Fixie

The customer recognizes my ragged youthfulness along with my chosen profession and interprets it all to include feelings of revolutionary resentment towards more traditional ambitions. "Most people don't choose a career path based on what they enjoy. The decision is a noxious combination of fear and convenience." This is just one of many generalities he preaches at me with exaggerated conviction because he wants me to agree with him with the same vigor, like we're suddenly going to feel a warm kinship because of it. Like if you underline a few common interests with enough enthusiasm, you could bypass the years it takes to form a real friendship. I own a garage and sell miscellaneous refurbished goods (appliances, tools, bicycles, etc), and I have these conversations with lonely idealistic souls new to downtown often enough to know that he is about to say something even more riddled with jagged camaraderie bait. "...and fear and convenience ought to be abolished in general." He's just another hack in a fedora who has mistaken my dusty shop for a drawing room in some Russian novel. He's been checking out my one bicycle, and he's touched his wallet several times in the 15 minutes he's been rambling, as though he's still trying to decide. I have no doubt that he is going to buy this recently repainted cerulean blue fixed gear Schwinn with the visibly marked-down price. He knows it to; it is the only thing in the world towards which he feels no ambivalence. Meanwhile I struggle to find the balance of being cordial enough not to alienate the sale but curt enough to get him to complete what is really a perfunctory transaction that requires no such declamatory statements. I turn 90 degrees to the right and tinker on my workbench as he tells me about how primitive it is that the city lacks proper bike lanes on its arterial boulevards, and how the city should adopt a filtered permeability model. While I may not have an associates degree in urban planning, I know that a several hundred year old city is not very likely to repossess its storefronts so the citizens with the highest smugness-to-profitability ratio can save their knees a few statistically inevitable scrapes. He takes the hint when I break eye contact and apply my Dremel to some lightweight titanium tubing.

There is a reason I tolerate vexing hipster rants to sell a cheap used bicycle in my otherwise surprisingly profitable shop. I keep track of all their inclinations so I know where they may be found. Within two weeks I will have stolen the bike I just sold them and sold it to somebody else, and it helps to have a general idea of where they'll be. Urban cyclists tend to conglomerate at the same few cafes, but daytime is difficult to work with. From the conversation I glean whether they are after indie music, poetry, slutty art school girls, jazz, DJ's, terrible punk shows, etc. After they basically read their Facebook profile to me, I know which venues to stroll by every Friday and Saturday night to find my bike. Sooner or later, it ends up on the rack, and I retrieve it.

Once the bike is at my shop, I am sure to repaint the frame and obscure any recognizable dings and scratches in case they return to buy a replacement, which is usually what happens. I stole my bike from the same guy three times in 2 months. Eventually I sold him a used Vespa for three grand, which he's had better luck with. He stopped by to tell me this, and he introduces his friends to me when I see him drunk swaying in front of clubs late at night. Many of them know me already.

Today's customer didn't give me any good leads... if I had to guess, he spends most of his time with the lights out watching Zeitgeist drinking pure grain alcohol. He wore a wrinkled white dress shirt with suspenders, so my first stake out is either Ellis Island circa 1921 or the jazz clubs. Given his disdain for the bourgeoisie, I avoided the places that charge admission and feature Pat Metheny covers in favor of the seedier venues. Places with names like The Rusted Oleander and Brazen Blue seemed like his scene, but I hung out all night and all I got was a free preview of tinnitus. After that I winged it for a while, hitting up all of my usual spots until I realized the one clue he gave me with his words. He spoke of career choices and civil engineering... so I scanned the 24 hour library at the university religiously for two weeks until I gave up.

Having exhausted all other options, I toured the cafes where all of my former clients have Sunday brunch. I found him at Merci Beaucoup sitting alone at the bar next to the spinning cakes. I sit down on the other side and order something to drink. Within three sips he recognizes me and starts a conversation. I ask him how the bike is working out and he says, "It needed a little adjustment and some new parts... and that color was hideous, I don't know who owned it previously but it was just awful." I paused to wonder what type of person takes such issue with cerulean blue, then asked if he had it with him today. "You know to be honest, I sold it to a friend. I needed something with more gears, y'know?" So my bike was lost, but there was one more thing I was looking for. I asked how he was acclimating to the downtown scene, and he replied, "I spend most of my time at home or at the library studying for classes." I didn't have to ask him which college or at what times he could be found there, I already knew I was right enough about it. So right, in fact, that I needed to close my shop and find a new city, somewhere I can hopefully never become so familiar with as I have with this city.

Jagged Angles of Comfort

Vic felt a bit hesitant going to Tanya's viewing. They had been dating for two months, and the relationship had taken a turn for the serious in the weeks before the car crash claimed her life, so while he couldn't imagine not going, he knew most of the attendees mostly through her stories about them. Vic had met only a few of her friends and, very briefly, her sister. He imagined that her ex-husband would be there, and he tried to stifle inappropriately trivial thoughts of awkwardness, but he couldn't help himself from the occasional speculative glance around the room. He'd never seen a picture, so he had to guess by the composite sketch in his imagination. Anybody in the 30-40 age bracket was suspect, and his mind would rattle off several features to scan each face for before his conscience called him out. This cycle of internal struggle disturbed him, but it also kept his grief at a safe distance.

Glenn had been shifting in his seat at the back of the room speaking into a mobile device with both hands cupping the receiver. He approached Vic and solemnly introduced himself as her ex-husband. To cut the unbearable silence short, Vic asked how Glenn's band was doing. Glenn tightened his brows, "What band?" "Tanya said you were in a cover band..." Glenn seemed on the verge of laughter. "I was in a cover band in college. It paid for grad school!" Vic stares blankly as he thinks to himself, "Grad school?" Glenn continues, "I'm a writer and producer for TLC." This distracts him even further from his grief. Not only is Glenn successful now, but it seems that he has always been resourceful with his creativity, which is distinctly at odds with what Tanya told him. As the conversation continues, Vic tries to figure out why she lied to him. It seems like she was trying to give a more palatable impression of her choice to move on, as though she divorced an inept struggling artist for a more stable lifestyle with Vic. Was she trying to make Vic feel better for being less interesting than Glenn, or was she making herself feel better for not being able to handle her husband's ambitious lifestyle? Or maybe he cheated on her! He instantly feels shame for being relieved at that thought. The resulting insecurities would explain some of her bedroom acrobatics though.

While Vic was lost in his thoughts, Glenn turned to the side and spoke into a small recording device and mumbled the date and time a few barely audible sentences like "Reality series of what French women do on their 2 years of maternity leave" and "The secret lives of feral cats. Cats are all over the internet." Vic couldn't let this opportunity for some personal vindication pass. "Don't you think that is a bit inappropriate?" Glenn talked over his last few words into the device as though he wasn't listening, "8 episode series about the authenticity of celebrity pizza endorsements in New York". Vic was going to let the question drop, but Glenn turned to him and said, "I do feel a little self-conscious, but when ideas come there is no excuse not to record them. It would be a disservice to my staff if I didn't capture every possible idea. It's not easy..." Glenn's delivery of those lines is well-worn and rehearsed, as was his dismount. "It was nice meeting you, hopefully under better circumstances next time." He might as well have put a netspeak frowning face at the end.

When Vic arrives at the open coffin, he sees an attractive stranger. He places his hand beside her cheek as he often did in intimate moments and stares into her closed eyes. People around him probably thought he was restraining tears, but in reality he was trying not to say "Why did you lie to me?" His mind replied for her that she wanted to start over with someone who was unremarkable but attentive. This left him feeling even more unfulfilled... He walks away wondering if she ever existed in the first place when her voice rang in his thoughts, saying "I just can't believe Chelsea would be so short-sighted." Chelsea was one of her coworkers. This is the phone conversation she was having with him immediately before the accident. He absently agreed with her. Glenn is pacing next to the doorway saying things like "Chinese soy barons are the next oil moguls" and "The development of bacon into the phenomenon that it has become" as he replays the dialog. This is what he has for closure.

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.

Close Encounters

My leg hair felt like the innards of a golf ball digging their way out of a life sentence on my thighs as I make my way through the alley entrance to my apartment complex on a summer evening. I am having very practical thoughts about the capacity of my mouth. If I didn't have teeth, imagine how much more food I could fit in it! I take several steps past a homeless guy collecting bottles from the dumpster and through the gate to my complex before the guilt sets in. There is usually somebody in one of the alley dumpsters at this hour, but I'm not usually having such lustful thoughts about food, which will most likely be covered in cheese and hot sauce and other unnecessary enhancements, while the guy in the dumpster will probably be testing very different limits of his digestive system than heat and lactose tolerance. Thus imbued with a sense of moral obligation, I burst into my kitchen to heat some mediocre leftover beans that I was suddenly glad to have kept around. I crudely fried an egg and sliced some sharp Tillamook cheddar and designated even portions of each with intention to deposit them into several corn tortillas that were heating in the oven. While I'm waiting I poke my head out my bedroom window (my apartment is at the end of the building nearest the dumpsters) to make sure the guy is still there. I yell out to him, "Hey! Uhh, are you hungry?" He looks up and without hesitation says, "I'm ok, but thank you!" He sounded crisp and content, albeit distracted by the new bag he was tearing open to search. I refused to believe this, so I press on, "Uhh, are you sure? Y-you're in a dumpster..." He says, "I know..." then pauses and looks down at his next bag. He looks back up at me and continues, "...but I'm not hungry." I go back into the kitchen and package his meal in a sealable bag with napkins and a wedge of lime. No way is he telling the truth, but I didn't want to insult him by continuing to state the obvious. Even though I'm sure he's probably not paying attention to my every action as closely as I am, I find an excuse to go outside and "coincidentally" walk past him. I decided to wash my bath towels. As I leave the laundry room with my bag of egg and bean tacos with a slice of lime, and which I at the last moment decided to also add a sprig of fresh cilantro to, I call to him over the fence, "No seriously, I am not going to eat this. I'm going out of town tomorrow and this food is going to spoil, so I'd rather it not go to waste." He smiles, "No really, I'm not hungry right now and I ate well earlier." I pressed on, "Well perhaps you'll want them later on. Please take them!" No wonder he's homeless, the man doesn't know how to plan ahead! "Look man, the shelter really takes care of me, and I think I'll be back on my feet in a few days. But thank you anyway." He pushes his cart to the next complex, and I leave the bag on top of a car, hoping that if not him, someone else will be humble enough to accept a free meal.

The following night I am passed out on my couch with a melted bowl of ice cream on the armrest and, courtesy of my ex-girlfriend's Netflix account, some horrible documentary about life on other planets on loop on my laptop. It is 3AM and my sleep is interrupted by the sound of that bowl of melted ice cream falling off the arm rest. I am slow to react because I am not surprised, as the arm rest is very thin. In fact I passed out expecting the bowl to fall, but I didn't care enough to risk interfering with the prospect of robust sleep. I'm still not fully awake, so I try not to concern myself with how much of it spilled on the floor. I decide to remain on the couch for the night. I hold on to sleep in my hands like a jello mold that wasn't quite set all the way. These are my thoughts as I debate snipping the last thread supporting consciousness or if it is worth it to write down the line, "Ribbed Tupperware shape is gone; now I am grasping onto the largest lump" in the nearest notebook in the hopes that it would become a poem. Then I shift to my left and a warm sneaker kicks me in the shoulder. It is at this point I scream and jump and notice someone climbing in through the window behind my couch. Abandoning his attempt at stealth, the intruder falls into the room and says, "What are you doing here?" I wield my fallen ice cream bowl as a weapon and turn on the light... it's the guy from the dumpster. "What do you mean "What am I doing here"? I fucking live here, get out before I call the cops!" He sits on my couch and says, "Yeah, but you said you were going to be out of town." For some reason my first thoughts when he sits down are "So I guess it was he who knocked over my ice cream bowl?" and "Now that I'm awake, should I write down that line about the Jello mold." Too distracted to tell anything but the truth, I say, "Yeah, but... you said you were gonna be on your feet in a few days!" He nodded and said, "Yeah, from robbing your house!" Against my better judgement, I ask him, "Don't you feel bad trying to rob someone who tried to give you food?" He fixes his posture and says, "Nope. You fit the profile of someone who deserves exactly this. You live alone and judging by your meticulously chosen attire and that satchel you carry, you're an artist of some kind. You were eager to offer me an elaborately crafted meal that took at least 10 minutes to put together. When people do this it generally means that they're more interested in sharing the product of their labor than actually helping someone." My guard down, I try to ask several questions at once, but he interrupts me and says, "Not that I think you don't care at all... I mean, everybody cares somewhat, right? But just because you care doesn't make you some sort of selfless hero." This puts me on the defensive, "You may be right, but at least I chose to act. I mean, other people-" He interrupts me again, "You really miss her, don't you? The girl... or the guy you used to cook these meals for." I reply, "WAIT... you can tell all of these things about what I do in my spare time and why I made food for you based on casual observations... but you can't tell if I'm straight or gay?" He stares unfocused over my shoulder at the fruitlessness of that topic. Knowing that we both understood one another, I felt a bit more at ease, so I continue. "Ok, so if you knew that my offering of that meal was so important to me, why didn't you just take it? ... Oh wait! Are you trying to help me by not encouraging my lingering emotional attachments?" The homeless man says without hesitation, "Hell no, I'm not your shrink! I didn't take your food because I didn't want to give you the satisfaction. You're pretentious and small-minded, and the cultural and philosophical minutiae you obsess over shows that none of your priorities are right because you have had it way too easy in life. I broke into your house, and you seem to have completely forgotten this fact simply because I started talking about your favorite subject: yourself!"

I wake up as the bowl of melted ice cream falls to the floor and shatters against another bowl that had previously fallen off the narrow arm of my couch. In my dream, the man from the dumpster grabbed my laptop and smashed it on the floor where the bowl landed. My first thought is to lock my doors, but I am also pulled towards my phone. I was going to make a phone call. I stopped myself not because there was nobody I ought to be calling at this hour and in fact had nobody in mind yet to call. I stopped myself when I saw the time. 3:07. I was asleep for only seven minutes. I toss my phone onto a nearby table, then take two steps towards the door. Then three steps towards the couch. Then a step towards the table. Then to the shattered bowl of ice cream. Then my bed. I should latch the door, but what would the implications of latching my door be? What am I really scared of? I should clean up the ice cream, but then I'd need to put on shoes so my feet don't get cut on the glass, and the whole activity would preclude the notion of going back to sleep at all. I should not be calling anybody at this hour, regardless of their time zone, but for some reason I want to. There is no way I will sleep well on the couch. I shouldn't try to go to bed until I make a decision about the phone and the door and the broken glass. As if pushed, I sit back on the couch and poke my laptop out of hibernation and wait.

On the Verge of Coherence

When I drove into the city for work every day, I was forced into a practical and analytical mindset before even entering the building. Planning my route according to traffic reports, monitoring speed limits, merging, BBC news on NPR, finding parking, calculating whether it is cheaper to feed a meter all day or use a parking garage, figuring out the fastest walking route or which bus to use to get from wherever I end up parking to my office... It was a warm up often more challenging than the job I had at the time, whatever that was. People like me could land a decent position back then, the job market was less competitive. Then again any job market can be described as nothing short of dystopia to a prematurely jaded recent college grad who is holding onto dreams of being a rock star despite a complete lack of focus and a hair line that was even then showing signs that it would soon recede. I was just grateful to be done with retail, construction, bartending, and the other undergrad employment options. My degree was an inconsequential side effect of years of indecisive debauchery, and my career goals were commensurate with that. Specifically, I had no ambitions past moving out of my parents house and into some urban space that probably had one brick wall and some outdated heating system that involves steam and large metal coils that were prone to vibrating all night... y'know, so I could more accurately imitate the lives I found featured in books, movies, and magazines. As the stress of driving to work got to me, I learned that commuting to Philadelphia from the Jersey suburbs via public transit was a filth-caked luxury in comparison. Not only did it cost about the same as driving with far less stress, I also had options like reading books, people watching, or even active courtship. I rarely participated in the latter, but I did witness some really gratifying unions where two obnoxious people mercifully removed each other from the local dating pool. My personal favorite was also the most frequently encountered: Two attractive people generally a few years older than I was at the time who've never met... wearing B-list designer outfits whose name ends in a vowel from Lord & Taylor (the guy) or something with incendiary sleeve placement and a skirt with faded orchids, oleanders, and clippings from an Andulusian newspaper circa 1916 from Anthropologie (the girl) that will eventually be worn by actual cool people twenty years from now(1). After an ice breaker and 3-5 sentences they are sitting next to each other talking about other countries they've visited (2). I suspect that they always wear at least one attention-grabbing article of clothing or accessory purchased overseas to increase the likelihood of manipulating the conversation in that direction. Eager to impress, they treat their trips to Europe like an $8.99 prime rib special. They give rehearsed depictions of glass pyramids like an all you can eat pancake offer, and of course unlimited free refills of camaraderie in Nepal. After being exposed to this for several months, I acquired a discerning appreciation for the nuances of schadenfreude, which was becoming less recreational and more of a lifestyle.

So every day I was inhabiting these ambient domains for an hour or so before arriving at work, occupying this head-space of literature and ego-biased people watching. My daily transition from this to cold hard data analysis was in need of some sort of segue. In the absence of this segue, I find the jolts of reality and the impact of concrete demands begin having a strange effect. My brain acquired a goaltender to protect me from reality and responsibilities so I could continue hopping between incomplete lofty thoughts. With this entry-level position, work-related decisions are basically made for me by logic and numbers. I had no interest in advancement, so I just coasted through every day, trying to imitate the behavior and vocabulary of coworkers. Sometimes I felt wretched, but usually I didn't feel anything at all.

After work I backtrack to return to the speed line. I pass through Rittenhouse Square, a standard issue urban park featuring statues, grass, and a defunct fountain. Sometimes I like to hang around and feel like part of the atmosphere as I read, reflect, and of course look fuckin' cool. The park benches that aren't occupied by the homeless are in high demand, so I often end up in the grass, which is the choice for the young people anyway. I sit amongst the artists and students, precisely the bohemian crowd you'd expect to find in this setting(3). I experienced frequent epiphanies at these times, each one contradicting the previous. I feel like the outsider at the park as the only guy wearing a long-sleeve dress shirt and a tie in the summer, and I feel like the outsider at work because nobody else sits in the park and reads Russian literature after hours. Am I the only person with both perspectives? Am I just surrounded by pods?

Aside from all that, I don't accomplish much in the grass on these afternoons. Sometimes I splurge a little and consider dinner at one of the local restaurants, though I am never successful. Every single time I wander the surrounding blocks (which feature most of the best the city has to offer) all I do is find reasons to doubt each eatery until I give up and just get pizza at one of several places near the speed line entrance. It doesn't feel like defeat until I struggle to open the door with two plates in my hands because I'm too self-conscious to eat at a booth by myself. Even more aggravating is groping for my ticket for the subway. I always thought that the "no eating on the train" rule was just an excuse for the cops to persecute the homeless. Not that I read about it or heard it at a cafe or in a song lyric or that I am even prone to making these sort of connections myself, but that I like to imagine that the world is full of clear injustices that I can focus my idealogical outrage on. The fact that I get away with eating pizza on the platform serves as proof that my theory is valid, and the resulting sense of pride and vindication engulfs both the personal failure of eating the same damned pizza as usual as well as the enjoyment of my pizza.

One morning, I am running a little late to work. This has been becoming the norm lately, so the excuses were becoming more like desperate pitches for spin-offs of sitcoms on the CW. Well on this day I don't even have the energy to focus my thoughts and make something up. I try as I sit on the train, but just as I start to form an idea the train goes underground and makes calling work impossible, and by the time it resurfaces it would no longer make sense to use that excuse. I try to think of another excuse, but find myself distracted as I approach Rittenhouse Square. I was later than usual, and apparently at this hour the park is full of ostensibly unemployed or self-employed artists/freelancers walking their dogs. Puffy-eyed from insomnia and from being over thirty... incoherent from years of substance abuse or from being around too many incoherent people... their t-shirts look like expensive relics from someone elses childhood, their sweaters belong to an ex boyfriend's ex girlfriend, their arms are as limp as the dog's leash as they clean up the warm mess and move on.

I decide to say I locked my keys and my phone in the car, thus explaining why I was late and didn't even bother to call. Fortunately nobody had any follow up questions or remarks. I couldn't tell if nobody cared, or if my excuse was so unbearably transparent that they just wanted me out of their face. Either way, I win! I celebrate by treating myself to pizza after work. I took it with me to the park and sat in the grass. People-watching over a meal is great because nobody notices you staring at them when you're shoving food in your mouth. I notice that the bohemians in the grass are just younger versions of the people I saw earlier. I can see them now, balding and stretched out with dark circles around their eyes, walking their neurotic dogs and using the bag their vegan breakfast burrito came in to clean up the crap in the... in the grass. My pizza is on my lap, but both palms are on the ground. I smell my left hand... garlic powder. Then I smell my right hand. Then I throw my pizza out. I walk a lap around the fountain in the middle of the park... I am facing the dry fountain, but I am staring at the people in the grass. Do they need to be made aware of this? I consider the symbolism... "look what your future selves have left for you, don't follow their footsteps, it's not too late to change," etc. I think about how clear and tangible the premises and conclusion were to what I learned today, especially in comparison to rest of the conclusions I've drawn lately about the people, society, myself, etc. What a bunch of bullshit. Then I remember that I still have dog shit on my hands. I walk into a nice restaurant and use the bathroom... and since I'm once again in need of a meal, I ask to be seated.


(1) Not just their style of designer clothes, but the specific garments that they they own and are wearing as they speak. I see some of the same people every day and their clothes are always immaculately pressed, exactly as advised to in articles found in GQ or Esquire... so I imagine they'll be in pretty good shape in twenty years.

(2) For some reason they tend to start out one horizontal row apart and on the opposite side of the aisle (basically one checkers move) from each other, as though they sat just outside of comfortable conversation distance because they were initially feeling shy, but then one decides to finally lean over and start a conversation.

(3) It is tempting to characterize them some more by their specific tastes in music, drink, and irony... but I think that has been done to death. Specifically, I think anybody reading this would already have an image in their head, making any further details unnecessary.

Incomplete Enjoyment

I like the way pants look when they are alone and empty
I like shrimp because it is conveniently packaged within itself and has a nice texture
I like pears because they are sweet and the inner flesh is compatible with the outer flesh
No other reasons
Are mountains for looking or walking up?
Can my joys be desiccated into joy powder, then reconstituted as a time release joy capsule?
Can a photo of an incandescent bulb on my wall light my way, or does it find another means of guiding me safely en route to the bathroom at 3AM?
Because I certainly don't know my way on my own.
Foreign countries provide me with accents, foods, timing belts, pornography, exciting water options
But there's something else
Incomplete appreciation
Why are my thoughts like this?
What can I really accomplish
When my mind is a lawnmower with hammers for blades
Sure every now and then, some kids leave the right toys out
And I make my presence known this way
If I combine all of these things
Then it is not quite solipsism
Then there is one other
How do I find them?
I suppose I can climb the empty pants, the shrimp, the pears, the pornography, and the exciting water options, frozen in mid air

Conditional

Mid-introduction, I noticed her in that way you notice someone who you hope will be in a classic work of fiction you'll read someday. Perhaps it's already on my bookshelf as much as it is in the stars. I stood upon my best game and rolled tennis balls dipped in paint down the edge of it, and I explained to her the color genome of love and I told her why the tennis balls would never run dry. She is unaffected, she says, "I will not fall in love unless I know you are suffering." While unexpected, this demand feels familiar. She continues, "Since I have already experienced and deconstructed the structure of courtship to the point of oblivion, all I ask and all that's left that I can accept are disjointed incidences of personal anguish. Physical or emotional, real or perceived. Pain."

I accepted this mission and with unsure reason began seeking the unavoidable consequences of completely understandable mistakes. Having no idea how or when it will end, I built a resume of agony that defied description, and in response to my attempt at defying description, description prepared for battle, and the more I defied description, the closer it became until we clashed. I learned that losing a battle against description is the most concrete and inevitable personal defeat possible, and as soon as I conceded victory to description, the contents of my true self were revealed and made easily accessible in a PDF document that I hold no editing rights over. I realized that no further suffering was necessary, and I made my way back to her. She was already standing there, with a weak version of exaltation at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes grew bloated at the sight of me and deflated as she read my PDF document. "So by now you must have acquired considerable disdain for me." I could not lie to her. She said, "Take out that disdain on the rest of the world. When you are done, I will be waiting for you." Before I left she gave me her PDF document.

I wanted this mission even less than the previous one, but it came to me involuntarily. My heart and mind were a minefield of spite and grudges... I was a sprinkler system of barbed comments that nobody wanted to get to know, but I forced them to. I studied the habits of every single person in the world, and discovered one sentence that would insult every single one of them into a temporary comatose state. I approached them and said, "You are not me!", then presented them with my two PDF documents. Once they read both documents, they froze in time. Once my work was complete, she appeared to me and everybody moved again. The first time we made love, all the arbitrary systems of human measurement ceased to be. In the movie "Say Anything", Lloyd Dobler asks Diane if she needed someone or if she needed him. This is the only way to be sure.