Culture, Sports, Writing…or whatever
I cried. It finally happened, I mean. Been trying to cry close to four months now. Both times caused by movies. This time Room; previously Inside Out. The connection’s transparent: The saddest moment in life is when you’re no longer allowed to be a child.
I’ve been thinking about Her again. An obvious literary trick at mystery. Use pronouns to elicit symbolic distance. Also an attempt to call attention to myself; hope all the She’s read this and think that sentence was about Her. Really I’m referring to Scarlett Johannson. I am Joaquin Phoenix. Surprise.
I wish she called me.
Attended a writing conference. Many people instructed me lessons already learned. I’m an autodidact meaning I’m smart meaning I’m alone. This is all heading somewhere. If I had to predict a direction—down. In a shape of a spiral.
Some people were nice, some were assholes, I was somewhere in between. It was all nothing new. A repetitive cycle of questioning, belittling those deemed intellectually inferior, wondering why it wasn’t my turn, crystallizing into a millennial trope. I’m bored with how pathetic I sound.
I yearn for Purpose. Now I am Justin Bieber. What do you mean? I’ll show you. Where are U Now? Sorry. Get used to it. Love yourself. No pressure. No sense.
I return to my storage unit. It’s funny: I no longer am attached to this Stuff. It once held great meaning, now it’s a metaphor. Something about leaving Stuff behind, but refusing to let go. That’s as close as I can get.
I retrieve what I came for. A plot detail not necessary to explain. Travis Scott’s “Antidote” blares from my phone. I play his music only when no one’s around. I dance and rage. I bashed him once online and wish to maintain my brand. Can’t shatter the illusion. It’s all I have.
My plot detail and I leave. We speed away. The building blows up behind us. Stuff rains from the sky. Insert generic flourish of pluming fire, a couple embarrassing items like panties. One more weird thing. A chicken clucking in cocktail attire. A lesson: The only way to end eras is violently.
The sun sets as I drive. Kanye West’s “Power” provides background soundtrack. The fantasy ends at the bar “I’m jumping out the window, I’m letting everything go.” Too much identification.
In the editing bay, they revert the color palette back to its muted, drab aesthetic. Jump cut to the opening scene of me crying at the movies. Camera follows me from behind out the theater. Stunned shuffling. Drained appearance. Open the door to the dark outside.
Cut to a close-up of my face. Puffy eyes, salt streaks down my face, hot breath steaming in the cold night air. A push-in closer as a thought flickers but doesn’t complete itself in my expression. Pause an almost unbearable time at this position.
Right before it’s totally uncomfortable, a twitch of a smile. Then everything fades to black.
I’ve been dreaming again. Usually it involves someone from my past. It’s non-recurring, different people each time. I won’t go into any more detail.
I hold a new desire to share How I Feel. Not all the way and not with everyone and not about everything. Limited revealing. Peeling back one piece at a time. Banal comparison to layers of an onion, but Shrek already did that. Yet I use it anyways. This says more about me than I wish it did.
I will hide this post from family and (some) friends on Facebook because we’re all connected. This is distinctly a first-world problem. Worrying over the manner in which I express my feelings. No one ever has enough control. Maybe it’s just a white-people problem. Most of my ‘anxiety’ distills down to that, basically. Not having enough followed by guilt knowing I should feel I do.
The world tries to convince me otherwise. The lie goes I’m connected to a seven-year-old, starving Sudanese boy. I’m not. My day-to-day actions and angst don’t affect him, though I wish it did. I remind myself this is why Christians go on retreats. I worry my Christian friends will find this ‘offensive’. Connections on the network don’t die that easily. The Internet’s the biggest troll.
But I will post this on Facebook. No one hears you in a vacuum. Everything worthwhile is niche; the niche is dead. It isn’t profitable. Grantland died. Did you hear? You might’ve heard the thousands of millennial white boys masturbating posts of #sadness. Or you heard the thousands of media members blistering this is How It Is Now. On some real revolutionary Join or Die shit. Or you heard nothing because you ‘don’t care’. That feels good I suppose. I am sad, though.
My parents celebrate more than me for Halloween. A party the night before with rich people, handing out candy on the holiday. They drink; they scare children. I drink; I scare myself. Not specifically, just generally. I buy a bottle of Hpnotiq to create the illusion of turn-up. Over half the bottle goes down. Friends help. We are TURNT. We are the TURNTest. The Hpnotiq tastes artificial, as expected. That’s not a metaphor, though perhaps it should be. I don’t hate it.
The night goes smoothly. We watch The Purge 2: Anarchy. I prefer my title, America: We Kill People Here. My title card would have the anarchical “A” for stylistic effect since I’m an artist. Spoiler alert for this C-level ‘horror’ movie you’ll never see: Humans would do bad things if you let them. Except not all. So the government helps. Because the government hates poor people and wish they died already, this time specifically not generally. The plot’s simultaneously highly plausible and implausible. It’s all an allegory.
I download Tinder and Bumble, mostly for attention. No intentions of meet-ups. Too worried I’ll end up in an extortion plot. So: Swipe right, swipe right, swipe right, swipe right, swipe right, swipe right, except a few lefts on some big girls. Okay. Pretend the outrage, that disguise of self-disgust you do so well. You’re righteous, I’m not. Cool. One girl asks what I’m doing tonight, this Hallow’s Eve. “I’m wearing a different hat,” I respond. Now that’s a metaphor. I delete both apps within the hour.
I go to sleep but don’t dream. I find it comforting.
[a] millennial reservations 