Trapped In Benjamin

There’s honestly nothing in the world quite like being awake out of spite.  Running on a small handful of minutes of collected sleep, just to dress up to the nines and go to class to glare at every eighteen to twenty0two year old within sight.  A big ol’ ‘Fuck You’ to every person that makes that terrible mistake of crossing within eyesight of me.  Yes, this is the life.  But then again this has been the main driving force behind almost all my actions lately.  Doing a piece of art in less than twenty four hours?  Out of spite.  Working three jobs and going to school as a full time student?  Out of spite.  One of those jobs being bartending at a gay bar, while I am straight, just to lead on and break the hearts of countless gay men?  Completely out of the blackest, most contemptible spite.  Although that branch of spite isn’t the kind for homophobic or homosexual hating rat bastards, oh no no no, it’s partially sadistic and partly masochistic.  Because I can’t have a good or healthy relationship with a girl, but apparently I could get men by the fucking legion.  A legion of gay men… like the French Foreign Legion.  Out to conquer the urban world, one chest hair showing satin button up at a time, with a shopping weary credit card and sarcastic lisp in town.  Thank god they tip well, and frequently, or I’d be afraid that all the crushed rainbow colored hearts (with a scent of Ralph Lauren Black) under my Justin label boot heel would keep them at a distance.  But nope.  I got that killer style and sweet not-anymore-jailbait charm to how I sling their Miller Lites and vodka tonics with a lime.  That’s what pays the bills on my J. Crew shirts, Lacoste shoes and skinny skinny Levis.  Oh, and the Chinese delivery food, Dominos pizza and the three bottles of Jameson that I go through every week.  Suck it, gay bar.  But only figuratively.  

I don’t really know why, but in the past, hmmm… three minutes, I have become more than increasingly concerned about my sister.  No doubt, I love her to death, but somehow, out of the goddamn wide open, bird chirping, red white and blue American blue, I have become worried.  I know that she has a boyfriend.  Yes, his name is James, and I do truly and concernedly approve of the guy.  But still, as a younger brother, I’m somehow worried.  Why is this, might you ask?  I’m not entirely sure.  Yet still, This crazy, youner looking gal that is my older sister is the true center of my problems at the moment.  But it’s Aly.  My sis.  You know, that whole jazz.  She’s down there in Chicago, not making rent because she had a bad past month, and all I want to do is drunkenly waltz my down to the train station and go on an hour and a half adventure to visit her.  Why would you do this on your Friday eve off from work and school, you might ask.  Well, again, she’s my big sis.  The big Kahuna of influence on me.  Even though she’s a head or so shorter than my stature.  Still, she could probably beat the goddamn living tar out of me if she had half a head to do so.  Sure she’s small, but I ain’t got no meat on me.  It won’t take much to knock me on my ass.  Dad’s at a football game currently, ‘coaching’ a marching band that’s probably really god awful (considering the fact that it’s from New Berlin, Wiconsin, and they’re in fucking Wisconsin), and any minute that old codger will samba on into the room.  Fuck.  He just did.  He’s slipping into cohesiveness, but he’s here.  Thank god.  I’m worried about him too.  You know. Alyson Ruth, I know you’re reading this at this point, and I love you and miss you, but step up your game, sis.  You need to be like 58 years old and a goddamn jew with your money, and schoolin’ me.  You know.  That’s how it should be.  But I love you and miss.  P. S. Punch your fucking biff in the face, because he deserves it now and then.  And I’m truly (not at all) sorry I’m drunk and writing this.  

It’s been three days since I ordered the Chinese food that’s still wasting away in the fridge.  Each night at two I try to fall asleep, but end up chickening out to eat leftovers from the fridge while watching whatever pre 1990 movie I can find on TV.  There really is a reason, I promise, why it has to be pre ‘90’s.  It’s just that I’m not really sure what it is.  The Pioneer stereo with the low static noises it makes out of anticipation and anxiety are still very apparent to me as my frame sinks into the denim couch.  Who the fuck else owns a denim couch?  Don’t get me wrong, this couch is one of the best things that has ever happened to me in my life; it screams contradiction to sensible furniture yet is a form of nirvana to recline on.  Who knows, maybe one day when this couch has seen it’s last ass sit up on it, I’ll buy a case of beer and let a couple of Milwaukee punk kids go to town decorating it with patches, studs, stains and album art.  If I were in an intimate relationship with this couch, which who knows I could very well be, it’d probably be named Veronica or something similar.  Veronica the denim couch.  Veronica the comfy sleep.  Queen V.  Last week I worked every morning at eight, cleaning other peoples’ houses.  There’s that lovely bit of wonder hanging about the idea of cleaning a house that you’ve never been in, as if it takes a perfect stranger to bring motivation and a keen eye to the situation. 

            You know what I don’t want to think about work right now.  Not in the cards, honey bee.  Let’s get down to the brass tacks of the bug in my bonnet, or whatever fucking saying you want to throw in here.  Jesus, I just tried to use two different colloquialisms in a sentence.  And I think I did it wrong on both accounts.  Woops.

Thank you, American education system for that.  I’ve recently come to the conclusion that while living in the greater Milwaukee area in the fine, upstanding state of Wisconsin, the original dairy state, home of happy cows and where butter flows like gold, I will never be successfully in a relationship, or have the capability to enter a healthy one.  Again, to use another saying I used in this paragraph, it just ain’t in the cards.  In a way it is reminiscent of a good ol’ case of the Midas touch.  All potential, or non-potential, lady friends I pursue, end up turning to relationships that crash and burn in a horribly terrible godawful pyre of flame and smoke.  So, taking all this into consideration, my dear friends, I’m faced with limited options:  I may become a homosexual, and the king of homosexuals therefore, or I may just become completely depressed and accept a single life.  This would mean I get to pillage, plunder and otherwise plow any girl that I drunkenly coerce into doing so, but god I hate the term ‘plow’ in that usage.  In the meanwhile I’ll continue to show up for work, sadly look at women out of my league that I have too good of a manner set to approach out of the blue, continue to overly analyze my flaws, eat too much pizza and onion rings, and also build my alcoholic tolerance back up to their usual standards.  At least I still have better legs than just about all the women I see. 

Recently I gutted my bedroom, probably a first in the decade or so I’ve lived in Wauwatosa.  It was horrifying, to say the least.  Like a fucking modern day horror movie.  You know, it’s one of those where the entire plot and most of the twists in the movie are revealed in that trailer you saw for it over eight months ago, when you were actually waiting to see a good movie.  Kinda one of those “Johnny, I’m scared… I think there’s something wrong with Kevin!”  “No, Becky, you’re crazy.  It’s just your imgainat- NO! IT’S GOT ME!  RUN!”  sort of movies, you know?  Where you wish that you drunk enough that you could moderately tolerate sitting through it.  That’s what my room cleaning was like.  But when I finished cleaning and rearranging a few things, I put my desk in front of my window, to have fresh air, sun shine, and just a little bit of changeup in my living quarters.  Well, putting it there seemed great at first.  And then I remembered Fuck:  my window faces the driveway/side of my neighbor’s house.  It’s a maybe ten-foot gap between my wall and theirs.  To say the least, the view is shit.
            Viewing my elderly neighbors’ kitchen curtains is a hoot.  It’s better than a trip to the nickel arcade, or headin’ down to pal around with the other kids at old Murphy’s Drug & Sweet Shop.  I tell ya.  So clearly, because of this, I’ve been avoiding sitting at my desk, as if it were that girl that I awkwardly and drunkenly made out with at that one party last weekend.  Avoid eye contact.  For god’s sake, whatever you do, DON’T say anything to it/her.  You know, that whole routine.  Today though, I had to start working on a project, and required the gigantor cutting mat that resides on my desk, so I had to finally confront the beastly situation.  It’s been four hours, and it’s been peachy for the most part.  Then, not even fucking thirty minutes ago, one of my neighbors, quiet as a raccoon going in for it’s garbagey kill, walked by my window and looked up into it, at the exact moment I glanced out.  “WHY HEY THERE, NEIGHBOR!  HAHA!” She shrieked like a ball-tripping sea bird come to annoy you.  I could only respond by giving her a quick “Oh uh hey,”  through a shocked and middle school puberty cracking voice.

Sonnuvabitch.  It’s too hot to close the window and shade my room, and yet the threat of unwanted interactions with these stereotypical thick accented Wisconsinites is driving me mad.  If it were December and not August the top of my Christmas list would be a way to survive without all these strange unwanted conversations with people.  That’d be dandy.  Fuck world peace, just give me a mute button on society.  That’s all.  Maybe the next time something or somebody like that comes along and throws me some salutation that I’m trying to avoid, I should just stare back blank faced, and either flip them off like it was nothing or maybe just say loudly but plainly “Montana,” or “Blueberries, babycakes, BLUEBERRIES,” then return without care to my work.  Yeah.  Seriously, I don’t give a flying whatever about you.  What now, babycakes.