2002 AUG 16 LIFE AS FICTION, PART I

When I was eight, I would lie in bed and stare at one particular brick on the ceiling and, with all my imagination, try to displace it. I always failed.

When I turned thirteen, I came to realize that such a task was impossible. But alas, it had become habit. The more I tried not to stare at the ceiling, the more insomnia set in. By the beginning of my fourteenth year, sleep deprivation had become an issue. I had trouble staying awake in class which caused my grades to plummet. My mother was not happy.

I was sent to reform school at age sixteen with hopes that it would straighten me out. For two years, I was put on a strict routine of waking up early and going to bed early. I tried to do the latter successfully, but was unable to. I would normally get about two hours of sleep a night, and then crawl away to a corner during lunch to rest my joints. In general, I was a sociable human being. I worked well with others and worked hard. I had no enemies and a few could even be considered good friends. But at the end of the day, I still lay lost, in my bed, empty of life and thought, still staring at the ceiling. I no longer tried to magically displace the bricks. Instead, I didn't try to do anything at all.

Halfway through my eighteenth year, I left the school and headed out to Manhattan. My uncle lived in a two bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side where he kept his dog happy with lots of caviar. He was a handsome, rich man but without a wife. As a pioneer in the field of chaotic dynamics, he had won scholarships and been awarded a significant amount of money. But he and I were a lot alike: alone and empty. We were both people who you'd like, who you'd think were normal, but when the end of the day came, we were both out of place. Our homes weren't our homes, and comfort was not our friend.

Then, on a cold day in November, I turned 19. A Tuesday, it was the day I met Marguerite. And as stories go, our lives were never the same again.

2002 AUG 15 WAKING THOUGHTS

Sometimes when you dream, and you think you're touching heaven, all you're doing is digging a larger hole to fall into when you're awake.

2002 AUG 14 EVERYTHING IS GOOD

i was pushing a shopping cart at a safeway and i hit some old lady and she got pissed off at me. i was like only eight or something but she didnt care and when she saw me again she yelled at my parents and told them i was a bad kid and that my parents were bad parents.

see, that wasnt cool at all.

last week i saw her at a whataburger swallowing down three or four whataburgers and whatachickens at once and she looked mean. i went up to her and shoved my tray in her chest and she was like what the fuck and i was like remember me and she had no idea who i was. i didnt want to really hurt her cause im not an animal or anything but i wanted to get back at her for calling my parents bad parents cause theyre not. so i took her soda and plopped it down her dress which made her get wet and start screaming cause it was cold and the ice was probably making her all weird and tingly and stuff.

she starting yelling at me and tried to slap me but im bigger now im not eight anymore so i ran and ran and ran far away. i dont think ill ever see her again but its ok because at the worst i know that shes never gonna mess with me again.

the next time i saw my mom i said mom i love you and the next time i saw my dad i said dad youre a good dad. i meant it too.

2002 AUG 12 GOOD VIBRATIONS

Smiling at strangers and having them smile back at you is a custom I adopted in the South. Maybe a hundred years ago in New York, it was like that. Not anymore. My smiles go unreciprocated. My hopes for those smiles fall flat on their faces, and I keep walking, sitting or whatever the hell I'm doing.

I'm not a stalker, a rapist or a molester. I dress nice but not suspiciously. I don't have an evil grin (at least not unless I'm fighting pixels), and my pant pockets are empty of knives and other assorted melee weapons. I'm a smilist, I believe. I'm okay like that.

Last night, I smiled at this older Chinese man, around 45 years old, as I sat down to wait for a train at the Forest Hills stop. I'm not sure why he smiled back, but what baffled me was why he started treating me suddenly as if he'd known me for forever. He couldn't speak English well, that I could tell. He somehow, with his own smile, got me to board a train that I really didn't want to. (Of course, I didn't mind having to switch to trains or take one that would result in a farther walk, as I had been waiting for a train for way too long already. It was around midnight on a Sunday, after all.) He tried to give me directions which, unfortunately, were for me to take a totally wrong train and end up in the middle of nowhere in Brooklyn. But I smiled and nodded and made peace.

When he left, he smiled and said, "Bye-bye!" with great vigor. It was some sort of a small victory. To make friends with a stranger. Through a smile.