Originally published in Swink.

Please accept my apologies for the ol’ shuck and jive number I did when you called from New York. Yes, I was turning the conversation back to you, like I always do. I’m sorry; I seem to lack the energy to spin my broken record on the phone. Not to mention, you’re so far away. And, after all, you’re the one who’s doing something different, right? Your life surfing couches and writing poetry and working on a novel while looking up Fifth Avenue from your downtown perch sounds so young and fresh and full of optimism. And really, what changes from one day to the next in Los Angeles? But let me now attempt to redress my prior evasiveness when you asked me in lieu of a bigger picture to at least tell you what I’ve been doing today.

I woke up this morning after having an erotic dream about ___. It’s odd to me that I have such a dream now because I’ve spent most of the past year squandering my chances at actually having such an encounter. That might go some way towards answering your generous query about the trail of broken hearts you hoped I was leaving behind. No, no such thing, but perhaps some confusion, a bit of frustration, and a lot of mixed messages in many places. I seem unable to connect with anyone in a romantic way. The idea of moving such thoughts out of the realm of fantasy makes me recoil with fright and repulsion. The reality feels like it would be all too messy and unwieldy. I’m a paralyzed perfectionist and feel like I’m born to disappoint in that regard, which also might explain why I brushed off your question about what I’ve been writing lately. The answer is nothing really. What could I possibly write? What hasn’t been written?

When I said I might be broken this time, this is what I meant. I can’t bear the prospect of failure anymore, personal or professional.

So, I got out of bed and noticed my breath again. Lately I’ve been waking up with bad breath. This is new. All my life, I’ve been blessed with good breath in the morning. Now, when I get up it feels as if something plastic and metal, like a children’s toy, has melted in my mouth overnight. I try not to think about it too much.

After I got up, I measured myself to make sure I haven’t shrunk—another strange tic I’ve developed lately (I haven’t; in fact, I may be getting taller, which is odd at my age). Then I thought I might drive to the beach and walk into the water. I’ve been thinking about driving to the beach and walking into the water a lot lately. I fantasize about the water, cold and warm at the same time, taking me into it deeper and deeper, like a progressive intoxication, one where I don’t end up feeling sick, but just oblivious and finally numb.

Of course, I didn’t do that. I’m still Catholic, after all. And not that ambitious. Instead I put on my way-too-white running shoes, the ones that look like a part of a clown’s ensemble, the ones make my feet look clownishly large—this is what happens when I end up in stores by myself—and met my friends for a hike in Elysian Park with our dogs. Our hike went as usual with me out in front a few paces, the comic relief, kind of a good-natured buffoon whose foibles fuel the chatter going on behind me.

On the walk, I spent some time looking out at the sweep of the San Fernando valley and the mountains welling up around it and the once-wild and now-subdued river cutting through the middle, and thinking that this well could have been the most beautiful valley in the world not too long ago before Europeans and Midwesterners arrived with their strange compulsions. It wasn’t an original thought, no, but it was there nonetheless. Other walkers and their dogs came upon us and we had the typical interactions of the dogged class where the animals sniff each other’s asses and the people remark about their various personalities and traits. The dogs’ I mean. Nobody seemed too worried about the tent cities popping up further north in the San Joaquin valley, even though none of us had a job to get to and uncertainty hung over us like a heavy sky.

Speaking of which, when I got home I half-heartedly looked for a job. It might be safe to say there are none.

I’m smoking now as I write this. I had quit for a couple months after developing a frightening condition sometime near the end of the year—coughing, shortness of breath, burning in my esophagus and trachea. The doctors gave me an inhaler and some acid reducers. I haven’t taken the inhaler. I’m afraid of it. The condition has receded a bit but doesn’t seem to be going away despite having quit the cigarettes. One of my friends says its nerves and noticed it started up about the time I started talking with you-know-who again. Did I mention she’s in town? I think I forgot to say, which is certainly testament to your powers of distraction! She and I seem to have stopped talking as result of her now being here. I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other (and I don’t even think I want to) but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish she wanted to. Ha. How typical.

I wonder if I should succumb to the bottle of Zoloft in my medicine cabinet. I’m afraid to. What if they don’t work?

After I looked for a job, I walked down to Subway and got a tuna fish sandwich, with all the veggies and salt and pepper and oil and vinegar. Then, I fell asleep on the couch while reading about David Foster Wallace in the New Yorker. I’ve never read much of DFW because I could never get into it—I tended to see him as someone who just never understood that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But now I’m not so sure. And I’ve been reading a lot about him lately. You could say I’m obsessed. I fear I know him too well.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, despite your lovely comment about me being your favorite writer and how I’m shortchanging everyone by not writing more, being selfish I think you said, I would never, ever compare myself to him as a writer (though I bet I could have beaten him at tennis, which may be part of my major problem…). His talent, I realize, despite my lack of affinity for his style, is staggering and rare and its own disease. But his life, man, that I really feel like I understand.

Unfortunately, it’s the sad side of his story that I get. I mean, here was a guy with everything—good family, support, immortal talent, renown, and he just couldn’t escape his head no matter how hard he tried, even with all the recovery and Buddhist shit he’d been trying to get things to quiet down. I didn’t really have the happy childhood or the talent, but I get the noise. And I’m trying to quiet it down…reading the books, meditating, all that shit. But I’m starting to fear that this depression thing may not be a construct of privilege or lack thereof or modern life or just semantics or self-absorption. It may just exist.

After I woke up, I went for another walk in the park, this time with ___, the woman from the dream. I didn’t tell her about it. I don’t want to insinuate anything. I’ve done too much of that and haven’t been able to hold up my end of the tease, so to speak. Sometimes I see what might be, though, but I can’t seem to touch it, like that Buzzcocks song, you remember it? No, what am I talking about? You’re too young for that, of course.

You asked what my perfect woman would be. I think I tried to say, jokingly (or was it?), that it might be something like you. I’m sorry for that. I hate when I do that, too. Always dangling shit out there to see where I stand, right? Always trying to be cute. It’s not very graceful or elegant. I’m afraid it’s part of my condition, the one where I just can’t seem to find a way to be an adult in the world. Always the child seeking approval.

Did I mention that I’ve started perusing the personals on Craigslist, as if that is where I might find the answer to your question. There’s something so dreadfully earnest and yearning and honest in these ads that I can’t stop looking at them, like a vampire might look at a young woman’s neck. I’m not sure if it’s a sign of desperation or psychosis, but it’s become somewhat of an addiction, holding out, like a drug, the tantalizing promise of filling a hole that can’t be filled. Today I answered one titled simply Black Female – kindergarten teacher. I wonder if vampires believe they are some kind of answer to their victims’ personal ads?

You asked about my work. I laughed and said, what work? You said my writing. I laughed and said what writing—is that really work? I know I sounded flip, sorry about that. I was actually kind of posing the question to myself. I don’t know, S___. I really don’t know. I’m just being honest here. Oh, I have work if I want it. But I don’t know what it means. Does it mean anything? Is a cigar just a cigar?

After the walk I got some food from down the street and watched the shows on MSNBC. Not much good news there. Mass murderers in Texas and Germany on the same day. Petty grievances acted upon in the gravest ways. Is it the economy or is it something worse?

Which reminds me again, speaking of work as we were, and shootings, as I am, my friend who teaches English at the University of Maine asked me for advice on a journalism class he’s going to be teaching. He wanted to know what a feature story is, compared to a hard news story. Here’s how I answered:

Features are generally what you’d call narrative pieces, though I myself tend to insist on narrative in any piece. Features are deeply reported, contextual, longer, involve scenes and settings and are about more than the news of the day. An example of hard news would be all the spot- and day-reporting of the recent shootings at that school. An example of a feature would be when Rolling Stone or some other dreadful rag goes there and attempts to reconstruct the environment, both micro and macro, that led to this tragedy. Every trope you could ever imagine about small-town desperation, hostility, depression, meds, and anger will likely be trotted out in the service of painting a more insightful picture. But we all know the guy was just a selfish shit. End of story.

I’m not sure whether that will be helpful. The world is in a free-for-all it seems. Or is it? Does it seem that way to you, there in New York, embarking on your adventure, the way you should be at your age? I hope it doesn’t. I hope it seems full of promise. I hope you and the mysterious weird scientist you spoke of are full of life and dreams and excitement. Good for you! I realize most of the world isn’t fortunate enough to know we’re in a recession, or depression or however they want to describe what’s going on out there. But to me it feels like interiors and exteriors are melding a bit.

This evening, I masturbated desultorily on the advice of a girlfriend (as in a friend that’s a girl) and then I shaved and cut myself in about five places with a dull razor. I stared in the mirror at the diluted blood and shaving lotion running down my face like a creamy Contadina sauce and thought about what ____said, about how I’m lacking in social graces. I said I didn’t think that was so but looking in the mirror I had to laugh. Maybe she’s right.

I went for another walk with my dog—more like a hobble as my ankle is acting up from the weather and the operations and probably too much fat in my diet – blame the chocolate chip cookies—and bought some cigarettes. As an afterthought, I purchased some duct tape to put over a tear in my favorite pair of boots, which I was wearing. I taped them up and walked home.

Now, I go to sleep. I’ll dream richly and wake up tomorrow and I’ll think about driving to the beach and walking into the water but I won’t go, and because of that, who knows?

Yours,

Count Chocula