Tagged: life

Monotony – A Story, Part 4

We bought ninja stars and throwing knives online and hurled them like major league pitchers at anything that we could puncture. Nothing was safe from our alcohol infused ninja wrath, as boxes, bags, and everything in between fell victim to our onslaught. We fancied as ourselves blue collar sportsmen as well, and developed our own Olympic caliber games, such as the legendary sports of Warehouse Tennis, Wall Ball, and the venerated Quarterback Challenge. We shoved hunks of raw meat and random bits of leftover lunch under a broken crevice in the concrete floor one entire summer just to see how many maggots and critters that we could attract to it. Needless to say, we succeeded in attracting a city’s worth of bugs to that hole like animals to the Ark. You name it, we did it; nothing was off limits, no dare was too great, no joke was unworthy. Great cardboard tubes that once held monstrous fabric rolls became fabled swords and wicked spears, and hole-riddled boxes stood as a testament to the epic battles and wars that we waged against each other to pass the hours. I was an Obi Wan with a cardboard tube. And the time did fly, let me tell you. It passed in a drunken haze; we spent untold fortunes of cash nearly every day on bottles of booze, bottles that we’d skillfully guzzle throughout the day by the cupful, right before the eyes of management and the front office. We toted our red Solo cups around with pride in fact, and downed our spirits in front of all who dared enter our sanctuary. We practically dared them to approach us about it. And we only got busted once. Our livers suffered greatly while playing the role of a Brita filter that summer, yet we became remarkably adept at getting the job done while being loaded to the gills on whiskey, rum, and whatever other distilled goodness we could muster. The very definition of functioning alcoholics. We were a well-oiled machine, though our gears were greased with Jack and Coke.

Monotony – A Story – Part 2

Do you feel the monotony? Can you hear the annoying scrape of my feet dragging themselves to the bathroom? The stabbing numbness of my slowly adjusting eyes as I try in vain to shield them from the blinding solar glare of the bathroom light? Or how about the pungently aromatic stale air produced by 8 hours of backed up bowels? I stood at the toilet, graciously releasing at least four hours-worth of slightly yellow urine, and let out a long bear growl of relief. One of the few breaths of relief that I get to look forward to over the coming day. Feel that monotony as I clamber into the shower, only to realize that I forgot to buy soap and toothpaste? Ever wash a tired body with dish soap? Feel the monotony.

The sky that day was a deep overcast grey, with thick, overfed clouds spewing their liquid lunch all over the city, making for a slow and sloppy morning commute. I arrived at my gig thirty minutes late (not giving half a shit), and slowly crept into a parking space. It was a lonely, bleak, deserted lot, strewn with unattractively enterprising weeds tangoing out of deep cracks that resembled California fault lines, and year old garbage bleached bone white by a harsh sun. I carelessly swerved into a parking space, which I created myself due to the fading of the yellow dividing lines. It’s a sight you would have expected to see in the former Soviet Union, not twenty first century USA; an aged, crudely built exterior, its walls cleverly stained brown by the rust that rained down from the aluminum roof. It reminded me of coffee stained dentures, or a distasteful hotel room watercolor.

3-30-15

Meet me where the blue sky ends,
where the tree line tumbles into the arms
of tomorrow-
meet me where the citrus sun kisses the
earth on its slow retreat,
the blue place where the moon yawns and
rises each night from its slumber-
meet me at the point of imagination,
the spot where wonder blends with
awe,
where there is no beginning,
no end…
meet me at the point where all things
are possible,
those beautiful coordinates that
tie all paths together-
lose yourself with me on those roads-
meet me where the sky ends…
walk beside me on that trail,
and let us tumble together into the
arms of tomorrow*

Monotony – A Story – Part 1

It was a cold, black morning. The weatherman had predicted warm and sunny days all week, but in typical weatherman fashion, he was highly mistaken. Don’t they get paid to make educated guesses? Why can’t I get paid to assume? My eyes opened to a not-so-welcoming blast of crunchy, static laden 80’s rock on the dusty alarm clock; loud music to begin with, but even louder since I’d decided to crank the damn volume up to the max the night before in an attempt to jolt my tired ass up. It was a piercing, deafening roar that uncomfortably jarred me from an uncharacteristically pleasing deep sleep, a sleep chock full of unrealistic oddities and meaningless mystical journeys, coupled with beautiful damsels and angry zombies. I was running from them all for some strange reason.

It was hard to pry my eyes open that morning; it felt as though they’d been buffed to a high sheen with extra grain sand paper. Someone must have felt that my tongue needed a good sanding too, because it was as dry as the bottom of a homeless man’s feet, and tasted the part full on. Maybe it was the spirit of last night’s frozen .99 cent meatloaf special come back to haunt me. I roared a massive sigh, and shifted a bit to get comfortable; I lay sprawled out wide on my back, the dim blue light of the alarm clock illuminating my tiny, disheveled room. My eyes lazily floated about in the shadowy light, and I felt disgusted; not at the wretched taste that was eating my mouth, but the fact that my microscopic room, and world for that matter, amounted to the value of a dilapidated shit house.