The lack of guilt via another blackout , then the horror of what I thought I left behind.

Today is Friday, July 30th, 2010. 

The last day I can put a date to is Monday, July 26th, 2010.

On Sunday, July 25th, 2010  I went to The Viceroy to have a drink.  After 6 pints of Foster's and 8 shots of tequila, I left.  I remember going to the grocery store and I remember buying 2 steaks, 1 package of fajita seasoning, 1 jar of jalapeno peppers, 1 canister of Pringle's, 1 6-pack of Diet Coke, 3 packs of Marlboro Lights, and 2 bottles of water. 

I remember the walk home, the 6 bags of sundries condensing in the heat.  I remember inserting my key into the security door, and I remember Dennis walking in behind me.  I remember me saying "Dennis, let's go have a drink," and I remember Dennis saying "I have to wake up early." 

I remember that in the elevator, we decided that I would drop off my groceries and I would meet him at his door.  I remember meeting him, hailing a taxi and going to The Dubliner, and I remember ordering a drink.  I don't remember anything linear after that. When we went to that bar, when I ordered that drink, it was on Monday, July 26th.  2010. 

Sporadic Episodes after that:
07/26/10:  Shower of hot water.  People looking at me and a bunch of stuff I wrote on the white board.
07/26/10(pm):  12 empty glasses of whiskey
07/27/10:  Movie playing, me trying to take off my socks.
07/27/10:  Sweating and wondering why I was standing outside.
07/27/10:  1 bottle of Glenlivet empty in front of me, Pilar smiling and saying how much she loves me 
07/28/10 (am):  2 empty bottles of Budweiser and a waitress (Adina) asking if I wanted another whiskey.
07/28/10(pm):  1 jar of jalapeno peppers empty, 1 empty bottle of rum cradled in my hand.
07/29/10(am):  Double whiskey.  Double whiskey. Double whiskey.
07/29/10(pm):  My thumb on fire because apparently I no longer know how to work a match.

In between those moments, I washed my sheets, arranged my books, fixed my faucet, and went to work.  I have only a slight memory of me accomplishing those tasks.  It was only after I realized I was burning  (rather severely) that I...unblacked out (?).

I'm aware now, because of my thumb, and I checked my calendar: 4 days of my life completely gone.

I thought I had left the blackouts behind.  I thought I had left the fear that drives them behind.  Stupid ol' me. Fear follows me like a jet's contrail. 

I am sorry if anything I wrote (apparently I wrote a lot) offended anyone (specifically Amy Tavern).  Deeply sorry.  And I'm sorry if I have failed anyone who doesn't know how easily I can disappoint.  I will not say that I won't do it again, but I can promise you this:  I won't ask you for money.  (Unless you are rich and/or have initials in your name with either a consonant or vowel.)

A hanger and a hoover

So I've been dating this girl, Pilar.

She comes over and makes rice, bacon, and eggs.  Every 3 days.  Every 3 days we see each other, and the two days between she sends me text messages about how much she loves me and misses me.  For those two days I want to vomit.  I like to spend time with her:

We went to the Dubai Mall this last weekend, and this is her in front of the waterfall.  This is her in front of Burj Khalifa:

Such a sweet girl, so why am I queasy for 2 days out of every 3? 

That's right, kids.  Pilar is pregnant, which means Timmy's apparently gonna be a daddy.  Unless I can punch her in the stomach and use a wooden spoon in ways that are completely unrelated to cooking.



I know, I know...that's the wrong thing to think.  I can't help it.  I'm not fit to be a father, just as I'm not fit to be a son.  If I could just get a bag of rock salt, a plunger, I wouldn't have to be sick for two days out of three.  Instead, I have to wait for the miracle to come.  And buy a bassinet.  And medical care.  And figure out how to not fuck things up.



What if it is retarded?  Is it too late to drown it after it comes out?  What if I look at it and can't hold it, ever?  What if it has all the worst parts of me?  What if it grows up and doesn't want to look at rocks or read or sit in the rain?  What is going to happen when I fail it?  What if it thinks I could have done better, and I agree with it?  What is going to happen then?  Are we going to sit in some dismal and dank space, staring at each other in flickering candlelight, both wishing the other were dead?  How many ways can I screw this up?

Maybe I'll be lucky and the world will end.  Maybe a quick trip down a flight of stairs...

Maybe I will love it.
Maybe it will love me.
Maybe we will sing stupid songs and hold hands
and I can tell it lies about clouds
and it will believe me.
Maybe we can talk about families,
and maybe I can be strong enough to cry with it.
Maybe I will not call it "it."
Maybe I will call this baby mine,
and this baby will call me.  Forever.

___________________________
Most of that post I wrote 1 1/2 weeks ago, because I'm prescient.  It was only today that she told me she was pregnant, and only today that we got the results from "the Pee Stick."  I had already made my peace with becoming a father, although I still had my reservations about it.

In the UAE, a woman who is not married but is pregnant gets thrown in jail.  After she comes to term, the baby is taken and the woman is deported (at the very least, lashed and stoned at the worst).  This, clearly, is not an option I am willing to take.  So today Pilar and I talked about it.  She kept saying "I wish I was dead" even though each time she said it, I tickled her.  She kept saying "What am I going to do" even though I kept reminding her (via tickling) that the question should be "What are We going to do."  We decided that she has to go back to the Philippines, ASAP, and I will join her there in the near future.  It appeared as if things were going to go relatively smoothly, other than the separation and the fear. 

I always imagined, if this day ever came, that I would be the one to suggest an abortion  (cf: title of this post).  I wasn't.  Pilar did.  I'm going to be a would-have-been father.  An "if circumstances had been different" father.  And, a little bit, I am relieved.

But a small, tiny piece of me wants to hold my baby.  An infinitesimal portion wants to send a picture of my baby to people I have known, and across the bottom of that picture I want to scrawl:  I Have the Ability to Love.   A large part of me just wants to go to sleep for a while, to wake up, to go to work, and to never think about it again.  That majority will win, for now.  But some nights I know I will yell at my apartments walls that I can love just as well as anyone.  And I will pull down that used, positive pregnancy test (which I didn't throw away) and think of all the things which could have been.  Because those are the things I like to think about in the latest watches of the night:  what could have been.

Why I feed the demon (No Pictures)

Balthasar's Journey:
If you want a description of loneliness and uncertainty, and if you want that same description anthropomorphised, meet Balthasar.  A dealer in rarities and curios, he is living on the cusp of the year of the devil:  1665.  He is skeptical, he is in love, he is weak, and he is ultimately unknown.  Nice.  This novel is all about his journey to find the tome which reveals the last, secret name of god.  He is accompanied by his nephews and a widow (whose husband isn't dead). Balthasar is all of us, fears and posturing and failed love.  Excellent.

The White Tiger:
A novel about the rise of a nobody from The Darkness of India, to a successful somebody in Mumbai.  Vengeance, murder, innocence, retribution, and ill-begotten plans highlight this novel.  The first person narrator is both understandable and unreachable.  He embodies the plight of those who can't rise up, yet he does.  There are politics, there is fear, and there are failed relationships; in sum, this is a surprisingly good book.

The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal:
I didn't like the ending, and I didn't like the beginning.  But I loved the flushed characters, the fear they displayed, the love they were scared of, and the building.  The author, Sean Dixon, managed his female protagonist and allow her to be human, unlike "She's Come Undone" by Wally Sucksville.  Wally's female was an obvious patchwork of female obsessions viewed through the male mind and psychological journals.  Dixon's work, while flawed, allows for the fact that females are also thinking members of the human race. 
This book was also kind of funny, and until the finale, I bought into it.  Oh well.

Cowboy Angels:
This book is exactly what it says it is.  A fun romp through the slivers of a universe we don't understand.  By "fun" I mean tragic yet funny.  It's well written, has really interesting ideas, and offers an asnwer to the "I killed my own grandfather" paradox of time travel.  Enjoyable on the whole.

Human Is?:
Philip K. Dick is an underrated and overlooked prophet. BladeRunner?  Based on his short story "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"  Minority Report  Titular short story.  "A Scanner Darkly?" Ditto.  These movies take away the desperation of PKD's vision.  There are not many short stories in this collection which give hope, and there are certainly none that offer consolation.  But the stories make you think, they make you suffer, and they make you want to change.  Hallmarks of good sci-fi.  Great sci-fi.

How Beautiful it is, and How Easily Broken:
If you think you are learned or lettered, read this book.  Afterward, the only consolation you will have is "I'm probably more fun at parties."  Essays on everything from video games to broadway shows through the lens of latinate/grecian studies.  We are not as creative as we think we are, we are not as original.  But the stories which mean something resonate.  He elucidates that resonation.  Sometimes he's a little too pithy, sometimes too pedantic, but on the whole, his writing is well reasoned and emotive.  Good book.

The Locked Room:
Murder, mayhem, and a Swedish society falling into the darkness of socialism.  There is nothing wrong here.  The side pieces are darkly funny (the best kind), the protagonist isn't the only character with depth, and the mystery is well played.  No withheld evidence, no final revelations, just good solid writing.  Too bad the authors are dead.

The other day, my friend Dennis said "Reading is meditation."  I looked at him like he had two heads, until he explained himself.  "Reading takes us away from ourselves and forces the reader to be someone else for a while."  Small symbols on thin pages.  They keep me from the cold.  They have saved me since I understood them.  They keep on saving me.  Sometimes because I read them, and sometimes because I try to piece them together myself.

Meditation is simply a way of trying to understand someone else.  I often fail in that regard, but I have never stopped trying.  I will never stop trying.

For me, reading too much is like feeding a demon. (No pictures)

The Kite Runner:

This is an overly simplistic story, dressed up with tragedy and religious differences.  The narrator is weak, and it turns out that I didn't ever care about him.  He wasn't weak in a relateable way.And in the penultimate moment, I was hoping for a different outcome.  When a writer covers a weak story line with tragedy, it obviously pulls at the heartstrings but doesn't ultimately make the reader want to talk to anyone related to the story.  It's even worse when cultural tropes are played for points.  Of course everybody in the western hemisphere hates the Taliban.  Give me something with real hurt.  That's what I want.

Vernon God Little:
Just as I would never attempt to set a novel in England (even though I have lived there for 4 months...just not contiguously), don't set a novel in Texas if you aren't from the US.  "Fucken" is not how to spell "Fuckin'."  I don't know what this author meant by "meatworks," but I'm assuming he meant feedyard or slaughterhouse.  And he tried to use Columbine as a way to give gravity and hurt to his protagonist.  He also over-wrote the "made for tv"/"reality tv" comparisons, and eventually wound up making me want to take up a gun myself.  Lauded as a "grand comic novel," I actually found very little to be funny within it.  It made me cringe; I cringe at dead baby jokes.  If there is something funny in such distastefully rendered moments, then I have lost my sense of what is funny.  Brits:  don't write as if you are from the US.  US:  Don't write as if you are from England.

A Thing (or two) About Curtis and Camilla:
This could not be worse.  Don't waste your time.  Hailed as "a new voice" and "funny has a new hero, and that hero is Curtis," I wanted to kill myself after reading it.  If you can think of a cliche, insert it into any of this books 200 pages and it won't be out of place.  Even if you put it right next to the pagination.  I loved the idea of meeting a wonderful girl via her dog, but after 12 pages I wanted to stab Curtis, his precocious neighbor child...and even the dog.  I rarely want to stab dogs.  Thanks, jerk.

Tree of Smoke:
Now I know how other people feel about Cormac McCarthy.  After 100 pages I was still lost.  After 200, I figured out that somebody, somewhere, had died.  After 250, I pieced together that Vietnam is still a torn space.  I still have no idea what the plot was of the book.  I don't know who the protagonist is.  It reminded me of reading "The Ambassadors" by James while I was in college.  I burnt that book, and I'm pretty close to burning this one.  Being purposefully obtuse doesn't equate with meaning.

Left Hand of God:
I've dreamt better fantasies than this garbage.  I'm assuming it was meant for the slower portion of the "Twilight"/"Harry Potter" crowd.  It sounded so good, and had such a brilliant lead in.  It turned out to be like buying a dalmatian.  Disaster from the third page. 

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo/The Girl Who Played with Fire/The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest:
Relatively new to the realm of mysteries, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised by this series.  I guess it was because I had no hope of good writing, just good devices.  I've always loved me some John Grisham because he has good plots, and I've understood that his characters and writing will always be lacking.  Same here.  Even the heralded Lizbeth, The Girl, is nothing but a reverse stereotype.  Obviously, ol' Steig wanted to show that he was pro-feminist, pro-equal opportunity, pro-whatever; Steig failed.  His characters become shadows of want and desire, flawed in all the wrong ways, and ever unbelievable.  However, this 3 book series was really enjoyable, because I could shut my brain off and just read words for 13 hours without moving.

Metal Storm:
Really?  I couldn't even get past the 10th page without feeling as if I was masturbating in an orphanage.  Yep.  Disgusted and embarrassed.  This author should have his fingers chopped off and those same fingers fed to purposefully illiterate octogenarians.     His writing ability seems to be on par with the flavor of yesterday's tapioca.  And I hope they all stop doing damage.

Falling Sideways:
If you've ever read any Tom Robbins, you will understand this:  Madcap yet thoughtful Lunacy.  This book is similar.  I know I would enjoy it more if I were a British subject.  I found it entertaining, ridiculous, and endearing.  The only thing that is truly missing is the "thoughtful" part, because "weird" has replaced the adjective in the description.  I like the idea of frogs controlling things, and I like the idea of being able to clone things...but...there was a missing note.  The same note that Bigfoot enthusiasts miss:  the theory itself doesn't make sense in its entirety. Tom Robbins' ideas always make sense when taken on their own.  This book employed laughs and gags in lieu of thought.  I liked it, but I won't read another book by the same author.  That being said, I always hesitate to read a Tom Robbins novel.  Sometimes the crazy is just too far out there for me.

The ingredient labels for: Renuzit/ketchup/garlic paste/imported 409/paint:
I'd rather read these than what I just found tonight.  2 unopened letters that I brought with me, unknowingly (kind of knowingly).  Who wants to read recriminations, exaggerations, or invitations?  Nobody.  Give me more books:  The Comedians, Norwegian Wood, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Moby Dick, Why Not Catch 22, The Spy's Bedside Book, How to Speak Arabic, Guide to Dubai, the Yellow pages...

because my demon can be distracted with pages.