I was better when I was with you, even if I wasn’t good enough.

(5/365)

Sharp exposure and wonky angle thanks to the Gorillapod I got for Christmas.

This photo was taken the first day (or night) that I returned to college. Winter intersession at Mt. SAC. And though I’m sure I had a lot to say when I first shot it, that moment has now receded into the past.

What I can say now is that I’ve felt very different since I went back to school. I’m optimistic, and–this hard to explain and will sound vague–I have a rekindled interest in things I haven’t thought about in years. These updates, taking photos, fixing the site, these are all small examples.

Partly it is perhaps the mental stimulation, the reactivation of brain centers that have lain dormant too long. I think it is also, though, the sense of actively building towards a future again. As opposed to the terrified scramble back to normality that was last year.

I got As in both my classes, Logic and Microeconomics. That’s two down, 15 or so to go. And then transfer. It’s a plan, and I feel good about it.

On the eve of my return to school, I am, of course, confronted with my oldest problem: the inability to sleep.

This mere wakefulness shouldn’t come as a surprise. After two years away from college, going back was bound to cause all kinds of thoughts and questions and anxieties. Excitement, too. More proximately, I’ve spent most of this weekend asleep, incapacitated by a cold I couldn’t successfully ignore out of existence.

So here I am awake. I only bring this up because this insomnia worries me in and of itself. It fills me with dread, the idea that this time will be like all the other times, that I’m broken permanently in my ability to succeed. But this is a late night worry. A demon that attacks in the small hours.

The hero Gilgamesh was only ever defeated by one foe: sleep. The gods of Ur challenged him to remain awake for two weeks, and of course he failed. But his failure will be an inspiration to me: because if Gilgamesh could make a passable try at two weeks of wakefulness, surely I can deal with one sleepless night.

I lost her behind a wall of mirrors.

I don’t cry because of sad things. I cry because of happy ones. Movies, songs, dreams, people. Couples find their hearts together at 24 frames per second. Rhythm, melody, beat, verse chorus verse of shared joy. Nighttime fantasies of holding hands, kissing smiling lips under warm blue skies. Women in the full bloom of pregnancy, and brightly spirited toddlers tumbling over brightly colored playgrounds.

Taunting visions of happiness lost or never achieved. Hopes drowned in a cascade of tears. I don’t cry because of sad things. I cry because of happy ones. Yesterday it was raining, and I was fine, but today the sun is shining, and here I am writing this.

It might sound silly
For me to think childish thoughts like these
But I’m so tired of acting tough
And I’m gonna do what I please

My heart was shattered when I was young, by the most beautiful girl in the world. She took a piece away, and never returned it. When I put what I had back together, my heart was smaller than before, but my dreams were the same full size. Every day since then my heart has burst, over and over and over, trying to hold those dreams in. I’ve gone out with other girls, hoping they might have the glue that would keep my heart together, but it’s never held.

I don’t think she knows she has this piece. I don’t know if she even would have thought it worth keeping. I would do anything, I would be anything, for her. But I doubt I’ll ever get the chance.

The truth is: I don’t want her to give my piece of heart back.

The truth is: I want to give her all the pieces she left behind.

The silence here these last several months has been like that of two lovers when a great secret has passed between them. Neither has the courage to speak of it, but small chatter seems idle and vain. So a curtain of silence descends, not to be lifted until one overcomes his shame and confesses his guilt.

Of course, this site has never shied away from the confessional. But then, there is no romance in this confession, no beauty or longing or poetry. Just small, grinding stupidity.

Last September, just after my birthday, I made the second stupidest decision of my life: to drink and drive. I was caught, as I should have been, and thankfully in the best circumstances possible: no one was hurt, or put in danger. I pulled off the freeway safely, and cooperated with the police. I took their test, and failed. I spent a day at Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles.

There is no way to objectively know your blood alcohol level. And though you may guess at it, alcohol itself clouds your judgment. The only prudent decision, when you have drunk, is not to drive at all. Unfortunately that was a prudence I did not have the night I was arrested. I thanked God then, and I thank him now, that I had no accident. Providence, maybe, consists not in preventing us from making mistakes, but in averting as much harm from them as is possible.

I am sorry. To my friends, and family, who I have become a burden to. To my sister, who was in the car with me. To God, whom I sinned against with my lack of temperance. To the public, who I put in danger. I am sorry.

Since that night, my life has been much changed. I lost my license, of course, and along with it a great measure of my independence and control over my own life. My apartment, though a twenty five minute commute from work by car, was two hours away by bus. An untenable proposition. So I’m writing this from my parents house. I can bike to work, from here, and I do. When I am not overcome by an overwhelming sense of futility.

Biking, and ignoring despair, are both things that have gotten easier with practice.

Still, a larger portion of my life now is spent waiting than ever before. Waiting for the bus. Waiting for rides. Waiting for the courts. Waiting for and through meetings, and classes, and consultations. Waiting for the ramifications of my decision to finally resolve.

But one thing I should not wait any longer for: to write more here on Angst Dei.

See November 19, 2002

Last night, there was a crazy accident on Wilshire. I heard it through the window of the office. Screeching, then big crashes of metal, thumping, I could hear what sounded like a vehicleflipping, like a big metal ball, bam and bam.

It was about 11:15; you knocked out cold right after Rescue Me.

Anyway, I grabbed my cell phone and ran out. I tried to tell you I was going out the door, but you didn’t respond. Like I said, you were totally out like a rock.

So I ran down Mariposa and up Wilshire. It was across the street from the Gaylord.

People had already called 911, so I didn’t need my phone after all.

This guy, driving a pickup, clipped one of the parked cars on Wilshire. It slammed the car into a parking meter and twisted it around. The truck flipped, at least twice, and landed upside down. I guess the guy just crawled out. He didn’t have a scratch on him.

This is right where they have that median called the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Parkway. The fire department came and blocked off the street. I hung around a while, to see if the owner of the parked car would show up. It was totalled. So was the truck, of course. But no one showed up. I wonder what they thought, when they came out of the club or cafe or whatever and saw their car.

I came back after a while. Played a little more WOW. I started seeing lightning flashes out the window, but there was no thunder. It happened over and over. I stopped and stared, and saw the bolts flashing. But never a sound. It was a weird night.

When your ticket to the Greek Theatre says the show starts at 7:00pm, they aren’t lying like all those jackleg indoor venues. The Greek Theatre isn’t trying to fake you out, draw you in so they can increase their bar sales. The Greek Theatre doesn’t survive apocalyptic forest fires so that you can stand around drinking overpriced imported beers and admiring each others’ hundred dollar haircuts. The Greek Theatre is here to host music.

So you walk in on Electrelane’s last song, which makes you more despondent, you feel even more alone, and use your last few dollars to purchase a Large Domestic Beer. You find your seat, between two groups of strangers. A few moments later, the lights darken. You stand up, and decide to down your beer Right Now.

Arcade Fire is exactly the kind of beautiful music that crushes your soul. The pipe organ builds and builds, and your tears build along with it, until you can’t tell the taste of salt from the sound of the guitars, and the wetness on your cheeks feels like a trumpet, and your emotions crash out in a wave, just like the music on stage. The band comes back for encore, and they play that song, and your tears flood the amphitheater. They drown the audience and sweep everyone down the hill into the city and deposit them on their beds. And you’re caught in the deluge, too, straight down Vermont, a little turn on Wilshire, and before you know it, you’re there, next to the Ambassador Hotel, on your own futon, curled up, wet, collapsed. The tears pull back into your body, the flood recedes, the city dries, and the next morning everything looks shiny and washed and new again. It’s beautiful and clear in Los Angeles, again.

Next time you won’t be late for the show.

Saw Albert Hammond Jr. last night at the House of Blues on Sunset. I saw him back in March at the El Rey. The show was great, again. He and the band seemed more confident than last time. The crowd cheered and cheered; Albert joked he might move back, we were so nice. He yelled “Dodgers 88!” and “Orel Hershiser!” to the befuddlement of his NYC bandmates. Albert grew up in West LA. This is back in prehistoric times, long before the Strokes.

After the show, driving a meandering route home, I ran into a blocked intersection. 6th and La Brea. A hydrant had burst somehow, and fire crews were there trying to restrain the artificial geyser.

A heart bursts, exploding in a torrent 50 feet high over the city streets, amazing and beautiful, illuminated in revolving lights, white, powerful, but also ephemeral. Quickly gone, remembered only in the grainy snapshots of passerby and a moldering activity log buried in some firehouse basement.