“Being with you, is like being with someone who is in love with someone else.” She said it casually, as if she had just realized it were true. And it is true. “And now I think I’m right,” she finished. I had been talking about the other person for nearly 20 minutes without realizing it. The girl should have left. She realized who I am, and she should have ended it right there. Ended it a long time ago when the thought first came to her. But she didn’t leave. She probably felt bad for me. Maybe she thought it was justifiable because it’s parental love. How do you hold …
By Daytime Downtown
One of the things about getting older is that I don’t have as much time as I used to. But the loss of time doesn’t seem to bother me. I never truly appreciated it anyway. I always had a tendency to flow to the lowest common denominator. And what I know now is you only enjoy wasting time when you have little time to waste. Instead, I take quick walks around the office, squaring the streets of Downtown Denver. Moving through bookstores like an aberration, touching the spines of paperbacks and the covers of magazines. My hope being that just knowing their existence is enough to keep me attached to …
The Engine
I’ve been reading a lot of science fiction. Probably too much science fiction. The book I’m reading now is a strange novel from the 80’s called Armor. In it, the main character has an internal locus of survival that he calls, “The Engine”. It pushes him, drives him forward, and keeps him alive. It kicks in when he is terrified and scared, blocking out the rest of the world, and leaving that small space in front of him in which to operate. The thought of it makes me queasy, and questioning of my own life, of my own “Engine”. The terror is that to live like that, is to live …
Extrapolate Nothing
A girl flew from Park City to visit me in Denver. A local girl, I met her while I was there for Sundance. We had texted back and forth for awhile before she booked her flight. Despite the wide-rimed glasses she wears, it didn’t take long after she arrived to realize that we had little in common. She liked art, shopping, and skiing. I like books, movies, and video games. Yet it didn’t matter, because she was pleasant to be around. It reminded me of a relationship from years ago. Not one of the great loves of my life, but a very loving relationship none-the-less. And I thought to myself, …
Living on memories
The plane continues to sit on the runway of the Frankfurt airport, the CGI instructional video playing over and over on a loop that streams into the seats. A rare delay for an ugly and efficient airport. This time I leave Germany in relatively the same state as when I arrived. When I was younger, I only wanted to live with memories. The very existence of them seemed meaningful. As if they could feed, cloth, and keep me happy. If that were the case, this trip would be able to provide for me for a long time. A mostly loving, peaceful and idyllic trip: joy from my daughter, and copacetic …
Pedestrian
I’m sitting in a Doctor’s office in Munster, Germany. I can’t even truly tell what’s wrong with me. I was woken up in the night by a screaming in my ear. I thought it was a siren on the street coming towards me, until the headache kicked in, and then I realized it was within my own head. But it wasn’t the feeling of a scream, my ear was actually screaming, until it reached a nadir where I thought I would go deaf from pain and noise. And then a pop. Pressure released, and fluid started to pool in my ear, and then pour out onto the pillow. I tried …
Munsterland
Every time I open the door, I’m drawn to pictures of someone else’s life. An AirBnB, they’re everywhere in the apartment: friends posing, drinking, celebrating, mostly all young attractive girls. Oddly, none of the pictures are of the boyfriend who let me into the flat. All of the pictures are hung high on the walls so that they hit me almost exactly at eye level. There are so many, I have to start taking them down so that I don’t become depressed by comparison. It’s the same reason I rarely go on Facebook. It’s an idealized life, and one that can’t be reconciled with my current situation. Other than the …