Part 2

Sorry for that. Recently I’ve had a little bit too much time to think. I got fired from my job at a corporate firm for defiance.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Right now I’m on my way to meet an old friend at a bar. I decided to walk because it was nice out. One of those early October nights just before the leaves started to fall. The trees in the park were trimmed with gold and rubies. A light fog and crisp air demanded a light flannel.

My flannel was actually made of cotton. I don’t know if that still counts. The black and purple pattern would have been more appropriate for winter but I’ve always thought that my blue eyes clashed with the burnt orange of fall. I felt like one of those pretentious New York hipsters going to show off his “rugged” look in a Starbuck’s. I’d need a gray wool scarf, black coffee and MacBook in a messenger bag to complete the asinine look.

Maybe my flannel would actually have to be flannel too. Wool, at least.

I guess it’s unfair for me to criticize the hipsters. Sub out the coffee shop for a bar and the MacBook for a first draft of my new book and I don’t look so different.

I turned left onto Main Street and the sound of parties filled the air, each club with its tones and beats slightly out of rhythm with one another. The dissonance reminded me that it really was a little bit colder than my clothes allowed. Shivers filled my body and I paced a little more quickly towards the bar where I was supposed to meet my friend.

I quickly scampered up through a few maze-like alleyways to the bar named “Scrivener.” I punched the ten digit code into the keypad and yanked open the heavy bar door to egg-shell white walls and spotted pitch-black décor. The room was mostly empty. The only people listening to the Charlie Parker jazz were me and three indie-celebrity couples pretending to hide their faces. This was not the kind of place with a bouncer. If you were not welcome, disapproving looks would burn holes through your soul until you left.

 I sat down and ordered a dark and stormy. I looked turned my wrist and looked down.

11:48. I was twelve minutes early. I wanted to avoid the disrespect of being late. This is hardly a spot I’d ever get in myself and I certainly didn’t want to be the foreigner who offended some cultural norm.

Anyways, I always thought that it was important to be on time. There’s something very precious about time. I used to joke that time was the only commodity that became more valuable the wealthier someone is. My jokes aren’t very funny. When someone shows up to an interview or a lunch date late it means he doesn’t respect that time. It means he doesn’t respect me.

As far as I’m convinced, there only reason to be late is an emergency. If you live on the other side of town, plan for it. If there’s going to be traffic, plan for it. If parking is going to be hard, plan for it. Unless someone T-Bone’s your car in an intersection, you should show up on time. If someone gives me any other excuse the only thing I hear is “I don’t care.”

I ordered a dark and stormy. I like how the bubbles feel on my tongue.

11:53. I actually like being alone. Don’t get me wrong, I like spending time with friends as well. It’s just that friends have expectations. The explicit expectations might even be easier: help me out if I ask you for a favor,  go shopping, hang out with them on weekends, get drunk, chase after chicks. I could say no to these. I hated being expected to laugh at their jokes, or smile when I see them or just be a “decent” human being for hours on end. I don’t mean to sound like a terrible person. It’s not as if I don’t smile when I see my friends and it’s not as if I go around picking my nose or eat with absurd table manners. I just don’t like the expectation. My thoughts don’t expect anything from me. I don’t need to have any logic or conform to any preconceived notion as to how I should think or what I should think about. My thoughts just exist.

 Yes, I sometimes let my thoughts get away from me. I obsess over the little things. I enjoy letting my thoughts get away from me. That’s where I get the ideas for my writing. I take crazy, isolating ideas to their extreme. Sometimes I get political or religious but I usually like to overanalyze the simplest decisions simply for the hilarity of it:

Should I have a banana or a sandwich for breakfast? A banana is certainly more stereotypical breakfast food. Banana has more potassium and antioxidants and while relatively light, is certainly the most filling fruit I can have for breakfast. At the same time, I struggle to conform to traditional notions of masculinity with a banana. Firstly, the phallic shape may kill the deal right there. Secondly, all of the health benefits of a banana suggest I am trying to “keep slim” and care about my general well-being: a surprisingly feminine concept. Yet the sandwich suffers from the other side of that same coin. The sandwich is a tool of the patriarchy. “Make me a sandwich!” I might yell to my girlfriend, had I one to yell it to. Most essential to the entire conversation is that the banana is stuck in the primate age of human evolution. Bread exemplifies man’s intellectual triumph over wheat.

If I go through on day of meals like that I have a short story.

I guess that’s what gets me it trouble. Sometimes I stop conversations in the middle and just stare at the wall to think, even about these most mundane topics. If something actually interesting pops into my head I’ll pull out a moleskin notebook wherever I am and scribble away furiously. It’s hard to focus on doing one task at a time when I can think about twenty different stories at once. Reality is just too limiting.

I ordered a dark and stormy. The piercing ginger flavor still coated my mouth from my last sip.

12:04. No respect.

I check the news on my phone: “Terrorist cell beheads French couple claiming to be campers.”

I’ve got to appreciate the irony in an anti-western group beheading the French. I chuckle a little to myself.

I shouldn’t be laughing. I guess I struggle to sympathize. It’s not as if those were actually campers. Who the hell goes camping in the mountains of Nigeria? No, I think if you’re going to sign up to betray the sovereignty of a nation filled with state-sponsored militants you’re signing up to get shot. At least shot at. The beheading might have been a bit much.

I ordered a dark and stormy. The fog sets in.

12:15. I thought I might leave, until a tall, slim, figure passed through the door. My thoughts evaporate.