comes with you and the people you surround yourself with, what you do together. Where you aspire to go with these people. Maybe this ‘acquaintance’ is nothing more than that now, but given a year anything can happen.”
“See, the problem is that a ‘year’ is too abstract, to out of my control. How can I determine myself in a year if I don’t take into account the days that fill it? Three hundred and sixty-five days, three hundred and sixty-five goals, all to amount to a better me. Will I finish my degree? Well, it’s unlikely given that I’ve barely even done the latest one that I’ve started. But maybe I’ll determine whether I want to finish it, whether it’s even of interest to me. I’ll plan myself better for my assignments and my projects because I’ll have to set goals for each individual day. Maybe with such an idea I’ll be able to… I was going to say look back, but not even look back… I will be able to look at myself and say I’m established, to say that I am me. And as for my acquaintance, Norm? Well, she’s on a break from a long-term relationship. They’ve been together for four years now, I hardly see this break as being permanent, they mean too much to each other, and he’s a good friend of mine too. I’m nothing more than filler, but that’s okay. She’s not the plan, and nor am I hers, so that’s okay.”
Norm’s face remains still, taking in what I’ve said. He neither looks pleased or judging, yet somehow there’s something unsettled in his features.
“Well, I suppose you and I are very different people, buddy,” he says.
“We’re both men with goals, Norm.”
“I guess that’s all anyone can be.”
Returning home is always a welcoming and underwhelming experience I find. I live alone, having found myself eventually too tired to live with others, so my place is set up perfectly to my standards. The walls are covered with bookshelves that feature numerous novels I’ve read and have yet to read, as well as a record collection I’ve put together over the years featuring some rare vinyl’s that are of some value. Artwork is sparse, I’ve never really been one to hang art despite my love of it, so what little artwork I have on the walls either holds certain sentimental value to me or simply came with the place.
This studio apartment is small but best fitted to my needs. I was never good at living with others, my habits never falling in with others. Always an independent man, I never saw reason to clean other people’s mess, even when it’s a product of ‘shared living’. I never found that term particularly appropriate for me though. I mostly keep to myself, not so much hiding in my room but rather just working in it, and then outside of the kitchen and bathroom, and extra space in a household was not really space I would end up using all that much. A living room has no purpose to me when I don’t watch TV. I don’t enjoy entertaining guests, so any extra spots such as verandas or dining areas don’t offer me too much value.
Thus why living with others never seemed quite fitting to me. I won’t deny that I wouldn’t necessarily leave the kitchen spotless all the time, and yes I would sometimes leave my dishes around in the sink. But mostly my laziness came down to everyone else’s: If there were already dishes in the sink from others, cleaning mine would involve having to deal with theirs as to have a sink to use for washing up. Cleaning up around the kitchen would involve cleaning up the collected mess that others have created. I understand that this is the social contract that people sign up for when living together, but it’s not something I’m interested in participating in, and most especially when it comes to “full-house cleans” when there were always parts of the house that I would leave fairly un-utilized.
Then of course is simply just living with others in general, always a trialing matter. It’s very rare, as I’m sure you, the reader, can testify to, that you find yourself in a living environment that you could consider perfect, yet alone even likeable a good deal of the time. Although I’ve had a few fairly ideal situations with friends over the years, at the end of the day there were always times where I found my friendships put to task. As I said, I’m a private man, and an invasion of that privacy can seriously test my patience. I enjoy working on my own without distraction, and the time I find myself working best is in the late hours of the night. Then of course is the understanding that I have to accommodate those I live with, so maybe despite what I may prefer regarding living habits, I have to compromise to others because of their living habits. That’s okay, I understand that, but then why bother when I could just not have to deal with it through living on my own?
Then of course is the odd time I do enjoy entertaining guests. In this I am an extremely private man, though not necessarily secretive as some have accused me of. See, I believe a relationship is between two people (or, depending on your preference, perhaps more than two), and with that it’s solely theirs. I personally don’t necessarily mind people knowing of my sex life, but I understand that it’s not just my sex life but that of the other’s who I’m enjoying it with, and thus going about bragging over it or even just simply having it as available knowledge to all seems to me as selfish and inconsiderate of the needs of the other.
As I’ve said before though, I’m not exactly secretive, so when asked I don’t tend to hide any aspects of my life (unless with good reason. More on that later.) I have before been so quiet of my relationships that my mother has only found out about girlfriends just after the relationship has in fact ended. (“So, how’s things with this secret girlfriend I’ve only just heard about? Apparently you’ve been seeing her for a year?” “Well, actually mother, we just broke up last week.”) But more often than not I’m just deflective, avoiding getting into any serious talk about my relationship status or sex life by simply avoiding the subject. If out for a drink with someone I’m sleeping with (I believe these interactions are referred to as ‘dates’) and asked what I’m up to by someone else, I keep my answer simple: “I’m out.” If they ask where, I add very little: “At a bar. Having a drink.” Finally, if asked whom I’m with: “Just a friend.”
I understand that this is incredibly transparent, and that people will see this and think, “He’s seeing someone,” but that’s of no concern to me, as the point is clear: You needn’t ask, as I’m unlikely to tell. A few people have had issues with this, sure, as they believe it’s me hiding my life from them. Maybe this creates a social barrier between some others and myself who considered them close to me, but I don’t see why it should. It’s not that I wouldn’t tell them; I just don’t see a need to. If asked more directly and I find it appropriate, sure, I’ll say something. But do you really need to know whom I’m currently sleeping with? And under the circumstances, with my position on sex, love and relationships, can I trust that you’d look at this without some kind of judgment placed on me for my promiscuity? What if I’m sleeping with multiple people at once, something that I’ve done on occasion before? If it’s understood as open and without expectations or limitations, would you be bothered?
I know not everyone would give a shit about this, but most people see this as a fault of my character, as though I’m shying away from people. Hardly. I’ve given plenty to some girlfriends, and I’ve shown that I can fight my way through a relationship and all its troubles. But sometimes, and this is where I’m at now, the circumstances of a relationship aren’t necessarily as simple as just being together. Sometimes it can be understood that there is an end date. Sometimes there are compromises that are more than just choosing what to have for dinner or whether or not to visit one’s parents or go on a holiday.
And then that can lead to certain relationships that are secretive, and this is when I’m best served by living alone. I do admit, it had been rather fun and surprising how easily one can get away with a secret relationship in a household of multiple people. You try and keep quiet, but it’s hard to mask the sound of sex unless you’ve opposing sounds to work around, and my sexual keen isn’t exactly inhibited by time. Whether late at night, early in the morning, or in the middle of the day, when sex is available to me I take full advantage of it. I have a visitor in the late hours of the night; sure, we’ll have sex then. Hell, if we’re still up talking after that I might even have sex another time. Then come the morning, what better way to wake up? And if she chooses to stay around longer… well, you get the idea.
Of course, this is made all the easier by living circumstance, and now is the best I can ask for. Before I’d just remain locked in my room and hope no one would ask questions, but in a studio apartment not only can we continue doing what we sought out to do, but it also allows for more time to actually get out of bed and enjoy each other’s company beyond merely just sex, and as much as I’ve probably just built myself up as to be a sex-fiend, sex is ultimately pointless to me without being able to find myself enjoying the company of the person I’m with. In fact, that’s probably what’s most surprising about my sex-drive, it’s almost like one of those tacky stickers you see on the back of hotted up cars, ‘I go from zero to bad ass in three seconds,’ when sex isn’t present to me (and by that, I mean with someone I actually like and am interested in) I really just don’t care about sex at all. I’m not one to go sniffing out sex at the clubs, nor do I online date or anything like that, as it’s pointless to me. Sure, I’ve done it, but it was terrible, so much so that I’ve faked it just to get out of it. I may not be one for ideals of romantic futures, but I’m not without my passion, and to me a sexual relationship that lacks passion is a fuck wasted (just to put it as passionless as possible).
And yet, despite all this that makes this home the most ideal spot for me, I find it unsatisfying to return there. Even when out against the world with no idea what I’m doing or even if I’ll have a bed to sleep in, I’m more comfortable because I’m reminded there is a world to venture in. But returning home reminds me that this is a place occupied only by me. I’m an independent man, yes, I won’t deny, and in that I’m also very private. I like it that way, I enjoy keeping to myself. But it can be very sobering the thought that while tucked away in my little pocket of the world, there’s a world out there that I’ve no place in. I return home to no one, and as my day goes by and I unpack my goods and place everything where it belongs and shower and then cook myself a dinner and sit back and eat it while listening to whatever new phase of music I find myself interested in (right now I’ve been listening to a good deal of Philip Glass, specifically his records ‘Glassworks’, ‘Solo Piano’ and his soundtrack to the 1931 film adaptation of Dracula) and then as I prepare myself for bed I check my phone to see no missed calls, no missed text messages, no social media notifications, nothing. I’ve never considered myself lonely, but I am in fact alone, and it’s most apparent after any trip away, any time spent off in the outside world to escape the world I came from, and then to return there to find myself home again, alone again.
“So, your plan is to do a different art project every day for a year?” asks Cal.
“Hmm,” he hums. Cal is my resident art friend, a fellow graphic designer and occasional musician, though it’s rare that we see eye-to-eye on what’s good art and what’s bad art. For example, Cal tends not to like any of my art. “Ambitious,” he says. “Think you can pull it off?”
“Don’t see why not,” I say. I sip at my beer. Over the last year or two the city has bloomed a good deal of cool bars, almost to a fault. It’s frustrating how ‘cool’ this city has become, when it had been so uncool for so long that I was almost ready to venture off. I say almost ready like there was somewhere to go. I say almost ready like I would’ve gone through with it.
Goal for the project: Follow through with goals.
“What happens if you miss a day?” he asks.
“I’m not allowed to miss a day.”
“Yeah, sure, but what happens if you do?”
I sigh. “I’ve certain allowances for being late, for example: If something’s planned that keeps me away from a computer to upload my project…”
“You got a website for this?”
“Yes, well, if anything gets in the way of uploading something then fine, that’s that. I’ll just have to upload the following day instead.”
Cal, sipping at his beer, nods his head. “As long as the project is done within the day.”
“What’s the aim of this?”
“Aside from 365 separate art projects?”
I lean back into my chair, looking him in his dark brown eyes. “The idea is to better organize my time and follow through with my goals and ambitions.”
Cal nods, his lips slightly pursed. “You can’t just buy an organizer?”
“Right.” Cal isn’t exactly one to express excitement or interest, despite what he may think. Many times we can talk about something and he seems to care so little that it barely registers with him. Often we’ll discuss something and he can’t even feign interest, only for him to come back the following week and tell me he followed up on whatever we talked about and enjoyed immensely. It’s just his style. In saying that, I’m often accused of this attribute too.
“So what constitutes as art in this exercise?” he asks. “Selfies?”
“So long as I look good,” I say.
“Dude, when do you not?”
“Anything can be a project, so long as it’s honest and it’s actually art.”
“Right,” he says. This is the part where I’m not so certain on his interest. Like I said, Cal doesn’t exactly appreciate me as artist, so his question is less ‘what constitutes art’ and ‘does your art constitute art’.
I met Cal about a back. He was a friend of a friend, and the very first thing we did was argue the merit Spielberg and his contribution to film. Not to bore you with the entirety of the argument, what was interesting about Cal and I was how close we were to the same thoughts and opinions on things, how very similar our interests were; yet we were always on opposing sides of the argument.
This stretches into out into our social lives as well. Quite often we would be competing for the same girl arguing each other down with bullshit and trying to belittle one another as to impress whoever it is we were courting. At least in this there was a definite answer as to who was right and who was wrong: I was right. Not to blow my own horn, as it’s not even a matter of all the girls liking me more than him (on the contrary, I can happily admit that Cal is a more attractive, more interesting and more accomplished person than I am), but it simply came down to the fact that I was a few years older, and though the age in itself had nothing to do with it, the difference lay with experience and understanding on how these things work. A giant mistake that is often made with guys is the idea that belittling competition takes them out of the game, and thus the girl is theirs. This is in fact wrong, as the truth is that although it may weaken the other guys chances with the girl, the girl will only view you as being a bit of a dick. You don’t want to be a dick, do you?
So here’s where I have a one up on Cal when it comes to earning the affections of a girl: He still tries occasionally to belittle me, but I don’t do the same to him. Instead I’ll keep my focus on her, and if it so happens that Cal is challenging me in such a way that I must respond, I keep in mind that his argument will be weakened by the fact that his care is no in winning the argument but rather winning the girl. This simplifies my objective, as all I have to do is rather than try and one up him with my counter-argument, I instead tear apart the holes in his.
This has seriously worked. Cal is like the ultimate wingman in his young ineptitude.
“So then, what’s your project for today?”
Good point. It’s almost 9PM and I still hadn’t done anything. “I don’t know man, I’ll figure it out when I get home.”
“You’ve got three hours dude. That enough time?”
“Depends what I do, I suppose. Any ideas?”
“Actually, one thing I’d like to do is some collaborative projects, if you’re keen.”
“Probably not tonight. Too little time and our ideas tend to conflict too much.”
Cal laughs. “That’s true.”
“But you’ve got your friend, Anna, right?”
“Well, I remember her talking about how she wanted to do some music. How about us three get together and do something?”
“Hmm. Could be cool, I guess.” So fucking nonchalant. “I’ll see what she’s up to.”
“Again, I don’t mean now.”
“Yeah, I know, but she’d probably be keen to talk about it anyhow. I’ll see where she’s at.”
After Anna came along we spent another couple of hours at the bar, but then I had to excuse myself so I could actually get my project done. I had less than an hour and no idea what I was going to do, and worst of all it was the last thing I really wanted to do.
Cal was definitely keen on Anna. Tell you the truth, so was I. She seemed like a cool person, was definitely my type of girl (basically young and healthy. That sounds maybe a little creepy as I’m still relatively young, but I mean that she’s in her twenties and she doesn’t look like she’s throwing back McDonald’s every second day), she’s Russian which is an added bonus, but perhaps best of all was that I wasn’t supposed to be interested. Can’t deny that forbidden fruit is somewhat of a turn-on for me, and a girl that a good friend is into is a girl that I am into too. It’s bad of me, it’s not intentional, but it just so happens that a lot of my friends have good taste in women, and I happen to be a bit of a devil in such situations.
But fortunately for my friends, generally I have the better sense to know that fucking around behind their backs with their girls (whether or not they are in fact their girls yet, as Anna is not Cal’s girl) is a bad idea. That’s not to say they don’t stand a chance against me, I just mean that fortunately for them I’m not that bad a friend.
Occasionally though I miss the mark and find myself doing the wrong behind a friend’s back. Thus occasionally I find myself going from being private to keeping secrets, thus why Cal has no idea that I’m currently sleeping with Emma. Thus why no knows that I’m sleeping with Emma.
As I return home and stumble my way back to my computer, the alcohol having settled in, I think over what it is I could possibly even do in such a short amount of time. What can I reflect on? My eyes stare at the computer with total uncertainty as to what’s going to come out of me, and after a short while my head begins to ache. It’s probably just the alcohol, so I try and ignore and begin to get to work, uncertain of what the end product will be, but hopeful none the less.
It hasn’t taken long for me to realize that there are certain things that either inhibits the project from being done in the correct fashion that I had intended, or that the project inhibits my ability to do certain things. This is generally dependent on my ability to plan my day, something I’m not used to doing, and how having such a schedule effects my work and my social life.
Goal for the project: Be organized.
Sometimes I’m good at organizing my time, but that is generally under very specific circumstances, as there are only certain guarantees in life that I will readily work around. Usually though it’s a matter of spontaneity that is the problem, a problem that is both mine and a problem of my friends too. This hasn’t been too much of an issue in the past, but of recent I have found that lacking a schedule on both our parts has put my project at odds with the social expectations that were thought required of me.
Tonight there is a dinner amongst friends. I can’t attend. I haven’t done my project. I advised them that if I get it done in time I’ll come meet up afterwards for a drink, but both they and I know that this is unlikely. My projects tend to take up hours of the night, and usually by the time I’m finished I’ve almost zero interest in participating in grand social events. This might be a good thing I’m not sure, as it does show that I can dedicate myself to something other than simply having a beer and a laugh. But a distance is growing between my friends and myself, and I can feel a change coming. It could be my paranoia; I’ve been known to suffer anxieties and delusions regarding my social status amongst others that has taken me down dark paths. But I feel as though something bad is coming, and I’m wary of it.
Yet I’m here working on this, and as much as I’d like to meet up for dinner I simply can’t justify it. The project is to better myself, and I have to adhere to the schedule.
Of course, as I said, sometimes I do organize my time well, and this is where I know that I can put my friends second to more than just this project, which as much as it does mean something to me, clearly my project can come second sometimes too.
Want to adhere to a schedule? Deny yourself the opportunity for sex. At least, that’s how it works for me. If I were told my assignments were due in at a particular time, and failing to submit by said deadline I wouldn’t get to have sex that day, I’d have my assignment done. Seriously, just for a day. Any time I’ve found myself in a position where sex was on the cards for the night, my project was done with time to spare. I can schedule around sex. Friends and dinner? Well, I’d like to think that if these things were better planned in advance, then maybe yes. But in spontaneous moments of organization, no way, and a meal isn’t enough for me to suddenly find myself working hard at completing a project.
Anyhow, I’m sure this won’t be the end of all things to come. It’s likely me just prophesizing doom due to my inability to participate socially, and I think in reality most people would be the same. It’s just that most people don’t have an abstract workload they’ve placed on themselves like this unless it’s gambling or something. Sure, maybe other things too, but this is a project people seem to find a little bizarre and absurd, as though unnecessary to complete in order to better one’s self. But most people make New Years resolutions, and believe that a year is merely a year, a long period of time in which work can be done, not a collection of 365 individual days in which one needs to organize themselves correctly to achieve a goal. It’s really not so absurd. It just might be harder than I thought, and for more reasons than one.
Who are the most important people in your life? You friends? Your partner/s? Your family?
This is a question that almost can go without the need of being asked, as to most people those options are a given. Much the same to me as well, but the hierarchy is interesting due to the positioning of my family.
I grew up in a small town out in the country, surrounded by rainforest and not too far from the coast, so you could say I’m a bit of a beach-rat/country-bumpkin hybrid. You could say that, but it’d be incorrect. It’s strange how the product of two hippies who chose to live off in a secluded area in the middle of a forest could end up being, essentially, a bit of a city-slicker. It’s a shitty term, one that I’d rather not be categorized into, but for the sake of name calling and generalizing, yes, that is who I am.
And really it should come as no surprise, because despite my parents’ hippy backgrounds, they both came from cities themselves and chose to rebel from that, eventually finding their way to the rainforest. And yet, even then, they didn’t take jobs in anything especially radical, but rather took to work in jobs that essentially are for the man: My mother worked as a court reporter, and my father worked in construction. Construction mightn’t seem like a job ‘for the man’, but taken into account that jobs came from the city council, yes, he worked ‘for the man’.
So my brother and I did what they did but in reverse: we rebelled. Whereas they rebelled from capitalism and conservative sixties mentality, my brother and I rebelled from two things so unalike and yet so similar: the far left and the far right. How boring to be a hippy these days, that’s what my parents did. Smoke? Do drugs? No, I’m good thanks. Only uncool people like my parents do that shit. Get a job that pays well and keeps the mortgages in check? No thank-you. That sounds like the kind of mentality that allows the mundane.
This sounds harsh, as if I’m ragging on my parents, but I mean this as a reflection of a time when I did rag on my parents: being a teenager. Though that time may have shaped me into the well-dressed, city slicking, vaguely conservative, highly critical, deep thinking, cynical, narcissistic, wannabe artist that I am today, it hardly reflects my current state of mind, which is that I couldn’t have asked for better and more culturally diverse parents. As bizarre and fucked up as they sound, and as much as I might not see eye-to-eye with them on matters of life and living, I am a product of them, and I appreciate all they’ve done for me.
And as mutual products of these bizarre folks, my brother and I share unique bond that a lot have expressed envy over. We’re more than just brothers but best friends too, and though he now has a wife and children we still spend a great deal of our time together, hanging out, making crude jokes that push peoples tolerance and expectations, and discussing the world. And it’s him and his family that I hold closest to my heart. Everyone else in my life I love, sure, but it’s with my brother that I remain devoted to.
“You got anything planned coming up for your art stuff?”
“No,” I say. He’s driving me back to his place for dinner. The fact that he’s got a family, got a car, a house, a well-paying job… all of this and two years younger than me. Mother is so pleased with him, but she does warn him not to have any more children, as two is a handful. She advises him to get a vasectomy, and he says he will. I say I’ll come with him. She says not until I’ve fathered her a grandchild. I say you’ve already got two.
“What about this art project? What’s the plan with that?”
“The plan is to try and get it done, one day at a time,” I say. “It’s hard, I’ll admit. But I’m doing okay.”
“You’ve been writing a lot of shitty poetry,” he laughs. I join in with him.
“Yeah, well, like I said, the plan is to get it done each day. I never said anything about quality.”
“You can’t spend more time doing something other than poetry?”
I sigh. “Sometimes I’m preoccupied. I work with the short space of time I’m given.”
He smirks. “Preoccupied with what?”
“Uh-huh,” he laughs. Fucking asshole. “So who’s your friend these days?”
I look at him, observe his cheeky little grin, and reply, “No one you know.”
“Of course not.” He pauses. I turn my back to facing out the window. He says, “You spoken to dad recently?”
I turn back to look at him. “Yeah?”
Once we both come we lay still, me still on top of her, my dick still inside her, and we begin to laugh. Our relationship has taken a somewhat playful meaning being that it can’t be anything but. Technically her and her partner, Marc, aren’t exactly over as much as they are just taking some time apart. This wouldn’t bother me so much if it weren’t for the fact that Marc is a friend of mine. In fact, four years earlier, I introduced Marc to Emma, two totally friends from entirely separate social groups. And to add more fuel to the fire, Marc was a better friend to me than I would say Emma was, as Emma was more of an acquaintance; a friend through friends.
But Emma was always the ‘it’ girl. She had a quality to her that made people want to be her friend, guy or girl (though undoubtedly the guys also would want to sleep with her). Yes, Emma is attractive. A complete babe, if you will. And on top of that an interesting, layered character, who’s complex, probably more so than she’ll lead you to believe.
So why didn’t I go for her back when I introduced her to Marc? A few reasons. First of all, I had a girlfriend when I first met Emma, and being that I’m not an asshole, I didn’t try to fuck with that. That also bled through to after I split with my girlfriend, because I had already began to develop a friendship with Emma that was based on purely just being friends, and so my interest didn’t exactly extend that far. Still, a few more months went by and sure, I began to notice that Emma was an attractive girl who, hey, just happened to be single. But come a Halloween party in 2009 I found myself being dragged along to, I made it clear that I’d only come if I could bring a few of my other friends. So here I am plus my posse, one of whom happens to be my good friend Marc, a nice humble fellow who I may not exactly hang out with one on one but I like all the same, and here comes Emma to hang out with us. If there is ever a time to choose to play my card, it’s now, but I don’t. This was a moment where I could see that I didn’t have a spot. It wasn’t a matter of competition, there was no need for trying to cancel him out or him cancel me out, Marc had won. He was the better man, and Emma could see that.
They stick it out for four years, but eventually they fall into some troubles and they decide to take a break. It’s Emma who calls for it, and Marc is left devastated but hopeful, and with good reason to be too. She hasn’t sat there and told him this is forever. They see each other scarcely, but when they do they still get along well and have affections for one another. From what I can make out of the situation, she needed a break from him simply because he is too perfect; a guarantee to for solidarity and a future that she is not ready to have be so certain just yet.
So we lay here laughing, my dick still locked inside of her, basking in my load, and I say, “Jesus, I hope you’re on the pill.”
“I hope I don’t wake up with herpes.”
“Fuck,” I laugh. I pull myself out of her and lay beside her. I stare up at the ceiling. Naturally, this ceiling is mine. Emma lives with two girls, Celia and Sam, both of whom have become quite fond of Marc and are supportive of her relationship with him. Though they back her and this break as a period of time to allow her to get her thoughts together, they would not approve of the aspect of sexual curiosity that has come with it, and they would most definitely not approve of me.
“You got any plans tomorrow?”
“Got to do my project at some point.”
“Anything you have in mind?”
“Not really. Thought maybe a photography project might be cool. Haven’t done many of them.”
There’s a pause. “What number are you up to?”
“Think you’ll make it to three-sixty-five?”
“The only thing stopping me is death.”
“Have you done your project for today?”
“Death and sex. Sex tends to be detrimental to progress, it seems.”
She laughs, “Oh, sorry. You want me to go?”
“No, I’ll get started shortly.”
She turns over, wrapping her arm around me. This was one thing I always found surprising about Emma, her affection. She seemed to be more affectionate than I would’ve presumed for something that has been established as merely casual, a fling.
I pause. “Oh yeah? Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” she says. “He’s thinking about moving.”
Unexpected. “Moving? Where?”
“I don’t know, somewhere,” she says. “At least temporarily. This has been hard on him, and he’s not sure what to do.”
“What about work? His friends?”
“He doesn’t care about his job. He doesn’t feel he has friends.”
“What? Of course he does.”
“Why don’t you hang out with him?”
“Don’t ask me that when you’ve got my cum inside of you. Shit.”
“Would you consider him a friend now though?”
I pause. “You sure you want to be talking about this with me?”
“Who else can I talk about it with?”
“Okay,” I say, dragging out the vowel. “Some people change when they get into a relationship. I mean, to a degree we all do. We prioritize ourselves based around our partners, making sure that we have more time dedicated to them than we would necessarily anyone else. But, and I would say that you’re kind of the same; I never feel the need to define myself by my partner. If I’m in something, cool, and I’ll try my best to make that work. But I wouldn’t abandon my friendships in favor of someone. That seems backward to me, and greatly codependent.”
“Codependent?” she asks, tilting her head up to look at me.
“Yeah. As if for one to be whole they need another. I can’t fathom it. I can’t even fathom how a relationship can work like that.”
“How can your relationship be healthy if you’re not happy with yourselves individually, apart from one another?”
She turns her head back down, her cheek across my chest. “My relationship.”
I look down at her. “No, I don’t’ mean yours specifically, I’m just saying…”
“But really, that’s what you are saying, right?”
I stop and consider my words. “I’m saying that Marc dropped of the radar with you, and now four years later you two split up and he suddenly wants back in.”
“So you think, ‘Fuck that. I’ll fuck your girlfriend instead.’”
“Holy shit, this just got nasty,” I laugh.
She sits up, her body facing me. “No, I don’t mean it to be. Look, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about this…”
“I don’t believe I am, Emma.”
“I know. I mean, I know you’re not sitting there with much expectations, and that’s good.”
“But, this actually does kind of mean something to me. And yet it’s hard, because the fact that you’re doing this also means something entirely different.”
I look at her, taking her in. For a moment she’s vulnerable, something she hasn’t shown too much of with me. “So…?”
“So… I can’t help but think badly of this.”
She keeps her eyes fixed on me, letting a beat pass. “But I don’t want this to stop.”
I’ve never really been a strong sleeper. Getting to sleep has never been the problem, more just staying asleep. Often I wake in the middle of the night and my brain activates in an instant, grabbing onto a thought and becoming alert with consideration to it. This generally will happen any time between three and six am, no matter the time I went to bed. Going through the days can be a bit of a struggle on such little sleep, so I’m lucky to work a job in which my caffeine intake is endless to me.
The problem with little sleep is that it can fuck with my head. I’m not a bad morning person; I figure I’m tired all the time and that’s no one else’s problem but my own, so why bother projecting my bad mood on others? But then instead of that it gets left within me. People don’t realize how much sleep, or a lack there off, can affect your mental state. My ability to process thoughts rationally diminishes, instead my mind just goes over the same issues over and over again, worsening with each repeat. Not only is this exhausting, but it’s also (obviously) anxiety inducing. Anxiety = bad sleep. Repeat.
Not helping are the tasks I put upon myself, the extra stresses I probably don’t need, the general social bullshit that comes with being a friend to others. I’m often the guy people come to talk things out, as I’m both a good listener and a deep thinker. This is fine, I’m glad to be there for my friends and that they consider me someone they can speak to. But sometimes, as is apparent now, it begins to feel like that this predominantly what my role is to these people, a counselor, one who’s there to help others and to talk to. It seems like it’s been a long while since I’ve hung out with someone because they enjoy my company (excluding Emma, but the company she seeks isn’t quite what I’m talking about).
And then with this project I only seem more distant. An end is nearing; I can feel it. Not of the project, which I’ve still over half a year left, but of the life I lead and the people involved. I feel with every day that goes by I’m a little more distant, and I only worsen this by rejecting those I care about due to obligations relating to this project. They’re tired of it, and so my welcome is less and less with each day, seemingly only hearing from people when they need someone to talk to, not talk with. I understand that this means something; that I mean something to these people. But I also see that as meaning that I mean very little, nothing short of a therapist, but just one that can be called a friend.
And I’m so tired all the time, which in turn leaves me depressed and angry. My only rejoice is in the occasional project that I find satisfactory (which is far fewer than I would like) and when I see Emma, a dysfunctional relationship with a dysfunctional girl and a very dysfunctional guy.
All I want to do is escape, but I’ve no means to. I’ve been trying to escape through art by setting up a new exhibition that would showcase the work of local artists that I’ve met with, but my time is sporadically distributed to different things that I can hardly muster the energy to do that. I’ve no money, at least not for the purpose of getting away, and I’ve no place to hide other than my own home.
And we know how underwhelming that place is.
Cal, Anna and I are out for a drink at a bar called the Getaway. Despite my lack of availability, we’re trying our best to put together a musical project. Anna has been keen to sing and write music for some time, but has lacked the means of putting the music together. Cal’s a skilled musician, and I’m a competent musician and producer (is that the correct term to call myself? I’ve never produced anyone else, but have produced my own music. I suppose that makes me a producer).
Anna tells a story about a previous band she was in while I take photos. Tonight’s project is a photography project. It’s a little lame because there’s no real concept to it other than taking photos of people I know while we hang out, which is lazy I guess, but then again we’re discussing the creation of a new art project, so I’m letting it pass.
I look at the time. “Shit, I’ve got to get going,” I say. It’s 11PM and I’ve still got to get home and upload these photos before midnight.
Anna looks at her watch and says, “Yeah, actually, I should probably go to,” and we get up and walk outside.
While we walk down the street Cal says, “Yo dude, I forgot to say, I’m diggin’ on some of your projects man.”
I look up at him. “Yeah?” I ask.
“Yeah man. I mean, I don’t even bother to check out your music or anything…”
“… but I’m really liking some of your design projects.”
Anna says, “I haven’t had a chance to check out your blog yet. I’ll have to do that.”
“That’s cool. It’s really nothing that special.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, man. It’s pretty cool.”
It’s unlike Cal to really complement me on anything. Usually, if he’s anything to say, it’ll be some form of criticism, and maybe on just barely constructive. The second time I had met him was after he had checked out some of my music, and his feedback was, “You’ve got do something about your song structures man.” I responded with, You don’t like them? He said, “They’re just terrible.”
“I’ll make sure I take a look at it tonight,” says Anna.
“Well, hopefully within the hour you’ll see some photos of yourself up there too.”
“Hey guys, this is where I leave you,” says Cal, turning up another street.
“Cool man, we’ll get together and do this some time soon, yeah?” I ask.
“See you, Cal!” calls out Anna, but he’s already turned around and began his walk home. I can never tell if this is a quality of coolness or if he’s just so awkward he doesn’t know when to say goodbye.
I turn to Anna. “Which way are you heading?”
“I’m only a few blocks up from here, so I’ll just walk home.”
“Oh, cool. I’ll walk you.”
She smiles. “You don’t have to do that,” she says.
“It’s no trouble. I’m going to catch a taxi anyhow, so I’ll call one from your block.”
We walk a minute or so without saying anything to one another. Anna and I have never really been alone together, Cal had always been in the mix, so without him the need to find common ground to talk over was all the more apparent.
“So how far into your project are you,” she asks.
“Um…” I begin, “I think today’s project 138 or 139.”
“Wow. Still over half a year left.”
“I’m exhausted,” I say. “I’ll be glad when this project is done.”
She pauses. “I don’t know. You seem to be enjoying it.”
“I don’t think enjoying it is the right phrase,” I smirk.
“Well, you brighten up when you talk about it.”
I look at her, smiling, inquisitive. “Do I?”
“Yeah, definitely,” she says. “You seem almost excited by it, it’s ambition.”
“Well, you’ve never exactly expressed a great deal of excitement before, so yeah. Almost excited,” she laughs.
“Right. The cold-hearted bastard that I am.”
“Exactly,” she smirks. “You need to learn how to emote!”
“Oh, how many times that has been said to me.”
She looks at me as we walk, our pace steady. “Any reason why you stay withdrawn?”
I look at her, observing her features. Her face is curious yet innocent. “I don’t really consider myself withdrawn. Just quiet.”
“Yeah. Withdrawn implies that I’m shying away. In reality I’m just too tired to bother.”
I laugh. “Please, don’t pity me. I’m fine. I just need to catch up on my sleep. Exhaustion has gotten the better of me.”
“Anything help you sleep?”
I consider the question. “Yeah, but it’s not so easily available.”
“Oh.” She smiles sheepishly.
“Look who’s withdrawn now.”
“Well, fuck! I didn’t expect that, how am I supposed to respond?”
I laugh. “You don’t have to, Anna. It wasn’t a request to tell me your thoughts on sex. I’m just saying, sex is usually the one thing that will keep me in bed, so I feel more compelled to just stay there and sleep.”
“By that logic you make it sound like it’s not a matter of bad sleeping but rather your not wanting to sleep.”
I think this over. “Kind of, yeah. I mean, I want to sleep more, but at the same time once I wake up generally can’t see the point in wasting anymore time in bed, so I just get up.”
“Would you fall asleep if you lay there a while longer?”
“Don’t know. Sometimes I do and I have. Often I do and I don’t. I think it all just depends on what’s going on in my mind.”
“And what’s going on in your mind?”
I smile at her as she brings us to a stop. “This your street?”
“In that case, to be continued.”
On a trip down south for a project I receive a text message from Emma asking what I was up to. I tell her where I’m at, that I’m unlikely to be home for a few hours. This is perfect, she says, as she’s coming back north from further south, having just visited her family. We organize a time and a place. Date night.
I won’t deny that I was a little nervous leading up to this. Not only was it unexpected and unintended, it also was an entirely new circumstance for us to hang out in general. After years of knowing Emma, I’ve only known her in the context of others, or more recently in the context of a bed. Never have we just hung out one on one, doing whatever we do. It’s not that being on a date is particularly nerve-wracking, as even now to the difference between friends hanging out and getting food and going on a date getting food is negligible, only becoming defined as one or the other by how the night ends. I suppose in saying that, how this night ends is essentially a guarantee, so I guess this makes this a date, yet still, it’s not that concerns me. It’s that either way, this is a step forward for us as a relationship. What kind of a relationship? Two friends who hang out or two people whom sleep together or two people who are together? Doesn’t really matter, it’s the fact that there’s a progression there, and this is a make-or-break situation. If this fails, we fail, period.
“Hey,” she says, coming from behind me.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I ask. She leans in for a hug, kissing me on the cheek. Again, a step in a direction I wasn’t expecting.
“Done for the day,” I say, holding up my camera.
“Oh, cool. What do you want to do?” she asks.
“Umm… Want to get something to eat?”
“I’m not really hungry,” she says. “Feel like going for a walk along the beach?”
Again, unexpected. And romantic. It’s sundown right now, the sky a burning contrast of pink and blue. This is the kind of shit I generally avoid, especially when dating someone casually. But there’s no avoiding this now.
We begin to walk down the beach, her telling me stories of her family. I realize how little of this girl I actually know, that she’s merely been an acquaintance really, once through old friends and more recently through Marc. This whole thing is like a long gestating beginning to a friendship, but one that never really took off until now. I’m curious as to whether that adds or takes away value from us.
“You seem quiet,” she says.
“Just tired,” I say.
“You’re always tired.”
I sigh. “Want to know a secret?”
“Of course,” she says playfully.
“When people ask me if I’m okay or comment on my behaviour as something less than positive, my response is simply to tell people that I’m tired,” I say.
“So you’re not tired?” she asks.
“No, I am. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything wrong.”
“So cryptic,” she says. “So what’s wrong, little bub?”
“You’re being all stroppy like a little bub, so I call you little bub.”
“Oh,” I laugh. “I thought you were trying to be cute.”
She laughs, “Me? Cute? Please.”
“Of course,” I say. “What was I thinking?”
“You were thinking you were going to tell me what’s up.”
“Sure, sure,” she says. “What’s up, little bub? What’s got you down?”
“Nothing’s got me down,” I say, irritable.
“Okay,” she says, throwing her hands in the air to show she’s not a threat.
I stop her and turn her around. “What is this?”
“What?”
“This? What are we doing here?”
“Going for a walk,” she says.
“Yes, but this is a date,” I say.
“Is it not?” I ask. I step back, confused, and unsure of why I’m even bring this up. This is supposed to be casual and complicated, yet it seems to be everything but. “I’m sorry, but I was just a little surprised to hear you wanted to hang out here.”
“Well, of course I’d rather hang out in bed, but really I just wanted to hang out with you no matter where it was.”
“Okay,” I say. I pause. “So, what about feeling bad about this?”
“You said to me that you felt bad about this, that you thought badly of me because of this and because of Marc. It’s weird, but somehow I feel more badly about this, right here and right now, than I do about us fucking one another.”
“Look,” she begins, “I get it. It’s difficult, I know. I can’t say what’s happening with Marc, because I don’t even know what he’s doing. For all I know he might be halfway through packing his stuff to move interstate or overseas or something.”
“So, I’ve no idea what’s happening there, but I know what’s happening here.”
“Okay, and what’s happening here?”
“What’s happening here is that I like you, and this is important to me. How this came about probably wasn’t the best of ways to start something up, but it was in many ways perfect timing for me. Seriously, you’ve no idea how much this means to me.”
I pause. This is hardly what I expected, and I feel the urge to both kiss her and run away at the same time.
“Yeah,” I say. I think over what to say. “You remember how this got started?”
“How long had you been considering this?”
She thinks, her yes looking up into herself. “I think it was just a spur of the moment kind of thing.”
“No it wasn’t,” I say, smiling at her.
“How long had you been considering it?”
She smiles back at me, her eyes closing on me. “How long…” she says to herself.
There’s only so much time that I can have in a day, and more often than not I find my time challenged. Each day it seems to get harder, the effort externalize insufferable, and I’m rewarded with nothing but empty questions and the occasional pat on the back. So far I’ve done so much but achieved very little. It hurts to put myself into it, and it leaves me numb to see it reflected back at me.
I can’t imagine what it’ll be like to be relieved of this burden. I can’t even fathom how it will determine my life, having this extra time, this lack of responsibility and this free mind to roam the world. But for the time being the walls will close in on me, and I’ve got so little left to give. And you know it too. You can see it, and so you’ll run.
I knew the end was near. I saw it coming. I could predict it. My apocalypse. I just never wanted to believe it would start with you.
