Snow, Love, And Sludge (Toybox Mix)

I've got a gift
But the gift needs batteries
In some way I'm sick
I can't get it out of me
I've broken all the wishes that I can
And if you leave me now
If you would leave me now
Then my death be complete
But I'm a tin man
I'm a toy soldier
And you know where I sleep

It was the year after I graduated from college

In January, I go down to Baltimore, to do some voice acting for a tiny production company making their first game
They operate out a disheveled house, owned by a recovering alcoholic--the president of the company's father
The president himself is a quietly impish man, as hospitable as he is enigmatic
As gaudy as he is impeccable, as much a conceptual humorist as a businessman
There is a trophy that says "Number One Rapist" with his name printed underneath
Sitting on his desk, and he won't explain it
Sometimes he wears a dress. His girlfriend is fat, but pretty
I spend two weeks drinking, going to the mall and watching movies
No one in the company seems to do any work, but the vice president does receive packages
From record labels who think he might be in a position to afford licensing their artists
From time to time
We're making a dance game

Ten days into the trip, my girlfriend comes to visit us...
And a woman who will eventually become a stripper buys her a nightie
She is the ex-girlfriend of the vice president
They aren't on good terms but she needs a place to stay for the night
And he's going to drive her to the airport in the morning
After they sleep together
Me and my girlfriend sleep together too
As do the president and his, the one who is fat but pretty
And for one night, the whole company is swallowed up in sex
In the morning, which is four PM for us, we go down to the basement and record the voice overs
The session only lasts about four hours and it's the only session
But for the next five months, when people ask me what I've been doing since I graduated from college
I tell them I've been doing some voice acting

From February to May, nothing of significance happens
My girlfriend flies to Japan to become an exchange student
I get a three-month trial membership at a gym
And the highlight of my day becomes fifty minutes on the elliptical
This is because, during this trial period, it's the only thing I leave the house for
I spend a lot of time chatting online, and I call "networking."
I change my dietary habits: no cheese or red meat, empty carbs or fried food
I eat garlic, and raw ginger, and I will live forever
A twenty-dollar rice cooker improves my quality of life
I lose fifty pounds
I make an appointment to have that hand surgery I've been putting off;
For two years carpal tunnel's been stealing my ability to play guitar, but I can still type

In May, I get a job in a writing lab at a local community college
It's a good job. Although It doesn't give me any satisfaction from helping people
I'm not even sure I am helping people;
I'm probably under-qualified to do that, but what's important is that it doesn't give me the dissatisfaction
I would get from working retail—the only other viable option
I discover previously unimagined nuance regarding correct usage of the definite article

In July, the surgery goes well, but heals badly. I can't type anymore
The only potentially marketable skills I've ever had become inexpressible, dormant and begin to atrophy
I write off this disability as temporary until October, when I slip into a slow, sustained panic
I start to worry that my limited ability to use my left hand is affecting my brain
As I've read that doing activities that use both hands in consort
Like playing piano, or guitar, or typing, improve general cognition
Maybe they're vital to general cognition; maybe they don't just improve it
At work, my change in demeanor does not go unnoticed
I overhear my boss saying she's going to fire me on the phone
And I tell her I won't be coming back next semester in order to save myself the disgrace
And immediately she cuts my hours, leaving me with more time to go crazy
My girlfriend returns from Japan to me in this state and is not unaffected
She ends up leaving me for a guy named Bob, which ruins "Bob" as a throw-away name for me
Which is a shame, since "Bob" kind of my go-to throw-away name

In November I shave my head down to stubble and, for a while, I feel monastic
Then I feel cold. I find myself sitting several times a week in the same Burger King
At the same time of day, eating the same meal:
Diet Coke, small fries and a BK Veggie
The worst of two broad-spectrum dietary paradigms
The healthy eater wouldn't get the fries, but the big fat guy would get a real burger
Typical American martyr. I gain back the 50 pounds
One weekend I go to Philadelphia with a small film production company for a convention
And, in the dealer room, I run into the vice president's ex girlfriend
She's become a stripper and has a lot of money now
I invite her back to our hotel and she has a lot of sex with one of the guys from the production company in the shower
And on the bathroom sink, and in one of the bedrooms and
For the first time in a long time, I'm reminded of Maryland
And the vice president, and the president, and his fat but pretty girlfriend
The next morning it's my birthday
I don't tell anyone, letting the rough cut film premieres and hotel room drinking proceed sans any potential minor complication
And, for the first time, during long on-screen pauses that the director asserts
Addressing the audience as they occur, will be filled up by music in the finished version, I feel old
I thought I'd felt old before, on previous birthdays, but I hadn't
What I'd felt was the fear of feeling old
The severity of the difference between the two cannot be emphasized enough
Consider a roller coaster vs. a car crash

I don't do very much in December
I fantasize about web log entries I will never make, in which I would fantasize about things I would never do, were I to make them
A whole new layer of inefficiency opens up to me
I shave my head down to the skin, as though doing so would prepare me for my own death
I give up writing music. The willful cessation of self-defining activity
This is a way to experience one's own death and the hereafter
And the hereafter stretches on. And on. And on. And on. And on. And on