I Don't Think We Can Really Be Friends

I just got into a fight with a Now or Later. Human vs. Taffy. Seriously I was under the impression I could enjoy a Now or Later under two circumstances of time, those being "now" or "later." The choice would always be mine and I wouldn't be punished for choosing one over the other.

But it would appear that there is a limit to how late "later" can be. It would appear that after being on hold for a variable amount of time, a certain quadrangular piece of stubborn, green taffy has practiced enough patience, has experienced enough neglect, that she shall not go slighted a single, solitary, second longer. She decides there and then that I am not serious. She decides to make a run for it and to leave me for someone with a sweeter tooth through which sweeter words could be influenced and spoken. Someone who will act on an earlier "now" or on a just as early "later;" she wants to be taken "then" and "there." She should surely consider changing her name to Then and There, it would prove more authentic to her actions and desires.

The Taffy jumped off my bedroom table and onto the floor. With the help of some of the hottest days and nights August has exhibited, she melts. Good riddance, right? Yes, I suppose, only its on my floor that she melts. Right through her little green paper-wrap dress, she poured out as if trying to nake her body, perhaps find a hold of the nearest piece of paper to disguise herself from me. Of course, she doesn't. She doesn't move from where she fell, Now or Later won't alter her position by her power or control, for at that point she has none. It is only when I accidentally step on her that I later notice my sandals making a sticky sound. Funny enough, its a similar enough sound to that a mouth plays when sucking on a Now or Later.

She gives me a big "fuck you" and I half or whole deserve it. I scrape her body off the floor with a painting blade, saying goodbye as the open mouth of the trash bin swallows her down.

To my credit, I am not as bad as all that. I did intend to eventually eat her, but at the moment we met I felt I had enough candy. As much as I did neglect her, I never slighted her, I never meant to intentionally play any ill or malice towards either her, her ego or integrity. Taffy, I have learned can become a regretful subject to neglect. If done over, would I do anything different? Perhaps no. I would never know whether I would want some candy, one can never tell. I am only sorry that she ended up in the trash and not in another mouth, one with appreciative salivary glands in which she could truly come alive. If anything, this fight has left me with sticky sandals and a second thought that is set to go off whenever I desire a Now or Later that leans more for Later than Now.

(I just looked up a picture to use for this blog and realized the candy is not called Now or Later but actually Now and Later, which changes everything. I don't think I'm fond of a candy that demands such an attention. I don't take anything back.)

When Last We Were

Two people pass one another, they are friends, they deliver a hello and good-bye in the same gesture of a single nod. Only one doesn't know its likely to be the final version of such a moment. One takes for granted, the succession of preceding circumstance; that such a situation shall continue indefinitely based solely on the availability in and of the past up to its present point of reference. Furthermore, unconscious is the thought residence of the alteration that may visit upon any circumstance and change its situation. When one sees their friend whom they see from time to time regularly, its not irregular to assume this sight will once again repeat some more as it has, previously up to the last time the two saw one another.

A friend of mine was fired yesterday. Not knowing of her dismissal, I passed her on the street. I didn't gather note of any peculiar difference in her, I would never have guessed she had just been let go. However, as soon as I received wind of her forced departure I realized that when I passed her on the street moments ago, that moment, might just successfully candidate itself as the last time I'll ever see her. The probable end to the brief interaction of life as experienced consciously between her and I.

For there is an absolute lack of reason why I should see her again. I have not her phone number, email, address, nor any example of correspondance to utilize as medium. As a matter of fact, I don't even know if she knew my name. I don't feel she should have, just as theres an abundancy of naught reason why I should possess a mean of sorts to continue interaction with her.

She worked in the neighbor store to mine and all that constitutes this attention I now serve her, is simply a notice within me; spotlit on the general assumption I entertain as habit:

NAMELY, THAT THE PEOPLE ONE SEES TO-DAY WILL BE HERE TOMORROW.

How many friends has one nodded, kissed and hugged good-bye...Inadequately so. An inadequate good-bye because if one knew it was to be farewell for good and ever, one would have smiled much warmer, kissed and hugged much longer, watched with recording eyes all the final details to get the memory freshly established as accurately as possible. One fears memory compensates for the missing material in modes unauthorized by authenticity. Which inspires humor in the manner memory gains substance once the subject is absent from your conscious life...May be why the artist is usually worth more un-live...Or, lovers loved more when time conspires with memory to romanticize all trivialities and disregard the nuisances that bid clear reason as to why that person is no longer part of one's life.

In any case, I am uncertain what I would have said or done, had I known it was the last time I'd see my friend, any of them for that matter. I suppose it best this way. I'm rather close to the idea of assuming my friends will be there tomorrow, so long as there is no dependency involved. And if they are not there tomorrow, then there is always a past to remember when they were, when last we were.

...And Love Myself When God Isn't Looking

Loners
"The future is always difficult to quantify,
but tomorrow comes with at least one
guarantee: it will be lonely. The number
of single-person households across the
globe is growing at an alarming rate.
Struggling with feelings of loneliness
and isolation, more and more people
are turning to online dating and social
networking sites to try and muster up
some companionship. Meanwhile,
divorce rates are at an all-time high."

I found this today when a friend suggested I visit the pages
of an adbusters magazine she nurtured possession of. It
reminds me that I spent Thanksgiving alone; it reminds me
that I didn't mind in the slightest drop and furthermore only
felt dis-eased when the solitude was betrayed by the return
of company; it reminds me that it might be unusual to like
being alone.

But of course it isn't, we all need space and we are more than
capable of living long spells of time without anyone else...Man
is mildly gregarious, we are not ants or bees who must live in
colonies stacked in honeycombs or packed underground in
labyrinthine networks. The difference between solitude and
loneliness is comfort. It all depends on your perspective and
how much solitude you can regard before submerging into the
definite grips of loneliness. Of course if you're used to being
around people and thats the system that revolves you, under
which your social obligations deem privileges and its so much
of a pleasure that to be withdrawn from such a revolution
would pose a pain, then loneliness stalk-fully follows solitude
far more expediently than it would the common hermit, anti-
social misanthrope. I am neither but placed some position
faithful to a compromise of each, where I am more often than
not at ease with time spent to myself but eventually the unease
will arrive and take a very plain seat where all my thoughts can
see and recognize, sinking in the realization that: I am alone
and it no longer feels good.

Upon rereading the passage over I began to wonder how much
this lonely future is a result of a socially pressured past. Career,
marriage, children, so much emphasis placed on these ideals
that many participants jumped in without dipping their feet.
Many didn't think an alternative to swimming would get them
anywhere until the pool became crowded. Or they thought, too
much effort and time trying to locate such an alternative seemed
overbearing and unnecessary when a ready-made solution had
already been studied and in practice. We believed we'd be happy
with success and love, the love of success and the success of
love, this might be very well structured in veritable foundation;
but a career, a marriage, and children are not guaranteed means
to that desired end. Maybe this lonely future will be a transitional
stage where we find we don't necessarily need the career-
spouse-offspring formula that failed us in the past but nothing
happens over night. And its hard to break habits even harder to
break conditioning, so the side effect of rejecting what we've been
conditioned to desire results in self-projected malefactions and
resentment, in this case, loneliness.

We've been packed together (in cities) over the last hundred
years. Industry changed the physical face of this world at a rate
that provides more wrinkles than age can account for. We are
constantly advancing technologically, whether the technology
advances the users is unclear but that that technology itself is
evolving can be seen by simply following iPod models, what's the
latest, 240 GB or something. My point is, that we've come a long
way since the steamboat and railroad. And like everything in a
capitalist society, there is a price to pay.

Its 2008-Winter. Bronx-New York. Saturday night and there are
too many cops in the street, the subways are running on
inconvenient schedules, and the streets surveilled by cameras
kiss your every action. The economy is supposedly in peril
and we should all buy garbage we don't need to save the market
but we have not the funds since the economy is supposedly in
peril and irresponsible splendors was the sure ticket that
qualified us to our current state. Rent is up, nothing's
affordable, everyone is crammed into the walls of the city
and gentrification is a cancer concentrating lower income
(classes) households even closer and thrice as electric,
hostile, and restless. There is a stress about the air,
furnished and blooming in the cold evening, desperately,
we yelp to be home, quiet and away from anything that
reminds us of the outside. There's an absence of space and
privacy that delivers a haven out of the miserable living
room we occupy and live, by whatever compensation of meaning
we wish to define. Outside gives us tension and claustrophobia.
The tension and claustrophobia gives us an anxiety worth noting
and hiding far away from it all can appeal highly as remedy.

Its beginning to take its toll, there's only so much abuse a
body can take, the same applies to a society. Hence Reality TV:
so you don't have to experience reality for yourself, along
with series after series of awful entertainment that trains
ADD through frequent commercial interruptions and fast paced
edited sequences. Perfectly accompanied by a preference to be
close to our friends but from a distance we talk more on
cellphones, that is until we discovered text messages. In our
homes we remain, from where we are provided the world so long
as we pay for it through internet bill, phone bill, con-ed bill,
hence email, aim, myspace, facebook, youtube, surf the channel,
second life, match.com, webcam porn, blogspot, etc. What happens
when you turn all these distractions off and you notice how
quiet and absolute you are when in the presence of nothing
other than self? What happens when you initially, at this point,
discover you have nothing to offer yourself because you're not
used to being alone. Some are greeted by comfort sooner than
others.

I too see a lonely future. I don't see loneliness becoming
solitude in metropolitan networks over-peopled and I see even
more distractions evolved from the ever eminent need to keep us
away from the discomfort of ourselves. Spread throughout steel
honeycombs buzzing and stinging one another, we want to be away
from one another but we can't bear it because what we'd actually
would like is just a little space but the alternative is such
an extreme that you're left in a kitchen alone eating dinner
you made for yourself, trying to finish the meal before 9 when
the season premier of Heroes airs.