off

“Hi,” mom says.

“Hi. Was it nice?” Her walk with the dog.

“Yeah, it is nice.”

“Good.”

I just discovered a room in my house. It is a room that is mainly topes and brown. It is a room that has 2 lamps. It is where I am now, and where I will be for... many moments.

“Oh,” dad opens the door. “You’re in here now.”
“Mhm.”
“Movin’ around, are you?”
“Yes.”

“Darc, how you doin’?”

“Hi.” Mom.

“Hi!” smiles. Kiss.

I came here to read but find myself in a ditch. I have my tea and whatever, my plans have been postponed, I’m somewhat alone, but just no. I cannot read. I’m at a part of my book where there would be a Part II, but there isn’t, it’s only implied. Astrid, the narrator, is in the hospital and she’s fading in and out of consciousness, or sleeping, or both. She goes on to describe starfish and a certain kind of flower and sharp bristles and jagged, veiny, blue hands. I feel like I shouldn’t have stopped reading at this chapter, and instead continued on with these hallucinations and insane membranes. Astrid describes her sleeps and how she likes to think about the time in Mexico with her mother. While I’m trying to read these paragraphs, I hear foreigners conversing outside of this window. They’re speaking a language that is likely imported from Mexico, putting in little half-sentences of English. They aren’t cheating though, it’s probably subconscious, and a habit. A good one though, or a bad one? I won’t know.

The mosquitoes are bad tonight so I’m in here, not out in the dark. The phone rings and it’s Julie. She is my sister’s aunt who lives in England and is in Canada for a few weeks, give or take, presumably. I answer.

“Hello?”
“Brad?”
“No it’s Andrew.”
“Oh hi Andrew, it’s Julie!” Not quite an exclamation, but not quite a period.

“Hi how are you!” Same rules apply.

“I’m good thanks how are you?”
“Good thank you.”
“Is your dad around?”
“Yes just a second!” More so an exclamation, with the high voice, than a period, or a comma.

I would have liked to chat with her, although now, I have no idea what about. I’ve been internally craving to ask adults to coffee just to pick their brains for an hour. I figure it would be inappropriate, but then again, it wouldn’t be, so why am I resisting? My friend’s parents and my old teachers mainly. I want, so badly, to put myself out of my element. I’m becoming so comfortable it’s disgusting. I have to sleep in this room tonight because I’ve been spending most of my alone time in my room and I dislike it, strongly. It was nice during the school year because I was only in there for 5 or 6 hours maximum at a time. These past couple days, I’ve been leaving my MSN on, my phone on, things on, and I’ve been checking back every so often just to see if I have a dumb alert or message. I realized in the bathroom, oddly, that I can most definitely put an end to this. Why am I glued to this type of communication, even if it makes me angry and bored and sluggish? Cool, I have been invited to another club event in Toronto, cool, I’m invited to an angry show at the Casbah, again. If I know these alerts are soon coming, why am I making the effort to go back and check? If my friends want to contact me, they can call my house. Why am I attached to this form of an answering machine, even if it’s always messages like “fart” or “kjsdkjfk?” Even if I’m being asked what I’m doing tonight, I’m doing this, and you are doing that, and I’ll see you eventually. In conclusion, my room is becoming disgusting. I do my laundry there, I clean there, I nap there sometimes, I look around, I’m becoming bored, and/or boring. I know that “you choose to be bored,” yes. Yes I know this now, and I’m choosing to rid the shit in my life that’s making me bored, so:

Tonight you will wait for your brother’s friend from football to come over for a sleepover as you sweat on this bed with your computer between your legs, wondering if turning off the wireless network connection will prevent any kind of cancer. You’ll wait for this friend to arrive, questioning whether or not the two of them will sneak out at night to go somewhere and smoke something. Every time the fan upstairs completes a cycle and makes that sound, you’ll think someone is on the upstairs computer clicking the mouse. You’ll try to read again. You may go biking. You’ll turn your phone off, your home phone’s ringer off, your things off. You will turn yourself off and off you go. You will try to love yourself and will plan to make food for a picnic tomorrow, if this is still happening. You will have conversations and will question if you went deep enough. You will wonder what tonight would be like if you were there. You will feel left out and will feel sad for yourself at the same time. You will feel like an intrusion and will question your sanity and will have no one to reassure you that we’re all insane and all kooky. You’ll people watch later and later into the evening as the number of people out decreases because of a collectively normal sleeping pattern we’ve grown accustomed to, myself included. Waking up at 9 disgusts me. I would rather be up at 5 in the morning every single day, not feeling like it’s forced, but feeling in tune with this decision to rise. I don’t want to miss an excruciatingly beautiful part of the day every day. I don’t want to miss being up with no one else. Is it wrong that I wish I could be the only human existing for a day or so?

It’s not raining out, but fuck, I’m pouring. I believe that writing is the attempt to form sunsets into sentences. I have a problem though. This problem is comparison, and if there’s one single thing in life that I do hate (sorry), it’s my tendency to compare myself to others. I’ve never really told anyone about this though. The most common comparison is my writing to other’s. Next to most people’s, I despise mine. I think mine isn’t concrete enough. I sometimes write things that I think don’t make logical sense or have any meaning, and I don’t fix it, and I move on, and it worries me. Other times I think my writing is too mouthy, and most importantly, insignificant. When the teachers say oh wow, I think, you’re lying or but why the fuck?

“What are you doing?”
“What?”
“Sitting in the dark on your computer?”
“Yes.”

Mumble.
“What?” I would like a reply as to why he thinks this is so obscure and weird.
“Nothing.”
Mumble. Walk out.

As odd as it sounds, I compare my reading to others too. Speed, tone, pronunciation, effectiveness, and most importantly, what we both get out of a certain piece of writing. Other people’s minds, honestly, scare me. If I knew exactly what someone thought on something, it would make me nervous and sad. When people have such strong opinions and understanding on a work of literature, and I do not, I question my ability and my purpose. I feel second best and insignificant. Foggy, tired. When one puts down a book, they put it down, and their minds wander. They think up theories and ideas and essays and are inspired by this novel. I’m not calling myself a deadbeat, but if I read a book on my own time, outside of school, I find it difficult to get numerous, extremely meaningful things out of a piece. What am I saying though? I’ve only read one book this summer, and specifically from one part of the novel, a letter from Henry to Clare, I melted. I can relate to the letter. I can enjoy it. I love it.

I need to learn to receive, to accept, to love, to talk, to slow down, to connect, to realize, to understand.