11:56 p.m. - 2006-04-06
The Perfect Failure
Dealing with myself is a difficult proposition. Dealing with my audience is a tougher task (mostly because I don't know who you are). How should I expand this journal? How should I know which souls are exposing themselves to my words? I've presented several issues which require immediate exploration.

It seems that no one cares.

I drink too much. I hate my dad. My job makes me crazy. I have intimacy issues. Blah, blah, blah. Who cares?

Soon I will be normal again. Soon I will spew my sweet smelling bullshit derived from my silver tongue into the ear of a worthy employer and he will look at my resume, listen to my words in the forum of an informal interview, and devour the lump of my leftover lies as if Thanksgiving took place one day before yesterday. And I will suddenly have a new, terrifically high paying job.

So it goes: the story of my life. Check back next year for the drama.

I am the perfect failure.

10:53 p.m. - 2006-04-05
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
It's been a few days since I've used my keyboard quill to communicate my pain. I've been on the road and I usually try to concentrate on women to fuck when I'm on the road.

But I don't just fuck. I fall in love. Every night. I see Julie, 42 years old, as the girl who understands me. Lori has the warmest kiss, but she is way too good for me. I will certainly find a way to make her hate me. I could spend forever with LaQuisha: she's a junior at the University of MD who thinks I am a brilliant writer.

But I'm not.

I'm just a frustrared individual who would like nothing better then to put a bullet into my brain but I can't because 3 people love me and their happiness is more important to me than my life: I'm fucked 'cause I cannot die.

Death will happen.

Until then, I'm looking to start a career with a company who places value on the ability for me to become a short-term hero: I am certainly short term. But I don't know if I'm capable of being a hero.

12:20 p.m. - 2006-04-01
Fill in the Blank
I tried to write last night but everything came out as shit. So I deleted my words, kissed another bottle of beer, and decided to read. I looked at your journals. I studied mine.

I read your journals, and they are, with the obvious exception of personal style and voice, about the same as mine: a bunch of words which try to tell a story that may or may not be worthy of criticism or applause, but still serve the selfish purpose of the author.

We're all writing stories. If you've read my journal, you know that I have a drinking problem, I have a stressful job, and I have a distinct dislike for my father (and if you read a bit closer, you'll notice that I try to pepper my prose with poetic tricks; I also use way too much punctuation).

Do you know why I drink or why I hate my father? You could certainly speculate, but I've yet to say. I probably don't know.

But I want to know, and I'll try to keep you informed as the answers come my way. Until then, here is one absolute truth:

10:14 p.m. - 2006-03-29
Reflections
Picture yourself at your most beautiful. Maybe it was your high school prom or your wedding day. It may be a random picture taken of you in a stranger's backyard while you sipped a mojito or cracked open a crab claw with a wooden mallet.

My most beautiful day took place seventeen months ago: the night I ironed my suit for the next day's job interview.

That was the last day that my skin was free of spots and stains and speckles and scars. That was the last day I had any control, at all, over my drinking problem. That was the last day that I winked confidently at myself in the mirror and felt the affirmation of a man moving up in the world.

Now I have a pudgy face and a pot belly. Now I have dark circles encompassing my bloodshot eyes. Now I have a decision to make.

10:07 p.m. - 2006-03-27
So Let It Be Done
Certain things need to be made clear. I've not been as forthright as I may need to be to fully untangle the threads of my world (but that may turn out to be all part of the ride). First off, you should know that I've decided to quit my job. I just can't take the sickness and abomination I feel for my work anymore: the black rings around my eyes, the curious rash on my neck and the extra 20 pounds I've gained make me want to wash my face with steel-wool. So let it be written.

Secondly, I know that I'll never truely be able to acquiesce to the fact that my father's pitiful world is one day destined to be mine. So let it be written.

But before any words are spoken or any actions take place, let it be determined that I am a failure and I deserve to die. But I can't die, because if I die then my Mother dies, and that can't happen. So let it be written. So let it be done.

10:49 p.m. - 2006-03-22
For the Nonce
After the dispirited words I last left you with, I'm going to try and make this entry a bit more positive. I'm not a completely anguished individual. I'm really not even as pitiable as I've made myself out to be. And I have these rationalizations to prove it:

1.) Yes, I am an alcoholic, but I'm a highly functioning alcoholic.

2.) I may hate my job, but I make a whole hell of a lot of money for doing it.

3.) My aloof nature tends to push people out of my life before they get to know my inner monster, but I've managed to manipulate a few special people into believing that I'm a loving son, a considerate friend, or a caring brother.

4.) I've so far succeeded in quitting smoking, I no longer have suicidal thoughts, I have a total and complete appreciation for the value and pitfalls of hate, and I fucked the bartender at the Days Inn Hotel Bar last night. Her name was Amber. She was 24, and she had an 8 year old son.

5.) Although I realize that Amber is alive and breathing, and still tending to the needs of her little boy, I finally recognize that in my world, Amber and all things pertaining to Amber, are past tense.

There can never be a now. Only a recent past and an immediate future. The gap in between is the shaming culpability of failed faith and neglected promises.

10:32 p.m. - 2006-03-20
Longterm Plans
I would like to know what it feels like to wake up in the morning without the poison of alcohol seeping from my pores, creating that distinct scent of failure and decay. I am particularly curious as to how my brain, usually numb, would respond to a morning lacking of dehydration and nondescript thought.

It's not as easy as it may sound to quit drinking. I must drink. If I don't drink, I can't sleep. And why should I want to? If I do manage to take on a few hours of sober sleep, they will surely be meddled with by nightmares. And not ordinary nightmares. My nightmares are horrible illusions which aren't illusions at all. My nightmares put me in Nazi Death Camps and help me Burn in an Unforgiving Hell. My nightmares peel the skin from my flesh and the flesh from my bone.

My hangovers cannot be in any way associated with your hangovers. You may feel like "death warmed over" after a night of undisciplined drinking, but it's not the same. The pain I feel starts with the first sip of the first drink. I'll drink 5 times what you drink and only feel a fifth as bad, but my veins are polluted just the same as yours (I just have a predisposition to this Sin).

Mine will be a cold death: one that can only be appreciated alone.

10:30 p.m. - 2006-03-19
A Chip off the Ole Block
It's Sunday night at 10:30pm and I have already congested my gut with all of the beer and whiskey available in my apartment. It wasn't very much, only 5 beers and 4 or 5 drinks of Jameson. To tell you the truth, I'm more concerned with the sound that 5 empty bottles of beer, an empty fifth of Grand Marnier and a kicked handle of Jameson's is going to make after falling 10 stories into a trash recepticle. But the wine I'm drinking tastes nice.

I'm quite upset with myself for bringing my "father" issues into these discussions, but I guess I should at least try to make this journal genuine.

I do hate my father. I call him my father, but, really, he was the man who occupied the right side of the couch and peed in the laundry sink and bumped into walls and asked me the same question over and over again: "What are you doing tonight?".

He called me last week. I ignored him. He called again. I was driving down I-95, almost to the PA border and I decided to take his call. It was just past 10pm. He asked me, What are you doing tonight?

I still want to kill my father.

11:56 p.m. - 2006-03-18
Fiddle-Faced
Until my weakness becomes frailty and my sadness becomes depression and my death becomes absolute, I feel that it is my responsibility to write. I hate to write. I hate to hate. I hate to love.

I hate my father.

Again, I hate to hate. I don't want to hate anymore.

I stayed in my cold apartment tonight and listened to the doors around me open and close as people departed thier homes and came back again. I hate them.

"I hate my father".

This is not as much of a cathartic statement as it may sound. I hate as much as I love. I want to kill my father. I feel as though I will never be myself until he is dead.

I'm thankful that I'm alive and healthy and ready to take on the world, but sometimes it doesn't sound so bad to get beaten in the back of the head until blood fills my mouth and chokes my lungs. It wouldn't feel so bad to die a slow death, and know that my death was a dramatic death.

At least better than a heart attack or brain cancer.

9:55 p.m. - 2006-03-16
Reverse Narcissism
This journal is going to be hard for me to continue. I can't seem to get any closer to the truth. I've expressed my problems with drinking and with the stressful nature of my work, but I can't seem to formulate a way to describe how these compartments of my existence could be of any concern to anyone but me. I'm not writing this journal for me. I'm writing it for an audience. I want to document the thoughts of a self-described recluse alcoholic good-for-nothing selfish over-worked narcissist. And I am a narcissist. Only I might be better described as a reverse narcissist. That is to say that I am infatuated with the reality that I am ordinary. I could write more, but weak minds require brevity.

I am weak. I am sad. I am almost dead.

11:29 p.m. - 2006-03-15
The Reward is Nothing
I'm actually too drunk to write any sort of coherent thought tonight, so I won't bore you with my ramblings. My boss is gone, I am jubilant, I am relieved and I am tired. Too tired to type (good alliteration, I know, but not intentional). Adieu until tomarrow, when my thoughts and prose will certainly begin to pour out of me like that fucking pitcher of tea in the "Ruby Tuesdays" in that place that I ended up in today that I really didn't want to be but had to be because of some sales person who needed me to do some thing that meant nothing to the health of my business but took up two hours of my day so that makes it okay.

9:34 p.m. - 2006-03-14
I'm so Tired
I'd like to get something straight. I'm not trying, with this journal, to aggrandize my plight with alcohol addiction. Although alcohol will be a principal theme in these journal entries... (FYI these elipses were added post production)

I got sidetracked. I wrote the previous stanza of this entry over an hour ago. Since then, I have been seething about the responsibilities placed upon me in recent days. It seems that my life outside of work is no longer a consideration to my employer. Although I manage a territory with a 400 mile radius, it seems that 12 hours a day (travel included) is not enough. Fuck! I give all that I can! What else can I do?

I'm having one more glass of whiskey and then closing my eyes, coping with the reality that (despite the cliche), tomarrow is another day.

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