cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Ghost in His Own House Trish and I went out yesterday evening for a few hours while we had some babysitting available. We ended up downtown and went to M1llers. We sat down at the cafe outside and I noticed right away that every single person there looked like a tourist. And I watched people walking by and they all looked like tourists, too. With that sort of slow dim-witted pacing and awed movement of the head. And then I realized that I did not recognize a single person anywhere within sight. The whole time that we sat out there, I only saw 1 person whom I recognized. Meanwhile, the menu was fucking outrageous. 2 sandwiches and a couple of pints each came to $50, with tip. That's like what we spent on a typical lunch in Paris. And it's fucking MILLERS. The local dive where I've been drinking since I was about 15. I'm supposed be be able to come in here with $10 and have a good time for a few hours. I just don't recognize the world around me anymore. Or worse, I think that I recognize it at first but then when I squint a bit I can see that it isn't what I thought it was. If we didn't have so much family here, and if it was possible to sell my property for what I'd paid for it, I would look into moving away. Where is everybody? What happened? This place is a very nice place to live. But its gotten more and more expensive. And almost everyone who was a part of it for me is gone. Moved away or dead or something. I thought this shit wasn't supposed to happen until you turn 70 or so. I'm only 30 years old for fuck's sake. I feel like a ghost here sometimes. Like a ghost haunting his own house after everyone has left and new people have moved in and brought their own furniture and photographs. At some point, it's time to move on. To find some new place where I can take what I see and become a part of it and accept it for what it is. I can't do that here. I'm always looking around for people who are long gone. This place is too loaded down with memories. Which would be fine if the people were still here but they aren't. And every other block or so is a spot where I can remember someone dying. At Miller's yesterday I kept looking over my shoulder at the spot where I watched that kid fall off the side of the building. Now what? Tom is dead. I haven't even seen Jehu in months. Bhudd@ Phil is dead. Dario and Patrick and the rest of that bunch are all in NY. Dar's brother committed suicide while I was away at school. Zack is in a mental institution or something. Julie is working at some college on the west coast. Even Apple - wonderful, steady, dependable Apple - has moved to NoVa and there's no telling if she will ever come back. Gretchen moved to Cleveland. Anna lives in Munich. James is around sometimes. Mallory is in Texas for no apparant reason. April is in Portland. This way that things are, I don't much care for it. This must be the curse of an unusually happy and exciting adolescence. I had a wonderful time as a teenager. I had so many really good friends. All sorts of different people. And it was so bohemian for a few years. Concerts and parties and theater and sitting on the pavement writing in notebooks. Playing guitars and drums. It was a very good life. They were the kind of summers that should have gone on forever. And that is what I'm looking for when I walk around downtown. That life, made up of those people, which is gone forever. 11:21 a.m. - 2009-07-13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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