Blend

Carter kept discreetly turning the volume up using the steering wheel, cursing every ambient, non-anthemic track on the latest M83 album as Jaime used an affected voice to sound strained to speak over the layers of synth. "I don't really like donuts anymore.  Especially not for breakfast." Carter opens the window at a stoplight and says, "I hope you didn't see too much this morning". Jaime takes this moment to light up the third cigarette since they woke up 20 minutes ago.  "We don't have to- I don't like to bring that up right away, for obvious reasons, I guess.  It's all good though, we'll be there in 10 minutes."  They were both fully convinced the other was about to implode under the tension. "It was a good night, great crowd, man."  "I hope I'm not towed." "Nah, the meters are on weekdays."  "Yeah, I guess that's the benefit of having these in shitty neighborhoods."

Carter and Jaime met the previous night at a huge warehouse party.  Carter was with a group of friends who all took one car, and they found a spot just quiet enough to converse, but still near the action.  Carter says, "I hate it when people get drunk at these."  Someone in the group was experiencing their first warehouse party where everyone uses Blend, and they set down their drink sheepishly. "Why? Do they act like assholes?" Carter gestures towards someone apologizing to a few indignant people. "Did you see that?  Someone keeps bumping into people, and they keep getting offended and arguing." "Oh right! Because if someone crashes into you it means they are not attracted to you."  Carter's friend gives the room a once-over.  "I can still see everyone. Does that mean I'm attracted to everybody, like I'm bi? When does it kick in?" "Give it another 15 minutes. You'll know.  Like, every part of someone you're not attracted to will fade and blend in, and the parts that turn you on will be all you see of them.  It'll be like black light, you know? And the sexy parts will glow, everything else will be hard to see.  That's why you gotta move slowly and not get wasted." "If I get drunker, won't more parts of people look sexy?"  They laughed as a group. "That's such a first-timer joke! I'm so glad you came, it gets so serious here."

Jaime was with two friends, and they kept moving from table to table.  "Oh my god, I feel like such a degenerate here.  Why do they host these in such shitty neighborhoods?" Jaime shrugs, distracted, distant.  "Where else are they gonna get the space?"  "They just need to rent out like, a whole night club or something.  I'd totally pay extra.  It'd weed out all the assholes."  Jaime's friends enjoy speaking loudly and derisively about people as they walk by, Jaime knows that you shouldn't go to a Blend party alone.  "And the people who just keep coming here over and over and over... I'm tired of seeing them!" "More like not seeing them..." "Why do people drink at these?  If you are on fucking Blend and you still can't talk to someone, you just need to go back to internet dating."  Jaime takes out a vial. "Will you two stop complaining and let's just take these? I like to take them at the same time so we disappear all at once and none of us are left sitting around.  Like last week." "Aww, but you sure did find us eventually, isn't that right?"

"What if I don't find any parts of you guys attractive?" Carter loves coaching first timers. "Well most people find something attractive about everybody.   But once we start to disappear, it's best to split up." Someone else chimes in, "That's the awesome part! Unlike other group singles events, it like, really forces you to branch away from using your friends for safety.  If you see someone, and they see you, you automatically know there's a connection."  Carter butts back in,  "It beats internet dating. That's why I'm here, anyway." "That's why everyone's here." "And if you don't like someone once you see them the morning after, nobody gets offended!" The first timer grew nervous. "Is that- Does that happen all the time? That sounds shitty. Can't I just tell someone to grab me in certain spots before we leave together? So they know there aren't any deal breakers?"  "No, you just gotta not be a pussy about it." One of the group is growing impatient.  Carter pushes back, "No, shut up, that's not true.  If you like someone and you feel shy about rejection, just ask them on a date. If someone won't accept you for who you are, flaws and all, they're not worth your time." "Yeah, this isn't like, an orgy or something.  There's nothing to be worried about."

"This place is basically an orgy. There's no connecting happening here other than genitals." Jaime can't wait for the dose to take effect and disappear, and has two options: make new friends, or try and relate to these two until the trip starts and direct communication is prohibited unless your friend is clearly making a mistake.  "Definitely for some people.  The true benefit, really the entire purpose of this is that it cuts through so much of the bullshit and awkwardness so you can meet someone and move on to the good stuff." "Yeah, this place is definitely turning into a hookup scene for some people."  "Exactly! You can tell when people are scene because they have their Blend party uniform." "Hah, yes! A few people tell you they like your eyes or your legs or your/ tits or your cock bulge or whatever and you start framing them with your outfits"  "The most definitive one, and maybe I'm the only one who has run into this, is they won't give their name out." "Yeah! Some shit about respecting the collective memory." "It was explained to me that our ownership of memories is a like and that they are really shared and borrowed.  I tried to argue, and they just ask me to prove them wrong." "I always want to tell them off"  "I'm never ready when they approach me!  I've always got a good comeback like, the next day when I'm sitting at my desk."

"OK, 5 more minutes then we separate."  Carter just explained that it's a faux pas to cling to a friend when they're on Blend "So like, does it work with movies?" "I don't know, look at that screen."    "Why doesn't it work on movies?" "Are you thinking about having sex with movies?  I don't know about the brain science behind it or whatever, but it affects that part of your perception."  "I'd have sex with that movie!  Who decides on these?" "Eh, it's a bunch of pretentious art house crap. Nobody comes here to see the movies. If you're talking to someone and they start watching the movies, that means they're not interested." "But I thought that once someone looked at you it meant they were interested." "Yeah, but people change their minds. Look, the Blend doesn't do all the work for you, you have to use your own judgement." Carter scanned the room to plan her escape. "I think I see someone. I'm gonna go for it. Good luck!"

Carter approaches the first coherent series of features and is pleased to see a familiar face says, "Oh hey, I remember you."  The features replied, "I doubt it, I just moved here. But I've been going to Blend parties since the bathrooms at Krush were still gender segregated, if that means anything to you.  Did you go to any parties in the Bay Area scene? Maybe we hooked up there?" "No.  Are you sure? I just... what's your name?" "Let's not do names, you can call me Anonymous.  What are you seeing?" Carter hesitantly proceeded, "Your calves and your hair and your eyes, especially your eyebrows... and most of your torso. I'm sure that we- didn't we?" The anonymous attractive figure replied, "Individual memory is just a puddle next to a river, all we need to do is connect it." "Yeah, you have been going to these for a while." "What's that supposed to mean?"  "'Let's not do names'? Individual memory? River?  You actually read that book."  "'The End of Individuality?" "Yeah, that. Sorry, I just thought that book was rubbish."   "Well pardon my directness, but you've obviously done your share of Blend.  How do you know... what do you hold on to that tells you that you are remembering separate people and not just a shared composite of all the people you, y'know, blend with? And all of their memories?"  "Sorry, I just don't buy that far into this, this is just a hangover-free good time for me."  Anonymous could not see Carter's eyes, but was pretending to stare into them.  "I am an analyst for a major software company that I will not mention out of good taste, and I run my own freelance PR consulting firm. If you're implying that I'm some sort of addict with no life, you've made a mistake." "Well, my name is Carter. Enjoy your night."

Jaime had witnessed this exchange from nearby.  "Was that your first experience with a Blend Buddha?"  Carter was startled.  "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have just approached you like that. Am I here?" "Oh you are definitely there, sorry, I'm just a little shaken.  Definitely not my first, but certainly my best. That felt good, I'm glad someone was there to witness that." Carter's eyes fixed on Jaime as they best could as names were exchanged. "I almost wanted to intervene, but you seemed to be doing just fine." "I almost wish they would just make Blend illegal, that'd get rid of all the... those people." "Yeah, I feel like this is ecstasy for obnoxious yuppies.  I wish there was a way to just filter them out." A few of Carter's and Jaime's friends walk past and say nothing, which is a standard way to approve of a friend's catch.  They both look at the other's group unknowingly.  "People dressed like that might as well just go to a regular night club." "Yeah, I mean if you bare most of your flesh-" "Everybody likes flesh!"  "I guess it makes it OK for them to move around so fast though." "Yeah, like when I really need to get to the bathroom I should just take off all of my clothes." "Yes, you should."

Soon Carter and Jaime are in a corner kissing with equal parts passion and curiosity, both escalating.  Jaime senses the romantic bubble moving carelessly in the proximity of an unseeable spike, so reigns it in with words, "I hate how this encourages people to be so... crass with each other." "Oh I don't know, I think honesty is my favorite part.  You can't say anything to people about their appearance anymore without worrying about hurting someone's feelings.  Now words are a pleasant indulgence." "You have amazing legs." "A very pleasant indulgence" "...and your shoulders... your jaw... and your neck." Carter pushes and pulls Jaime into a certain spot, "I love the way you look at me."  The last kisses recede like melting iced cream. Carter asks, "Did you drive here?" "Yeah, but I don't Blend and drive. Could you imagine living with the guilt of running someone over because they weren't sexy enough?"  They laughed and left and found a cab.

Jaime is considering this moment as the wind howls in Carter's car on the way back to the warehouse after a night of technically proficient and occasionally intimate sex.  "You're completely over the dose, right?  Can you see those ugly kids over there?" Carter was supposed to laugh. "What's up with all these ugly kids? Must be something in the water."  Carter gave a laugh so forced it was borderline hostile. "So what are you up to today?" "Oh, groceries, laundry, balance sheets..." Jaime could feel the pending arrival as Carter went through the errands.  Jaime was sorting a list of possible failures of the past 10 hours. All the questionable moments were traced to a sense of familiarity, of having known Carter for years and being able to say anything.  In the moment, that sense justified bold statements of ennui and references to very specific and obscure feelings.  Was that all just a product of the drug?

Jaime makes a last ditch effort.  "So did you really see the most of me out of everyone here?"  Carter replies as though not listening, "I'm sorry about earlier, you were right. About the 'seeing too much' comment.  You don't want to get all self-referential or whatever right away.  Well anyway, I'll find you on Facebook. You're friends with Max Lang, right?" "I think so." "Cool, you got your keys?" "Yeah totally. Maybe we could go get a drink during the week?" "I'm really busy this week. But maybe I'll see you at the warehouse again?" "Yep, I'm sure I'll see you there."

The Old Roller Coaster

Saturday, August 17th 2013, 4AM

As a matter of fact, I did eventually descend Chair Mountain.  Upon arrival at the anti-summit, full of anti-summites, I consulted my pocket and learned of a great opportunity to ask someone else for a cigarette.  I inquired and was granted one cigarette but it was in the past. Next to me was a vine content to support himself, asking for gesture line drawings of lies about life outside the mountain, just good enough to pass a survey drawing course at CMCC (Chair Mountain Community College). The conversation was very facial, I went through several belts of Mike & Ikes until my new favorite band, "The Old Roller Coaster" played an impromptu set!  Sunned nearly raceless, his romping louted him a home at all times.  He sang my favorite hit tune o' his, "Here's Some Sentimental Bullshit (Whatever You Need to Hear, [Whatever Gets You Through the Night])" and I just about spilled my gazes!  Everybody else was trying to figure out what they were there for, and when I told them it was The Old Roller Coaster, it all made perfect sense, and a violent letterbath ensued.  In the depraved squalor remaining after the show, people were hunting for names.  After a night of finding the next brightest object to follow, the sun ruined the job market.  For riches or worse we escaped, and shuttled on foot to our lair, where we didn't know we had to be insulated from the OWW! Box, which functioned as the SONAR answer to a question we would never ask without it.  I wandered to find the just right distance from the OWW! Box, walking in a nautilus pattern until I realized I am not all that different from The Old Roller Coaster, just trying to find the right distance from the sun.

Second Handers

One day, I got stranded living in the present moment. It happened when I was reading a review of some book by Eckhart Tolle (1) on Amazon.com. I was reading on my bed, my laptop providing the light in my blanket tent. I hadn't slept for a few days due to a high victory of the mind over the body: I was going through a spell of beautiful, beautiful depression. A good book used to put me to sleep but I did not read books anymore, I merely experience and recreate them through other people's explanations. See, reality had long become too cumbersome, and the traditional escapism of internet role playing games held no appeal for me (due in part to the social stigma, but mostly the lingering precariousness of dependence on internet and other escapees/players), so I was on a mission to retreat entirely into my brain. My first step was to internalize sex, which was pretty easy, most people have already done this in one way or another. Food, or specifically, sustenance was the most difficult. I eventually lived on a diet of plain boiled unsalted rice and watch people cook on youtube and imagine what flavor I'd experience with their end product. I prefer youtube because unlike cooking shows on television, people on youtube sometimes end up preparing something awful, just like real life, and they must eat it regardless. Adherence to pleasing fantasies weakens the mind, but creating the nuanced damnation of pineapple-salmon with cream sauce nearly grants the imagination arms and legs to excuse itself from the "table of the body", so to speak. The final hurdle to complete self-immersion was to learn to breathe vicariously, thus conceding all biological functions to the power of my thoughts. I completed that as the oxygen ran out in my blanket tent at the same time I finished reading the book review, and when my Self saw it's polar opposite reflection, it surged out from my body, essentially like I sneezed my psyche inside out. The book review was like pepper in the nose of my brain, its mouth full (having consumed my Self), spewed its contents out into the astral plane where it vanished forever.

Having no Self is difficult. I now assume the moods and emotions of anybody around me, my mind merely a tool for perpetuating wretched reality. Some people go grocery shopping; I walk the streets trying to harvest a pleasant conversation that I can absorb and take home every single day. There's nothing more frustrating than capturing a happy moment that can echo through my empty head and ricochet around my nerveless body all night, only to encounter a downer just before I walk into my apartment, so I am stuck with their agony until I find someone who is at least mildly content. The worst part: if I accumulate pleasant conversations, I become a source of synthetic, nearly pure positivity, which is annoying and slightly depressing to others. My feelings mimic their annoyance and depression, which makes me even more annoying and depressing to be around. So people simply avoid me until my misery makes someone who is less miserable than I am happy that at least they aren't THAT miserable, and I can harness their happiness for myself. The only benefit to being marooned on this incarnate island without my Self is that I save money on rice.

(1) Which one is not important.

It's a Fucking Shark!

I'm at a table somewhere in 2002 with french fries that were dissolving in ketchup and brown gravy, coffee where the cream was separating in psychedelic patterns just below the surface, and Matt is pitching an idea to everybody: he wants to create an online archive of vintage video game music. Everybody is excited except for me, but I keep my mouth shut because I'm at a table of lazy idealists, and there is nothing on my mind that their ex-girlfriends haven't already broke up with them over. I've already started siphoning contempt in my direction by saying that 90% of tattoos are stupid. I only know one of the six people at the table, and statistically I insulted everybody, but they all probably assumed they were part of the 10% with cool tattoos and called it optimism. It doesn't matter though, my lack of enthusiasm is enough to get me called out. Matt says, "You're not on board for this one, are you?" I cannot lie. The subject changes a few times as the night goes on, but inevitably he brings up his brilliant idea again. This time he puts me on the spot. "You're getting a business degree, right? Well isn't it advertising that pays for these websites? Don't you see the opportunity?" He cuts my reply off before any possible meaning could have been gleaned and he continues, "You know what your problem is? You never make a choice. Ideas, you know... they're like picking a girlfriend. You can spend years waiting for what you think is an ideal situation that may never happen or it may not turn out the way you wanted it to. Me, I like to run with whatever I think is a good idea until it fails." Everybody agrees with him as they start talking about people they know who are closed minded like I am, and I decide to take a stand in a way they would possibly relate to. I say "Have you ever looked around you and wondered what other people are thinking? Well I always had the idea that we should consider the opposite." I let that sit for a second to make sure everybody is paying attention. I continue, "I think that the sharpest tool for self-assessment is to imagine the people we care about and even random strangers suddenly had a membership to our library of thoughts." I suggested that we try it right at that moment at this almost empty diner at nearly 4 AM. We sit in silence for a while as we all imagined that people of varying personal significance were browsing our thoughts and memories. I imagine a frenzied entity taking a tour of my memories presented to them in 12 pt Arial font, and my current thoughts over a PA. The entity was drawn to thoughts I considered shameful, but once the two parties met I realized how silly shame is... Everybody began digging up shameful thoughts before they even decided who was sifting through them, then deciding who would be most affected by it. Incidences of petty racism, chunks of inappropriate lust... all revealed to everybody at the table, and anybody else we could summon to mind... they pass through us and take a souvenir before they dissipate. In the end, I am left with equanimity. We break concentration when the check arrives, and I am the only one who feels no need to speak, for though my fries are still untouched, I am not hungry in the least.