Making Sense Out Of Nothing

My walks back from the PATH train station to my apartment feel robotic as hell. Like I'm a train of sorts, just coasting along a track that's been predetermined. Taking the exact same side-streets and turns, looking up at the exact same outdoor bars and areas of passers-by. Even when I try shaking the cage a bit, throwing my senses for a loop and darting down a different street, zigging where I'd normally zag, it all still feels extremely drone-like.

But one thing that these 13-or-so-minute foot-exercises are good for, though, outside of physically bringing me back to my apartment, is that they allow for plenty of "me time." Which is why I shamefully look to avoid running across anybody I know, since that'd force me to thwart "me time" and turn it into "us time," and God knows how I feel about "us time" during the work-week. Save that shit for the weekends, I feel. But, getting back on my thought-train here, some of my deepest thinking and biggest issue-resolving goes down as I'm strolling up River Street onto Washinton Street and then down 3rd Street onto my destination, Jefferson Street. And today, a pretty striking epiphany hit me.

Well, referring to it as an "epiphany" may be a bit pretentious....rather, a "hmm, that actually makes tons of sense" moment. Sounds less I'm-smart-because-I-use-big-words, right? Thought so. Good, good. I was moving along, playing out the possible ways that Stephen King's novel Cell could play out for the remaining 123 pages I have left, and it hit me like a Floyd Mayweather left-hook: once I dive mind-first into a movie or a book, or sometimes even a television program, it's damn near impossible to bring myself back into reality.

This may sound strange, or a bit goofy, but scout's honor, it's legit. And I actually was a Boy Scout for like two weeks back in the day, so you can take my word. Though, I quit because meetings interfered with my Friday afternoon viewings of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but that's a fragment of the past. Back on track here, yet again...when the credits roll or my bookmark is once again inserted snuggly between pages, my mind remains where it just was. Such that, right now I'm imagining what Hoboken would look like if Cell's bloodthirsty "phone-crazies" were turning Jefferson Street into Beirut, and my "normie" ass was fending one off with my laptop, swinging it across the phone-crazy's grill as teeth flew out and skin-chunks exploded into the air like dust from wind. And then his imagery brings me into the seedy club seen in Irrversible, and I'm sitting front-seat as "La Tenia" is receiving a skull-smashery job from one-pissed-off fire extinguisher.

And even now, as I type, I'm seeing this living room spin and fling around, like the camera does in Irreversible. It makes reality seem so much more intense, helping me neglect the fact that its just me in my apartment, post-gym-workout, typing away on this laptop like you'd frequently find me doing.

All of this meaning, I'd much rather remain there than come back here, if that makes sense. And this plays a part in me being terrible with answering my cell phone, honestly, and being a bit too-myself during the work week, and on weekends when I can pull the disappearing acts off. My friends may think I'm being an asshole and ignoring phone-calls, but such selfish logic couldn't be further from non-fiction. It's just that, I'm too distracted within my imagination to return to here, where I'd be able to answer the phone and small-talk it out.

And being that I have like zero friends who are as passionate about fantastical shit as I am, about cinema and shit as I am, it's not easy for me to just talk about work, or what we're doing this weekend, or potentially grabbing a drink somewhere where single ladies will be in attendance alongside us. Because truthfully, I'd so-much-rather be in a wilder place than work during the day, and I'd so-much-rather be watching films and having post-viewing discussions on the weekends rather than going "out," and I'd so-much-rather drink a Bud Light Lime in front of my DVD player or next to a good book than around a bunch of girls who could give six shits less about me or are too sadiddy to notice anybody else but themselves.

Does this make me an oddball? Who knows. Perhaps, yes. But then, I'd rather be this way than what others would consider "cool" or "normal."

I know I've written about this topic in different-but-still-similar ways of late here, but I just can't seem to jostle it away from my brain. So for now, I'm continually submitting to it. Which isn't hard to stop doing, being that lately I don't look forward to the weekends for anything more than just some "me time," or some "me and Gianna and Nicholas and the fam" time, too, of course. And to hell if I know when such feelings will fall back for good ol' party-time Matty B.