It’s Halloween. A small kid dressed like a skeleton tried to scare me while I was running earlier. I scared him back. Now my calves are tired.
I’m drinking my dinner tonight. At ‘The Taphouse,’ the only lively place in Hampton on a Sunday night apparently. We’re stuck here until at least Friday, but I’m consoled because I’m getting paid to be here.
I’ve been organizing my computer and re-reading some old journals and stuff I’ve written before. It’s slightly unfortunate that I seem to have lost the ability to write solely for the sake of writing. I’ve lost some innocence I had when I didn’t ‘have’ to write – when I could sit down and write only because I had something to write about. I just read an entry titled “Remembering the Future,” and I do remember it because it was written when I was in Prague. It’s strange how that month-long experience seemed depressing and unnecessary at the time – when was I ever going to use that? – but now, looking back, it was one of the most enlightening experiences of my life.
The waitress who is serving me my liquid dinner is dressed in spaceship pajamas. It’s Halloween, so this is okay. She is also pretty, which is also okay.
Beer #3 has been ordered. How do you go back? Obviously you can’t. But to a state of mind? Maybe. ‘Taking on responsibility, knowing it will weigh you down. Freedom is a possibility only if you’re able to say no.’ They are playing awesome music in this here Taproom. I am enjoying myself, right? Right. But in a way different from before.
They say you can never go home. You can always go home. But you can never go back. You can never go back to that first time you left home, that experience of what it was like to be out on your own, exploring the world for the first time, open eyes and an open mind. Of how everything was different everyday, including yourself. Of how there were no responsibilities beyond what was right in front of you, ultimate freedom. It’s freaking depressing and inspiring at the same time thinking like this. It’s inspiring because I have a feeling I can get that feeling back, but depressing because I already know what it’s like. It’s the real world, it’s such a bummer.
But why am I complaining? I’m getting paid to do nothing for a week, and then I’m getting paid double to go sailing, which is unbelievable. But I have an inkling it would be more satisfying to go sailing on my own boat and get paid to do crappy work, knowing that you can set off at any time as soon as the kitty is full up again, not be obligated to anything or anyone, not be ‘known’ by anything or anyone and just go exploring.
This music is awesome. ‘We used to wait’ by the Arcade Fire just came on.
‘Standing in the wilderness downtown….Now our lives are changin’ fast…hope that something pure can last.’
