"...real suffering comes from clinging to a life that has nothing to offer us."

-the mentor within

William wants to surrender.

"I need to be healed. I need to be cared for."

"You?"

"I found that all of the relationships I've been in, and all the experiences I've had were conducted in some sort of mental war zone. We carried scars, shrapnel from so many other past experiences."

"I would suggest that what you are saying is laden with 'dramatics' "

"No."

"Ok."

"Can you imagine trying to have a relationship in a war zone? How do you two hold your relationship together?"

"I don't know."

"You hold it together. But that's just it, you hold it together. You don't expand. You don't breath. Something outside of you disguised as your hidden fear could come in and ransack it at anytime, and you have to be ready. You have to be prepared. In the meantime you pass time talking about your scars of the past; your past wars."

"That sounds bleak."

"It is. We need someone to care for us. We are coming to relationships from a war, and we are battle tested for a coming one."

"It seems."

"Doesn't feel to be out there when someone really cares for you; when someone hugs you and means it. Seeing you as not a soldier but innocent. It doesn't happen when you just forgive yourself."

"You think it's that simple."

"Yeah I do. I just wanted to know what I was fighting--which is nothing, and what I was resisting--which is myself. I wanted to surrender, and that is where I see that I am wounded. Deeply. Puncture and bleeding. I'm tired and I give up and demand a peace. I need to be healed. To let it in. To stay unprepared to the elements. Stay fucking unprepared for once."

"OK."

"I need to finally relax."

"Sounds serious."

"I just need to be cared for."

Save your airfare and forgive.

-arten

"You're television incarnate, Diana. Indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana virulent madness."

-Max Schumacher (William Holden)

Network (1975

screenplay Paddy Chayefsky

Slowie is romantic

"Who knows how to conduct a relationship."

"Huh?"

"My heart was broken in the early 90's. Romance was beat out of me, and because of that at 22 I started acting like my parents. I held everything, and digested till I couldn't recognize myself. I then got really serious and rid myself of playfulness, imagination and sensation. I even got married. Now I am like a kid in my early 40's, emotionally paralyzed, sexually immature, with a generation below us that gives out blow jobs like handshakes. I am trying to find myself."

"I should try the fish."

"After my first 15 years of ruin relationships, I decide to create Frankenstein ones."

"You sound angry."

"I'm not angry."

"You sound it."

"But I'm not."

"Ok."

"I'm just saying that I don't know anything about conducting a relationship. I don't have any idea about sex, romance and how love powers any of it. I'm mad as hell and I can't take it anymore."

"So what does that mean?"

"Like it is that simple."

"It must be if you are looking for a window to scream out of."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"No."

"OK."

"I don't know about you, but I don't know what I'm doing. I feel absolutely crazy. I feel uneven, like I am completley made up and I just need to say 'uncle' and my real life will begin."

"I was just thinking that this morning."

"right."

"OK."

"Can't you see it?"

"With you?"

"I can't trust you."

"Ok."

"But you know what? Romantic movies have lied to me. As soon as I got my period I have spent the rest of my life looking to understand what love is. After I was hurt time and time again I Frankenstein that shit. I piece together surrounding relationships to serve aspects of my desire. I fed my hollow self with these pieces. I built a golden fucking calf to love and sat with a ripped bra in front of it."

"Frankenstein?"

"I took my Frankenstein out to meet my parents. This hideous thing I called love, this thing that kept me just functioning. I half--assed myself. Can't you see that?"

"It's not like that."

"It is. I bought into some fucked up script and I'm sexually stunted. I can't feel. I have know idea who I am. These movies lied to me. I chased love based on their prescription and found a horror picture. I can only trust myself. Myself."

"So then you are angry."

"I'm not angry, but I believe I'm mad."

"Insane."

"Yes."

"Ok.

"I believe romance is alive and well. It is powered by love, and I can only trust myself for it."

Lanvin knows love isn't an action verb.

"I don't think I was attached to anything of significant in that relationship but my own addictions."

"I'm not even sure I asked you about it."

"I was addicted to things in it. I didn't know what a relationship was so I assume it has something to do with using addictions to keep it together. My need to be accepted, my desire distraction from the pain and agony of my thoughts. What else will keep you there?"

"Pancakes."

"So then you agree."

"Your saying that at the heart of most relationships is an addiction?"

"Yeah, don't you agree? It is an opportunity for escape. On top of that I can face outward and create dramatic moments between my mate to further keep me adrift from examining my mind."

"There is a love right? Love is the common denominator."

"Come on with that."

"What?"

"Love to what?"

"Love for the other person. You care about the bastard, that's what sinks you into this fucked up existence."

"How can you be way off? I'm saying that what you think is love is addiction."

"How do you know that?"

"Because just like a lot of other people we don't know what love is. You say it in this discussion as if it is going to shut me the hell up. But it remains to be unexamined and continues to be this big foot in the hills, and we parade under its banner and never see."

"I know what love is."

"Listen, my point is can you tell me the difference between love in a relationship and addiction in a relationship?"

"I'm tired."

"Right. We all are."

Anthony is not the norm.

"A few times he said 'from here on out I'm going to do things differently, yes, from here on out, as if he really was."

"What?"

"I watched a show about this person who was about to die. His was sick. When the doctor and the patient were separate you could sense they knew there could be no more treatment, but when they sat together they both denied this. The doctor was willing to try one more round of radiation, the patient was willing to except this procedure, if only to get back to a normal life."

"Right."

"What is a normal life?"

"Well if you live in a suburb it is sitting on a riding lawn mower."

"Yeah probably. Yeah you're right, that's normal. You are fighting your way---you are denying your way, to get back to that riding lawnmower. Something just makes me think that if you had three attempted bone marrow transplants, three powerful radiation treatments, that has also failed, and you have wasted away to 90 pounds from 160; you would have to start believing that the riding lawn mower, and this failed attempt to save your life was also a part of your life. There is no 'getting back'."

"Well this happens to showcase a resilience."

"I don't know. It seems like a repression. There is nothing normal about life. If anything it continues to be strange and undefined. If anything sitting in ICU or sitting on a lawn mower gives us an opportunity to define. If we start to look closer. If we just start to stay still we begin to define these moments."

"You think?"

"Yeah. Because there is nothing normal about both of those things."

William is not going to routine his shit.

"I'm crazy."

"Yeah."

"No. I'm really crazy."

"I know."

"What I'm saying is that I am crazy, why is that funny?

"I didn't say it was."

"But you act as if it is a gag."

"Well I know you are not serious."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean what do I mean?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're not crazy. If you were crazy you would be in a rocking chair surrounded by people in white coats or whatever the modern equivalent was. You would be able to hear things that I couldn't hear and demanding that I could."

"No that's not true."

"When it comes to this life you are functioning. It's moving."

"That's all it takes?"

"Yes. Routining your shit."

"I am a functioning crazy person. It's like a functioning drunk."

"Yeah."

"So what you are saying is that everyone is crazy? This behavior is so widespread it's normal."

"OK."

"We are all distracted. Can't concentrate for a moment to reflect. I see people out driving like they are in a fog only waiting to react. Walking dogs with a look of bewilderment on their face. They are not sure why they are in this routine but yet they carry on with it."

"No thinking, just a kind of doing. Just do it."

"Making sure you don't understand your relationship to people, places and things. Just doing things to keep moving along. You don't want to understand. you just want to keep moving it along for reasons you don't know."

"I guess."

"To a destination you are unsure about but that's fine."

"I guess."

"What if you tried to understand?"

"I don't have time for all of that I got bills to pay."

"Huh?"

"Understanding is crazy talk."

"I don't want to routine my shit. I can't help but want to at least know what the hell is going on wit this place. I came out of the womb and got my self into something here. I'm in some fuck up shit here. I'm in a jam. I need to think my way out of this. It doesn't feel right."

"Your in a tight spot."

"I am, but I'm no radical, I'm not trying to protest; I just want to try something else while I'm doing this with you."

"How you gonna do that?"

"I'm going to think my way out. I am going to stop and listen. I am going to observe and not use reaction as tool in the world."

"So your going to stop thinking?"

"Yeah."

"Your not going to routine your shit?"

"I'm not going to routine my shit."

Slowie wants to experience this without even having that.

"For once it just wasn't some dick."

"How's that? This is my trick ear."

"I was forced to desire something else."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"I won't say desire, but for once I started feeling that he was this time saying things with his tongue that still got me wet."

"And it's not even noon yet."

"I was confused."

"You?"

"Yeah. He was saying these beautiful things about love, talk in such a way that I can't describe. He would even listen to me, meet my low level demands with ease. Shit, I would forget I was talking. I had such a sexual edifice that this experience left me unprepared. It gathered me by surprise. I slipped and fell."

"Doesn't seem like your type."

"He was physically. it was a trap. Generally with those that I'm attracted to I have no problem with a pre game show. It is generally alcohol ridden or it is loaded with flat conversation and long pauses. But I stay prepared. I stay resilient. The sex is what I am signed up for. The mental abuse is what my ticket stub says; all while I approach the bedroom."

"But again that doesn't seem like his method of operation."

"But that's just it. Something he said out in the living room, something he made me feel fucks with my wiring when we are in the bedroom. It is like his whole visage--not necessarily the sex act, is what makes it more titillating. I can have an orgasm with picture of him in my mind sitting in a pair of chinos, rather than plowing into me from behind."

"You like that?"

"I like that."

"OK."

"It is almost like what he is saying is affecting me beyond what I think is my only sexual satisfaction. It's like what I have demanded for myself has been extremely low. I have under sold myself ."

"But you never expected that much anyway. Your stories of sex have just been silly escapades."

"True, it was a hobby of a distracted mind, but he has forced me to demand something else from my sexual experiences. In the end I just want to feel this...whatever it is, without even having them."

Slowie is in loves waiting room.

"All the questions I have about myself are answered if I was in a loving relationship."

"Do you even know what that is?"

"I fucking know. You never listen to me."

"OK."

"I know, because again everything that I am doing is just a waste of time until I am again exposing myself to it. I'm just distracted and fucked up until it happens."

"What does that mean?"

"The way I am figuring everything in my life is just a dramatic waiting room until I am seen by love."

"Does he have glasses with a clipboard in his hand?"

"All my questions, and all my deviant behavior becomes easily explained."

"What?"

"Turns out, the things I hide from people, the self that I am reserving for that one night stand in Coral Gables..."

"The sexual asphyxiation?"

"The balloon fetish or pie play."

"The fucking and punching?"

"Huh?"

"Not sure you're making sense now."

"I don't change is what I'm saying. I just wait for love to see me and all of my wanting behaviors are explained."

"Dr. Love?"

"I open to it, if I don't want to parcel myself out to sex and emotions with people across the city. It's like I am using different people for different behaviors."

"Your not into piecemeal?"

"I don't change. I can just heighten. I have myself explained to myself."

"Huh? What? Why?"

"It is another way to do some self evening. Like shirts being ironed out. I come in from the cold and everything about me is honored and explained as way to a purpose. I honor the good parts and all of what I think is my shitty self."

"You?"

"Me. Even I can be sanctified."

"Without an exorcist?"

"I'm just tired of forcing myself to hate what I'm attracted to and then give it to some strangers whose anonymity makes it easier for me to disrespect them."

"That can destroy people you love, and is why I personally and temporarily sleep with emotionally vacant women, when I want to kick start something bizarre and twisted I've seen on the internet or was personally thinking about."

"Your absurdity is baseless."

"Right."

"It won't destroy people you love, because the authentic love sanctify what you consider degradation and then--and more importantly begins to make you whole."

"Maybe so."

"It's transforming if you allow."

"But you still like 'piecemealing' yourself across town, don't you? You like being an actress unsure of the emotion this role will bring up. You still enjoy aspects of yourself."

"Like a movie you once thought was excellent, now you only see the sadness in it."

"That sounds sad."

"That's because it is, and I'm tired."

"Ah."

"Which is why I waiting to be seen."

"Of course."

The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh and then projected outward. This produces what seems to be a wall of flesh around the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master. And this unholy instant seems to be life; and instant despair, a tiny island of dry sand, bereft of water and set uncertainly upon oblivion.

Nicholas doesn't like your asshole behavior but he will still take you to the airport.

"My distractions are moving over to where I can see them. It is almost like they have become easily identified in a emptying out party. They stand there completley under dressed and huddled. I see them."

"What kind of party is this?"

"Things are starting to collapse around me. I haven't lived up to my obligations anymore."

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't know."

"Exactly."

"Well. I feel I finally let it go."

"What? He says with trepidation."

"Well maybe not all of it. I stop my support. I stop my support of what my friends wanted to believe about themselves. I stop my support for what my family wanted to believe about themselves."

"What?"

"I let them continue though. That's what it is..."

"What is?"

"My point. I stopped the support and realize my life got immeasurably quiet as I stopped, but I let them continue if they choose."

"Choose what?"

"If they want to abuse themselves I think it's ok."

"So you are telling me that you stop supporting people."

"There are two people in the world: those who think they need help and those who think they can give it."

"What?"

"There are logistical behaviors. I can help them logistically if they need a ride from the airport. Help them move. Pay for their dinner etc. Logistics, yes."

"I hope the latter is something we can discuss after this meal."

"I can do those things. I can do logistics. I can carry your drunk ass up a flight of stairs if you need me. That isn't the issue. I can be a reference for a job, but where it has changed.....it has changed where the disquieted is no longer accepted. I can no longer be a party to your self abuse, or aid you in self bludgeoning, after I have helped you up the stairs or into your new job. I cannot support you there. It doesn't serve me anymore to sit on the phone and listen to you exercise the banality of your life that you are decades away from changing. Matter of fact you would shoot me if I instituted practical application on the matter."

"I hope this is just a self realization and you don't mean me."

"Of course."

"Ok."

"I'm just not as distracted anymore. I can see all of the players in my own distraction. My own life has come in very clear after I stopped doing one of the two and now I have no tolerance with yours."

"Ok. How can you help me then."

"Well there is a third thing I can do. My support can be a friend who is distraction free that can be a mirror to your ass-holy behavior. That is the only beneficial support you will ever need. Someone who allows for accountability. I have cleared myself or I am aware of my hindrances and moved them back so I can be present for your growth."

"How else can you help me."

"I can carry your drunk ass up the stairs."

Slowie has an alien.

"I don't want it."

"What?"

"Love is hard. Like is acceptable."

"You believe that?"

"Love is strangulation."

"What?"

"I don't know. Sometimes I enjoy my life of having sex with people where we are on the same page. We have conversations that are laden with thoughts that there isn't a lot of time here so let's get on with it, but sense we both try to believe that we really like each other; we pretend to be interested in each others mother."

"I love talking about bloody Korean movies before sex."

"I do a lot of 'like' because I'm afraid of love. I almost hate it. There is almost something sinister about it. It is at the root of every interaction, reminding me again to try it out."

"Try it out? What are you talking about?"

"I don't know really. That's part of the problem. But you know I don't think it has anything to do with searching. I don't think we are supposed to be out looking for it. You know tryn' to find love?' I think it is an entity. I think it is some alien inside us. "

"The Thing."

"An alien. Something we don't understand. You know it is so much harder not telling the truth to each other..."

"You mean easier."

"I mean harder."

"Ok, right."

"I don't know if love is truth, or what it is, because that is what drives me insane. There is no love to be found out there."

"It's the Thing."

"I'm having these abbreviated relationships with labels like 'open' or 'not serious' as a way of staying away from the alien, but it is with me. It is inside of me. It is at home alone with me, gnawing at me, choking me with it's need."

"Sounds painful and nothing like the Notebook."

"It's not the strangler. I have to take that back. It's not gnawing at me. You know what? I take all of that back. I don't know what I'm saying."

"What?"

"All of it."

"OK."

"My resistance is all it is. It is just my constant..constant resistance. That resistance is what does the gnawing. That is what does the choking. I have spent my entire life keeping myself back from something."

"That alien."

"Yes and based on my life, it seems more like it is my only friend. A friend that flashes itself at me when I want to sell myself short. It reminds during a kiss that there is no love to find in this."

"Uh huh. So not a question of what you are looking for..."

"But more like what are you resistant to?"

Lanvin wants to sell her cleverness.

"I just didn't want to be clever anymore."

"Huh?"

"I was tired of being sarcastic and witty all the time."

"All the time?"

"Well, as a defense mechanism."

"Why?"

"I did it to stay off myself. I was clever to avoid the cold loneliness."

"It's not that serious."

"It is."

"You are taking all the fun out of things."

"I never said that I didn't still have fun. I just don't have it at my own expense."

"What?"

"I don't have it as a way of avoiding what's going on with me."

"You need it."

"I do still need it."

"What do you mean then?"

"I need it for you. I don't need it for me as much anymore. I hate kidding myself with cleverness. I need it to coddle you. If you still need it. If you still need to feel at ease."

"You will rock me to sleep in it?"

"Only if you desire, I'm not a soapbox preacher, plus I won't hang around people like that as I use to. I will spend most of my time around those that don't need this devise as much."

"Speaks to me of arrogance."

"It's not. If anything it is like staying at home with yourself, no defenses up, taking in what is ugly about yourself--what is salvageable. Sifting through what works."

"What the hell does this serve. What does it bring?"

"Finally a sort of commitment."

"What?"

"A commitment. Without your biting sarcasm you begin to participate. You begin to commit to experiences, if only to understand this new person behind the newly dropped projecting."

"My sarcasm doesn't bite."

"I spent so much time firing back quick responses on any subject a person brings up, like a machine gun game of hot potato. I can't be introspective on just who I am in front of someone. We can never discuss this layer after layer of thought we are encased in that makes us stare in solitude 80 percent of the day. The things that are uncomfortable. The things that are biting us. I want to sell my cleverness so I can be at home in myself and explore."

"It is still just your wish."

"What?"

"It is just your buisness."

"You saying this just so I don't infect your so called good time?"

"Yeah. It can kill a party."

"No worries. It is just an option for the uncomfortable. Those who are acrimonious, contemptuous, there is still tons of real estate left. You who need your wit, your cleverness can continue to fill your face with it. I do this for me and a few people who just need to feel themselves. Those that are tired of their results. Tired and worn out with their experiences. Those that need to treat this life a little more tactile without lacerating themselves."

"I like my cleverness."

"I know. But it is something I have already mastered. I'm now ok with bewilderment."

William is sensitive to your needs, during your entertaining conversations.

"People are adrift."

"I like aquatics."

"Well you can't really talk to someone without them, kind of like disappearing----they just go away."

"Go away?"

"Yeah."

"Walk away?"

"It's me. I am talking about something that is building. I am having this layered conversation that has all kinds of sensitivity. It is sensitive to them, it is sensitive to me. It is ready to be plugged into what I believe is a universal thought. A thought that everyone is concerned about---everyone, deep down wants to discuss, but because they have never had support there---they struggle with it. They check out as I'm trying to build it. They go back towards this fake conversation."

"Fake like what?"

"Well, they have the right idea in some cases, they talk about headlines from this cornucopia of news information, which can make an intellectually allergic person savvy and conversation participatory, but that shit is nothing. People already know what's going on in what matters. The key is building on this conversation where you can meaningfully connect it to you..."

"Sensitively?"

"Right."

"Ah the chronic participatory with his hand in the air and Kool-aide stains on his shirt."

"Huh?"

"Nothing. You say don't fall for it."

"Yeah. Don't take the bait and be distracted, rather find collectively that you are connected and have given birth to the culture, which means it is more of an exercise in self evaluation not just something that allows you to take judgement out for a walk during a coffee break."

"That could work me too much."

"No not at all."

"It could. I am just trying to get home or here for dinner."

"You're always trying to get here."

"I like it here."

"Yeah it's comfortable for you."

"Of course."

"I see what's wrong with people. It is easy to be distracted, but I read in these news and information outlets--eventually what's wrong with me. I see my problems answered if I look closely; my personal answers to deep seated issues are in there somewhere."

"It's entertainment."

"Not just. Again self evaluation waiting to be...."

"Sensitivity."

"Constructed."

"Right."

"There are some answers in there. It is not all rolled pepperoni, cheese and wine tasting. It's not just entertainment. It's not just passing time. It's not just conversation that you have to produce as if you are called upon in class. There is something there. There is always something there.

"I like rolled pepperoni."

"I thought a bologna was more your style."

"The most difficult challenge we can possibly face is the act of surrender,

the unconditional acceptance of What Is. This is releasing control. This is the ultimate humility born from the truthful acknowledgment of not-knowing.

The truth reveals itself when we surrender."

Anthony wants to do that thing.

"I want to do that thing."

"Huh?"

"Perception is a son of a bitch."

"Why?"

"It controls my decision making."

"I thought we were talking about something else."

"I can't do anything that I am genuinely desiring without first thinking and worrying about how others are going to perceive it."

"You can fuck what others think."

"Why do people say that?"

"Say what?"

"Say things like 'just ignore people or 'Who cares what other people think' or 'I know someone who doesn't care what people think.' Turns out that guy just don't care what you think, but he cares about the ramblings of someone in his life ."

"Maybe."

"Perception is a crazy. It has to be extracted. The whole perception thing has to be cut out. We have to attack it directly. The 'Who cares what people think.' line is not going to work. We have to head right to causality."

"What are you going to do."

"You say that as if I am going to head over to City Hall."

"Well? You brought all of this up, like you were ready to light your torch."

"Yeah, maybe."

"OK."

"I'm just going to do the desire."

"What?"

"I'm just going to do the thing. I'm just going to do what I desire before perception fully takes hold in my mind and influences that decision."

"That sounds easy."

"It's not. It will ignite. You will see it. But you can't get involved in that mob. You have to stay back, stay away from it. You got to go do your thing. You have to protect that notion, that desire. You have to make sure you do that thing before the mob invites you over."

"Ok."

"Yeah it's that simple.

William does not want to change what's happening.

"What is the difference between something happening to you and you preventing something from happening?"

"Will, please not today."

"What?"

"Just a nice quiet meal, please."

"It's just a question."

"I don't know."

"What?"

"I can't answer that."

"I don't know either."

"What?"

"I mean I think that if you stop a so called bad thing from happening to you or something happens to you surprisingly, the thing that is in common with both of them is that you are going to be still using the same tools to work either situation. You are still the same person in both situation."

"I said please just let me eat."

"I think the point is if you fear something bad happening to you, that is where you are making the mistake. You are putting too much power on it, and that is going to change the way it affects you."

"But it depends on the degree of fucked up."

"No, it depends on the power you give it, the tools you have to deal with both situations remains the constant. The power you give away is the only thing that changes a problem you are avoiding or facing. You never personally--who you really are, never change."

"It's like you are saying you don't change anything, even if your situation has gotten worse."

"Right."

"What? Even if you mangled in a car accident?"

"There may be different actions you take physically but mentally it has to be seen the same and then the problem--no matter the severity, has the same peaceful effect as the problem you were good enough to avoid."

"I wish I could have avoided this conversation."

"I feel better."

William's guru is disheveled.

"Ok you have my attention."

"How's that?"

"You."

"Me?"

"I figure I start giving in to everything around me."

"It's early."

"What the hell is going on?"

"Are you talking to me?"

"I am just saying uncle. I don't know what's going on anymore so I figure I should just say uncle and someone comes running in and explain how my life was one big joke."

"You believe that?"

"Well, I don't believe that will happen, no, but I do believe that what's in front of me from here on out is some sort of clue that will lead to all of my answers and explain to me why these continents of fucked up'edness exist."

"Ok."

"So I have to let you do what you want. I have to allow these experiences. I have to give you my full attention. Well if I'm attracted to it anyway. This right fuckin' here is where the action is; this is where the answers are. Where else am I going to go? Hiding out by running from what's in front of me? I stop the merry go round by checking in. Showing up right here.These experiences are not bypasses onto a highway that is more interesting, these are the destinations. You are the purpose--for now anyway. This right here is the purpose of "this" existence."

"My beleaguered ass is the key to your existence. I knew I was your God."

"Yeah. You're not someone that I just sit in a rundown cafe and slowly year after year become the victim of this chili cheese dog with extra onions. This is the moment. You're the guru."

"In a grease stained shirt."

"In loafers with tassels."

"I like that they slide on."

"Where am I trying to get to? Why am I overlooking this? I know why. It is so easy to do. The horizon that wants me to forget what's in front of it, doesn't exist and is pretending to call my attention.

"Instead a slack jawed guy in a grease stained shirt is whistling you over to fill you full of wisdom before he gets you to pay his tab."

"You have my attention."

William just lets it happen.

"Ok."

"Yes. I'm starting to see that I am ok."

"From what?"

"Huh?"

"From what?"

"I don't know. "

"What are you talking about?"

"I just feel like I'm going to always be ok."

"Ok your going to always be ok."

"When something bad is happening. I decided to just wait it out."

"What?"

"I just don't do anything reactive. I just like to stand still; do what comes clear, you know?

"You mean don't do anything? Let something appear. Like let it happen?"

"Let it happen, is a good way of describing it."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"There is something in that situation for me to do, but you usually can't hear it because you are reacting."

"If you are on fire you have at least drop and roll."

"Of course, but there are situations that doesn't need that immediate response, matter of fact a immediate response becomes the problem. Most of the things that are happening to us doesn't need a response. We should let it happen. That is the only place where we haven't looked for the answer to the problem."

"Crazy."

"Yeah, crazy. I'm not distracted anymore by work, relationships, words...I'm starting to just see myself. I'm gaining a focus--finally."

"So you're ok?"

"Even when I'm not."

Slowie is talking about ripped stockings.

"I sat with my ugliness for the day."

"Did he rip your stockings?"

"Yes he did, but that's beside the point, or maybe not. I realized after I slipped and spilled the shit I usually project onto others all over me for a day--that it indeed is ugliness that I easily give to others. This is what I discovered."

"What?"

"I am full of a ugliness."

"Do you mean shit? That seem to fit in this context."

"If I can get it off in time. If I can get it off me like a hot potato onto someone else I can see that it is not me. I see myself as pretty, pristine and the fucking world is against me. But slipping and spilling the ugliness on myself, not getting enough time to throw it at someone with a vileness means I am left with it. It means that the longer the minutes tick the more I will discover that I am the sole sponsor of it. I didn't know that. I didn't know blame, ridicule ugliness was coming from inside of me rather than someone making in me."

"What are we talking about?"

"We are talking about ripped stockings."

"Right."

Lanvin likes option #2

"You do not have as much control over your life as you think you do."

"What?"

"Well I will say me. I cannot escape the things that are happening to me."

"What?"

"I see that when I don't do anything. Even if I am not doing a damn thing, things still happen."

"Things like..."

"Negative or positive."

"What?"

"Anything."

"Like things?"

"Yes."

"OK."

"I can wake up not planning anything for the whole day, nothing. I could tell myself that I am not going to do anything. I am going to sit in my place and not do anything and things will still happen."

"That makes sense right?"

"What?"

"Something will always happen. Someone will come to knock on your door, your phone will ring."

"I think that's my point. I don't have to construct anything. I don't have to do any architecting of my day my week. Something comes remotely."

"You sound lazy."

"It's not like I wouldn't do anything when that phone rings, or someone comes knocking at my door. I just use them as a clue."

"A clue? What kind of clue?"

"A opportunity at a better option than what I'm constructing."

"How can you not design your future, or use a daily planner. That doesn't make any sense."

"I still have to go to the cleaners, that's not what I'm talking about. I can make money, do work tasks, but when it comes to feeling peaceful, when it comes to being really happy or experiencing myself as love. I don't know what I'm doin'. I don't have a clue.You think I'm happy?"

"I don't know."

"The problem isn't my boss, my parents or city traffic. The problem is the entire system I operate in. Everything. And it cannot be change from with in it. That wouldn't make sense."

"What do you mean?"

"Everything is what I mean."

"Are you trying to divorce yourself from life? Are we talking suicide? Because I don't want this conversation to turn dour. "

"What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing."

"It's just duality, the world is duality and I am using the other option."

"Are we talking religion?"

"No."

"I just want to try the different one."

"The different one?"

"Yes."

"Can you do that?"

"Yeah."

"How? And remember I only have 15 minutes."

"Simple. By not constructing anything in my life. Then I start by not escaping whatever comes to me. It is like a kid who only can work the game pieces that he/or she is given. You have to be happy with that, and you have to trust that in the end it will be all you need to solve the puzzle. It's tough, but I have unique and extremely better days if I allow it."

"By being lazy?"

"Yeah. But what comes has my attention completely. My life's answers are in that knock or that phone call. Those interactions become extremely important. They are clues for more peace in the interim."

"So you are also becoming peaceful?"

"Yes. You like peace right?"

"Yeah it works."

"Of course."

Don't panic.

William likes a woman who eats meatloaf.

"I like a woman who eats meatloaf."

"What?"

"I mean isn't that sexy?"

"What?"

"A sexy woman who eats food that isn't that sexy."

"What are we talking about?"

"I just get tired of people who are trying to get it across to me that they eat safe, that they eat food that to them seems trendy, you know? They eat turkey. They don't eat red meat, or they don't eat much. They eat wheat bread with one hundred and twenty two grains, lot's of salads."

"They have to be neutral. I like mustard sandwiches."

"They have to be neutral. They have to draw me out. They can't present something that will spoil their campaign to continue the relationship."

"Campaign?"

"If they stay blank. If they stay neutral they stay safe. They can shape themselves to me and properly hide. It is a campaign to avoid commitment while committing to a miserable commitment."

"What are you saying?"

"I like a woman who eats meatloaf. A woman who eats liver. And she doesn't have a problem getting her hands down in the sirloin to make a misshapen hamburger on the stove."

"The kind that sticks to the top of the bread because she forgot to add the onions."

"Right."

"And the Egyptian romaine lettuce."

"Exactly. But she has to be cute."

"Right."

"This lifestyle somehow keeps her healthy, her skin radiant."

"Rotund doesn't work."

"Right. It tips the scale in the wrong direction and could indicate something else going on."

"Yes, someone becoming stout in the kitchen. Sizable."

"Sounds like you got yourself a little campaign going."

"I guess in the end I just like a woman who eats meatloaf."

William thinks in analogue.

"What?"

"I like it when a woman say's 'moreover'."

"Love cannot be served unless it is surrounded by tons and tons or appetizers, and then we still won't quite dig into it."

"I'm sorry?"

"Listen. I just have to have poetry. I have to watch passion filled movies with tragic endings. It is the drama that I personally love. I don't want the commitment of love. The finality of it. Even if it keeps me in a state of bliss; even if I am happy beyond measure. Even if I am married to ecstasy and we take our honeymoon in joy. For some reason that isn't entertaining enough for me. Why? Why is that?"

"She is analogue."

"Yeah. She's emotionally minimal. She doesn't understand what the fuss is about. She doesn't have time for the theatrics."

"What are you doin'?"

"What?"

"Are you losing it?"

"I don't know."

"Right."

"I feel like I've studied passion, or I've studied romance. It's like I have studied an entire culture of physical expression through it's tools such as music, art, literature and movies and I have idolized it. Just looked at it. Friended it on Facebook. But she takes it and just allows it to unlock her. She dives in and doesn't need to question it."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"What are you fretting?"

"Who the fuck uses fretting?"

"It is being used right here."

"She's in it. Close to the heartbeat, near the silence, and well, I haven't gotten in. Well I have, but I get out to talk about how I've gotten in."

"OK."

"Just talking about it here does it again."

"Oh no it's quite restful. It's almost peaceful. No need to believe in either side or any side. There is no cause. There's only yourself. The belief is in your precision."

William likes math.

"Do you understand?"

"Of course not. But it always seem to make sense."

"I don't have a place to put contempt or anger. I don't have a place in me to store something that I consider negative. It is like eating food that keeps coming up."

"Please. I'm eating food that naturally comes up, but the cooks plan it that way."

"I can't manipulate anyone with something that I have stored weeks ago. I'm faced with it. I have to work it out. As if we are back in high school in 5th hour math working on a word problem. It has to be worked out. I can't avoid it."

"Sounds like a busy moment."

"Yeah."

"It's too intense. I still say you need to relax."

"I wish."

"Right."

"You act as if I'm crazy? As if I'm doing something that's a waste of time."

"Well isn't? You seem disturbed. I say that unloving."

"Of course you do. But don't you understand? You're the one that is filling up with all these storage boxes of disparagements. You can't really work out a problem you are having with someone or something, so you attack a little and save some for later. What you are saving is weighing you down, eating away at your health and making you drive erratically. It allows you to punish people with every derivative of fear, and all I'm saying is I don't want any storage. I don't want to save anything. I want to work it out as these moments come up, so I don't see them again. What I find is that they are only my equations to deal with; they are none of your business even if it appears that way."

"None of my buisness?"

"Whatever problem you give me is only my buisness. In the end you get the better side of me because of it. You like pleasant right? Kindness? Compassion? Those are the things that you get as I take what belongs to me."

"I guess it goes down better than manipulation."

"And actually nourishes, which is what I can't say about this food."

"Apple fritters."

"Whatever problem I get is for my attention. For me to resolve. If you happen to be giving it to me it is just a coincidence."

"That could relax me."

"Exactly."

"So I can leave you with the check."

"Right."

Don't argue with reality.

Anthony believes banality is a ploy.

"Things are just happening. I am on one hand losing money over here, checks are coming in this way. Bills are asking to be paid. Relationships are either beginning or ending. Things are just happening in my life that seems like I don't have any control over."

"What?"

"Things are just happening."

"What do you mean?"

"My life. There doesn't seem to be any control. I don't even know how the hell I got here. Think about it, we just appeared, and not only that we just have this life. We appear out of nowhere and we got to--all of a sudden, walk a dog. Doesn't it seem strange."

"I don't know."

"Aren't you curious?"

"I guess. Should I be?"

"I don't know. But you will agree that it seems like we just appeared right? Like all of a sudden we are picking up dog shit in the park. Sitting on a bus reading the paper."

"Appeared?"

"Yeah. No rhyme or reason really. And I'm just saying let's not look at the religious thing for a moment. let's not get into the whole created thing or whatever. Let's just look at right now. If you look at your life without religion; whatever you believe. You are basically sitting on a bus reading the paper or picking up dog shit."

"I don't have a dog."

"I didn't say you did, I am just trying to find something that seems strange that we do."

"OK."

"Whoever created us, or whatever happened to us to make us here right now we are not concerned with that when it comes to our banal tasks, right? You are not thinking about God as you grout your tile right? Saying: 'This is why you put me here....ah to grout this tile, to put Comet in this tub.' your not saying that."

"No I got to grout this fucking tile."

"Why?"

"Because this shit is dirty."

"I mean why? When you don't even know why you are even here? You appeared out of nowhere and now you are grouting tile, for no reason other than that shit is dirty. What the hell is wrong with you!"

"There is nothing wrong with me!"

"My point is we are just doing stuff in between while we are waiting on something to happen to us. We are waiting on something to come along that really needs our attention. Something that could explain what they hell we are here for that we perhaps don't give it the right attention so we can get back to grouting our tile. "

"What?"

"We are not in control of anything. We have theories of why we got here, but we are not completely sure."

"What's your point?"

"My point is something else in control while we pick up dog shit, grout tile and write checks, and guess what? I am happy about that. That makes me feel more comfortable. I listen when experiences come to me out of my control, because when I am in charge I am doing an incredible amount of daily stupid shit. I'm walking a dog in the rain in a house coat and construction boots."

"Or talking to me."

"Right."

Anthony wants to know more than he wants a blow job.

"Like the cover of darkness. As if she was a fugitive from somewhere or better yet something."

"What?"

"It was weird at first."

"What are we talking about?"

"We are talking about some women I have come into contact with, that with their open sexual ambivalence I have become scared, anxiety ridden and finally angry."

"You mean they have offered you sex."

"Yeah."

"What are we talking about here."

"We are talking about what sexual offerings can do to a man. It is not easy in all cases."

"Are you sure?"

"I hate what it does to me sometimes. I feel like a co conspirator to the day their punishment begins. Don't you see in some women who are just using you to hide, or using you to carry out some punishment in hard core fashion?"

"Not sure I'm seeing the problem there. Plus I'm not a counselor in the bedroom."

"You know? It really bothers me that I enjoy it."

"Of course."

"You know what? It bothers me that I have something in me where this can match up nicely with. I hate that their need for a debasement intrigues me."

"You make it sound wrong."

"You know, now that I think about it, I find that it is just a huge sensation a table size Hostess cupcake that I need to hurry up and consume without thinking, just like they need to hurry up and distract me to get me to believe that I was the only author of this late night visit. My desire is the only thing that is making them do this. I am the man, so their responsibility will easily disappear just on that fact."

"Is it really that serious?"

"It is very serious. This late night visit under the cloak of bad judgment is also ground zero for vulnerability, love and connectedness that two people with-- in most cases, two different reasons are trying their Goddamness to leap over. To go around by any means. They can't allow their conscience to catch up. "

"And there you are with your fucking flash light in the bedroom."

"Better yet trying to understand. I just want to understand."

"At 2am Understanding is for the sexually deprived, idiot savants and philosophy majors."

"I just want to know."

"And I will take the huddled masses."

William is not up for the pursuit.

"We are asking the wrong questions."

"Me?"

"People are beyond sad. They are disorientated, overwhelmed."

"Not whelmed?"

"No. They are also a little lost, edgy, anxiety ridden, and robbed of something."

"Seems like you could go on."

"I can. You can look into their eyes. They dart, fish around, try not to reveal that they don't quite know what to say next unless you give them cues. Unless you give them a conversation that makes all the useless information they have stored seem relevant."

"That seems angry. I like talking about sandwiches. Bread spreads."

"I know you do. I'm just saying, people are sad. We know something is wrong and we can't quite put our finger on it. We know what we are doing day- in- and day out is not really adding up to anything. We are not gaining any ground by the time we excitingly reach another Friday. We are in the same place. Like there is a hole in us, and we keep pouring some thing into it rather than look for ways to ultimately repair it. I guess we just can't realize that there is something crazy about always being in pursuit of what settles us for the moment, what makes us feel relieved for just a few minutes. The pursuit of unhappiness. Why is that normal? We are asking the wrong questions."

"What should I be asking?"

"Ah it's metaphorical. Just looking at all of this something beings to happen. Something that doesn't quite make Friday so exciting anymore."

"What do you like on your sandwich?"

"Bacon."

"OK."