god, remember when i said that 2009 was going to be the year of absurdity? it has been the exact opposite, the other night while walking through the fucking mall i said out loud: i didn’t think the torpidity of 2008 could ever be surpassed, but i guess i was wrong. i have amassed a lot of stories about bars and plans i didn’t follow through on and people i’ve only met once and become smitten with and moby grape posters on stranger’s walls and paying tolls and buying more plane tickets on credit and sitting on couches next to boys with lovely disheveled curls who will never remember my name. there’s two and a half months left in the year and i am excited about what they will bring, but i still can’t remember the last time i went to a show and danced. my room only has four walls for me to put my head up against, my town only has four bridges for me to jump off of, i need a change.
only once this summer did i go walking on my lunch hour, most of the time it is not enough to simply cruise through suburban banality at 30 miles per hour, i need to steep myself in it, traversing the sidewalks. near my office there was a road work sign and below it a interstate shield for I-90, and i thought, that is low enough that i could take it. i would probably have to get a drill, but i could come back in the middle of the night when there would be no traffic and just unscrew and make off with it. i have covered enough miles on that road, i deserve that sign, like a girl scout badge. i can reach up a few feet.
driving again on that road, suddenly i realized that i have no idea how to say ‘i am lonely’ in german. i can say ‘i’m homesick’, or ‘i’m tired’. i have told the whole world about germany, but not texas. that is fresh, i drove 700 miles over the smallest consequential swath of austin, i memorized the idiosyncrasies of I-35’s exit ramps, when i left i always knew where to turn. i bid adieu, as always, cursing my delicate heart. i climbed over cemetery fences, and came out the other side with black and blue bruises on my inner thighs, wounded kneecaps and gashes on my palms. i bombarded my liver with all manner of libations, smoked a freshly rolled cigarette that wasn’t mine, sang out loud in front of strangers, the things i always do when i am gone. the curse is that i start to believe a place can change everything. i begin to like the mask of grit and aplomb i wear when i’m stumbling around. i started to think, i wonder when garbage day is down here? what would my area code be? i fell asleep smiling, i think, and woke up with bloodshot eyes, so i was told.
and then it hit me: ich bin einsam. i knew it after all.
