Dancing Monkeys
2004-11-14 2:19 p.m.
I am so fucking bored, it hurts. Painfully bored. I generally don�t get bored. I can sit in a room and stare at a wall for a few hours without even noticing that I don�t have anything to do.Besides my general ability to dodge boredom, I have tons of toys and shit-to-do to keep my head and hands busy. Weeks of work, turntables, PVR, 2mb of bandwidth, 50 gb of music, 20 gb of movies, about a hundred movies on dvd and vhs, Tiger 05, Burnout3 and GTA San Andreas, a full bottle of good scotch whisky, hundreds of points of contact (phone numbers, email addresses, IMs, etc), 4 books I just got in the past 2 weeks, geek magazines, fashion magazines, paint, pens and tons of blank paper, drunk dials and emails to apologize for, a couple hundred tiny beads I knocked over and have to pick up, clothes to wash, some more to fold, a dresser to fix, a dresser to get rid of, an apartment to rearrange, an empty stomach with enough ingredients to make something really good, and so much more all in my tiny lil 200 or so square feet of prison I call home (well, the ingredients are in the kitchen � not included in the 200 sq ft.). On top of all that, I live in NYC so there�s a lot of shit-to-do beyond these walls. But I just don�t feel like doing any of it. And it�s fucking cold outside.
The past few days of awkward conversations and drunkenness have made this place seem a bit smaller (hard to do, this place is tiny), at least for today. I�m sure I�ve made an ass of myself � not so much physically, as I made sure to sit most of the time - but with my asinine ideas about life, people and pancakes.
Although I have proven, if anything, that I do drink often and well. I�m sure the incredible people I had the opportunity to meet this weekend understand why so many of my posts are merely drunken rants.
It�s a strange thing.
Well, all of this is strange. The idea of writing internal dialog for the masses to access at any time from any place in the world is astonishing. I came here because I needed a place to hold my thoughts. When I was alone and bored in a new city 5 years ago, I found myself reading other people�s lives and I felt obligated to return the favor. What an odd thing to decide.
But I�ve gotten over the idea of being some strange drunk, sharing personal shit with strangers. I found a few people who are just as loony, and fortunately, they write well.
Now the first one I met didn�t quite go as well as I�d hoped. I think the awkwardness killed it. Or maybe it was just my incapability to be tactful at times. Maybe I just wasn�t as insightful as I seemed on this thing. Maybe I wasn�t cute enough or too tall or just couldn�t read her quite right in person. Maybe she expected me to expect more than I expected. Maybe I just couldn�t handle how incredibly attractive, sweet and cool she was in person. Maybe she couldn�t handle it either or, well� maybe we were just less compatible than I hoped... I miss talking to her. After that thing went weird, I decided meeting people who already know you is a bit too odd to try often.
And it is. It�s so fucking strange, you see. Because you read this person�s thoughts. Granted it�s not like you get everything, but you are following a person�s life story, albeit filtered. You get to know this person. You get to reserve judgment. You get to admire or dislike the person and never even have to go through the drama of knowing them. More on that in a second�
Meeting people is fucking weird. I mean like meeting someone new at a bar or from being introduced by a friend or whatever. Maybe starting a conversation at work or school, or bumping into someone at some burger joint you stopped into so you could try and talk your way into using their bathroom. It�s like a damned interview every time. 2 people choosing weather not to employ each other. Short term or long. Temporary or permanent. Entry level or executive suite. Second Interview or call security.
We dress up, or choose not to (so we dress up by dressing down which is odd in itself) depending on how we want our personal doormat to read. We groom ourselves. We spray and roll unnatural scents and chemicals onto strange parts of our bodies. We talk to ourselves in mirrors. We come up with questions and ideas to fill the patchy conversation.
And it�s always patchy. A lull is always the most painful when you�re attracted to someone you just met. Seconds turn to days. A glance becomes a stare. Man, when you can�t think of something to talk about that actually means something, you might as well just piss yourself and start dancing around like a coked out monkey. At least it�ll ease the pressure.
It�s really fucking weird. I�ve always thought so. So I�ve taught myself to enjoy the lull. I enjoy the uncomfortable silence. I dress better than I used to, but I�ve long ago learned not to care. I don�t take my time and drink slowly so they don�t get the wrong idea anymore. I take my damned cigarette breaks when I need a smoke. I don�t curb myself or try to seem more intelligent or more polite than I actually am. I don�t take them to the swanky spot that I never go to so they think I�m a cool motha fucker.
Fuck all that twisted shit we seem to obsess over. Let them play catch up. I�ll just sit back with my drink in hand and cigarette in the other and watch them fill the holes, run their game, and do their dance. I don�t have the time or patience for the lying game anymore and if you bump into me at the bar you�ll see it. Because next week, I�ll still be me; the same fucker from last week, and I�ll be looking forward to finding out who the fuck you really are.
Now here�s the head-meat grinder... Get a couple people, have each one write about their life in great detail, have each read about each other for a couple years, throw them into a bar, grab some popcorn and watch the show.
You feel comfortable with this person. They already inspire you. You already agree with them. You already know what they like and hate. You already know who they voted for. You already know what they listen to and watch. You already know the first initials of their closest friends. You already know if they�re dating someone. You already know how that�s going. And they know all this shit about you too.
What a strange situation of comfortability. No dancing monkeys. Just two people or three or whatever, completely exposed and just now figuring out the physical end of the relationship.
It�s like you�ve already read the lyrics, but have no idea what the music is like. You don�t know the tempo yet. You have no idea where the samples are gonna come in, or if they�re using samples at all. Will there be acoustic or electric? Scratching over the break? How hard a beat? Accapella? Salsa or hip hop? Country or Rock? Will your beats go sync? Will your record skip? Will you save it or let the crowd boo you off the stage?
We all have this rhythm together. It�s how we have a good time. When 5 old friends are in a room, the beat is steady. The changes in tempo are expected and welcomed. The breaks come and people get ready to change it up or shake their booty a lil more. When someone else comes in, if they�re an old friend, they just blend into the track; if they�re new everyone has to try to get them up to speed.
I think I got a chance to get into the groove with a couple incredible people this week. I�m still not going to make a habit of it. I mean the point of having an anonymous journal is, well... to be anonymous. Not that it�ll make me any less honest. I call it how I see it. But it�s still a strange thing.
Well whatever. I�m glad to have met them. I hope I get the opportunity to monopolize their time in the future. I hope things went as well as I think they did. I have a history of guessing that part of it wrong.
I guess that�s it. Now back to boredom.