I have no expectation.
What an awful feeling to have. Without expectation, there's no reason to be excited. Sure, I have nothing to be excited for, but maybe that's why I'm not expecting anything. I'm sitting in a Barnes & Noble that doesn't even have a film section. I'm sitting in a town I have no friends. All things I'm interested in far very far from where I am now.
Yet, I'm waiting.
There was an idea I might have someone to have dinner with tonight. I'm waiting for a phone call, I guess. I would expect less than that, but I'm not expecting anything at all. Therefore, it's not a new feeling for me. I have never done anything for myself except sit in this fucking bookstore and wait.
There's a man barely awake reading an issue of "Motivated."
I refuse to check my phone once. I'm not expecting anything and, frankly, I don't want the phone call to come through.
Talking with a co-worker, he said the atmosphere was much better at Panera Bread than at Barnes & Noble. Always something very important to me, I wonder if that's ever been true. This is not coming from a "regular" who has anything like a "usual." This comes from an employee. Granted, he worked at Barnes & Noble. I'm thinking of the hectic non-stop work I have to put up with and I can't stop thinking about how working there for so long might have serious impact on my work ethic. I don't want to be there. When I am there, I am waiting to be out of there. Psychologically, as an employee, it makes me sick that I'm actually thankful to have a job here. He prefers it. I feel sorry for him.
Still no phone call. I'm reading a book written by a man who graduated with a degree in film. From the University of Southern California. It's about sex addiction, basically.
I'm starving. The idea of Chinese buffet sounds fantastic. I would never care who was sitting across from me when eating there, I've sat across some very uninteresting people and loved it every single time. The phone call I'm waiting for is actually one of the aforementioned uninteresting people.
I know I am going to be much more satisfied having another reason to never speak with her again than eating the delicious food they have. She asks me to go to Chinese buffet. I'll wait. I have nothing better to do. I have no friends. I can't ask anybody else to go. Yet, I don't want the phone call to come through.
I can imagine just how the night would go. Phone rings. I hear excuse about why I had to wait. I tell her I've been waiting. We meet.
The "How are you"s have no interesting stories behind them. The "good" responses are leave-it-at-thats. She wants to know more. She's looking for any reason to either start getting over me or admit that she's gotten over me. At which point, I would ignore the fact that she asked me out to dinner and tell her more about how I feel sorry for myself. I know this will make her happy. She's more satisfied that I hate my life than eating the delicious Chinese food.
All I can say is that I need to leave. The extent of her caring is telling me that I need to do something for myself. She imagines the best thing I can do is forget everything we've been through and be everything she needs.
Even though this conversation we would have is completely in my head, I shudder thinking about it.
I focus on giving her such an outrageous idea of what I need to do, the entire support system I have from her is clashing with her entire belief system she has with me. I'll never do anything with my life. Her realization of that becomes clear the more I talk about my wildest dreams.
My wildest dreams are the only dreams I have. The only dreams that get wilder than these are the dozen or so stories I have that have been in my head since high school. These stories, these wild dreams, I hope to share with the world one day.
I hope to inspire film-makers-to-be 40 years from now.
A recluse who knows his own strength, but is irrelevant to the world until the world comes to the end.
A brokenhearted man who will do jobs nobody else will until he has the money to leave everything and retire as the owner of a bar on a beach.
A man who wants nothing more than to teach people to be human and inspire them to be more.
A doctor with his own methods of psychology is haunted by the existential ghosts in his own head.
"What are you going to do?"
"I just need to be in a film-making community. Somewhere I can meet people who are actually interested in things I might have to say. I've never considered myself stuck, but these ideas in my head are trapped, and any talent I have...is going unused. I'm depressed, I think, but I'm not exactly sure because I've never really known happiness."
I've never been in love.
I've been so angry, and I've fought so hard.
Last summer, I was fired from a job. Their reasoning made me feel no respect even though I had worked there for so long. They made me hate the job and they made me fight for the job.
"You're rationalizing," they told me when I argued.
I kept that job. I earned it. In earning it, I felt nothing. I fought for it and hated them for making me fight for it. The truth is, the story isn't even worth telling. Everything, in every sense of the word, is retarded there.
I'm sitting in a Barnes & Noble. No phone call. I keep finding new reasons to never speak to her again. Perhaps she feels I wasn't "sounding excited enough" to come meet her. Well, I'm glad she thinks more than I do, because had there been any thought process in the first place, I wouldn't have agreed.
How lucky am I that there is nobody I even have to tell goodbye?
Besides Brandon...but...one thing I wish I never learned about life: It goes on.
The idea is so simple, but it's so not true. Not only is it important to stop and smell the pussy, but you can't take that for granted. The truth is anything could happen. At anytime.
...I've always been more comfortable taking for granted what will happen. The schedules I have an my jobs just keep going. Nothing will ever change.
If you're content with where you are, you aren't going anywhere.
I've been content not being content. This has made me feel like I am going somewhere. This is me lying to myself. This is me becoming like everybody else I know around me. I just stayed because I didn't know how to say goodbye.
Battle Creek is full of liars. I don't think there is any love here at all. They're all liars and cheaters. The damaged are in no way good. They're just damaged.
I may spend the rest of my life looking back at this city and wonder how I spent five years here. I will wonder what the purpose of it was. I will wonder why.
Everything happens for a reason.
What did I get from it?
Well, at the very least...I never became a product of this culture. I did not become like everybody else. I kept my dignity. I have no regret. I am still myself. Nobody has any influence on me. I don't cheat. I won't be a whore. I have no desire to smoke pot. I'm not an alcoholic. I never acquired an addictive personality.
Corrie was describing herself when she told me "I don't have an addictive personality."
I think I'm falling for her.
Our relationship is completely psychological. I've never even met her. I don't believe she really exists. She is...too good to be true.
Yet...it all makes sense...and she's what I've been waiting for.
In the beginning, I did everything wrong.
For a while, I couldn't do anything right.
I don't know what's happening now, but she could be just right for me.
It's movie logic.
Too cold.
Too hot.
Just right?
She's already my hero, even if she is completely made up. My ticket out of here...
...has been purchased. Hope is not a strategy.
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