Drifting Southward

Are you living in a hotel, or are you on a family vacation?

i don't recall when i bought clothes last time. i gots couple of sweatpants and oversized sweatshirts and hoodies. better recognize.

I was on a family vacation

sweatpants and oversized sweatshirts and hoodies are all i want to wear this time of year.

Thinking and reading are best done alone in quiet. I'm reading Baudrillard The System of Objects at the moment. I am like 15% of the way through and he is still talking about interior decorating. Not what I expected but I am along for the ride. Just took the dog for a walk. God damn it, how many times do I have to take this guy on poop walks? I actually enjoy it though. It's probably the best thinking I get in all day. It was quiet, dark. The crickets were loud. I was all alone except for the occasional passing car.

When all my siblings are at work and I am stuck at home it can get a little old. And, then, when we all come together and it is a little lackluster and all the care and attention is for the kids... It is to be expected. That about sums up the trip. And, now, I am back in this god forsaken town. Not a whole lot going on this Friday night or any night. Only thing scheduled at this point is a badly needed therapist appointment.

So, I am just sitting here listening to Four Tet. As my life passes me by. My dog poops he will die too. I clean my cat's poop. He will die too. Some say I have angels watching out for me. It almost seems like that could be true. I am just lucky or unlucky depending on how you look at it.

What do I want? What do I want? I am letting dreams dictate what I want. I have a re-occuring dream that I wake up in a stone cottage in Scotland some where. That feeling is what I want. I suppose it is literally a dream. It's a feeling or feelings that I want. That's not good. Chasing feelings all day. I am trying to catch a feeling as I type and listen and drink tea. And even if I catch a feeling it is not sustainable. I probably already wrote my best 1 or 2 or whatever blog posts. Even though that is kind of an absurd thing to think / write about. Perhaps I will never be more in love than I have been in the past. What if I never find a better novel than Infinite Jest?

The CIA is American culture. That is depressing as fuck. CIA / Fast food / supermalls. A certain class wants / NEEDS the Louie Vitton bag and Bernard Arnault laughs on his way to the bank. Killing me with his Hennessey one gulp at a time. All my food addicted ass wants is that Omakase from The Sushi Place downtown. You think I like eating rice and beans every god damn meal? Bagels with vegan cream cheese? Actually, they aren't bad but the OMAKASE at THE SUSHI PLACE DOWNTOWN! Come on man!

Besides the Omakase at The Sushi Place downtown I really do not know what I want at the moment. I've got a place to stay which is good. I have enough food. More than enough food. Water is plentiful. I have plenty of clothes. Where's the interest? It's almost better to just have no expectations and be a poor. I want vagina. I want conversation. I want human connection. Not in that order.

It's easier to do what you want than to know what you want. One could also be wrong in both cases.

Well, you can do what you want and find out that isn't what you wanted. Same with knowing what you want except you have to do it before you can know you wanted it or not.

I'm caught between a Stoic ideal and some sort of existentialist passion ideal. I want to feel alive or should I put a governor on aliveness if I could?

- There's no place I'd rather be
- There's no thing I'd rather be doing
- There's nobody I'd rather be with
- This I will remember well

(Albert Borgmann)

There's no doubt that I am alone and more accurately isolated. I am going to a football game party tonight that I have no interest in because I want free food and I could perhaps observe something interesting. It would be nice to have other options. The problem is for most of the day I prefer to be alone and quiet.

I just had some food and thought I might choke and die. It is God prodding my dying body. I'd rather be alone and quiet. I have not yet read Brothers Karamazov. I haven't finished the Pale King or Ada or Ardor. Baudrillard. Heidegger. In Search of Lost Time. Read it all slowly.

I don't know what I was expecting but I have been eating more vegan meals lately. It's cheaper, it's healthier, I'm broke, I'm fat. I went off tonight though brothers. Burger, fries, chicken wings. I rationalized that it was ok because it was free. Then I had to sit in uncomfortable chairs craning my neck around to try and find a screen I could make out what was happening. Then, thankfully, I got some fresh air and got a coffee at Starbucks. I go back into vegan mode like nothing just happened and get oatmilk with it. Thanksgiving Blend. Truly wonderful coffee. I hate Starbucks but they make good coffee. Walk back. I'm right by the airport and these jets are flying right over me. Kind of surreal. Almost scary. I can't hear the 1 it's in the low clouds. I feel a bit of a panic. They were right fucking there man. Go back to this god forsaken football game party craning neck and all. Luckily, I persuade my way into leaving at half time. Happy to be here. My belly still full. But, shit, my Kindle is out of batteries. Fucking shit man! So, I go to LP and here we are brothers! Here we are brothers!

I've been really thinking about this Stoic ideal vs. existentialist passion ideal. I like this idea of Sartre that we are radically free. I always have liked that idea although I think it's a farce so that sucks. What do I want? I shouldn't want anything the stoics would say. But, where is the aliveness with the stoics? I don't know. Aliveness is a trap like anything else. I don't think it's all a drudgery as a Camus would talk about. There is aliveness. I dressed as Britney Spears with friends on Halloween and we were all Britneys and I got a taste of what it would feel like to be famous. We were one of a few people that dressed up where we were and you wouldn't imagine the attention we were getting. I couldn't even count how many people wanted pictures. Then, my friends got too drunk and it was not very fun for me but that's how the cookie crumbles like everytime in that situation.

Sometimes just sitting quietly listening to jazz eating a bagel and vegan cream cheese is living for me. Sometimes it is writing these blogs although I truly wish I was reading at the time or having an orgy. What are you doing after the orgy? (Baudrillard)

I mean what are you doing after the orgy?

???

Smoke a cigarrette. Get some sleep. Do it all over tomorrow?

You know that orgy I had 2 weeks ago was probably the best orgy but tonight's orgy was not bad. I suppose I'll take a shower, brush my teeth, and get some sleep.

Damn homme, she's the type of girl I brush my teeth, take showers, and do laundry for.

Wait, you mean it's possible that we can have an orgy after the orgy!?

Fall of American Empire is wild man. What happens when the orgies stop? What are you doing after eating rice and beans for the 6th straight time this week?

I think Starbucks broke the bank tonight.

What the fuck am I going to do now?

Don't worry brothers. I will be alright until I am not.

I've got good music and good Stimmung / ATMOSPHERE tonight. My surroundings are impeccably interior decorated. I am wearing a zip up hoodie that I love. It's Carhart but I took the branding tag off of the item. I am wearing like a probably 5+ year old Bread and Boxers t-shirt. They are a Swedish company and don't even sell anymore in the USA. I would need to find a new supplier but I don't have money for that so just wear the same clothes over and over hopefully with a wash in there at some point. Jeans are Levis. I've just always loved those things. So, I'm pretty basic consumer whore.

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That's just a segway into the next writing. Don't read too much into it.

...

“It's better to get lost in the passion than to lose the passion.” (Kierkegaard)

CLASSIC existenialist passionist

"Most powerful is he who has himself in his power." (Seneca)

CLASSIC stoicism

Do these quotes contradict each other?

The key to my mornings are a bagel with vegan cream cheese and a coffee with oatmilk and some jazz. I have yet to find a vegan cream cheese that has the desired spreadability + taste but that is ok. I have been using the Philadelphia vegan option and it's good enough. What I do after that can be a mystery. Today, I have decided to write words, language, thoughts into the void. I must be careful or the void will stare back. Davie Foster Wallace has this idea of being un-borable. I think that is impossible without meditation and/or contemplation. Well, I better go floss, brush my teeth, use some mouth wash, take a shower, and put on some clean clothes. I might be a bit depressed as that seems like a daunting series of events.

The good thing is I don't have to pick existentialist passionist or stoicism. I can pick and choose what I like even if some of it contradicts each other.

I watched Blue Velvet tonight by David Lynch. What a brilliant film. So, fucking a lot of things. Some of them being brilliant and disturbing and a movie only Lynch could make. David Foster Wallace in an interview talks about how he thought he was writing all this brilliant avant garde stuff in graduate school and the profs were like I don't think so buddy and DFW thought all the profs were shit then he watched Blue Velvet by David Lynch and he got it. An artist being entirely himself. Then, DFW wrote Infinite Jest and cemented himself as one of the GOATs an a work of art being entirely DFW. I don't really have any works of art looming on the horizon but it's a good feeling that I can be entirely myself in everyday. The clothes that I have bought and brands get in the way a bit imo but I can still do my best to be entirely myself even if that means writing a blog post on LP and staying inside and reading books. I have just been enjoying language and thoughts from writers vs. so called friends. I know it will probably come back and bit me sometime. I may or may not be already depressed. Only human connection and the Other can bring me out of that.