Cell Phone

Why did I get a cell phone? It was a conscious decision of mine 5 years ago. I dont know why though. One day I rode my bike to the t mobile store and gave them a bunch of money. Maybe I just wanted friends. In the long run, I don't think it helped.

Allegory of the Cave

Between the third and final escalator on the way to work, I used to find my shadow. I would imagine that he was someone else. Someone else strapped into this job - not me. I was above him, observing. In many ways, my life has improved since those days. I might have some kind of direction, a little bit of purpose. In other ways I am much more like the shadow then I was before, completely disconnected.

I was sitting in a subway car in New York City. This wasn't real new york, because the the subway car was sparkling white with blue trim; the clean was pristine. I was sitting on the blue seat and I was looking through the plexiglass when something next to me caught my eye. It was a worn, orange backpack, the contents of which were spilling out onto the bench. On the top of the pile was something that looked like an ID card. I examined this more closely. It was some kind of libertarian driver's license that proclaimed that the holder was fit to drive and didn't need the help of the government to prove it. The name and the face on the card matched my friend, Graham. I resolved to take the backpack and its contents in order to return them to my friend. I would have to be sneaky because I was worried that I would look like I was stealing the backpack. I placed the orange backpack inside my navy one and ran off the train.

I flew out of the station. Ran down winding corridors of stone. I was unsure if I was being perused or not. In the interest of caution I acted as though I was. I finally came to an opening to the outside. There were no doors, just an opening in the stone to rain and mist. I appeared to be on the side of a building, though I could only see about one story above and below. The rain seemed to fall from an upper cloud and pass my face on its way to the lower. I thought that it would be cool if the rain didn't hit the ground but somehow re-mingled with the aerosolised water that made up the cloud above the street. I imagined that the people below were walking through a mist; I hoped this was true. I was being rained on but I didn't seem to care. I moved down the ledge on the outside of the building a bit, took a seat and removed Graham's backpack from my own.

"What are you doing?" The girl was smiling as she ate a sandwich under her umbrella. She seemed like a pleasant sort of person, the kind that wasn't terribly concerned that they were on a ledge on the outside of a building in the rain. She was wearing red sneakers. I told her that I had happened upon my estranged friend's pack and I was going to search inside to see if there was anything with his address on it in order to return it to him. She offered to take the bag to Graham, as he was her neighbor and it would be no trouble at all. I let her, because I trusted her, also I was having a lucid dream and I wast tired of dealing with the backpack.

The city of New York was a caricature of pictures I have seen, overly simplified and sterile. Once the girl had finished her sandwich and left with Graham's pack, the upper clouds began to lift and I could see higher up my building and some of the surrounding ones. They were all grey stone, with widely spaced windows. I knew I didn't live in new york, nothing was right here, there wasn't any odd detail poking out of the fog. It was a shell of an idea. Were I actually lived was another mystery. I tunneled in an out of this idea as I shifted in and out of sleep. Even a few minutes after I was finally awake all I was sure of was that I wasn't in new york.

Yesterday I Realized

I was at a job interview and was being told that the job had full medical, dental, etc. I considered that this was a legit, grownup job and was immediately disconnected from the idea of actually having it. I don't know what I would do if I were to be offered the job. I think I like being a bit of a underemployed, financially challenged, failure. Anything is possible when the only way to go is up.

Driving

The other day I was driving the drive between Saint Paul and Wisconsin. It was night and I was wondering why I wasn't terrified out of my mind. Then I remembered.

I used to be insanely scared of driving. The idea of steering a ton of steel at tremendous speed was not an appealing one. Not only do you have to worry about your own actions, but the actions of others (also piloting their own hunks of metal) and random chance can trigger catastrophe moments notice. The forces generated by moving objects at that speed are enough to turn what used to be a person into many distinct, widely separated fragments. While I was learning to drive, I would emerge from each driving session with my shirt soaked through with nervous sweat.

The only way I managed to accept driving as any kind of a routine activity, was to confront my own mortality. I had to get in the car and think to myself, "I may die, but I guess that's okay." To be honest, I don't think I dealt with it in a particularly healthy way. I harnessed the power of slight depression and borderline recklessness. I was only able to cope with driving because at some level I was okay with dying. This is not how I imagine most people are able to drive. I imagine that most people are able to drive because they don't really think about the consequences of driving that much, or that they rationalize away the risk because they perceive it as small. The way that I imagine most people cope with driving seems healthier.

I remembered that I wasn't terrified out of my mind because, as I rounded the S curves, it was kind of okay if I died. Here I am, an ant in the colossal scheme of things and I find it hilarious. We build massive cities and vast networks of roads. It is fucking amazing, the amount of control we have exerted over our environment. Even if the kid in the next lane decides to bend over to pick up his cellphone and careens into me and I fly out my front window and end up in seventeen different pieces and none of those pieces are very good to look at. Even then, what a ride.

Want

I want to lay face down on the grass.
I want to stop having miniature panic attacks.
I want to be financially comfortable.
I do not want to be rich.
I want to travel on a regular basis.
I want to ride the subway all day long.
I want to ride my bike all day long.
I want to fill the streets with sod and the lawns with prairie.
I want to speak all languages.
I want to have seven percent body fat.
I want to learn about something new every day.
I want to live in the city, on the top floor of an apartment building.
I want to live in the mountains by the ocean.
I want to have perfect pitch and a photographic memory.
I want to sleep in a hammock with a book on my face.
I want to touch sea anemones.
I want to make my own sourdough bread.
I do not want to go shopping.
I want an interesting job that takes four to seven hours a day.
I want to understand everyone.
I want to throw a party at which the guests dance until the morning sun rises up over the grocery store.
I want to dig for freedom.
I want to stay up all night in the back seat of a car, watching water drops inch their way past my eyes.
I want to break it down into its component parts, then reassemble them in a variety of ways.
I want to go sailing.
I want a glass of milk.