William needs a moving truck and some peace.

"I need to listen and not panic, you know? I just can't panic."

"Right."

"And listen intently."

"Right."

"You know?"

"I know."

"I'm nervous about it. I think I'm afraid--really, you know? A little. I have been strangled with bouts of hysteria just trying to calm down--stay calm. You know? Relax and listen.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Are you trying to calm down?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know."

"I have to shut this whole system down. I am trying to fire everybody that's in my head, because I can't hear."

"What?"

"It has been a fuckin' circus in there. Don't you feel the same way? I mean I can not continue to subscribe to this existence the way it is. You know? This existence is fucking screw up, it is a calamity. Don't you see that? There are no answers coming from it. I at least realize that now. I have to quiet my head and listen. I have to fire everyone in my mind and then wait. I have a million square feet in there and it is filled to the rafters with your problems and how I hate my boss, and should I walk the fucking dog, or will I be destitute this month, and can I eat burritos after eleven pm."

"Yeah that isn't a good."

"What?"

"Burritos."

"I don't want to panic anymore. I'm tired."

"I can understand that."

"I just want empty it all out and have delivered the only experiences my head needs."

"It won't make you interesting..."

"To people like you, no. But I will find another empty house bastard."

"What is it going to do?"

"A empty head?

"Yeah?"

"Like I said things will be delivered. There will be furniture in this mug. The shit will be quite minimal, orderly. Those looking will understand me better. I will utter complete sentences. I will stay focus and attentive while saying paragraphs that makes sense. I will start making sense. I will be happier, I'm sure. Be patient. I will help you figure out how fucked up you are, and untangle your ass from some stuff."

"I like my stuff."

"I know you do."

"My house filled to the rafters."

"Yes. You can't even get in there. You can't find a seat."

"Yeah."

"I can't see you and you can't see yourself."

You are a stranger here

i am tired of finding the road back
i am tired of disentegrating
i am tired

Slowie wants it back.

"For once I don't want this guy to leave."

"OK."

"Yes I understand what I've told you. I understand--clearly what my method of operation is."

"I know it by heart."

"I am paralyzed by this."

"You?"

"Me. It's interesting isn't? It is interesting how strangers can say things to you that is the most vulgar you have ever heard and you don't give a fuck, you laugh."

"I don't laugh."

"But someone who you thought cared about you--barely, maybe even used your toothbrush-- once, can say lesser things that captures all of the air in your lungs, makes your nose bleed, and then leaves you in the fetal position on the bathroom floor."

"Do I want to know this?"

"He said it was over."

"Did you even have an 'it' you seem to have an understanding that it was never going to be an 'it'. "   

"It was something that was now over. That is what matters to me."

"What does this mean?"

"I know I was a wreck this year. I worked like crazy. I ate less. I slept less. I took the whips rather than delivered them. I hated myself this year and had some sort of breakdown to be honest."

"No."

"Yes. He tried to fuck me, spent Friday drinking all of my Champagne ate all my Chinese food and set everything we own together on fire in the living room."

"You want him back?"

"I want him back."

"What are you going to do differently?"

"I don't know. He said mean things to me."

"And pushed you against the monkey bars."

"Listen, I realize I have been hard on him."

"You can be! And its OK to want more than cigarette burns on your back."

"I don't do that anymore."

"You need his support. You need support, but I understand that your breakdown scared him."

"What does it have to do with him?"

"It revealed too much of himself. He ran not because of you, but because of your state, He didn't sign up for that shit. It scared him into thinking about his own misgivings."

"What guy says misgivings?"

"This motherfucka' isn't built to support you, Slowie. "

"I don't need it."

"You need it. Even if it is from some bastard you're having sex with. That's the Slowie I don't know."

"I don't need it."

"You need it. He disparaged the shit out of you because you revealed him to himself. He wasn't built for that, but it is OK to have a breakdown. It is also OK to have someone you are sleeping with help you through it. You need to be in a relationship that protects your mind-- fuck everything else."

"I don't like you."

"I know."

"I want to go back."

"What?"

"I want to go back to not feeling. I want to go back to being a guy. Keeping love and compassion in my silk purse on the floor in the hall."


"You can't now."

"You can shut your face."

William wants to try something else.

"I don't want to die, but I'm chokin' here."

"On the food?"

"I have no other choice but to start trusting myself."

"I don't understand."

"There are two ways I can go. I don't want to go back though. I don't want to go where you are, working a job that is filling your blood with poison. Dating someone that is slowly pulling bone marrow through your eyes."

"I don't know what you heard."

"I have to start relying on myself."

"Huh?"

"I just have to try another way. I have to take this road. I have to try this new thing so I don't shrink. I don't get old. I don't get sick. I don't become hateful. I don't pretend to die again. It is getting boring."

"OK."

"What are you doing?"

"Eating. What? I don't want my food to get cold."

"Maybe it is not that serious."

A Tranquil Mind is not a Little gift.

"There is this glue that we are living in on a daily bases. It is this thick glue."

"Is it like a bowl of glue?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. Just thought I would get out ahead for once."

"I'm looking to get out of it a lot of times now."

"You mean like unglue yourself."

"What?"

"Take the glue off?"

"It happens a lot at work. It is like this gathering of confusion and When we are having a problem. When we are lazy, you know? The glue becomes this complaining. It becomes this coat we can put on to shield ourselves from commitment to what is presenting itself. It renders

"I am not a fucking Saint by any stretch of the imagination."

"Why do people say stretch of the imagination? That just doesn't make any sense to me."

Enlightenment is a demolition project.

William is back

"My biggest problem is trying to contain my brilliance."

"Are we to order our food first?"

"It is first this slowing down that day to day life has me doing ,and then this speeding up that my mind has me doing to capture truth. See? I found this awesome dude that I have to hold the fuck back just so you can recognize me."

"Wait what?"

"I have to first slow down to catch everyone else---to trudge through this life as anonymous as possible. Others have done it by choice, out of fear, out to grab normalcy."

"Right of course. I'm sure I understand."

"I quiet myself at a cost, you know?"

"What are you saying?"

"I don't know. Nothing quite fits anymore. I have been playing around with my mind and I found all of these awesome enhancements and I decided to use them. I can't get back to where you are though. I can't have them both. I have to bring this new self along."

"I just want you here to pay the bill."

"I have to bring this altruism with me."

"Just bring your credit card."

Anthony wants to tell you a story.

"Nobody wants to hear my fucking stories anymore."

"Not in the mood for rambles."

"I want to talk. I want to tell pleasant stories."

"It sounds lonely."

"It's not lonely."

"It is."

"It's not. I'm not lonely. I'm doing you a service."

"You think?"

"I know."

"Ok."

"I am interesting. I am relaxed. It will serve the hell out of you to try and participate in a conversation with me."

"OK."

"Conversation is dying; rather a efficacious exchange between people, you know? A rich exchange that is cynical free. One that isn't recycled and held together with hope of approval."

"I don't understand."

"You understand. I'm sure you do.

"What a souring tasting meal."

"A defenseless, rich, vulnerable and challenging conversation. It's like I can smell it. Can you smell it?"

"It smells sour."

"No."

"What would you talk about?"

"About anything that really matters to you. You know? really matters. Any fucking thing."

"Wow. Such a sour meal."

"Are you listening?"

Before you can learn to swim

 you must first learn to float. 

be it water or the natural world, you must trust the stuff you are in. If you fight against it, you are going to gasp and struggle. You may even drown. Yet when you learn to trust it, you see that the water wants to hold you up, not pull you down.

"I have to continue to give up."

"Right."

"You know what I mean?"

"No."

"I have to keep giving up. I'm exhausted..."

"What is this about?"

"I'm inside this spot. I'm all the way in.

Keep going in.

William wants to perform.

"I know it is a play, an elaborate one."

"What?"

"I want to perform now. I want to act for awhile, you know? Just so I can get my work done. I know that's what this play is for. You don't have a clue, but I realize it."

"I continue to realize a lot of things about you."

"OK I can play now, you know? I have stop taking it so seriously. But knowing it,fuck! You know? Knowing this shit is beating up on me. It is pounding on me like rain. A astonishing downpour. I know too much. I know way too much."

"Who says 'way too much?' "

"I have to play while knowing all of this, and it can be a bit much. I don't know. I am starting over."

"Are you?"

"Yeah. It's a lot to know."

"I don't understand."

"That's good for now."

William loves the C

"Ok listen to me."

"OK.

"This entire year has been a grade C for me."

"What?"

"A C, marginal, right in the middle. Average...."

"OK."

"Do you know what that really means?"

"Yeah, sounds like a fucked up year."

"No. It is not at the the two poles. It is not a success, or a failure or an A or an F."

"I know what that means."

"Do you understand why someone desires one of these poles, instead of the middle? The C?"

"You don't expect me to believe that someone desires failure. I can understand success..."

"No, listen, because first you don't have to be conscious. You can let one of these experiences own you. Distract you. What I've figured out is, the C, the one considered average, or most uneventful is the most eventful. The middle is where you are doing all of the work. It is where you become alive. It is where you become alive and more conscious than when you are at one of the poles of success or failure."

"I don't want to ask."

"When you are failing....you are relaxed that there is nothing that can be done. Your house has burned to the ground. You have been hit by a car. You have been wiped out financially. With success you are also comfortable. You are at a ceiling. You might want more. But there is no more swimming required in some cases. It builds on itself. But The C. The C requires attention. It requires you to stay focused. It is a little ways from success. It is a little ways from failure. It makes you not give up. It makes you present. You have to be, you still have life. You have a chance."

"What does that say?"

"I'm not sure. I have had an entire year of the middle. I've had an entire year of almost one direction or the other. Almost. So during that time I wait in the middle.I guess I have had an entire year of staying present. No room to let it ride. I had to stand conscious watch over my life. I highly recommend it."

trust your struggle.

Hugh Miller likes the quiet life.

"There is a life underneath the life. It is like this perfectly little protector over it, you know? It is secure, right?"

"Huh?"

"I like to get down into it sometime. I like to see how it run. But there's no controllers in it, just this clean and shiny console."

"You have nothing to play with. No shiny buttons? No candy like buttons?"

"No. It's very smooth. It's very quiet." 

love wins

William is happy to be terrible.

"I am happy that I am terrible at stuff, because I'm not listening. I'm inflexible.

"OK."

"I need some guidelines. I need to listen."

"You're going to say having lunch with me needs to be amended."

"No. Just seeing the terrible is an accomplishment. I'm not spending a couple of years forcing bear sweat into bottles. I'm not losing so many years with this."

"You've thought about it."

"I've thought about it. These guides are right in front of me. Results can come in a quick moment, but it could take me three years to finally get it, because I'm listening to you...."

"I didn't say anything,"

"Or my Mother, those bastards where I punch the clock, or my own fucking feeling that somebody is watching me and needs my story to turn out in a way that they can sleep better at night."

"Sounds like a big production."

"It is. If I get the things that are not hammering themselves out, the fucked up things----quick. It all moves faster for me."

"Life?"

"If I'm terrible and I see it, I get to relax."

"Right."

"This memoir is a hatchet to slash through my own heavy flesh and through the flesh of anyone else who happens to get in the way....But, you see, this is not fiction. This is life. My problem is that I don’t know what I am doing. I lived all this mess but I don’t know what it is. I don’t even know what I mean by “it.” I have a story to tell, yes, and no one else could tell it but me, but if I tell it now and not next year it will come out one way, and if I could have forced my fat, heaving body to start this a year ago it would have been a different story then."














































Joyce Carol Oates

"I have to work with only the thing that's working."

"Ah sense is what you're making."

Nicholas is in observance.

"I don't know about you but money doesn't belong to me."

"Your money?"

"Why do I hold it precious? The more I think about it I just can't see owning anything in my life. Everything seems borrowed for a bit. Everything seems to flow right out of my grasp up and into including friends...

"Up and into?"

"The only thing I can say that is truly mine, is this observance of this stuff. My observing of this is the only thing I own and can't escape from..."

"I don't know where to start."

"Of course you do."

"No."

"I can wake up, get out of bed and begin watching things come into view, and then disappear. A person can walk into my room talk to me and leave.It can be 5 minutes 8 or 20 hours but they will leave.  I can capture the living room for a moment as I lose the bedroom. Everything is on a treadmill. Not solid. Not mine even if I held it for the rest of my life.

"In here it's the coffee cake it gets down in your gut and becomes a part of your body."

"My observation of all of this is the only thing I can't shake."

William wants whatever's happening to him.

"I am going to accept whatever is happening to me. I am going to swallow it up."


"That sounds cool."

I'm going to give in goddamn it! I can't see any other way."


"Any way for what?"

"I have never surrendered. I haven't surrendered to anything. Nothing. I'm a radical with a life full of inconsistencies, pain, fear and terror and somehow this has become what I have grown to dig. What I have grown to protect. Protect!"

"That about sums it up."

"I don't want to be a radical anymore. Not a fucking malcontent just because it sells tickets. I'm tired. I just want to surrender to whatever's happening to me."

Nicholas means something.

"Everything I construct now comes apart. It is as if someone knows I am using contemptible materials."

"You can't say that."

"What?"

"I don't know what we are talking about."

"I stop believing in something. I gone on and did it. I fucking stopped it and now a whole damn fucked up system stopped supporting me."

"What can I say?"

"I don't know."

"What does it mean in between coffee and mimosas?"

"It means an entire city just went quiet. I can hear my own breath."

"OK?"

"It means something."

William doesn't take stands.

"There is no reason for me to be cynical anymore."

"Why it works."

"I can't give any effort to being angry"

"You?"

"I can be tired, or hesitant."

"Yeah, you can do that."

"No more stands."

"What?"

"I don't want to take a stand."

"This is where you're making sense."

"The constant oppose. You know that?'

"What?"

"There is this constant oppose."

""No stand no oppose."

"What?"

It needs courage and guts, to become an amateur again.

Anthony is going out on himself.

"I need to go on strike from my thoughts."


"This conversation is starting off in the wrong direction."


"Just not doing it anymore."


"Are we talking about a sit down strike? Or are you taking it to the streets? I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about."


"My thoughts are the problem. My thoughts and the ideas they breed, and the actions I take because of them is the singular ingredient to every problem I've had, have and will have..."


"Where is my drink?"


"Are you listening?"


"I just need a few drinks to make it go down easier."


"I just need--for the very first time in my life to go on a strike against my own thought system. It has been oppressive, unrelenting."


"What the shit does that mean?"


"I have to. What other choice do I have?


"I don't know how to respond."


"I'm pretty sure it will be successful strike...."


"Please....I have to get something to drink!"


"I have to do something different."


"Don't you think our thoughts and actions keep us from being homeless."


"What?"


"If you don't do things as directed your life falls apart, right?"


"There has to be something that appears..."


"What?"


"Something."


"Something?"


"Can I try someone else."


"Ok."


"It will be peaceful."


"Where is that drink?"

William is trying to hear.

" I need it quiet."

"What? Here?"

"It is not necessarily the loud people that I worry about. It is the ones that get to close....it is about the places my mind takes me to when I am trying to escape the stark now.


"That stark now gets me."

"I'm serious here."

"I know."

"Huh?"

"I hear you. The stark."

"It is like I am in a concert hall..."

"Which one?"

"I am at a symphony....and all of these instruments are playing to distract me. It is distracting me so I can't gather consistent thought, I can't here the flute. I can't hear the quietest instrument that will direct me..."

"I don't understand."

"I don't care about finances and family disputes. I only care about the accountability of self and everything that serves that."

"Delicious."

"That quiet flute."

"What?"

"I just want to hear....everything else is so loud..."

"OK."

"It's...all a distraction from my interaction......."

"What?"

"And this interaction is with myself. I need it for an exact direction out of this preposterous illusionary life.."

"I can't say......

"I need the exact place to go. I am looking for only one sound for this."

"Like me for the perfect apple fritter."

William can't ruin himself.

"Huh?"




"What?"


"I know I can't completely ruin myself...I can't destroy myself..."




"With this food?"


"No. What are you doing?"


"What?"


"It is like....almost, you know? It is always..... almost, but not quite--close.....but then ok in the morning."


"What?"


"It's just nothing. Whatever gets your attention--your tailor made attention  seems to be used to lure you to the edge, but you do the jumping, only to be lured again. It can only get you to the edge."


"So what?"


"Something is trying to ruin us everyday.....every single day. We wake up and we are in the attack."


"I dated her."


"It's parlor tricks. I say let it. See how far it can go. It can't go all the way then it would be found out. Listen let it go all the way to the edge..."


"Ok."


"Go to the edge with it and laugh."


"This food makes me cry."

"One must have the wisdom to fall apart."

Anthony can't live with himself.

"I can't live with anyone because I don't want to know things about myself."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"You mean them?"

"I mean me. I don't want to know that shit."

"What?"

"It's like staring at a mirror everyday."

"Again you mean them....discovering the fucked up things people do....."

"No. Me in relation to them that is the real front page story. That seems to be what it is built for. What the hell is up with my reaction?

"That's a question?"

"And why haven't I worked that shit out? What the hell have I've been doing in relationships?"

"You're reacting to the fucked up shit that people do. They need to figure it out."

"I'm reacting....can I choose which one I want to have work on?"

"You mean....."

"I want to choose which one I want to work on..."

"Ok go ahead."

"I choose how I react to them....that's why I can't live with anyone."

I don't know what my own best interests are in one situation after another.

Anthony is a dictionary version.

"I haven't committed to a Goddamn thing!"

"What?"

"I just didn't have a clue about walking out the door and going to work or meeting people."

"What are we talking about?"

"You know what we are talking about? Don't you?"

"No."

"I won't start living until I committed to something."

"Relationship?"

"Relationship? I can't even get close to another person until I figure this out first. I don't know what commitment is. I have to go with a feeling. I don't have fucking clue. Nobody does, but they quickly come up with an answer. It is defintley not Merriam's definition--- an obligation, promise, etc that restricts one's freedom of choice. A commitment is showing up. for your job, relationship...hobby...."

"What is the difference? Your committed to doing these things."

"You have me committed like a patient. Or you have me obligated, right? Trapped into finishing a statement I either made in a church or a coffee house."

"You love it."

"I don't understand that either."

"Of course."

"Yes."

"What are you saying?"

"I have to be committed. It has to belong to me."

"It does."

"It doesn't. My dictionary commitments are all over the place. I don't know what it is"

"You've said that."

"Do you understand what this means?"

"You've been lying?"

"I need to commit to myself. And I would actually become visible. "

"What?"

"I do this and it is like I just materialize. I come into perceptible existance...."

"What?"

"This is what the dictionary says. If I really commit to something that I'm truly attracted to....instead of half ass-ing the shit out of it--..."

"I don't do that."

"You do that."

"Of course."

"If I committ...."

"Say that one more time."

"If I committ no matter what abuse I take, from you or anyone else than I finally become visible...."

"Present--existing or occurring at this time of now."

"Right."