Letter To A Friend

The Daily Routine:
I wake up sore,(like in a 1950's movie, referring to being angry) and saturated with new and different levels of exhaustion due to the fact that I can never go to sleep at the proper hour, because I'm usually doing something mediocre with someone mediocre, sitting around talking about how everything is seemingly mediocre in this mediocre town. I know, I know, doesn't that all sound so cynical? Well, it's just about the only way I get to telling a story. Anyways, after the wake-up routine I get to my mediocre job and resume my quiet life of desperation. The day drags on for eight hours, containing nothing spectacular, just a few cigarettes here or there, some carts of course, moving out, then in, then out, casual glances to and from attractive women, but it's obvious enough in their eyes when they look back; "he's cute, but he pushes carts, that's too bad." It's like a slap in the face; maybe one of them will wake me up from my silly existence in this corporate copulation of low prices and bulk buying. At any rate, the day finally ends, I go home, and drink a pot of coffee while listening to Sly and the Family Stone, half-wishing I had a joint or something to kill the day properly. That's the daily routine, to sum it up.

And Then Some...
You know what I really want? I want, when I die, to be given a book. Not just any book, mind you; a giant book containing every thought I ever thought, every word I ever uttered, alone or with others, every facial expression, fuck-up, embarassment, and so forth. I just want to re-read my life and figure some things out. That would be, as they say, "a trip." Nevertheless, it is January 17th of 2007 and I am exactly where I am: 22 and still perplexed, restless, helpless, pissed, determined, angry, longing, ready, and a little hopeful, with just a smudge of wisdom through the little bit of past experience underneath my belt. I keep telling myself, "hey, you're young, you've got virtually no attachments, why don't you just do what you want?" And I will... eventually. It's that whole taking a chance bit, I guess. Now that I've tried it once it seems silly to do again when I know if it fails I will be set back a year or two more than I already am. Feeling how I do personally, that little year or two in my life is something I would rather not lose, even if it was a great time. Of course, when you dare to live there are no right or wrongs obvious enough to see, only the comet-tail of a chance to catch something that catches your eye in the passing.

All the same, it's mostly just winter. Winter makes everything louder inside. The snow deadens the echoes and muffles the backround so you mostly just hear your own thoughts bouncing off the walls around you. Then there are the holidays, of course. Only for children are they truly enjoyed and simplified; I come to dread them these days. You forget about the passing year until it passes and then you see how you passed with it by thinking of the last time you noticed these things and then you wonder why you feel a failure. I could say I've failed many a thing in my life but the truth is that is almost just what I enjoy the most about it. You can't fail if you don't try, and I've tried enough things to feel the real pangs of failure, which consequently diminish with every new encounter.

B--- say's I'm very hot/cold. This is one of the few things she and I agree on. The rest of the time we argue about religious theorums and philosophical questions regarding the existence of God. Then there is the usual bickering about nothings that only seem to occur between a boy and a girl. Then I wonder if I really screwed up alot of things with the few good women in my life, and also what will happen with the next one, and why there hasn't been one in a very long time. I generally believe its me. Instead of killing my relationships, I kill the chance. I don't much doubt this conclusion, only I often wonder why it is so. I expect that somewhere in me something is saying how I am too reckless and unstable to bother about a lady and I need not waste someone's time anyhow. The thing about life is that it is nothing like the movies. I know that that doesn't really sound like something a rational person would come to conclusively but as for me I used to think and hope it was- at least a little bit. But there never is that part where you meet the girl under perfect terms, or you go on that wild adventure where nothing leaves you scarred and it all ends up ok. And the work of living is sometimes awfully tiresome, lonely, and seemingly pointless.

I guess I'm just writing to share with you the general things on my mind and how it is for me these days. The fact that we're not around each other anymore leaves me to wonder how a fellow writer is doing. All things are made clear in the end but the end never gets here, and that is supposed to be the good part about life. It is, I think, but never quite understood in the direct sense of perspective. The best thing we can do is make a plan and stick to it, come hell or high water. Well, the motherfucking water is frozen on the streets tonight and I keep moving but I'm slipping enough so that I feel as if going further is going in vain.

Do tell me how things are for you since last we spoke. Tell me what you're writing, whats been going on locally, aspirations, disciplines, confusions, directions, happiness and sadness. Anything at all, from one dear friend to another. It is in the earliest morning hours when we lift our heads, expecting to see a vision of clarity, however only finding the faint glow of the lights from outside the window, and the birth of a new day full of the same old offerings.

PS
Disregard the overall depressive tone of which this is written; I am not truly depressed, only that is how I write. I know you probably know this but all the same I'm not about to jump off the bridge; merely throw a few rocks in my frustration.

-Charlie