your fate is my toilet

macarons at 'bobbette & belle' 

rating: 1964 Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird / 10.0

WES ANDERSON'S 'MOONRISE KINGDOM' - Part 1

I went to the library though I knew I did not have my library card with me. I had the library card's number saved on my phone. I told this to the librarian. The librarian told me she didn't care I had the library card's number saved on my phone. She said she needed a piece of photo identification and a dollar for the administrative work it would take to pull my account up on file. That's what she told me. This is what I told her. I told her I needed someone out there to hold onto me, I needed someone to whisper in my ear that they loved me and needed me, I needed someone to tell me they cared about me a lot--even though they were not obligated to like my parents were. She did not hear me tell her this though because I only told her in my head while I nodded, smiled a thank you, and walked away.

I went into the grocery store across from the library. I collected about half the ingredients I needed to make this soup thing I had seen a few weeks earlier; it was a cutesy little soup that was supposed to resemble a bowl of breakfast cereal and milk. It was supposed to be ironic, but I hardly thought it qualified. I gave up half-way after I decided I probably wouldn't have time to make the soup that week. It didn't matter though because I had only collected non-perishable food items by that time. The whole time I had been doing so however, I was praying inside that I'd also find a package of non-perishable affection sitting on one of the shelves, wrapped up in smooth porcelain skin and soulful lambent eyes and gentle pale lips. I was hoping beneath all that packaging, there would be a breathing affection that would never expire because it was peppered with dangerous and carcinogenic preservatives. 

I didn't find anything like that, so I began instead to start gathering food items to make spiced blueberry whoopie pies. It took me about seven hours to gather everything the recipe told me I was supposed to gather--though it might have only been 90 minutes actually. Perhaps 90 minutes was actually longer than seven hours sometimes. I was unfamiliar with the cruel chaos of this particular grocery store. When I finished, I walked over to the liquor store and bought a  can of Muskoka Brewery 'Craft Lager.' It was lukewarm so when I reached home I put it in my fridge. I had taken a different route with my bike on the way home. It was a little longer, but quieter and less irritating. There were no people on this route secretly repeating in the back of their minds that I should not be traveling on the sidewalk but on the road where cars would be 300% more likely to hit me. This made me feel a little better inside.

When I stepped into my empty house, I felt a little less alone strangely enough, but only for a little while. When I walked over to the breakfast table and opened my laptop, I began feeling even more alone than before I had stepped into the house. More alone than I had felt at the library, or at the grocery store, or on the empty bike paths, or by my front door. I felt like a sliver of myself. I felt like I wasn't even there for myself or I didn't even care about myself, which was a big deal because I was the only one left on the planet sometimes to care about myself. But the care I had for myself was no better than the care my parents had for me. Not that it wasn't a noble kind of care or a care that should be taken for granted, but it was a care that was obligatory. I was obligated to care for myself. But at least I still did sometimes, which is more than some people are permitted to say for themselves.

I microwaved some leftovers and pulled out the can of beer I had bought earlier out from the refrigerator. It was only a degree or two below what it was before, but I didn't care and just opened it to drink. I put a bootleg copy of Wong Kar-Wai's 'Happy Together' into my DVD player; I had bought it at Pacific Mall a few days into summer. The DVD didn't have a menu and it just started playing. The subtitles were stark white and would often disappear into the blindingly exposed shots of the film. Though I missed a lot of the dialogue because of this, I still felt relatively pleased when the film finished. It was a sad film, but it was not a defeatist film. I felt a little better inside.

I sat around for a few minutes, maybe an hour, unsure of what I should do with myself. I wanted to start making spiced blueberry whoopie pies, but I knew I wouldn't have enough time. I was supposed to meet someone at 5. There were like 2 hours left. I went back to my computer and allowed the glow of the screen to wash over me again, along with the sad lonesomeness I had come to expect from it.