Choices

I’m so fucking tired today. Merely in the afternoon and it feels like 1 AM.

Fatigue and drowsiness remain despite all the caffeine drinks.

And I’m made all the more tired by the woman sharing my office for the day, who just talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks.

She will not shut up as long as she’s alive.

And it’s taking all my energy to ignore her and keep concentrating on what I have to do.

Ninth floor. Steep fall.

Choices.

Not My Day

Your boss tells you on Friday : ''no need to show up in the morning on Monday, 1 PM will suffice. Sleep in.'' Sounds like a great thing, right?

But of course Murphy will take exception to this and fuck it right up, evil scheming invisible bastard that He is.

So I go to bed at 10 PM-ish, I think, which is early as fuck for me. My roommate/little brother Yan got home at 3:30 AM and woke me up – and I couldn’t fall back asleep. At least I got some reading done – Pearl Jam Twenty (the book – while I await the arrival of the Blu-ray in the mail, possibly Friday). I’m at the year 2000 – Binaural.

But the worst part was the subway ride to fucking work: squeezed up, like fucking mushrooms in a can, and getting pushed by all those sweaty animals as they take the longest possible fucking route to the train’s exit, by bumping into 20 people rather than 5. For that kind of fucking swine, the fastest way from Point A to Point B is by Texas via the fucking moon, with a pit stop for coffee.

Murder might have been the case they gave Snoop Dogg, but I was tempted to follow that path as well. As a matter of fact, I was abnormally over-aggressive on the mid-day hour, considering.

The evening’s looming and my energy level’s dropping, my vision is blurring, and I know I’ll have to share another ride with those fucking worker bees in just a hundred minutes or so. I recently saw a phrase online, possibly on Facebook, that read ''You are not stuck in traffic; you ARE traffic''. Well, I’m not. Not at all. The 9-to-5 crowd is not my crowd, unless you mean the people who start drinking at 9 PM and only stop at 5AM to shower and start their day. In which case, that literally is my crowd, the one that comes to my fucking shows, the ones I owe a lot to.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

My Body Is A Cage

My fucking body's trying to kill me.

I have itchy hives on my elbows that stop me from sleeping, my turtleneck choking my captain, farts that smell like they can melt metal and shit that comes out like mud - and I'm sure it can burn through most things like lava.

My diabetes and asthma aren't even acting up yet, and the fact that I'm balding doesn't even matter to me anymore.

Ever since I've been an adult, living on my own, I've lived like a King. Now, at 33, I feel like I'm about to die at the age kings used to die at, having indulged in most things they'd indulged in - except taxing the poor, of course.

Occupying Wall Street sounds like a good idea, but for now, I'm still trying to just occupy my own body, my own cage.

I'll let you know how that turns out.

An Omen, Motherfucker

It's a bad sign when the always-healthy cat vomits five times in a single morning while its ''I-eat-everything-and-always-get-sick'' lion-sized brethren looks on, puzzled.

It's not the sign of a bad day coming, however, since my day actually began yesterday morning and has been eventful - to say the least - since. And here I am Friday, twelve hours behind the deadline I had to hand in a piece of work, with my boss awaiting my email. The same boss who yesterday made threats (''either she leaves, or I do!''), quit his job over a co-worker, and un-quit it hours later, resulting in office drama that somehow ended up revolving around me, the guy with the longest tenure on the office, who has seen the most bosses come - and every single one of them go.

Except while I'm busy playing psychologist and counselor, a role my boss ironically insisted I play when he forced me to work from the office instead of from home, my job doesn't get done.

Now it's early too Friday morning, I haven't slept in over 24 hours, with one deadline dead and gone, the office Christmas party tonight - and me playing a show later in the evening somewhere else. And I'm also playing tomorrow.

So what's the omen? That my day job's going down - or that it'll affect my night-time job?

Funny thing is, I was told two weeks ago today was just about my last day at my day job...

Hour 74

I'm seeing shadows again. Not just on the walls or on the floors, but walking alongside me on the subway or on the street. 72 straight hours without sleep, and still high from the caffeine, in no state to reach dormancy.

I could read a book from cover to cover, watch a movie, fuck a whole harem's worth of women - and I think I'd still be wide awake.

It's Thursday morning, officially, but it feels like it could be any day. In any year, probably. In any month between April and September. But it sure doesn't fucking feel like 6AM. 6PM, maybe. Except no place will serve me a fucking meal anywhere, and I don't have the shit to make my own at home.

And I'm a wanderer anyhow, today. I was in the same seat for three days, I can't possibly go get stale some place new right away, it wouldn't make sense, but then again, this whole situation isn't what you'd call ''normal''. I call it normal, but I'm not just anyone, like the song says.

Apparently, it's not too early for prostitutes to be out and about. Or maybe it's just the one, that one, she looks like her name could be Rita, the prettiest one around these parts, tall, just a tad overweight but a chest that could suffocate a chimp in less than 5 minutes. I'm sure she'd make just as much money as a waitress or a stripper. She must like the foul sex and staying soaked with the stench of raunchy men for days. And she keeps hovering between the subway and my house, those three fucking blocks, like she's stalking me. And every time I look at her, she acts shy. What hooker blushes when you look them in the eye? In a City that's rotting to its very core, it'd be too Hollywood for the lone humane one with a heart to be the one who charges money to get filled up with the remains and secretions of perverts and politicians.

And rows of kids, all tied up to one another, I'm not sure if it's because their keepers are genuinely worried that something might happen to them, or if the kids are actually just too dumb to not get themselves killed every five minutes - or perhaps, worse still, it's so they get used to the feel of bondage, as if it could be of use later in Life. You never know. And at this time, neither do I.

I'm blessed, in a way. Some people drink to get to this level. I'm just here. Witnessing. The best things happen in the mornings, the strangest sights: birds commiting suicide, car crashes, street lights malfunctionning at rush hour. Or you could stay at home and have the best sex with someone you might be tired of while you both have morning breath.

I'm just along for the ride.

Awake Is The New... Nightmare

I've now been awake for 37 of the last 40 hours, including the last 25 in a row. My eyes are doing everything they can to close, my brain can barely stop them anymore.

That Rockstar energy drink didn't work wonders, that's for sure, and the Diet Pepsi is making me want to puke.

I'm fucking freezing one minute, too hot to breathe the next - it's like I'm menopausing. My arms are twitching and moving uncontrollably.

I remember I wrote about not sleeping last year around this time, when I was in Cuba having the time of my adult life, but I was in good dispositions then, and I was drinking every hour I was awake, which isn't the case right now - on both counts.

I'm locked in a cubicle, writing, surrounded by people who are constantly on the phone. Even their never-ending chatter barely keeps me awake. And once this is over, which can be in half an hour or an hour from now, I'm the one calling it, I have to go to a show I booked for my annual Birthday Festival - one I've been looking forward to for at least a couple of weeks now.

I'm just afraid I might fall asleep in the subway on my way there or, worse still, there.

And I know I'll forget how bad I'm feeling at this time tomorrow. Come to think of it, I guess I always do, because sleeping is not something I do on a regular basis, for better or worse - this time, worse. But I keep doing it, to the tune of a couple of sleepless nights a week.

And I feel bad for the familiar faces that I only see during my yearly festivities, and for the new faces I get to meet, but on nights like tonight, I'm just showing up to show up - I'm phoning it in. Good thing I'm just there to enjoy the show and not to perform!

Guess I'm Doing Fine

It's not the first snow storm of the year, it might not even be the second one, but it's the most annoying, for sure. The first one to make me forgo sleep because it'll be more of a bitch to get home and come back to work than just stay here and write.

I'll need caffeine and uppers: Pepsi, Rockstar (pomegranate flavour, with vodka, because it doesn't specify a daily limit I can intake), Wake Ups. To start. Then, in a couple of hours, I'll decide if I need more - or stronger - material. Hopefully not, because I'm more than due for a full night's sleep tonight... seven nights in the making. Wouldn't want my day's consumption to ruin the night I so rightfully deserve.

I'm seeing birds flying in the top-right corner of my right eye, my left eye feels like it's covered in Vaseline, my balance is off a bit; I probably look like a drunk when I walk the hallways going to washroom.

My headphones are on, and ironically '80s-style goth-rock fills my ears, adding to the sense that I'm out of synch with the world; Joy Division's Transmission, And One's Military Fashion Show, The Cure's The Blood... never has the 'random' feature been so focused.

My stomach grawls, as wretched gases fight to leave my body's premises. I'm freezing one minute, boiling the next. Outside, the world is not only covered in white Artic Leftovers but actually drowning in it, not inch by inch but foot by foot. Sitting inside, ten feet from the windowsill, I wonder if death will feel this weird, if I'm nearing it somehow with my decadent lifestyle. I wouldn't be ready, that's for sure.

To think two months ago I was in Cuba, the one place on earth that makes you truly wonder about divinity, but also the one place where you wouldn't need it.

My body is doing all it can to shut down. My eyes close, my brain blinks, my mouth won't open. Nine more hours and it'll be smooth sailing. Cold sweat covers me, shivers take over, a wonderful piece of machinery that needs to rest.

Beck comes on, with Guess I'm Doing Fine. Figures.

Beer And Unloading In Varadero, Cuba (or How I Learned To Start Running And Drop A Liquid Bomb)

It was an awful hour of the morning in Varadero, say 6AM, with no sleep and sun sneaking through the lead-like blinds.

Nothing else to do but start a new day anyway. Two glasses of orange juice and bacon, then time for rum and coke and the ocean.

Your body does weird things when you don't sleep. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you haven't lived - and you might want to try it before you keep reading. The metabolism goes much faster. I'm already on a 2-shit-a-day diet here, but sleepless it can go up to 5, I'm sure.

And the beach is far enough from the room, 5 minutes sober, maybe 15 otherwise - it's gonna be a bitch trying to keep this pudding from pouring down my leg.

I grab a book for when I get there, a strawberry-vodka for the road - and start walking. For subtlety's sake, I smile at passers-by. The 25 stairs between the ground level and the rooms are like a dream, over in a half second. The yardage to the door is me at the Super Bowl, going for a touchdown with no one in front of me. The easiest 6 points of my career. The key's in the lock socket before my hand is even out of my pocket. The door opens and I'm but one jump from my destination. I get naked 'cause I know what's coming next. As soon as my knees bend, the shit hits the fan. Best two minutes of my life.

Wipe off, get up. I need another goddamn drink.