All of a sudden, over the weekend, I decided that I'm "over" going to bars. At least Memphis bars. I stopped going to clubs early in the game. I used to like to go to clubs to dance. Then after experiencing the whole Hollywood club scene, and I recognized it for the meat market/coke playground that it was, I just didn't go anymore. At least not the ones with the pulsating music and sweating people who are barely wearing any clothes grinding all over each other. I haven't even been to Vegas in a year, which is sort of a world record for me, because I used to go a lot.
Over the weekend, I went to some "cool" bars with a group of my friends, and both times, I looked around at everyone and felt grossed out and bored. Seeing these dumb girls who are all giggly with their cleavage hanging out and flipping their hair around for free drinks and these fratty boys smoking cigarettes and staring at the cleavage and everyone blowing jager and smoke into each other's faces grosses me out so much that it takes all of the fun out of it. It's all so phony. It's all so blatantly phony.
I used to be really naive and I could go to a bar or a club and have a great time and never notice all of the depressing stuff around me because I was oblivious while I was dancing and having fun. But all of a sudden, I've turned into this old, wise, fat cat, and I don't even know what it's like to enjoy myself at these places because I look around at everyone else and am so overwhelmed by the atmosphere that I get bored and kind of would rather be at home reading an autobiography or swimming laps or caulking my bathroom.
In L.A., you could go to a bar, and something fun would be going on. There would be turtle races or a cool 80's band or trivia night or some kind of interactive fundraiser. I used to go to these fun red carpet events with my ex (who is the worst human on the face of the earth, so let's remember that no event would justify me ever interacting with him again as long as I live) where there'd be all these really fun, interactive things to do. Like a huge Rockband party or video gaming event or something. Going to bars or clubs was interactive; it wasn't just a bunch of people sitting around getting hammered and preying on who they were going home with. Well, it probably was, but it was masked by fun activities. The man-predators and women looking to be eaten weren't near as obvious when everyone was caught up drumming on Rockband. In this dive, the only thing offered at bars is football or basketball on a big screen TV, and all of a sudden, I am just plain old "done."
When I was so emotionally exhausted and spent during my last 6 months or so in L.A., all I could think about was resting and coming back to remember myself for a little while. I was desperate. But guess what. I forgot about how it is here. I forgot about the overwhelming boredom and lack of things to do.
When I was in high school, my on-and-off-for-100-years bf's family owned this lake house, so we'd all go to the lake in the summer. Well, he had a brother and a sister, and I was friends with the sister, and we always wanted to do fun stuff at the lake, but he and his brother and dad always wanted to watch sports, so that's what the family had to do. Male dominance is so alive in this part of the country, it's absolutely disgusting. I swore back then I'd never be a part of that crap, with my mind rotting away watching a bunch of barbarians running around and smacking each others' asses on TV for a hundred hours. His sister would have cowardly been a part of the whole sports cult, because she was a woman and was out voted by those man-pigs who "ran the house," but I conned her into doing stuff with me like assembling a front porch swing or riding around on 4-wheelers in the mud, which was really fun. I love being an active person, but in this town, availability of activities is few and far between, which fires my frustration. I need a vacation.
I struggle a lot with being content, because right now, being content might bleed into complacency, and I abhor complacency. I just keep thinking about starting my life over and having a clean slate. People get so caught up in where they are and what they're doing that they forget that they have options. I am obsessed with thinking about my options. I'm so ready to know if I get into school, and if I get in, where I will get in, and if I am moving or staying or what have you. I'm ready to have my own place again and my own life and my own routine. I'm ready to feel like a real person again.
It's important to me for me to be able to establish my own life. I don't have that quite yet at this point in time, but every day it's a little bit closer, and I hang onto that.
I've been trying really hard to accept this point in my life and ask myself very difficult, guilt-ridden questions related to where I am in life and where I'm going, and as a result, I have revealing and sometimes upsetting thoughts. I've asked myself hard questions and sometimes I'm really sad when I hear myself answer them because they aren't what I want to hear myself say.
Back to what I started with: if I wind up staying here for a while, if I get into school here for a while, I can't do the bar scene anymore and watch all of those disgusting pheromones flying around while people breathe smoke into each other's faces and scratch their nether-regions while watching football games. Ugggggh. I always think about Jack Nicholson leaving his shrink's office and asking the people in the lobby, "What if this is as good as it gets?" And I answer myself with a resounding, "No." "No, no, no." It just isn't. And that's all there is to it.
I joined a gym a few days ago. I'm going to try to focus more on getting myself balanced and living a holistic life. I'm reading more now than I have in a long time. I think I need to just spend some time taking care of myself, and staying out of places and away from people that bring me down or make me feel like crap.
I ordered "Man in Black," Johnny Cash's autobiography, for a dollar online. "Man in White," his book about the conversion of the Apostle Paul, was something I wasn't ready for yet. I felt like I was sitting in a seminary class. I mean, I was learning a lot of historical stuff, but let's face it, I'm not exactly seminary material. Anyway, I can't put "Man in Black" down. It's a ripped up old library copy with brown pages and a worn-out jacket. I buy most of my books for a dollar. Over and over again, I'm reading about Cash's life, and even though he's one of the most amazing people who has ever lived and I'm not exactly on the same playing field, he makes me relate. Having this crazy drive to do something special with my life, and always striving toward making it happen. Reading about him selling appliances and then making phone calls to Sam Phillips every week to keep his head above water makes me think about me bookkeeping but calling U.GA and U.FL and U.Memphis all the time, pushing hard and hoping that I'll bug them enough to get me an interview.
It's also sort of cool reading about his start in Memphis. I drive past the Overton Park Shell (it is now called Levit Shell) when I am in midtown, and knowing that Johnny Cash opened for Elvis there sort of makes me feel connected and makes me feel like it's holy ground or something. It'd be easy to drive around this city and diagnose it as the set of "8 Mile," because it's poor and run down and torn up and full of a bunch of people who are in denial about it and are hanging onto an idea of Memphis that got shot and killed in the 1970's, but there are some incredible historical milestones here that I take for granted.
On Monday night, I went to a concert, and had more fun than I've had in months. I danced for hours. I'd never been to one of those DJ concerts before like you see on TV, but I showed up adorned in glow jewelry and glitter, like the gay district on Bourbon, and had the time of my life. Confetti rained down on the crowd and huge balloons filled with confetti were bounced from section to section. It made me kind of feel like I was a kid again. I needed it. The last time I had comparable fun like that at a show was right before I moved back to Memphis and my bff and I went to see the Spazmatics at the Key Club in Hollywood.
I think I need to listen to more music, and dance around my room more, and do things that I enjoy, because this weather is KILLING me.
I keep wondering how many more Memphis winters I can take, with the boredom and rain and freezing temperatures. I wonder where this leaves me. What happens when you are living somewhere or your life is some place, but you aren't really there, because you're somewhere else in your mind? Does that make you insane, or really smart? Cash wasn't selling appliances or living in a shit town in Arkansas or driving a car with cardboard windows, because in his mind, he was somewhere else. I just hope it pans out for me. Not all of us can be a Johnny Cash, but we can always strive for something, and we can find ways to keep us busy.
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