My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

My closet

It’s not particularly exciting, really, it’s a rather dull thing to write about, nevertheless, here goes. We organized my closet today, bagged a bunch of shirts for Goodwill, hung the rest nice and pretty. Lauren (my assistant) is a spectacular organizer, which I like, I like things pretty. I love throwing “stuff” away, I’ll never end up on Hoarders, I don’t keep socks from when I was seven because that’s the day Elmo, my gold fish died, and so I don’t want to forget him. “Stuff,” I enjoy tossing, it’s freeing.

I keep words though, I have e-mail from 2003, I can’t trash that like “stuff” in my closet. I have first e-mails, last e-mails, from people who are gone, people I don’t want gone. I never go back and read any of them, I wouldn’t feel anything happy, but I can’t lose them. They’re things that happened, perfect little pictures of places I wanted to stay, so I keep them. I’ll never not keep them. “Stuff” isn’t important, not like words, not ever as important as, “Goodnight, I love you…”

So, I keep the words, everything else can burn for all I care.

So, I get these ideas, just weird, maybe a little eccentric, ideas. Like, a few years ago I decided to try to see every After Dark Horrorfest horror movie, in the theater. I made it to seven of the eight. Then, a few weeks ago, the gun range thing. I don’t know, I guess I like creating a to-do, then doing it. I do things especially when the rest of my life feels out of my control, I grab at something I can control, I get a thing or do a thing, just to show myself that part of me still alive. It’s, I don’t know. I suddenly don’t feel like writing more.

Anyways, we baked a cake today. Lauren (my assistant) and my friend, Dani, did the baking, while I took a more supervisory role. It was fun, and created something.

Now, pictures…

Lauren prepares a mellow vanilla icing

Introducing... batter!

Law & Order: Special Cakes Unit

It looks like Dani’s interrogating Lauren for some kind of cake-related felony…

Dani and Daisy and Lauren and Flour

Dani, Lauren, and the finished cake... rendered in water colors

Sure, I dabble in water color painting… or I just bought Sketcher on the Mac App Store. One or the other.

We did a yellow cake with vanilla icing, topped with fresh strawberries. It came out really pretty, which is everything one wants. We all just want something pretty.

Me, my shiny shirt, and a gun

So, as I mentioned earlier in the week I have this Things to Do list, just things I want to experience before my lights go out. The list has kind of been on pause for awhile, a long awhile, but today I crossed something off. A small something, but something just the same. A fun something, at least. I went to experience a shooting range. My assistant, Lauren, it turns out her fellow is military, so after she mentioned that I wanted to visit a shooting range, the rest just fell into place. He recommended the range at Knight Shooting Sports, came with us, and brought a gorgeous little 9mm semi-automatic pistol. It was fun, I got to dress all in black, touch a gun for the very first time.

Now some pictures…

Me at the range

Lauren and her fellow

I think movies and tv capture guns pretty well, pretty much perfectly from an aesthetic perspective. We see all sorts of guns, handguns, giant cannon-esque shotguns, rifles that fire hundreds of rounds in just a few seconds. We see how to hold these guns, reload these guns, we hear all the little clicks these guns make when they’re taken apart and put back together. We know all these things without ever actually physically being anywhere near a gun. There is, however, one aspect of guns that I now realize movies and tv cannot capture, guns are LOUD, not 5.1 movie theater surround sound loud, or crank your tv to 99 loud, it’s an entirely different kind of loud. That tiny-looking 9mm pistol, I’ve never experienced anything like it. It really became clear when Lauren went all Reservoir Dogs, pulled the trigger bangbangbangbangbang, fuck aiming, let’s do this, motherfucker. Every time she puffed that trigger, my cheek bones vibrated, even hurt a little. It was intense and unnerving and completely exhilarating, all at once, and I was several feet back from all that power. I mean, I was at a shooting range with a 9mm pistol, with my ears protected, and it felt that palpable. War, for example, is like what I experienced, times ten thousand. The thought is mind-blowing.

So, that was my today. Something I’ve really wanted to do, done. If I kept writing, kept this sentence going, things would turn really melancholy. I’ll, just, not.

So, right now I’m at this trendy coffee shop in Ybor City, The Bunker. Though, honestly, it’s not very bunker-esque. I mean, they’ve been playing Coldplay for what feels like four hours, but is really only thirty minutes, Yellow just isn’t “bunker music.” Granted, I don’t know what IS bunker music, but I know it’s not Yellow, or Fix You, and definitely not fuckin’ Clocks.

Anyways, I’m here with Lauren (my top-notchy assistant), my tiny MacBook Air, and a decaf soy almond latte, which is probably the least pretentious coffee I ever order. Usually, it’s something with vanilla, or raspberry, or white chocolate, something ridiculous, decadent. I feel on the opposite side of decadent right now. Melancholy, is probably the word, but that’s nothing new.

I’m still pretty scattered, but I really am trying to post every-day and if I keep doing that, at some point, I’ll write something pretty. So, that’s the plan.

Yesterday, I started a big project, well, I made Lauren, my assistant, start it. A few years ago I got lazy and quit tagging my blog posts, really, my assistant, Sarah, used to tag them and when she retired, I didn’t keep it up. Part of it was, I just missed her, and doing the tags or making someone else do them, that just made me miss her more. So, the tagging stopped. Yes, an assistant’s just an employee, but the good ones, they do get really important. I miss them when they go, there’s a real sense of loss, another person who goes. Sarah was around when my thumb quit working and I could hardly type, hardly talk to anyone, before the NeuroSwitch. People weren’t really around anyway. Sarah was around though, so we’d go to lunch, at night we’d go to the bar, we’d alphabet conversations. She was good with the alphabet and smart to talk with, so she kept me sane when I really needed it. Sometimes, sitting at the bar, with a vodka tonic and ten dollars worth of Elliott Smith in the jukebox, I’d alphabet flash stories that she’d type up after. She was around for twenty-ish tattoos. She stopped me from dying once. She was around when I really needed someone to be around. A fix for a fix, but we were close and had fun. So, yeah, when she left, the tagging stopped.

Anyway, we’re tagging again, Lauren’s off to a spectacular start. Tonight, I go for another tattoo, and then and then and then…

So, a few weeks ago, I had some sinus surgery. This did not help me, physically or psychologically. I was pretty hazy on Demerol leaving the hospital, the kind of hazy that produces thoughts like, “What if I’ve died and this is actually Hell?” For minutes at a time these thoughts seem completely true. Then, “No, shut up, don’t be stupid. You’re breathing, you’re not dead.” I remember all the nurses, Lauren (my assistant), even the parking valets, they’re all talking about how “tough” I am. They said, “Mike’s so tough.” They said,  ”Nobody’s tougher than Mike.” I never feel tough, I was busy arguing with myself whether or not I was dead and in Hell. I felt tiny, scared, old. I think people mistake quiet for tough. I’m not tough, in my head, I’m not tough. I wanted to go right back to my little room, have more Demerol and forget the pain in my face, all the scared in my heart. Though, the drugs, that’s just a fix for a fix. Drugs, liquor, either/or, they’re just a fake feeling of warm, safe, the pretend versions of a love’s touch, kiss, warm brown eyes to tell you you’re not alone. Those are real fixes, for me anyways. That’s all I ever want.

I’m still not me yet, I’m on some anti-biotics that are making me feel sick, which makes me nervous. My head’s a mess. I’ve been trying to hold it together for weeks, and obviously not.