Fruitless

2005-09-13 5:42 a.m.
My hunt for peace has been fruitless. If you added everything together, you�d find my status far into the black, but if you add my lack of focus, you�ll find me grasping the bottom edge of the chart for dear life�

Funny that less than 24 hours after a conversation about corporate culture, I�d find myself at a dinner table with 5 corporate drones (for a major international company) reciting their local bullpen blather across departmental lines.

I�d long noticed my return to taciturnity, but now it was apparent.

One of the women at the table interjected a point that the zoos in some European city she�d visited don�t have bars or tall walls or major gaps between the spectators and the animals. The gorillas were within immediate reach through a measly shrub. No warning signs, nothing.

The dude with the hipster glasses spouted that it �shows how much more evolved they are there. Here we need to warn everybody about everything.�

The pilot light enflamed � but the gas bill hasn�t been paid in quite some time. Substance would have been unwelcome in this trivial exchange. Everybody laughed along with his comment and I didn�t have the heart, motivation or concern to deflect the energy in another direction�

My head started there and hasn�t stopped since� For the moment it was about the fact that this has become a country who has streamlined capitalism to the point of profitable legislature. The American dream has gone from idea, hard work, success to find someone to sue. The warning signs are mere legal disclaimers. It�s not that we�re too stupid to keep our hand sandwiches to ourselves, it�s that a hand is a small price to pay for an advance in the race to the �fittest�.

Are we so well protected by the fear of lawsuit that we never learn not to touch? Sure we could tell our kids about some story about a kid losing his arm 15 years ago and if he�s bright he won�t touch it. If he�s dim, well, one-up for the species. Does evolution even equate? Probably somewhere, but nowhere worth considering for the moment, and definitely nowhere worth injecting into this conversation of short wit and office tale about office tail.

Of course I know it was a stupid comment over am expensive mediocre dinner to pull am �easily agreeable� laugh out of a long day. My difference was pointless. I reverted to my earlier admiration for the work buried along side the young of King Tut (we had free tickets to the King Tut exhibit tonight)

The injection would have bounced right off his thick rimmed glasses. After all I was the new guy, and this conversation was in no danger of approaching the pores.


Once I�d prematurely humbled myself, I sat back and ordered stronger drink. My focus had lost the battle against the unending commotion of thoughts. I smiled and nodded and humbly laughed along while the train left the station.

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K was taking me back to my place, and I reminded him of the bottle of Blue Label in his cabinet. We stopped at my place for a minute and we were off. A couple hours of conversation to regain some time. I�d forgotten how alike we are in a lot of ways. Way back when, he was the �good lil asian kid� and I was the social extremist, bored to death, on the hunt for limit thrashing exuberance. He hated me for my charisma. I hated him for being a little bitch. But in close conversation we were very similar.

And again we find our similarities. This was our first bowl together, ever, after 4 years of after-school-special grade attempts at bringing him to the court of the viceroy. We shared another bowl and sampled his scotch collection with the entire apartment flickering from the projected images on the far wall. The entire purpose of this room is this �TV�. It�s amazing but in another way depressing. Makes me happy all I have is G�s old piece of shit TV.

We caught up a bit and I rambled on about his dealings with leaving his girl when he moves to London. I�d done my best to convince him to push his pride aside and help her do the same to actually enjoy their last 2 months� I�ve been giving so much bad advice lately that I�m becoming hesitant to say much. Sure, everyone says they appreciate my words, but people tend to spend massive caches of niceties in my company, which becomes hard to appreciate as sincerity.

I prepared the couch for my drooling coma and found that the insomnia continues. I�ve slept 6 hours since Thursday, 4 of which were in Vegas. Ok, another glass it is. The vices don�t quiet the commotion anymore. The weed, the drink, the smokes� tickle. The conversations� Well, review the first half of this post.

I�m reminded that I�ve lost my mentors again. I�d hunted them frantically and endlessly from such a young age, and eventually found them in those closest to me. Now those closest to me give me too much credit.

Only the boring get bored, so I must be a lullaby.

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On another note, I had a sweet little coincidence come about the other day. I got home from my exhausting trip and planned a well deserved nap before heading to the stylist. I looked for some background noise to lull me to sleep. Comedy Central� nope� Food Network� nope� News� naa� HBO� �Before the Sunset.� The description said bitch flick. Perfect. I�ll be out in no time.

I recalled some miscellaneous recommendation from some miscellaneous chick at some miscellaneous bar some miscellaneous night ago.

�You�ll be lost if you don�t watch Before the Sunset until you see After the Sunrise (aka part 1).� The statement had long been lost on my dissatisfaction with present company, but strangely popped up at this odd moment.

Fuck the first one, I�m just trying to sleep anyways.

I never got to sleep. The first 5 minutes confirmed my prejudgments and the next 70 or so had me enthralled (short movie). It was merely a reminiscent conversation between the stars of the first episode. The whole movie, one conversation during a short tour of Paris. Sure, there was plenty of conventional blather, but overall I was entertained enough to hum along.

Once the movie ended, I set my alarm and passed out for what was to be an hour nap. A half hour in, I got a call from C. About a half hour into that conversation she mentioned the movie. Her lazy day led her to fall upon it and she�d recited similar advice about the order in which such things should be watched.

I somehow entered her thoughts during that viewing (�somehow� being an obvious but unapparent gross understatement). Soon after, the conversation soured slightly. Not directly, but it seems she was embarrassed to admit the seed to the call. Moreso because I�d just finished watching it as well. I know she wanted me to tell her she came to mind as well, and I know she didn�t.

Admittedly she had. Admittedly she had company.

But whatever, it was a sweet coincidence and I�ll happily and comfortably leave it at that. The conversation predictably made its way to her 3-year boyfriend, my recent affairs and my pending trip to Chicago.

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Overall, I�m just frustrated. With everything and everyone. I had a solid 2 hour rant about it about a day ago. I apologize for my incoherencies. I can barely grasp a single strand in my entanglement.

�Women suck and men are worse. Beastiality is out of my league even though the conversation might be better.� (or something like that)