A Romantic Young Man’s Dearest Diary– July 3rd to July 6th
July 3rd 2008
Hello, diary. It has been a long time, hasn’t it? The fault is mine I regret to say—no matter the depth of my promises to write to you everyday, no matter my resolve, I always seem to drift away and let my life stream by undocumented. I think time accelerates infinitely without a daily, documentable pondering of it, something to pin it down for a moment. Think how long a mere month would be if you had a record proving that every day actually happened, and was different than all others. That month would not be allowed to speed past as a blur in our vision. You, diary, slow it down, and reveal its innards to the naked eye. One can add decades to one’s life in this way, simply by giving your diary the daily attention it deserves.
I am preaching the benefits of what I myself have failed to practice. Well, I am qualified then to give this warning: Do Not Neglect Your Diary. I am painfully qualified to give this warning, as I myself have borne the consequences of ignoring it. I wish to save others from this fate.
Of course the majority of those around us have never written a sentence of self-reflection in their lives. Do these people live under the crushing consequences I’ve mentioned above? I’m sure you’ve never observed anything to suggest such a thing. Whether these people seem crushed or not is dependant on the integral elements of human life: shelter or lack of, purpose or lack of, companionship or lack of. Not on the diligence of their diary writing. My warning is not directed towards these people.
But to those who know, who’ve felt the shock of being robbed of months, even years, who’ve fell into their chair with the heaviness of confusion, notebook dangling from a loose grip, half-blank. Blank where there should have been years. A void. To those who try to think back, perhaps to fill in all those pages by memory, only to realize that nothing happened, that the white empty lines actually are the entries, and they are accurate. My warning is to these people. Do not shrug off that discomforting moment and simply renew the much-abused vow: from now on, I’ll try to . . . No. Realize that this is your life you’re playing with, and that our time is finite. Write like you do the other things necessary to your existence, like eating, or dragging yourself to some job.
Of course, all this is really just a warning to myself, so don’t be offended by my reprimanding tone. I am the prime offender. I’ve lost friends, lovers, cities, countries, to the empty pages, hundreds and hundreds of them. All because of lazy distraction. But that is in the past, and though I cannot recapture all the time I’ve lost, I can stretch the continuing present into an eternity. I will.
July 4th 2008
Today is the first day of the rest of my life. How exciting! This is the first one of those I’ve had. It feels incredible. And, blessed thy blessing, it has happened to fall on the Fourth of July! The fireworks will have two separate meanings, though connected and celebrated as one—I celebrate my life, and that of my country, together as they should always be. Perhaps they are not separate meanings at all.
I will probably watch the pyrotechnic display from the bluffs near Overlook Park. My friends will be going North, across the state line, to watch Vancouver’s display. I do not say so, but this decision of theirs feels treasonous—how could you abandon your city, your state, on this of all days? We are meant to be celebrating our homeland, and for someone who lives in Portland, that is NOT crappy Vancouver in stupid Washington State. In fact, I’d like to steal all the pyrotechnics meant for Vancouver’s sham of a celebration and use them to blow up the Interstate Bridge. If you chose to go up there to shout for your love of country, then tough, you stay there and love that scrap of country from now on. And no more “living” in Vancouver but doing every single thing that makes up life in Portland, where you don’t have to pay any tax. These people are nothing more than parasites—In Washington, people pay their state taxes through a sales tax. In Oregon, there is no sales tax, but you must pay a yearly state income tax. So, the depravity of “Vancouverites” should be clear. They feed off of Oregon, but pay zero taxes anywhere anytime. They need to be kept OUT.
But The Fourth is a time for joy and thanks, so I’ll put to rest these infuriating subjects for today. Of course, that does not mean that I would ever ever ever even consider considering the possibility of accompanying my misguided friends on their shameful trip, even if it means standing alone on this day of triumph. In fact, The Fourth may be a holiday best celebrated in stoic solitude, an acknowledgement of the personal relationship the individual has with his America. Yes, that feels right. I’ll stand alone, the fireworks’ colorful lights exploding over me, playing across my clothes, and I’ll be humbled by the meaning of it all. Two hundred and thirty-four years ago. On this day . . .
Well, so, my life, hmm. Not much to speak of, really. I’ve been keeping up with my tennis, though every time me and Luke or Simon play I fall behind early and get frustrated which causes my game to nosedive and so I either lose badly or quit before the end. This has really been causing me some concern, and I worry that soon my friends will become wary of my invitations to play.
July 5th 2008
Okay so today is really the first day of the rest of my life. Yesterday, something went wrong—I got drowsy early in the day and mostly dozed between attempts at reading until bedtime. If the rest of my life takes that example, I won’t even accomplish the reading of a book. And no, I did not make it to my city’s fireworks display—I did nothing to celebrate the anniversary of the declaration, nor the first day of the rest of my life, except to stir slightly when the louder of the grocery-store pyrotechnics went off outside my window.
But dwelling on these rather depressing details is no way to start this true first day of the rest of my life. Better to peer with hand shielding my eyes into the brightness of the future. Hmm.
The past few days have been made more difficult by Olga being off on some family vacation/celebration type long weekend with daughter (exquisite) and husband (ugh). It’s funny, ten years ago if somebody told me the woman I’d fall for was going to be named Olga I would have thought they were making fun of me, albeit in a pretty mentally disabled way. In the U.S. the name is deeply associated with Hags. In Kiev, half the young women I met were named Olga, and I assure you, none of them were hags. On the contrary. Most were young club going types, beautiful. My Olga is not a club going type but she is painfully beautiful and is able to dance in a way I’ve never observed before, and which entrances me. Until her departure I had only been playing around the fact that Olga is the heart of my existence. Now it’s become depressingly plain. I must say though, there is a certain bliss in the loneliness of her absence. Romantic.
Anyway, she’s returning tonight. I’ll see her tomorrow, and I believe I will allude to my new revelation. Perhaps I will take her hand and speak such eloquence as to provoke in our relationship the long awaited sea change.
July 6th 2008
Okay, good, fourth entry in a row. Even if some of my entries (I’m looking at you, July 5th) have been less than inspirational and abandoned before being neatly summed up. I would like each day to be its own little narrative, and this demands a conclusion with accompanying moral lesson. If I do not learn from each day, how will I progress? Some of the above passages are not teaching me very much. But enough with the lecturing—I think my point will be remembered. But still, come on July 5th, I really needed some insight regarding the Olga issue, and all I get from you is perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. It might as well be yesterday for all the evolution of my thoughts towards this problem. I guess I have no other choice but to take it up where it’s been left.
But it is still too early to tackle an issue like this—my mind is not yet up to the task. Did I dream anything last night? Oh. My. God. It just came back to me in a rush. An epic scenario to say the least. Huge battles, political intrigue, right out of the Roman Empire, and everyone was some kind of imitation human, perhaps computer generated figures? And, yes, Barack Obama was a primary character. Somehow, while battles raged elsewhere, me and Barack found the time to be on the same basketball team. Now wait just a minute—it’s public knowledge that he plays ball, so I say my mind’s racial stereotyping is not the prime culprit here (though god knows it has been other times). I cannot remember the outcome of the game, or if we even got started. Too bad. That’s a memory I would really cherish.
The memory of this dream is proving stubbornly vague—all I can come up with besides the sketch ideas above, is that me and my cousin’s ongoing romance ran somewhere through it, of course. In probably seventy-five percent of my dreams this romance is present at varying degrees of importance. Usually it is the vaguest of sub-plots, as I haven’t seen my cousin in years. Still, my cousin is just too hot to be cut from the scripts completely.
Yesterday I really wanted to relapse. Luckily, I had no access to cash, living, as I have been for quite some time now, exclusively on credit. I shudder to think of my several debt balances growing out of sight like mold, but in yesterday’s case at least, my poverty helped me avoid a minor disaster. What made me balance on the line of relapse, despite being on enough daily methadone to kill a class of sixth-graders? I suppose it’s a matter of under-stimulation. I used to have the stimulation of not only the rush and high of drugs, but, more importantly, the constant anticipation of the rush and high. The anticipation is the true companion of the drug addict, for it is always there, with or without the drugs. And it leaves the most pestiferous absence when taken away.
The trick is to fill one’s life with other forms of stimulation. But the only suitable substitute I have found so far is women, or, more specifically, the electricity of the uncertain touch. The only way to examine this without slipping into sentimental generalities is by looking at specific incidents. Hmm, this brings me back to Olga.
I could write a lot about me and Olga’s relationship; we’ve known each other for quite some time now. Four years. Not long by some standards, but for the common internationally long distance attempt at friendship/more than, it seems surprisingly enduring. In my experience, these things tend to fade away after one of the two returns to their country, and indeed this was almost the case with Olga and I. There were long periods in which we did not meet, even when I was still in Kiev. Even though we fascinated each other. In fact, I had decided that fate had pulled a cruel joke on me, presenting the woman I was meant to be with in an utterly unattainable situation. And indeed, neither of us knew the nature of the other’s feelings, and so, not wanting to bother the other, we both settled for what we could get: seeing each other at the English school, occasional ‘study dates,’ in which I’d try to speak to her in Ukrainian or Russian and she would speak to me in English, and then afterward give me a ride back to my studio. Those drives through Kiev with her were the best times we had on that side of the ocean. I’d always wish I lived just fifty miles further down the highway.
And so a natural state of friendship was established, not much beyond the tutor-student friendliness, as in, yeah, I know him from Kiev; he worked at the language school. Now he tutors me time to time. I know this is not what I was to Olga, no more than she was just this student who I worked with sometimes. But on the surface it would not have seemed to be much more—we never got together without excuse, and I don’t think we ever answered each other’s questions of ‘how’re you doing’ honestly, unless we were doing well.
Perhaps Olga would argue this distant portrayal, because we always took genuine enjoyment in our time together. Maybe even joy. I know that every time I parted with Olga I felt robbed, like when the dreaded bell threatens you back into school after the freedom of recess. And it’s no different now. Probably worse. But back then I felt I had a certain role to play. I thought Olga considered me an amazing teacher who’d helped her get into a U.S. university, and a friend. I knew one or two other young teachers from the school that she kept up with in the states, and imagined many more, her being such a socially outgoing and engaged student. (not to mention she was as old as most the teachers) Therefore, I figured it would be bad form indeed to try to become a closer friend to her. She would think, oh, jeez, I hope I didn’t give him the wrong impression. Her and her husband might have a good laugh over it.
Time went on, and we saw each other less and less. I believe our friendship very nearly went the way of most teacher-student friendships. At least a year must have gone by without seeing her, and then I moved back to Portland and went to a party at her house.
Egad! I meant to explain the only feeling I’ve found to replace the stimulation of drugs, and now I have gone and buried myself in the past. Oh well, I can crawl out, though the clock is ticking and I must conclude this entry on some kind of epiphany. No. I’ve got all the time in the world. The meantime is sausage gravy.
Okay. The uncertain touch. Let’s see.
How did it happen that Olga and I became so much closer? It has something to do with this moment. She threw a party, and I was there. It was the first time I had seen her in a long long while.
Her: A– ! How are you?
And I, for once, answered honestly.
