julian casablancas, 1-7-11

Last night, I went out for a run, and my Timex quit on me. It is the first week of 2012, and so far, I have had a flat tire, lost my watch and have seriously begun to question if my habits are more indicative of Emelio Estevez in the Breakfast Club, John Cusack in Say Anything or Bill Paxton in Weird Science. I was hoping more for the Reality Bites, Ethan Hawke sort of anti-hero, rather than the bully, the sociopath or the world's worst brother...meh.

I guess allowing one's voice to be heard has the potential for both approval and dis-approval.

I think I'll say something about the run and the Timex in another post, as I am trying to fix the watch. Here's something interesting, that I posted on Craigslist, as innocuously as possible, because for some reason, the question was profound and simple and struck me as coming from somebody who may have at one time, wondered the same thing. A barista asked me if I was happy with what I had, as in, was the coffee roast sufficient? All I heard was, "Are you happy with your life?" After thinking about it for a few minutes, here's what I decided to do, to write, about that feeling. Hopefully it's just another place marker in the void of cyberspace, and not something taken too personally.

Are you happy with what you had?
Let's start with my Itunes library. Let's talk about how many times I've deleted the whole fucking thing, started over and hawked cds from local libraries, pilfered my parents music library for classical music I used to enjoy, begged radio stations for the name of that song, found the greatest playlist I could ever have made on my own time, only to delete it and try to forget I ever had started collecting that genre in the first place. Let's talk about how many times I've reloaded my compact disc library onto my laptop, in order to re-build that Itunes music library, to download that music onto my ipod, in order to feel more comfortable in my own skin, to more easily ignore the stares, the comments, the vague and unpredictable coughing or clearing of the throat that denotes a stranger's discomfort near me and my pervading odors. Let's talk about the ipod, the iphone, the macbook, the subscription to Macworld that alerted me to sell my CDs in 1999, in order to build an MP3 library, let's talk about what happened to enjoying music. Let's talk about what is mine and what is yours, and who should be able to listen to the music I purchase, or the music I hear when I turn on the radio, let's talk about what really makes me happy, with what I had. Do you know what I had? Let's talk about the portable compact disc player I frisbeed out my car window at seventy miles an hour because it skipped, the computers I've smashed to pieces because the operating systems were too slow, the music I've never listened to, the love I've never had. I'd sell it on E-bay, everything I've ever had, for a guarantee that tomorrow would be better than today, that maybe you could ask me that question, every day for the rest of my life, and I could feel the same way, so conflicted with instant gratification to be asked so nicely, if my contentment with what I had, was sufficient to do it all over again. To be able to consider that question, to be able to see something so profound and simple pass between someone I don't know and myself, just for a moment, and then laugh at it all. Would I do it all over again? Am I happy with what I had? No, I'm not. It led me here. And I have never been more unhappy with where I am, than in this moment. It's every humiliation I've been made to suffer through people who believe they know me, brought out in front of people I don't know and will never be able to communicate with. Being told I am sick and being punished for feeling not sick but indignant, being told that your interpretation is inherently worth more than mine, being told, told, told, what I should have been happy with. How I should have stopped trying, and been happy with what I had, because I'm worse off now, and will be worse off in the future, because these friends of mine will trot out more gossip and ennui and slander to define what I should have been happy with, who I was or who they thought they knew. I was a better person ten years ago, before deciding to change my music library into an itunes account, but I was also not the person I am today. I'm not happy with what I had. I will never be happy with what I have, I will never be happy with who you think I am, or was, or could have been, or with who I will be ten years from now. But hey, you just wanted to know about my coffee, right? It was perfect. It was warm, it was dark, it was a diuretic. Now I just wanna use the toilet and go home. Then I'll be happy with what I had. Now that I'm home, I want you to know, I had a job, I had employment, I was able to support myself. I had a car, insurance, and a few friends I trusted. Then I had two jobs, three jobs, then four jobs, then stress, then I told this story to the social security agency, then the welfare office, then I screamed and ranted this story for a few months, and people told me it would get better. Now I have three bikes, hundreds of friends and no job, dirty hands, constant anger and five or six or seven women who are way too interested in me to be potential girlfriends, isn't it, "...three that wanna stone me, two that say the know me and one says she's a friend of mine?" Who ever it is I'm trying to impress is obviously so unbelievably arrogant and self consumed that seeing me go through this, for years, hasn't been enough of a reward to him or her, so I implore you, beautiful, unknown barista serving me coffee, am I happy with what I had?

Posted in Craigslist as a rave, addressing the PMRC.