Potential

My brother recently wrote:

"So I barely update anymore....what a shame. No one reads my site anymore anyway :( All I really do anymore is get drunk, work, and sleep. I eat a little bit in between there.....but mostly I just drink. I go out on the weekends and get hammered and after work during the week I generally stay at home and watch movies. Alone. Pretty much 1 night stands on the weekends and alone during the week. It's all good I guess."

People say that opposites attract, and while that is true, he is very much my brother for our similitude.

The staunch advocate of writing this past decade, I barely do so anymore myself. A shame? Anything anyone would read? Anything they'd want to? More than likely a no on all accounts. The attempts I've made the past several months have been large heaps of crap that just sit and fester because I have nothing real to talk about.

I wake up at precisely noonish, but usually later. I proceed to do nothing. All day. I don't clean the apartment anymore. I don't take out the trash or do dishes or sweep. I just keep my eyes shut for a long time after I wake up and hope that it's not really happening again.

When finally I get out of bed (out of futon?) I tell myself that I'm going to do something different today. After I realize that I can't afford to do something different because I've been out of work since August, I just get on the computer and proceed to not write or keep in touch with anyone I care about who might have cared even a little about me. I've blown off my entire life in favour of vapors and shadows of a true existance.

At about four in the morning I'll get too sick of it and go back to sleep to repeat the same thing over again. Sometimes I watch movies. Alone.

Still I rarely eat. I don't know what's sustained me this long, honestly. I woke up one day, not hungry, wandered into the kitchen and picked up a bag of bread. I realized I hadn't eaten for three days and ate out of obligation. It's just something I do because I have to now. All of the major bodily going-ons are done out of sheer obligation now. And I do mean all of them.

Meanwhile for new years, rather than sit at home alone like I'd planned, I got invited to go up to Dunkel's. Having regretted never pursuing anything commital with Brooke (or maybe just wanting a conversation about something not involving digital anything) I gave her a holler before taking Dunkel up. She thought I was joking and shot it down pretty fast, so that was the end of that venture and the beginning of nine days of being persistently intoxicated with "Drunkel."

So what'd we do? Got hammered. Caught up with some people. Got sloshed. Played some stupid computer games. Got wasted. Shot the shit. Got piss-faced. Passed out. That's about the entire process of that nine days, however it got me out of town, some human interaction, and made me uncontactable by friends and family alike for a good week. I can't say it wasn't refreshing.

The military thing ended up being a definite no-go. I got shut out for telling the truth on something I knew better than to tell the truth on that they couldn't have ever known otherwise if I'd just been a dishonest asshole like everyone else. At least I know better for if or when the police academy/employers ever ask the same questions. I want to serve people, damn it, so screw all the people who say I can't because of something that has zero effect on my capability or judgement.

My phone has stopped ringing. I didn't realize it until a couple days ago. Normally my mombot will call me even though she knows I won't answer. No one else really calls anymore. I'm told that most of my friends think I already made it to Canada and, well, I really didn't like any of them enough to tell them otherwise.

The day after I realized my phone doesn't ring anymore, I get a call. I answer. It's my momdroid. I'm standing here wishing she'd just cut out all the bullshit small talk and get to what it is she wants, and a long while later she finally cuts to the chase -- she needs a chauffer to drive her to the hospital and sit around all day waiting while she gets whatever done, then driver her all the hell around St. Louis all day and back home after.

I knew it wasn't going to be a, "Hey happy birthday don't drink too much, haha" call but there's always that off chance and you hope for it as much as possible. I can't complain too much because it'll get me out of town and doing something productive for someone, even if it's not at all for me. It's pretty evil of me, but my family is just kind of there. They call me when they want something, I don't ever call them. My mom tries to throw in an "I love you" every great once in a while, but when I hear it I just want to slap her, tell her no you don't, and to just stop saying it because it's only a reminder of something everyone I meet has that I never will.

Ideally in my life I have event, event, event. I like to be paced and in transition. I can't stand idling around, being at a dead end in jobs or relationships or anything. The lack of progression always eats away at me. It's now been over a year since I was out of school, five months since I've had a job, and years since I was in anything serious with a girl. Sorry, but getting a hand job on someone else's bed from her roommate while she's gone isn't exactly what I had in mind for the rest of my life.

Success would be a key word. I need success, I need signs of success. Presently there is none and there are none. When the biggest thing you do is step outside for a smoke or walk to the mailbox, it's pretty pathetic. It's pretty goddamned depressing and that's why I haven't had anything to write about.

I've always been able to trump myself out as someone who's not really got much to lose or fear. I'm realizing more and more that sometimes what you have to lose isn't even yours yet, and what you have to be afraid of can be something that doesn't even exist and may never. The "may never" is the scary part.

That's what it took me so long to realize. Way back when a shrink asked me what I wanted out of life and I responded, "To be a good father," I was wrong. What I really want is to be a good human. I want to have an honorable job, a wife who doesn't have to wonder if I love her, and kids who can always feel safe and know they have a home. I want to be pure again. These are all things I can't lose because they aren't even mine...all things that, more than likely, never will be.

Right now I'm contributing nothing to society. I'm not in the process of contributing anything to society. And I'm not even really a good looking guy. I have nothing to offer the economic or romantic world whatsoever.

Essentially, I am presently useless. My only use lies in my potential to be useful. That potential is fading with greater rapidity every day.

Generally, I'm 'sad and alone' and just want to die before I become sad, alone and an alcoholic.

I've always been a firm advocate of equivalent trade. More often than not, though, life will choose to use loaded dice rather than scales and balances.

Around my birthday something terrible always happens. At sixteen I had my wisdom teeth out. At seventeen I got in an auto accident on the way to see my girlfriend (who dumped me shortly afterward). At eighteen I was hospitalized. Between nineteen and twenty my mother was injured and I lost a lot of people close to me. For twenty-one my sister is due and I can only immagine what misery belies that child if it's born this week.

Judaic law warns against superstition, however it doesn't warn against heeding trends. Personally, I just want to get drunk and pass out and not wake up for about 50 years. That'd be the best birthday ever.

I have to be on the road in about five hours. If I were smart I'd have looked up Anna or Reggie before I leave, but I'm not really that bright these days.

If change could be found in a place, I'd gladly make a detour.