davaidavai

I want to find a beer garden, sit on a bench, have 5 beers slowly over a couple of hours, people watch, always with the possibility that I might connect with someone, find friends.

I think back on my travels, over my life, at the times in the autumn when I was drunk and the leaves were falling and I was sitting with people. Friends? Maybe. Music in the background. Was I connected with life?

But then I think, those moments were so few and far between, and the nights and what followed was always lonely, tearful, grief stricken, the memories of joy part of life's tight-fisted little charade of haves and have nots, giving and taking away.

Here, I'll present you with the illusion of human warmth and companionship, and then I'll strip you of that illusion and give you a sack full of fake memories to make the barren present even harder to navigate,

You think you're finding your way back to that halcyon dream, but you're really finding your way to the bottom of a bottle sitting on your little pile of rags on some neglected stoop. It is in fact Autumn. You can hear the sounds of the people in the beer garden.

sleepie

Today while walking through the aisles at Whole Foods in search of the black lentil, I observed many a thin, upper middle class woman- pilated, organic, gluten free posterior wrapped in Lululemon yoga pants, perfectly sculpted nose with the tiniest, glittering adornment perched atop one nostril, a small child strapped to the chest, like a tribeswoman foraging the grounds for sustenance, scouring the market for the perfect grass fed gateway to longevity and an ass that looks to be 22 again.

I was a bit put out by the phoniness of it all. But then, whatever sappy shopping melody played almost moved me to tears as I found myself in front of the frozen entrees, a mosaic of soft toned hues and packaging punctuated by brighter splashes advertising sales and specials. The beauty of the mundane, even my distaste for the fake advertising of promised health and youth in the shop aisles, really struck me. And I thought, "It's all fake". My feelings, my inner experiences, whether alcohol puts them there or my own chemistry, that's all it boils down to. Brain chemicals. When things look too shiny, when euphoria or revelation or happiness happens... It's a bit of a lie either way.
So now what?
Am I just jaded?
Because pain seems very real to me, a truth and it is more common I think.
Why is it that happiness must be the falsity?

Whaddaya think Davai?

davaidavai

I always thought that sort of nose ring to be a symbol of self love and proud self involvement. Like the wearer looks forward to that first glimpse of herself in the mirror every morning and why not adorn that gorgeous face with a jewel! Simply perfect. And then she opens up the side mirror to get a side view, an infinite recursion of herself smacking her lips. I spend a lot of time in the grocery store but I am mostly seeking cheap meats.

I'd like to start a blog making fun of what hipsters buy, how they rack up these amazing grocery tabs on cambuchka, always the pint of hagen daz, always, everyday, expensive yogurt, weird price oblivious buys, like baby green lettuce in plastic containers, small goat cheeses, vials of resins, strange airy crisps, honey nut cheerios for nostalgia, star fruit

Happiness is marketed to us like Sanjay Gupta's latest latest bowel loosener. Its so easy to fall into the trap of trying to be happy, when happiness, that whole experience we are told is happiness, is really being a spoiled rich brat with the choice to be stimulated and clean and ratified and screwed.

Then again, anguish is anguish. I felt horrible all day today. At one point I was rocking there sitting on my bed cursing various people to hell and would have looked totally insane to any outside observer.

I just want clarity and freedom, to see things in a way that I don't care anymore, that I'm over it, observant of the general decline of things, the mesmerizing falsity of it all. I want to step beyond the veil. I want to leave here for good and never look back and never need anyone because they never seem to have much of a need for me.

Your writing is really good.

sugarbear1

I make more connections with other real people now that I am sober.

I used to make them in my mind, too, now it is reality and it's awesome!!

Ernest Kurtz said it best in his book Not-God, A History of Alcoholics Anonymous when he wrote, "...it's about fully human interaction..."

sleepie

Thanks Davai I am glad we can share these thoughts and see what others think here. Well I think it may be vanity too, but then I am a little prone also to think that maybe these holey faces are a way of reclamation, women own their bodies... these are cliquey types though! They are buying an image and settling for it I think as opposed to digging in the dirty trench and getting their manicured tips dirty.

So here's to digging trenches?

Tooshabby

I can't help but imagine all the snot that must get stuck on them

davaidavai

The septum piercing is more about reclamation I think. I don't make any connections. Alcohol is just the beginning of the problem for me, the rest is not understanding how to handle people, how to succeed in life. I carry around this conviction that no one likes or wants to be around me, that I am preferential to no one.

People who don't feel this way poo poo this, falling back on some universal 'EVERYONE feels that way,' statement, but not everyone feels like they aren't really valued, and has that observation apparently confirmed over the years again and again.

Life is ugly

sleepie

I get it davai... wish I didn't, but I do.
A life time of experiences of rejection and humiliation and ridicule starting with my own family.
Had my septum pierced a few years back. I felt very centered with it.
I took it out later though.
Kinda would like it again.

ScottFromWI

This is a nostalgic time of the year for me too, Oktoberfest celebrations and fall beers, etc. But when you really think about it, it's mostly just our addiction talking. There are plenty of people ( the majority actually ) that enjoy fall and all of the festivities that are involved without drinking at all, or drinking very little.

Kallistia

I carry it an own it, it's like my badge of honor - "I am not a like able person, I do not have what it takes to be a preferred and sought after person" and hold my head high for it. It's pride to me. And that's odd and unnatural...but it is

davaidavai

I tried to be that way for a long time, and it worked! I was getting somewhere by white knuckling it through environments where I garnered no respect. School, jobs, just slipping through unremarked, un thought of. Often it was flat out hostile. Every evening every weekend alone, alone, alone, alone, trying to cozy up to people, to insinuate myself into good graces, companionship, shreds of human warmth. Like some kind of street animal. A tramp. I am a tramp.

Finally, 4 years ago, I just caved in. I had a job interview for a good position that I tanked in because I simply couldn't imagine myself being valued. I couldn't imagine entering another environment and having things work out. How could I be preferential to anyone? Maybe I should go back to white knuckling it. Maybe that's the only way to be because people are people and they will always reflexively crush any sort of vulnerability and slavishly adulate and worship strength, and then map their base motives over with a bunch of rationalizing nonsense. That is people.

zjw

Alright I gotta say I dont always agree with your views davaidavai but your writing skill is pretty stinking good and this just changed my perspective on nose rings. I've never found them attractive till I read that. Now I can see how they might be attractive.

yep sleepie so what now? I think you got to that point just about with this statement. Once you strip all the layers off and strip all the BS away. all the nonsense what are you left with? so what now? I think your left with that which is inside of you that is beuatiful ;-). I hope you can see it as well.

sleepie

The septum's better zjw...

zjw

my wife might kill me if i came home with one of those lol. tho i'd do it anyhow haha. Not sure i'm game for a septum piercing myself but I'm getting the itch to get another hole somewhere soon lol.

sleepie

You have others?
You must be a young'un...
Where'd Davai go?

Kallistia

she'd have something to pull you around by?

zjw

hahaha yep thats part of the gripe. My mind does a good job at pulling me around by the nose as it is dont need anyone else to get any ideas.

Yep I got others but nothing to exciting just my ear and a cartaledge ring I had my tongue done but after biting it a few times and struggling to eat the first day iw as like screw this. I regret taking it out tho now.

I might get that done again tho but not sure. I'm 37 going on 18. I think everyone else is getting older and i'm getting younger. I sobered up and got my first tattoo and then some.