The Parkdale Coke Wizard

It's time for another "Stories from Parkdale"

So check it. Last night a spirited group of youngsters (myself included) gathered at the Rhino to play some pool. Standing against the wall closest to the pool table, in a black leather Neo-from-the Matrix-meets-Count Dracula-meets-priest get up was who we refer to as, the Parkdale Coke Wizard.

Here is a man of no discretion. A man who constantly held a glass of whiskey in one hand while half heartedly masturbating with the other. And every so often he would stop beating off, do a huge bump of cocaine, sip some water from a pint glass and then grab his dick again. At one point during a game I had to make a shot right beside him. When I got the ball in he let out this quiet "aahhmmm" moan thing. I stared at him for a sec and was going to say something to the effect of "is your hand on your dick right now, man?!" but one of his eyes wasn't fully open and it looked like he was getting snow blind so I just left it.

Anyway, dude stood there for upwards of two hours, just repeating the same motions while we played around him. Not sure what that says really, I guess if you do something and refuse to apologise for it, sometimes you get away with it. Like masturbating in public while doing hard drugs and moaning at strangers.

Days 14 and 15

I kill roaches with a vehement disinterest. I am indifferently disgusted. It's not a hatred, or a fear, or a pleasure. I simply Do Not acknowledge their right to exist in the kitchen bathroom or bedrooms of the apartment and every night around 2:30am when I come home I do my best to eradicate them. Some days I only kill a couple. Some days I kill like, 25. Most of them are so small... baby roaches. But the (fuck I just killed one running across my keyboard) worst kind are the huge mama bear roaches with their floppy ecru coloured egg sacs. So nimble.

This isn't so much a preamble (though I will make a weak segue) as it is an entry in itself. Roaches. Ick. No court would convict me. Except cockroach court and ain't no way in hell I'm going anywhere near there!

The point is that I called my ex tonight on my way home because her bedroom light was on and I didn't want to put my squashing gloves on just yet. I was greeted with the sound of a phone being dragged though (what honestly sounded like really comfy) sheets, a soft murmur of voices and then a disconnected signal.
Oops.
Completely owning up to it being my fault for calling. Completely. And also acknowledging how crappy I felt after she hung up on me. And that feeling you get when you've relinquished your place in someones life and you find that their whereabouts are a dismal surprise. Or not a surprise per se, but certainly dismal...

But then you shrug your body and go home to take it out on the roaches.

Days 12 and 13

Ok so fuck yes.

I wanted to call a few days ago and I didn't. Like I REALLY wanted to call. But I didn't. And this is the payoff! This is it! I woke up today and was reminded of what having a life felt like. Of how being alone can be really good and spending time with people that think you're awesome can make you feel yourself becoming more awesome.

I am aware of the downer reputation this blog has gotten. It IS a fucking downer. It isn't meant to be upbeat because this is the salvation army of my mind where I go to donate all my unwanted crap.

Suffice to say my life isn't deadly blue all days. My love is now an echo and I'm listening to it fade. With each dimmed call my life looks a bit brighter and that ain't so bad, is it?

I even wrote a poem.

In this crucial time I stay away.
I want to posses you in the night and
be held accountable for
your swollen legs in the day. But
I think I know what love is now-
I am making broad strokes,
wanting it to appear.
I can tell you aren't
the love as I sense your heart's
a liar.
I wait for the day to come when
we can be content as strangers.

Days 9 ten and 11

I wonder how to put this as evasively as possible:

I sang "Cocoon" by Bjork all day today.

You don't need to know what that means. If I can delicately express this, it's going to be a rough week. And if my phone rang this evening I would have answered it, probably.

It's odd watching as your perception of what your future is changes while your present stays the same. Seeing things you thought were permanent shift and alter on the horizon while your heart stays in the same place. I'm still in love in this moment, where I'm eating stupid chocolate covered pretzels on the bare mattress of my youth. I'm still thinking about someone who isn't around but in the mind of my future I'm questioning more and more.

Days 7 and 8

Denial is a funny thing. I've had a few people in the past while suggest-not too subtly, I may add- that I am struggling with an addiction.

More and more I agree with that theory because of this one erratic behavior pattern I've been forming. Basically what I do is I call my ex with a more or less innocuous ruse... "Hey, just calling because I wanted to know when that thing is due this month" or whatever. I then proceed to make small talk and listen absent mindedly not even to the words but to the voice. It's the strangest fucking thing. I don't even know what to call it; sitting there with the phone pressed to my ear talking about and listening to nothing but feeling like I'm being kept company better in those ten minutes than at any other point in the day.

So that's strange. And it seems like an addict move on my part because I get jittery in the moments leading up to speaking with them, then I feel this euphoric release when we talk, then I tense up when I know my "high" is about to end and once it does, I feel cold and empty. Like I just masturbated in a highway motel room by myself.

I am approaching that place where I piss my self off.

Days 6 and 7

Did you know that nostalgia was once considered to be a potentially fatal illness?
It's true. In the late 1680's the term was coined. It was also referred to as "Swiss homesickness" after Swedish mercenaries traveling extensively and exhibiting symptoms of acute discomfort and general malaise with no real cause.

I don't think there is an actual cure per se... just seems to be one of those things that lessens with time. I am aware of how many things trigger nostalgia right now and I am thankful that I have the perspective already to laugh about it. Certain streets, crossword clues, songs, foods, outfits, hair styles, phrases, tv shows, mental illnesses, facial expressions, numbers, jewelry, shower rituals, stores...all sorts of stuff. And I feel a little bit absurd falling down my memory's rabbit hole time and time again.

You just never know when you do something initially the significance it may hold one day.

Days 4 and 5

Oh yes. Keeping busy. Don't you let that tricky little nostalgia gremlin burrow his way into your poor battered psyche. Don't let the little pest nuzzle the Ventral Tegmental part of your brain, slipping past your already tried and tired Lateral Prefrontal Cortex that has just about had enough of her sass...

Anyway.

Apparently, being rejected by someone you continue to love has the capacity to derail the mind because love occupies the same part of the brain that also controls motivation and reward. A study I read suggested that the average scorned lover takes upwards or 63 days to regain motivation. Holy Mackerel.

So don't let the gremlin-brain-fucker-man have a shot at your mind. He'll sneak up on you, wrap the sheets around your pathetic form and spoon you within an inch or your existence until you smell exactly like the room I am typing this in (balls) and wish for nothing more than to disappear into your own odor and you will allow it because you feel starved for a loving embrace and you're unwashed.

Days 2 and 3

Starting off strong and in the anger stage of the Kubler-Ross grief cycle, today and yesterday. Of the 5 stages of dying, anger comes second; after denial, and before bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

I appreciate now being able to look in a mirror and see color in my cheeks even if it's because I've spent the past 2 days blustering around town. It's better than viewing my own face as a sign of defeat, as white as a surrender flag.

I have no words, I have nothing but these moments of rage that slip in when I'm not keeping busy. I fall victim to feelings of helplessness and longing but those are gonna go away fast. And since I've already been through the bargaining phase during the death rattle of the relationship, I am looking forward to acceptance. Bring 'er on.