So I decided not to give any of the four possible numbers for the hot dog girl a call back. It’s not just the fact that my second date with the same lady was a complete turn-off; I know that there are about three billion other women, and at this point, I’d probably talk to most of them, provided that they were of legal age and still had most of their teeth. Yeah, I think that’s part of the problem; I don’t know what I want. On one of the online dating sites that I joined I put “whatever your lifestyle, please be happy, fun, and interesting.” What the fuck does that even mean? Could I claim to be happy, fun, and interesting?
My only friend in Chicago right now is a tenacious, tall, gay, black man in his mid-40s, who has a love for exciting food and thoughtful words. We attend the same low residency MFA program in California. He doesn’t live in the actual city of Chicago, but he comes up to run errands once a week. We get coffee or drinks and shoot the shit for a couple of hours. Don’t get me wrong – he’s an awesome friend, but I could do with more than just one friend in this big place.
It’s Friday night, I’m alone in the apartment, and there’s no one for me to call up and say “hey man, what’s going on – you want to get drinks somewhere?” Boohoo – so go out and make some fucking friends. Whenever I walk into a bar by myself, I feel like Jim Carrey in Cable Guy, where his eyebrows raise up and he gets that hopeful maniac grin when someone calls him “buddy.”
I’m realizing that I shouldn’t be so worried about finding my special someone/ meeting a girl to rock my world/getting my dick sucked. Sorry ladies, SuperBall’s gotta take some personal time. I need to find out what makes me happy, fun, and interesting and hopefully make some Chicagoan friends along the way.
I’m not sure what else to write. If you’ve been following the previous parts of the SuperBall journey up until now, I’ve basically been talking about my junk this whole time. I’m writing right now so that I don’t go to the liquor store a block away. Yeah! That’s what I’ll talk about.
Even as I was last writing about the supermarket that wouldn’t sell me liquor and passing by the liquor store on the way home, I was getting drunk. Sorry for any typos there. I waited until later that same night, congratulated myself on visiting the liquor store at a respectable hour, and bought a fifth of vodka. I congratulated myself when I called it a night and there was almost half of the bottle left. At three in the afternoon the next day, I told myself that it was five o’clock somewhere before finishing the rest. There definitely had to be less than half left in that bottle, since I wasn’t feeling much. I visited the same liquor store and congratulated myself when I only bought a small bottle of rum.
I don’t have a drinking problem, and I’m not an alcoholic. I have a substance fixation, and I’m an addict. Alcohol wasn’t even my drug of choice for the most part; it was more of a background noise, a refreshment to go along with whatever other drugs were hanging out with me for the day. Now, I congratulate myself for just drinking and not throwing something else into the equation. It’s slowly dawned on me that congratulations aren’t in order. I’ve just been gradually drinking more and more since graduation. There’s no growth. It’s just been a shift.
It’s been the same with cigarettes going on ten years now. I switched to chewing tobacco then switched back at least a dozen times. I decide that I liked chewing tobacco better but smoked when my gums started to hurt and dipped when my throat started to ache. I finally started chewing nicotine gum about five months ago. I haven’t smoked or dipped since then, but I’m still completely dependent on nicotine. There’s no growth. It’s just been a shift.
I think this could be the part where I blame all this on having cancer. That’s simply not true. I’ve known about that for less than a month, and this has been going on for years. What is this? This is a refusal to grow and finding clever ways to sidestep whatever difficulties make me doubt that decision. I shift and forget until I have to make my next move. Perhaps the best part about having to deal with the upcoming surgery and whatever else may follow is the knowledge that I have to stand my ground.
I was lamenting earlier the fact that I don’t have many friends in Chicago. I’ve made and kept great friends elsewhere, so why can’t I say the same for here? If I spent the same amount of time going out and meeting people that I’ve spent getting drunk and playing video games in my apartment, then I don’t think that I’d be writing this.
Shit needs fixing – where to start? Maybe I’m not sure how to be happy, fun, and interesting on a regular basis because I haven’t taken the time for sadness, hard work, and yes, being boring.
My ex-girlfriend has suggested that I seek help. I don’t want to do that for a multitude of reasons. I think a bit of that is due to stupid pride, but mostly, I think it would be more mind-numbing than helpful. I don’t want to go to any support groups. Even though I’ve spent this whole time complaining, I don’t want to listen to strangers do the same. I don’t want people to pat me on the back and say “we’ve all been there” before trying to one-up me with their own stories of self-destruction. I don’t want to talk to a Psychologist. We’ll talk about how things aren’t black or white but merely grey. We’ll do our best to talk everything away.
What I’m saying is that we are all alone. We’ll never be able to know exactly what our fellow human beings are thinking or feeling. We can stretch empathy to its limits, but, short of telepathy, we’re shit out of luck in that department. This is not a bad thing. It means that no one can stand your ground but you. That doesn’t mean that you should become a recluse, drink your own pee, and store your toenail clippings in an empty pickle jar labeled space dollars. Friends are there for a reason, but, ultimately, any growth has to be your own journey. We are all alone together, and that is a good thing.
Plus, I don’t need to put myself in some artificial, specialized setting to know that I have problems. I need to get the hell out of my apartment and start being alone with other people. Also, I need to stop drinking so much. It’s been two days since I’ve had a drink, and I know that it doesn’t mean anything. I’ll also have to find out why I’ve been drinking so much along the way.
As I started writing this, I got up from my desk and put on my jacket. The liquor store is less than a block away, and I’d only be getting a little bottle of rum. I don’t intend to be substance-free for the rest of my life. I just don’t want to be substance-dependent. That’s plenty growth for me. Hell, I’ve probably got it under control by now. It’s been two days! Sidestep sidestep. The bottle of rum is really small, I swear! Shuffle shift. I took my jacket off, sat back down, and kept writing. I think it’ll be OK to have a boring night. I’m going to brew a pot of coffee – hopefully that’s not too much of a shift.
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