“I like to eat breakfast alone, and almost never before noon; anybody with a terminally jangled lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor every twenty-four hours, and mine is breakfast. In Hong Kong, Dallas, or at home—and regardless of whether or not I have been to bed—breakfast is a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess. The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crêpes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned-beef hash with diced chilies, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of key lime pie, two margaritas and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert…Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours, and at least one source of good music…all of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked.”
—Hunter S. Thompson, Breakfast of Champions (1979)
“Speak up or do something to bring about a change in the situation - or remove yourself from it. Take responsibility for your life. Do not pollute your beautiful, radiant inner Being nor the Earth with negativity. Do not give unhappiness in any form whatsoever a dwelling place inside you.”
—Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
He knew what Laura was trying to do, and if anything, curiosity alone made him take the bait.
Stiles was the first male assistant he’d ever had. ‘Stiles’ didn’t even use his own first name. Stiles was uncouth and sarcastic, he didn’t ramble as much as expected - not like on that first day; nerves, Derek later guessed - and he was actually there because of his career choice, rather than hoping to pick up some free clothes or meet a celebrity. He jumped from one subject to another unless it was something that genuinely interested him. He didn’t flirt (Derek wasn’t sure Stiles would even know how) and he had an irresistible aura about him that drew anyone into his excitement. Derek wanted to be drawn, he wanted to let Stiles whisk him along on each tangent, because nothing in this new environment even seemed to make sense until Stiles explained it to him. They spoke the same language, underneath it all.
Stiles was a nerd, and oh, how Derek had missed that.
He’d missed the days when he didn’t care about Body Mass Index or protein intake, when who cared about his ‘image’ consisted of the front row of bleachers at a home game and how many MySpace friends he had. Back before a model scout had approached him at a baseball game in sophomore year of high school and told him she could get him ‘out of daddy’s pocket’. Back when Derek had a comic book collection Stiles would probably have a small stroke over, had agonised over Bruce Wayne vs Tony Stark with the other wealthy kids in the dining hall at lunch; before he’d swapped graphic novels for regular ones, and he never felt ashamed for loving something unashamedly.
Laura used to call him her ‘geek baby brother’ to their friends. Only those who knew Derek that first year of high school appreciated that the nickname hadn’t started out as ironic.
“I wish to God I had made this world, this scurvy And disastrous place. I Didn’t, I can’t bear it Either, I don’t blame you, sleeping down there Face down in the unbelievable silk of spring, Muse of black sand, Alone. I don’t blame you, I know The place where you lie. I admit everything. But look at me. How can I live without you? Come up to me, love, Out of the river, or I will Come down to you.”
—James Wright, “To the Muse”the best way to describe how i'm feeling...
Is to pretend that something someone else wrote can define me entirely. This something is by Augusten Burroughs and is from his book Dry so… yeah. Replace the parts about alcoholism with cutting and self harm.
” I want to throw up at hearing this. I can feel it kicking around at the back of my throat, knocking on the door. My stomach is pushing the acid up. My stomach is saying, This is too much.
Kavi disgusts me. He disgusts me more than any other human being has ever disgusted me before.
Because I am him.
Suddenly I want to drink. The urge hits me like a tsunami. I don’t want to drink in a jovial “Highballs for everybody!” way. I want to drink to a point where I could undergo major knee surgery and not feel so much as a pinch.
I sit for a moment, staring straight ahead, eyes unfocused, unblinking as reality settles over me like a lead dental X-ray cape.
It’s not about being an ad guy who throws back a few too many sometimes.
It’s about being in rehab or being fired.
It’s about me being an alcoholic.
It’s about me being an alcoholic.
My lips move when I whisper the words out loud. I’m an alcoholic.”
fallout.
I’m smart.
(Except when loaded.
Then I can be kind of stupid.
At least till the buzz wears off.)
I’m witty.
(Except when I don’t get
enough sleep, which is often.
Then i lose my sense of humor.)
I’m compassionate.
(Except when someone
acts like a complete idiot.
Especially in my face.)
I’m understanding.
(Except when it means I can’t
have my way, so I try to avoid
people who won’t let me have it.)
I’m kind.
(Except for those days
when, for no apparent reason,
I hate pretty much everyone.)
Apologies and Apple Pie
This is an apology letter; I am going to make it short and sweet. Well at least and short and sweet as an apology letter can be. I’m sorry. I know that might not mean much to you, to any of you, but I mean it. I promise. And I’m sorry for that time that I did that to you, it was fucked up. I should have never had him come to my house and I should have never let that happen. You are my friend and I am the enemy. And as for him, I apologize as well, I should have kept my mouth closed and never told anyone. I shouldn’t have enticed him and I shouldn’t have liked it. Then you, love, I ruined it for us. I blurted out all the wrong words at all the wrong times and now we are standing here, scratching our heads and acting as though it was never said. I’m so sorry. To everyone I ever let down, and to all the people that were dumb enough to route for me. They say if you do the right thing, you will never feel guilt, but how many wrong things does one person have to do to feel this low? I think that my problem is that I base the world around myself. And I am sorry for that too. I don’t look at the big picture and I am extremely impulsive, sorry. I ruined your birthday, what a bad person, even though you said it was fine, I still apologize. And the one thing that I really would like to apologize on behalf of is my pride, I’m to proud to face anyone that deserves to here those two words out of my lips. And for that, I am truly sorry.
I looked at the stairs—then decided to take the elevator. I piled in with a couple of very gross-looking guys. Some people, you just look at and think, “You have sex with pillows.” There was nothing overtly wrong with them but I have freak-radar.
The elevator reached 5F. I hurried out, trying to put some distance between me and pillow-sex guys.
And smacked into somebody. Because on top of possible-harassment-or-possible-death-threat, what I really needed in my day was a good old fashioned case of embarrassment.
The room spun before the pain in my head actually registered, and then I was on the floor and then I hurt some more. I just looked at the ceiling for a weirdly long amount of time, like I forgot that I had arms and legs and assumed the floor was just going to pick me up and put me upright again. I vaguely noticed pillow-sex guys stepping over my body.
Somebody did grab me and pulled me up, though, and for a moment, I was the luckiest guy in the world.
Let me start with the face. Long. Big, dark eyes. Hair bleached just to tea-brown. Nice size to his hands, nice width to his shoulders, not too large, just right. All this was pleasant, but when he spoke, it was in this sweet, sexy Japanese accent, layered over pitch-perfect American English:
“Hey, are you all right?”
When I realized that this was the guy I’d crashed into, I felt dizzy all over again.
From my 2011 NaNovel, Heavy Light. You can visit me at the NaNoWriMo website.
