joe.

Coffee, dust, and me.  What the hell am I doing here? 

“This’ll do,” has become my motto, even my personal vision statement.  It has applied to boyfriends?that’s whoever is currently sleeping in my bed.  There have not been many.  It applies to whatever the waiter actually brings, as opposed to what it was you ordered, because you never decided what you really wanted anyway.  It applies to bad jobs, to stagnant lives, and to any event that you don’t want to be bothered changing.  “This’ll do” is a universally useful utility for settling and stilling, which is the opposite of stirring and agitating.  Neither extreme is better than the other, they both have their advantages.  Only, I never choose the latter. 

Lately, I have been getting an eerie sense of things.  Once or twice, when talking idly about unimportant things?office chatter?and reference was made to specific geographic locations, I got the distinct feeling that I won’t be going to them.  Not with any particular forboding, just a sense that the limits are closing in and the possibilities diminishing, as they do in everyone’s life eventually. 

Some things are relatively certain without the aid of clairvoyance.  NASA is not likely to enter me in its astronaut training program, for example.  I’m never going to enter the military (not that I ever wanted to, except for the men), so I’m never going to fly an F16 or drive a sub.  I don’t seem to be in proximity to any opportunities that would take me to other continents; a stint as foreign correspondent seems unlikely now (not that it ever was likely).  There are not even any stints as a foreign tourist on my horizons.  A career as a celebrated chef is less than likely.  Same with surgeon.  And airline pilot.  An acting career is a little different; I’ve survived my whole life by acting, and it just wouldn’t seem right to make it a career.  No such possibility is imminent, anyway.  A future as an olympic athlete is out, too?except maybe for curling.  The sweepers and the throwers in that sport seem to be in awfully good shape, though I can’t see why they need to be. 

Careers aside, many untried pastimes (and even former ones) seem unlikely now to start (or resume).  Skiing was my absolute favorite thing to do, up until high school when my mother stopped me.  She thought it was dangerous.  And when I resumed it in my mid-twenties I was sure my legs wouldn’t take it and I’d fall, make a fool of myself, and have to repeat my fourth grade ski school as a remedial.  After so much time away from it, my first run was absolutely fucking fantastic, and I didn’t have any time to worry about falling.  Riding a bike. 

Speaking of riding a bike, sex?which is often compared to that activity?seems to have been over for a while.  It is problematic for me, anyway.  Intimacy is just too much work, and sex with strangers, while it has not lost its appeal, is simply not allowed anymore.  Sigh.  There is fantasy (or memory) and, of course, latex.  I’m refering to latex in its solid, cylindrical form, not the thin, sheath-like form which is slightly more acceptable to talk about.  Despite its comendable silence after the act, the solid form leaves a lot to be desired.  Now that I think of it, both forms?the dildo and the rubber?leave out an awful lot.  Or maybe I’m just wanting something from sex that I shouldn’t want.  Sigh, again. 

Today, I’ll go to work.  Supper will be a pizza or a sub, and more coffee.  Tonight, I’ll come home and reread this, and like parts of it, and wish I spent more time rewriting other parts.  But I won’t rewrite anything.  Then I’ll visit some favorite sites, maybe tweak Greymatter some more, listen to the BBC, have a snack, brush my teeth and go to bed.  I might clean my apartment someday before I die. 

I might not.