February 9, 2003: I am a social, emotional and spiritual retard that's unsure about who he is, what he wants to do and where he's going, but is gifted in every other way he can fathom.
Andy Warhol was quoted as saying, "I'm the type who'd be happy not going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was happening at the places I wasn't going to. I'm the type who'd like to sit home and watch every party that I'm invited to on a monitor in my bedroom." That's not exactly how I feel at the moment, but it's close.
I was invited to a party, by a friend of a friend. It was supposed to be a mythical party; flyers were being posted everywhere. The birthday being celebrated wouldn't be topped in a long while, beautiful girls everywhere. It was as if, my presence was needed, if only for atmosphere. I had gotten directions. I had left the house at around 9:30 pm. I had gotten lost not too long afterward. I had called and gotten clarifications, finding I was in the absolute wrong side of town. I called for more clarifications, finding I was still, in the opposite side of town. I stopped at 711 to ask the old, balding man, who couldn't shave every last whisker from his face, leaving a few to keep the tastes of things past eaten.
He told me of the street I needed Arapahoe. It was in the exact direction that I had come from. He insisted that I wait for him to draw a map. The line grew behind me of people buying cigarettes with credit cards. I decided to go the direct opposite direction that the man told me to go and ended up in Englewood, south of Denver, never finding the road I wanted. I turned around and tried again. No luck. I decided, "Arapahoe", on the back of the envelop I was l scribbled the directions, really meant, "Alameda" and I knew where that was, and proceeded to follow the directions from there.
Amazingly enough, the directions didn't work. More calling. Much talk. No clarification that I could make out. I tried again. And again.
The dashboard clock on my 86' Celica creeped into the next morning. No fucking Arapahoe, but I found the street I was supposed to turn off of, Glipson. I had written, "Gliton". Off of Glipson, was Glipson Circle. I was to turn right onto the street and into the arms of the party. The street turned into a park, with many, DO NOT ENTER signs. I cursed. I screamed. I was glad some radio station was playing the Pet Shop Boys and New Order, because that's the only thing that got me through for some odd, inane reason. I tracked back and decided that, "Right after first light", meant, "Left onto street, keep going until sign from higher spiritual energy comes to light".
That, didn't work. I was surprised. My radio turned onto the late night Death Metal Hour and I was pondering if this was a good station to have on, or should I put in my friends, Iggy and the Stooges tape, dubbed off a record player with a too slow/loose belt. "I swear," my friend will confess, "Some of my tapes sound better slowed down, my CRASS, sounds way better." I turned off my phone, since the battery was running on the fumes of whatever batteries run off of, about an hour ago. An hour I spent going up and down the same, snow and ice covered roads, going much much too fast, with only one headlight. The irony of that, is if I turned on my brights, the light that didn't work, works; and the light that did work, ceases to work. There's a new light right on top of the backseat of my car and I'm not sure which lamp to replace; it's a fuckin' allegory.
I turned on the phone and had three messages from my friend. He was calling, wondering where I was, thinking I was so close. I wasn't. I decided to just screw it and drive straight. I would stop whenever I wanted. It didn't matter. I got onto University and just went South. My friends messages gave me one more grip on finding this stupid thing. It was about 1 am. I past the street I lived on. I entered a different town, whose name I never heard of. I past gated communities, going 30 miles over the speed limit. I stopped at a light on
Arapahoe.
I turned right and found Broadway, then Glipson, then a bunch of kids hanging around a house. I must have driven 150 miles.
I parked my car and entered. I found Rudy and gave him a monster hug. I was stressed from the trip and really wasn't in the swing of the party. I saw Melissa. I had this idea that Melissa and I were something, you know, from the fact that we go out; and that we fuck and do cute things for each other, like make mix CDs. So I went to give her a kiss, but she veered back and I lunged forward and basically licked her neck to her shoulder. I didn't know what to do, so I looked for Jack. I found him and he was fucked up. I saw alex and alex's friends, just sitting on the couch. Some kids was mindlessly playing with a Macintosh. The back had all the potsmokers.
I felt really dizzy, as if I wasn't in the right place. I found the birthday girl and wished her a happy birthday and she acknowledged my presence for a second. I said hello to a few other people I had met the day before at a Noise Band show at Monkey Mania. They seem to act as if I was some fly, in the way. I was getting pissed. I saw Melissa again, and asked what was up (nothing), asked if she was happy to see me (yes) asked if she wanted me to kiss her (no). I didn't know why and was already too sick of the party. I went back to the kitchen, grabbed my coat and left.
I couldn't stand the party. I saw all these people around me. The seem to be having mindless fun. They were dressed all the same and all... in this style that was put done in stone somewhere. No one really had thought about it, but there they all were, acting and looking like they should. And there was I, dressed the same way, probably to do the same thing. It made me ill. I couldn't believe this is what its all about; this is what we do in our spare time. We gather together in a house, we drink and we laugh and that's it. It's pointless I thought and I wondered why I think so much, why I couldn't just be jolly and do the same, why I thought myself so highly and why I felt better than all the people around me. Why was this? Why didn't I feel like I fit in?
Every time you learn the truth about something, the magic of that thing disappears. If you were working on a movie set, you'd know right away how every scene you've witnessed takes place and it was just that, a scene, choreographed. The final edit does nothing to erase the knowledge of every seam stitched. That's how I felt tonight. I felt that this was all staged, that this way of living out as the Youth was just an act, that I knew the truth and wanted to scream, "STOP, EVERYONE STOP AND LOOK AT YOURSELVES!", but no one would listen, would they? No one would care.
The ghost of Plato's cave won't go away and why I am the one who has cast away his chains, but at the same time, feels inferior? Is that the catch on knowledge? That those who have it cannot easily take this knowledge and use it? What kind of sick joke is this? What kind of world is this?
Barely knowing where I was, doesn't help oneself in getting back to where one knows where one is. Basically, I got lost going home, as I had gotten coming to the destination.
Have you ever seen the movie, The Labyrinth? The lead character, Sarah, has to go through this huge maze to the Goblin Castle to save her baby brother, who she had first cursed and wished that the goblins would take him away. They did, but she of course, didn't mean what she said and had to go through said maze. The problem is, nothing is "fair" in the labyrinth and being a magical place, the labyrinth is itself alive, changing and rearranging itself at whim. A dead end will miraculously change into a shortcut to the end, and vice/versa.
Retardedly, I felt exactly like that. The difficulties on finding that damned party paled in the getting back.
Sometimes, I have hours, days and weeks where I feel as if half my brain has turned off. As if a part just doesn't receive enough oxygen and refuses to work. I swear, my vision just didn't work, I couldn't make out signs. I didn't know which way was which! I felt trapped and it seemed that the labyrinth of roads to my house constantly changed around me to foible my attempts of escape.
I turned onto a road that I swore was South. I found myself going down a road and passing Arapahoe, the street I thought I just got away from. I went onto another street, Holly, a street that was only 3 blocks away from my apartment. I thought, "If I just stay on this street, it'll take me to Evans, and Evans, I'll just take Monaco."
On this hunch. I raced on Holly. I saw a cop car to my right and he turned onto Holly as well, following closely. Of course, yes, he stopped me over, asked for my license (which I have), insurance (after a bit of searching, that as well) and registration (couldn't find it). He had stopped me because of my headlight being out, but let me go. I followed Holly for another few blocks, but it ended in a dead end.
I turned around and took University, now, not sure which way I was going. I couldn't see the Mountains, which are always to the West if you live on the front range, or the Qwest logo, that beams from the top of the Qwest Building, marking where downtown is. I past Arapahoe again. How could the street I couldn't find a hour ago, pop up everywhere? It was as if every road I took just turned either into a dead end, or a loop back to Arapahoe.
I pasted Arapahoe one more time, before I decided to turn onto it and West (I thought). I naturally, got stopped again by a police officer. I showed him the card the first one gave me and felt ill with deja vu.
I found Broadway and made it to Evans and then home. The party was maybe about 20 minutes away from my house. If I had known that, this night might have had turned out different. But, I feel awful. It's as if I never wanted to go to that party, I didn't want to interact with anyone tonight. Sometimes, you just feel that way, you know? But I made myself do just that, because people expected it, or rather, thought that action was natural; someone has a party, you go, because it's going to be "good". Why didn't I want to go? I feel sometimes that my brain fights with itself.
It's as if it wants to do one thing, but feels another and sometimes can't make up it's own mind on what the other 170lbs of itself should do. It's as if you had one of those toys, with appendages that seem to fly towards each other when you turn a crank, but skillfully it misses itself every time they move, except this time, the different parts do hit, gears grind and spark and the entire contraption falls into itself. It's like my inner thoughts are a piston in a motor that doesn't know if it should go, up or down, so tries to go to the side, thinking that both up and down are equally taken care of.
I wish sometimes I could make carbon copies of myself, give them to my friends to interact and play with. These copies don't have to speak or anything, they just have to be there. Then, the real me would be able to do what it wants and wouldn't feel as if it's missing out on doing what it really, truly wants to do. Maybe if that was the case, the real me would know what exactly what this thing it wants to truly do is and I would be able to fit comfortable into that place.
