Seeing in the dark.

My mood is black, like the ink inside an unused well.

Just under the surface it sits, blooming instantly like an ugly flower at the unplanned sight of your unaffected smile.

It gets the best of me most of the time, though there is a razor thin line of light, the mystery glow behind a seamless door, I have been struggling to find.

I rub my eyes and place a careful hand on a dark wall, pacing the black for some abberation. A crack. A handle. A hinge.

I still haven't found it.

But I'm getting closer.

I can feel it.

Thoreau said "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" and that doesn't sound so bad.

I'm going to go off the record with this post. Meaning, I've turned off all the RSS feeds to any of my hundred other online outlets that would allow anyone else to peek around.

Let's get intimate, Blogger. It's just you. And me.

I'm depressingly bored. Or, boringly depressed. Either way you put it, I'm not leaping out of bed in the morning. I want to inhabit someone else's life. Take over their size sevens. I've always wanted to have size seven feet.

I'm ready to give in.

Give me the blue house and white picket fence once and for all. Give me the dog and the laundry and the groceries. Let me be satisfied with a life of percolating black coffee every morning, two sugars, one cream, kissing my husband goodbye, saying "Love you, babe" and believing that is all I've ever wanted out of life.

Let me be proud of small accomplishments, a well-hedged lawn, a bed made every morning and turned down every night. No dents in the car, no cracks in my proverbial sidewalk.

I surrender to the expected, to the routine. To the punch of the timeclock every day at the same time. To render ideas with no implementation. To be ineffective but remain jovial. Day in. Day out.

I don't want to be me anymore. It's too hard.

I want to be happy with the circumstances I'm given and never question anything. I want to settle and for once not regret it. I want to be a regular, not a small, not a large. I want to be the safe choice. Please let me live without ever having to know frustration or unmet potential. I don't want to know how things could have been. I want to concede to things I can't change, to accept futures that don't make waves, to live contentedly, concentrating only on being the best ordinary me I can be.

I don't want to grow up and have to be something.

And Blogger, I want this now.

I just want to be overlooked. I'm done with expecting anything other than the reliably pedestrian life that would never, ever, ever include this immutable heartbreak that just won't let me for one god damned day wake up without it.

I'm ready.

If rainy days breed dark thoughts, then I've got a litter of black clouds.

Once again I suit up, take the stage and play the fool.

I feel like I am constantly in the rinse cycle, whurring around and around and around trying to be free of what stained me in the first place.

And then there is this damned woodpecker, destined to peck away at the same scars until there is nothing left to peck away. It is relentless. it doesn't eat. It doesn't sleep. It just pecks.

And pecks.

And.

Pecks.

How does that saying go?

Go instead where there is no path and make a trail?

In my case, it's go instead where there is no path and make a brutal, irreversible mess of the forest.

Somedays I just can't find my happy.

STOP FUCKING TICKETING ME.

Today marks the THIRD DAY IN A ROW that the City of Chicago has ticketed my car for having expired plates. On Monday, June 2nd, I ordered my renewal sticker online and received an email confirmation later that day. I swear, if I get another ticket tomorrow night, someone as the Department of Revenue is getting shanked.

I am going to write a note on my car tonight that says, "Psssst. I know you are writing me a ticket. You might want to think again jackass because that shadow in the window behind you is me. Watching you. With a sniper rifle. Go ahead. Dooooooooooooooooo it."

I am fucking livid right now. I'm going to make poster sized copies of my receipt and tape them to the hood of my car with a sign that says, "See this man ticketing my car? STONE HIM." and I'm going to leave a big pile of jagged rocks by the curb with a smaller sign that says "Use me".

It's all about the menacing signs and notes, really.

And it's the same fucking guy every night at the same time. Officer Young, Badge #1005 between the hours of 10:30 - 10:40 PM. I'm gonna find you and cut you, Officer Young...even if I have to stake out my car all night. Even if I have to sit on the curb for hours widdling my shank.

Yeahhhhh so you could say I'm still harboring a little hostility. The City of Chicago and I have had a sordid history that began about 67 tickets ago.

Not even Barack Obama standing in the middle of Wrigley Field hoisting the Stanley Cup over his head could make me happy right now.

The state of my union address.

These days I can't seem to catch a break. I usually have a pretty rock solid sense of self, but lately I am finding cracks in the foundation that make me think otherwise. I don't see things as clearly as I used to. I have been making irrational decisions and questioning truths that have always been unwavering veritables in my life. It's weird, I'm unraveling. I'm damn near a mess on the inside.

In the past, when something like this would happen to me I would wait it out. I'd wake up in the morning and travel throughout my day and somewhere along the way something would tell me this is right. Or that's what you should do. Well I've been the most aware I have been in months, more present in my own life than ever, and yet I can't see it. I can't see the answer. It's like looking through a window in the rain. Even my own reflection is blurry and faceless. I'm unsure of myself, teetering around in a body that doesn't feel like mine.

I can't even talk about it because I can't even describe it. Interesting, I know; I've never not had the words for something. I liken it to someone blindfolding me and then driving me to the middle of nowhere and leaving me there. I remember where it was that I came from and feel that burning sense of longing in my chest to go back, but I just don't know how to get there and I can't find the tools to help me on my way. No one is looking for me, no one even notices I am gone. Part of me wonders if just starting over in this new place isn't easier? And oh my god *smack upside the head* that it could be better?

I can't get away from it either. Pervasion. All of my thoughts, all of the time. This lack of self-assurance is starting to freak me out.

F*#k you, f**$#ing gas station attendant at the BP on Clark & LaSalle!

For the SECOND time, the unintelligable gas station attendant at the BP near my house fucked me over. No, literally bent me over my car with his sneakly prowess for undermining innocent customers.

Let me preface this with I rarely stop at that BP because it's always overpriced and crowded, but I was running late this morning, so it left me no choice.

The only pump open was Full Service, and I didn't have the time or patience to maneuver into Self to wait, so I pulled up.

And there he was. My nemesis.

A cocksucker with a clipboard.

"$15, Regular, Unleaded please."We stare at each other for a moment intensely like two gun fighters in a western showdown.

He says, "Will that be cash or credit?"

I hear, "I'm about to fuck you big time."

He fills the tank as some jackass behind me inches closer to my bumper. The station is packed and I need to get on the road to work. I hear "Lanes blocked at Stockton & LaSalle due to an earlier accident" on the radio.

I sigh defeatedly as the attendant walks up to my window and shoves a crumpled receipt into my hands.

"Thanks", I mutter and shift to drive to try and catch the light at Clark & North. By the time I uncrumple the receipt, I am already speeding down Lake Shore Drive with the rest of the morning commuters.

"$45.50!!!???"

That motherfucker got me again.

I drive a Toyota Scion XB. It clearly does not need premium gas. Hell, I could fill it with lawnmower clippings and it would run. The most I ever pay to fill up is $25, if that. My knuckles turn white against my black steering wheel.

At this point I am pissed and shove the crumpled receipt back into my purse. I drive angry all the way to work.

And it's raining. And traffic blew on the Stevenson. And now I'm at the office and someone drank my Vitamin Water.

Fuck you, October 16, 2007.

I'm done with you.