06 – Sonya Bored to Tears
Turning onto Sunset off of Coldwater Canyon I make way for the Coffee Bean just before Fairfax even though the last thing I want right now is coffee. I don’t know, I just want to feel like I’m doing something with my day. It seems to me the coffee-shop-types are doing things with their days. So not to be confused with the losers who sit around coffee-shops all day pretending – I mean like the people who are in a rush… in and out. People to see. Places to be. Things to do.
Don’t ask me why but today I want to feel like one of those people… someone who does something…
I’m so not making any sense right now, but whatever. It’s not my style to mull over trivial shit in my head and get all deep and whatnot but I just like – I don’t know – need to get my mind off things – specifically the thousand dollars I left on Cal’s porch – a move so not my style more than anything else.
It’s like weird. I can’t really put a name on it or whatever – the way it felt seeing Cal in the shape he was last night – I like felt bad for him, but it was more than that… it was like I saw in Cal something I’ve forgotten about people in general…
The capacity to change.
It’s like we all have it inside – the ability to change – it’s just like, I don’t know, some of us change for the worse where others change for the better. And there was something in Cal’s eyes – asshole he may be – suggesting a turned-corner replacing all that pathological cockiness with humility… And in like seeing that in Cal, I like, actually felt something for him – a prospect I would have never in a million years entertained… and need I say, so not my style.
It’s weird but after seeing Cal the way he was I got to thinking about all the Cal’s of the world I’ve taken advantage of in the past years – and like I felt weird – almost like guilty I guess – wondering if I could somehow see something sad in Cal, how many other guys are out there who’ve changed for the better – totally not the same guys I took advantage of for being what I considered the enemy – a bunch of jerk-offs looking to get jerked-off…
And then I’m like, if these guys went from dicks to not dicks for whatever reason, what does that make me? If that like makes any sense at all…
I’m pretty sure Cal isn’t like the only male in the world to turn himself around and with all those guys I’ve benifited from – if like Cal they’ve learned from their mistakes and have like, I don’t know, grown up because of them – how can I like possibly live with myself? And I don’t mean how do I live with myself in a dark, guilty kind of way – but more like a cringe – it’s like asking myself to look back once upon a time ago to guy-zero and where a I was in life then and compare it to now there’s like nothing…
…Where not only am I no different from the person I was years ago, I may have actually gotten worse…
…Because when one realizes all of us have this capacity to change, it’s impossible to ignore that change comes in either paper or plastic – for better or worse.
And I’m like thinking about people and how they change – whether for better or worse of whatever – and it’s like at least they’re making a change, you know? As bad as it is to be one of those who like change for the worse and become bigger creeps or whatever – it would have to be soooo much worse to have not changed at all.
Standing in line at Coffee Bean wanting to feel like I’m doing something, I can’t shake the notion I may be like, you know, one of those people who don’t change at all. Like that saying, going up a down escalator, it’s like I’ve done nothing yet all this time has gone by…
And all around me are these surgically altered Medusas passing themselves off as Cleopatra’s – ageless and soulless gold-digging professional divorcés – all of whom changed for the worse once upon a time ago… the very sight of these leather-skinned cougars brings about this major-fear-or-whatever that one day I may wake up and I’m fifty and divorced three-times over – withered and forgotten, without hope or any prospects of change in sight.
Totally unable to handle the scene at Coffee Bean for whatever reason I left without ordering the coffee I didn’t want in the first place and dashed home where I am now. I thought things would be better once I got here but they aren’t. I’m all like, I don’t know, fucked up. I have absolutely no clue what’s going on in my head. I mean like seriously. Waiting in a Coffee Bean to take the day and think about my life and where I’m headed is so not my style. And to think where all this came from, Cal the pathological asshole who (if you think about it) got what was coming to him, brings me to wonder if the drugs are finally taking their toll on me.
Capacity to change for better or worse, are you kidding me? What was I thinking? Seriously…?
Sure I’ve done my fair share of bad-deeds, but who hasn’t? That’s all part of life isn’t it? Find me someone without a dirty little secret somewhere in their life I’ll go crazy and donate my closet to inner-city black kids… so not happening.
So like yeah, we all do one thing or another we’re not too proud of but that’s all in the game of survival – whether it’s some grease-ball loan-officer douche bag at a club who wants in my pants, or Cal, or even me myself – we all find our backs to the wall at times and have to act accordingly. Does that make me a bad person? No. Cal’s full of shit. Because no matter the person in question, whatever shady-act they may be guilty of usually was committed to serve some sort of greater good… like a better situation or something like that (if I’m making any sense)… Like we all do it, so what. All this banging my head against the wall about people changing is so whatever at this point I’m over it. So Cal shed some tears at the W… So I took some of his money… Whatever. Get over it.
I so can’t believe I allowed myself to feel something for someone else – look where it got me – one-grand lighter. Gag me.
And all this capacity to change yada-yada I’ve been stewing over… give me a break. Seriously. I mean Cal did after all get what was coming to him… and I’m supposed to beat myself up seeing a little bit of change and remorse out of the guy? Spare me. He’s still a prick. Shit caught up to Cal bottom-line, and that’s why we have this new humble version of Cal – take away his finding himself on the other end of the fence at last he’d still be the same tool.
People change for the better or for the worse… whatever. And I’m upsetting myself an hour ago in not being able to locate a single change of my own over the years. Like that’s a bad thing.
I want to slap myself for leaving him that money now – seriously – what the fuck was I thinking… this whole situation is so not my style. I’m over it.
And as far as all that shit Cal said about Donnie and me being alike – another crock of shit. Donnie and myself couldn’t be more opposite. Save for this mornings little hiccup, at least I can say I know who I am and what I want. Donnie on the other hand – although he may have the rest of the town fooled – but I see through his front. That smug arrogance suggesting he has it all figured out, when in reality he’s just a scared little kid who never grew-up.
Another sob-story.
And soooo not my type. Seriously.
And when you get to thinking about people and changing for the better or the worse you look at a guy like Donnie – who like everyone has a capacity to change – but he more than likely won’t. Donnie is a rare breed that could turn it around for the better, but certainly will only change for the worse…
If (like me) he even changes at all…
Yeah Cal, real bright, Donnie and me couple of the year – give me a fucking break.
And like Donnie, I too have the capacity to change but more than likely won’t. Why should I when things are fine as they are? Really now…
And if Donnie and I were to actually get together as Cal had suggested last night, what would we do, grow together? Please. Rather than changing for the better individually, we’d probably butt-heads and either he’d end up changing me (or I him) for the worse… whoever gets the drop first. Or more realistic, which ever of us in this hypothetical nightmare would give to one another our heart and all that stuff… again I’m rambling…
Then it hits me.
This wave of feeling like, I can’t explain it, like something’s wrong – forcing me to playback my previous few thoughts. And out of nowhere it comes to me… that gag-me guilt I can’t get around. And although I so don’t want to be thinking like this I see now maybe what had me going earlier to the point of leaving a grand on Cal’s doorstep…
My problem isn’t with people changing and me just staying the same. My problem is my ability to change other people – specifically for reasons I’m totally clueless Rachael comes to mind. And now I remember thinking last night during my drive home about Cal at the W and about myself and then having Rachael come to mind…
My issue – the guilt I felt leading up to that thousand-dollar donation – wasn’t on account I felt for those who change while I remain the same – but rather my ability to change others.
If we were just talking about Cal here and him getting all humble recently it would have been a dead issue before I left the table last night – but it isn’t and hasn’t been no matter how hard I try – where no matter how easy I can get over the Cal and Donnie shit, I can’t help but to feel responsible for my influence on others – specifically (again) Rachael.
No one held a gun to Cal’s head. He was always a prick. And for that fact no one held a gun to my head forcing my way of life. But when you take a look at a girl like Rachael who honestly would be better off without me in her life, I can’t shake feeling responsible for her… It’s hard to explain… it’s like okay for someone to fuck-up their own life (like Cal) – but when someone brings out the bad in someone like I’ve been known to do… well… that like totally explains the gift I left at Cal’s…
And this so out of character way I’ve been moping all morning to boot…
That poor girl, I think to myself, once an innocent stranger now tainted by the likes of me…
And what’s worse she doesn’t even know it.
Again so not my style, but I almost want to break-down and call (or maybe text) Rachael and apologize for the change I brought in her – she doesn’t see it, but it’s happened – she’ll never be the same again and without doubt I’m to blame.
I sit and I judge and I preach and I think I have it all figured out when nothing could be further from the truth. Here I was hating myself for failing to change myself while ignoring how I’ve managed to change Rachael (not to mention a few other girls) for the worse without their even having a say in the matter.
I spit this deluded logic that men are shit and they’re getting what they deserve and I talk about Donnie having no clue in life – all the while I knowingly take on projects like Rachael and change a life forever…
I get a free dinner from a guy and steal his watch the next morning he’s made whole again in time… Rachael on the other-hand, the change I brought and still bring to her is long-haul. And the worst of it all is I’ve gone far to bring the old-Rachael back around. She’s already lost.
And then I tell myself Donnie and me are nothing alike when I have to know we’re identical. We don’t change ourselves, we change others – leaving life after life in shambles while we stand-still…
And then I remember something Donnie said that night we slept-together at Cal’s – that maybe we’re the ones who have it wrong – that one day we’ll both wake up at fifty still the same person while all the other people we once turned our nose and took advantage have grown since and built families and homes and 401K’s while we’re left torturing over ourselves from not only changing others for better or worse, but failing to change our own ways…
The Rachael’s and Cal’s of the world, those are the people that have the capacity and probably will…
Where Donnie and I occupy a colder, more exclusive corner…
Those who can change but don’t – not because they (we) can’t do it – but because we simply choose not to…
Donnie and me…
Two peas in a pod…
Changing the lives of those around us for better or worse – one way or another – while we’re cursed to forever remain the same…
All of this I’ve been thinking about – making no sense I’m sure – these are things I (and I’m sure Donnie as well) can see clearly and change if so desired…
…Therein of course with that single word desire lies the problem…
… We’ve spent so long doing nothing for ourselves; we’ve forgotten what it is to desire… to want or need someone or something intangible like love or whatever…
The Cal’s and Rachael’s of the world are impressionable because they want something from life…
Whereas Donnie and myself see this (what we misconstrue as weakness) and exploit it. Eventually leaving the Cal’s and Rachael’s in the dust sure – but they’ll keep going at it, because they and all those like them can go through a lot of hell for just the idea of tasting heaven…
Where Donnie and myself have since given up… wanting only what we can touch and feel in which we get by any means necessary…
Leaving with every Cal and every Rachael a piece of ourselves further removing us from the rest of the world just a little more. To the point we wake up and forget what it was all for in the first place…
And now I’m definitely going to throw-up in a matter of seconds as a thought crosses my mind…
Maybe Cal was right…
Maybe while Donnie and I have been wrecking one life to the next if we’d only stop for a moment and look into one another’s eyes we’d find maybe a reason to change for the better…
To change for the better together…
