Tonight in Tomorrow

It is night, and I am at home. This is the first time I've written here at night. Without the buzz of the office around me. Without the flourescents peering down on me, without the noise of the working world and without the daytime keeping check on the imagination.

Tomorrow I will work one more day, and then get on the train and take it to the Universal City station where my packed car will be parked, and I'll get in the car and drive toward the 134 on-ramp.

This isn't all as simple as I've made it out to be. I know, I know, that I've attempted to imbue everything so far with a sense of complexity and depth, but really the way I've put everything so far, all the language could be exchanged for a sentence or two, that the natural restlessness of my youth and a hyperactive sense of the dramatic has made me dislike work and yearn for travel--surprise, surprise. I tried to give it a whole bunch of layers, but I wasn't fooled, and I doubt you were either. But there IS more too it than that.

I portend to embark upon a search for truth of some sort, or at least a truthful destination, but I get the feeling that a search for truth becomes a lie itself, existing only to perpetuate the kind of self-gratifcation the acknowledgment of its existence allows, and really in the end you're not searching for anything because you find yourself perfectly content with the idea that you're searching. But with this in mind, what the hell AM I supposed to do with myself? What noble and respectable avenue is out there for me to stride along with my chest puffed out? Hmmmm? Does it involve coming to the realization that I'm in fact satisfied where I am now?--but I'm NOT satisfied. I'm happy, don't get me wrong, I'm happy and optimistic, but there's more to satisfaction than that, isn't there? So if I'm not accepting and I'm not searching, well, what's goin' on then?

But can I believe this either? Tonight there was a lunar eclipse, the moon falling into and out of the Earth's shadow. It doesn't go anywhere, sure, but it becomes veiled, and can disappear, or turn a different color, and that's got a lot to do with something I've been convinced of this whole time: that you may not always be where you think you are. Take a moment and look around you, and what're you seeing? Am I seeing an apartment, furnishings, a tree out the window? Or is this just the shadow covering up something else--a room of inactivity, a reason to remain lonely and isolated, a life I thought I wanted but maybe now am not so sure about, and on and on like this--is that what I'm seeing? And if it is, then what's just beyond THAT? What's the next layer? How deep can I look, exactly....? And how much am I seeing what I want to see?

Look, I'm not trying to overdo this philosophical thing. But I sit down and try to think about something practical, and this is what comes out. And you know what?, that happens in part because it feels good. It feels good because it always leads to my talking about my own weaknesses, and that feels good to me for some reason, I enjoy the hell out of it, even though under normal circumstances I'd never admit to that, I'd say I just like being honest with myself. But honesty turns into reflection which turns into false modesty, which turns into self-deprecation, all faster than you can rush to beat a dead horse, and shit, I'm not immune to it. The fact is, I'm not so helpless, I'm not so alone, I have a family, I have friends, I've got ability and I've got a place for me in life just WAITING, which can comfort you like an electric blanket and frighten you like an electric fence all at the same time, and I get confused but deep down underneath all the musings and the sophistry I know it's all true. But what I can't get rid of is a kind of emptiness that springs on me when I least expect it, and what I can't get rid of is fear.

I'm going to Las Vegas for the purpose of travel and I'm going there for this political shit, but I'm gonna' be there for something else too: Halloween. One holiday I respect. And it's not for the dressing up and the parties, although I enjoy that too. It's for the fact that it serves as yearly reminder that there's something out there, and within us, that we don't understand, and that we don't control, something that we can sense and maybe even feel a little bit and that if we're lucky we can catch a fleeting glimpse of in our periphery if we turn our heads fast enough. And that's something I feel and sense all the time.

And there's another thing waiting for me in Las Vegas. A ghost or two. Or three. I've seen a good handful of people I cared about buried there over the last six years, and when I've been back since then I've put it out my mind, got drunk and played games, and tried to remember it as a city of anything other than death. But that's what it is for me, and that's what it always will be, and I'm not going to turn my head away from it this time, I'm not, because as cryptic and elusive as I may be about this topic, going on about "ghosts" and confrontation, I'm not going to elaborate any more because it's still painful, it still stings, and I want nothing more than to go that city and fight this pain that hasn't gone away and won't go away, at least look it in the eye because I've been too afraid to do it before. And then maybe I'll no longer start crying once in a while for no reason whatsoever when I sit alone in my apartment. Maybe I won't have to wear a face of sadness anymore when a moment overtakes me in a way I can't explain. Maybe I can go to Las Vegas this Halloween and see a ghost--because I know they're there. I've felt their breath too many times to ignore it--although that's all I've ever done. Maybe I can stare into their empty eye sockets and feel what I've never felt before and maybe THAT'S what I'm really searching for, and when I have it I won't have to talk about this bullshit and I can drift off into a dreamless sleep....I don't know how to go about it, but I think I'll know when I get there. They'll come looking for me--they always do. And if they don't, I'll walk the streets till I find them. I think I'll know where to look. I've been a kind of ghost myself before.

And tomorrow, when I wake up, I'll know I've felt like this, just as I've always known, and go about my day. Or maybe I'm going about it right now. Maybe it is tomorrow, and when I tried to write it last night for some strange reason my eyelids became heavy and wouldn't let me see, inside or out.