April 16th, 2002. Tuesday
 

    As the temperatures soar upward, my moral and mental state seem plummet. Things really came to a head last night as I sat in my room, which felt like a giant Easy Bake Oven, trying to coax Caryn's 4-track recorder into doing what I wanted it to do. Finally, after setting everything up how it needed to be, I went to actually record, when suddenly the microphone crapped out on me. A sweaty, frustrated mess, I contemplated the combined cost of the 4-track, microphone, acoustic guitar, and my bedroom window. When talking about the pleasures of life, I always say "It's really the little things." Well, it turns out that that's also true when you're on the brink of utter madness. It's the little things that will really push you over the edge.

    Right now, I'm finding hard to keep in cliches and corny expressions along the lines of "I hate everyone and everything." Right now I feel about three years old. I need my bottle.

    I just found out I don't have to work tonight. Part of me is a little concerned, since I was only scheduled to work twice in the last 10 days. I'm beginning to suspect that they hate me. But the other part of me is relieved to not have to work tonight. I'd say I was thrilled, but I'm not operating on that plane right at the moment. I guess what's really going on is that I'm finally letting things that should be bothering me bother me, after months of just ignoring and denying their existence. It wasn't even so much that, as just as a refusal to let things bother me. And now, I'm letting them bother me. A lot. I'm just sort of at a loss right now. In this shitty kind of way that you might see dramatized in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Though on a much lesser scale.

This feels very, very heavy handed. Or just stupid. I'm embarrassed. But not enough to find better words. I'll just write this and hope no one talks to me about it later.

   I just finished another Vonnegut book, my 10th I think. Deadeye Dick. I bought it at a little store in Williamsburg on the way back from seeing the upstairs neighbor's band. Well worth the three dollars. Toward the end, it talks about people's lives as stories, and how that's a dangerous thing to do. It also talks about the turning point in the stories, where it changes from the actual story to the epilogue. Some people may have their stories told by age 12, and the rest of their life is epilogue. It mentions how some people can't bear the epilogue stage, and just end it all. Like Hemmingway. That's a pretty grand example though. So I was thinking it probably wasn't the best book for me to be reading right now. Plus, I sort of get the feeling that my own story is still stuck in the preface. At least, I kind of hope so. Like page xxxviii of the preface by now I'd say. Anyway, the book itself was enjoyable, though it's in the typical late-Vonnegut style of non-linear storytelling. It's almost tough to call it "storytelling." He basically writes a long series of asides. He tells you the plot and outcome at the beginning, then fills in the blanks. He does this on a smaller scale with all the asides also. He says what happens, then tells you how. It's anti-suspense, really. But I guess that leaves more room for contemplation. Also, all the books of this period use the same cast of characters from the same town. But he tweaks their stories a bit from book to book, which is a bit annoying. Anyway, that's the book critique of the month.

   My hatred is subsiding a bit. I can't wait to get home. It's 80 degrees, and I will be in Prospect Park in two hours.