Dangerous Characters

Tonight is one of those nights that if I had heroin, I would probably be tempted to shoot it into my veins.  Perhaps only to smoke it.  But it is like that tonight.  I am bored with my life.

I stand myself up by saying that it is good to be bored, that too many people would like to be simply bored rather than petrified with the terror that with which they live

But I don't want a life tonight.  I want something else.  What is it?  What is that something one desires at times that is not a life but something bigger or smaller and more or less?

I don't know, but like John Lennon who had it all wrote, "Sometimes I feel so suicidal, I even hate my rock and roll."

I've been working on pictures tonight, and it bores me.  Perhaps because I must do it to make the models feel happy.  But some, like the woman whose photo I posted yesterday, are not thrilled.  "I'm not sure I like that one," she said.  "Oh, that's because you are looking at it as if it were you.  That is not you, of course, but the character you played.  Don't you remember?"  I feel like Nurse Cratchet.

I am bored with the life I tell myself I must lead, the life that is demanded of me.  I want to do horrible, terrible, wicked things.  Things that are "unacceptable."  I need stimulation!

But tomorrow I will return to the factory, and people will tell me in whispers about their secret lives.  "I paint," a fellow said to me today in small tones. "Oils."  I should have said, "Really!"  That is what was expected.  I should have said, "Like Gauguin?"  But I'm an asshole either way.

They will tell me about their vacations.  "We smoked a little pot, we drank a little wine, we got up and took our clothes off and danced around in our underwear."

We were all dangerous characters then. . . ("Greasy Lake" by T.C. Boyle).

I have been drinking and should quit now.  Last night I wrote some bad and dangerously embarrassing emails.  Note to self (as I hear people say).

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Morning.  I didn't sleep.  I should have had the heroin.