“I woke up today
Expecting to find all that I sought
And climb the mountains of the life I bought
Finally I’m at the top of every hierarchy
Unfortunately there is no one left
But me”
— Iter Impius
Strange dreams last night, involving way too many exes. It was, strangely, totally coherent (at least, my memory of it is), which is odd for me. Something involving being in Orlando with one and her family, but I was going to be taking their van back to Birmingham because I had to leave early. I thought of calling another on my way back through, since she lives in Orlando… So Kevin Finney and I went to the gigantic mall and bought snacks from kiosks (mine for the seven hour drive, he for his wife Liesl), and then headed back to the lake house where we were staying. It was there that I had to be quiet packing my things so as not to wake the ex-wife who was sleeping there, preparing to head out for a vacation with her new boyfriend.
It doesn’t sound coherent, but it was.
Anyway…
The long and short of that is that sometimes dreams have a lasting effect on the perception of the day for me (and I know it’s true of others — my ex-wife was once mad at me for days because of a dream she had in which I either kissed another girl or was neglectful). Dreams about exes — well, just color me strangely nostalgic. Not quite wistful or melancholy, as too many people will assume, just…. I don’t know.
‘Teched’ comes to mind. But I think my stream-of-conscious is overflowing the banks again.
“I’m sorry!
For the things we did and didn’t do
Forgive us; the fools that rushed ahead without a single clue”— Nihil Morari
Spending too much time lately thinking of departed friends. Not departed in the dead and buried sense… well, that’s not entirely true. Dead is something that some of them might as well be, given the walls I’ve built where some of them are concerned.
But in this town (and is this true everywhere, or only in an incestuous hole like Birmingham?), you can’t escape from anything or anyone. It’s the small-town that thinks it can. (Can what? Be Atlanta? Or does it simply aspire to “city” status?) Everywhere you turn, you’ll meet someone that you know, even if you weren’t aware of it. People know you, even if you don’t know them. All the people you meet will know your estranged best friend or want to date your ex.
This is, for the record and to state the obvious, going nowhere. Except down here in words, hopefully to make sense later. Or now. I’m not picky.
I’m dusting my brain.
And wow, this Saigon Kick disc of remakes and leftovers sucks ass.
Anyway.
There’s this issue in my head of wondering whether all this loss — or more frankly, all that I’ve thrown away — was for the best. Am I glorifying the past, as I have a tedency to do? Or are the regrets and hurt when I notice that I’ve been removed from this or conveniently left out of that legimate concerns that maybe there was a better way of handling things?
A memory of Civil Air Patrol just popped into mind, of doing everything that I thought I was suppoesd to do, everything that I understood to be the way things were done, and ending up alienating everyone. And another, of — the name escapes me. Model Senate? Something in high school, senior year, out at Birmingham Southern, where I played John Kerry or Christopher Dodd (wow, my memory is really not good, is it?). And again, everything went right, felt right, fell into place, until the end, when the rug was yanked out from under me, and I was left holding false impressions of the right way…
But then, my memory is a fuzzy and warm creature that likes to play tricks and hide in obvious places.
“All my life this is understood
Wasting my time like you knew that I would…knew that I would
So I hide my internal suicide
All my pride just to keep it inside…”
— Suicide
Wow, this album just never gets better. Poor SK. Wait… Poor me. I just listened to the whole thing.
Cynical optimist, that’s me. You fuckers.