I few days ago, I mentioned that I was having some issues with a temperamental alarm clock. Well yesterday, during my only scheduled day off this week, before going in to work for an hour to catch up on some office work, I bought not one but two alarm clocks at Bed Bath & Beyond. The more expensive model came with all kinds of features such as natural sounds, a time wall/ceiling projector, snooze, etc. etc. I was so glad to get that out of the way. I remember showing the clocks to the general manager as a sincere sign of a desire to eradicate the previous grievances.
Last night before going to bed I set the more expensive model and fell asleep to the sound of crashing waves without any worries about the unit deciding not to sound at the set time.
I woke up at 10:15am to the natural sound of the rain storm outside, my heart in my throat, wondering what the fuck went wrong. Because I was supposed to have been awoken up by the new unit at 8am and was as of that very second already 15min late. I was running around like a dog chasing its tail. In 10min I showered, yelled and chased my cat for crossing my hurried steps, forgot to brush my teeth, got dressed, and then got soaked while looking for a cab to set me back another $25. I couldn’t call in because my cell phone was no where to be found during that 10min eternity of a wake up call. Throughout that whole ride, I was trying to mentally make the cab move faster and traffic disappear to no avail. I arrived at Canal Street at 11am (now an hour late) to find back to back traffic. I got out of the cab hurting about the fee and ran for 5 blocks while adding several liters of rain water to my already drenched attire. I walked in the restaurant like a scared wet dog with an apologetic I-just-peed-on-the-couch-again look and was greeted by the insults of my manager who wanted nothing to do with me today and sent me home.
I have never ever been sent home from a job in my life. I felt like shit. I walked around for a while ambivalent to the rain and with the soar throat feeling one gets when something horrible happens or you talk your body into holding back tears. I felt so fucking shitty and horrible. I lost the trust of my managers, set my self back financially and will probably get a cold from the three back to back down pours.
I went to Union Square Park and sat on my favorite I-hate-my-life bench where a long ago obsession and love affair began and moped under the rain. If you happen to not have an I-hate-my-life bench, don’t go out and get one. They do not always make you feel better. Today it was more like a metaphoric electrical chair of sorts and for our purposes we will refer to it as the Strapless Sadistic Chair. I thought it was funny how everything was going bad and all I could think about at that moment was how much I missed being able to share the difficulty of the day with him and then felt incredibly alone. I guess that I have been aware of that lost missing part of my life for some time. Two or three years I’d say and every now-and-then I drown myself in those memories which seem to fade a little more with every passing day and miss being loved, having a sense of family and the affection of a supportive lover, friend; An object of desire that brings me closer to a sense of completeness in an often glass-is-half-empty world.
After a long sit, thoughts about lost objects of affection, inner incompleteness, self-destructive fantasies and a thorough drenching I walked over to Virgin Records and salivated over all the DVD’s I couldn’t afford. I then headed to the pet store and bought my cat some caned food to make up for the horrible loss of temper that I scapegoat on her for being a fatty catty who always begs for food even on days when her owner is late at no fault of hers and made a mental note to be extra affectionate towards her once I got home.
The whole time a copy of Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents sat in my backpack offering all of the sterile explanations to my feelings of love, attachment, and discontent. But, I yet to find any explanations to make these ongoing feelings of attachment to days long past disappear nor would an explanation of why my individual demand of the universe has become a prison-like box that I cant think outside of nor find salvation from. I guess one can dissect the truth all they want but one can’t change how it makes you hurt, feel, and if you’re lucky, heal. Love is complex and multi-layered but knowing that doesn't change the fact that it is what it is. And, it is what it is; I miss him like crazy, even his bad side and I miss him most on days like this.
I got home to yet another soaking down pour and the first thing that I did was look for my phone to make a long overdue call. I then found out that my phone had been disconnected. I was so pissed all I wanted to do was to hear a welcomed voice but that was not going to happen. So I resulted to hugging my poor cat who after a while probably considered clawing at my eyes. Poor thing first she is a scapegoat then has to make up for the lack of quality relationships in my life. I resorted to venting on paper, adding weight to each stroke depending on the evoked feeling and scratched my way through several pages of therapeutic rants.
