2004-06-06 - 4:06 p.m.
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OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOtah
The air by the water was cool and refreshing and kept me awake through it all. True, I hadn't slept in 45 hours at this point. Even more true, I was leaving for Utah in 3 hours. Even more truer, I wasn't packed or showered and my boss was coming to pick me up in the morning.
7-11 has terrible breakfast sandwiches and I chewed on one like it was one of those squeak toys you give dogs in the shape of a hamburger. Not the dogs - the toy was in a shape of a hamburger.
The twinkling lights on the water outside of Keystone Yacht Club glimmered brightly in the water as the dark sky began to wake up ever slightly, turning a lighter purple like a bruise on an arm slowly getting better. Soon, the sun would rise and I would be catapulted into the stratosphere, wisps of clouds dancing underneath me over the patchwork landscape at 350 mph. Utah is the furthest from home yet, furthest I've ever been. In the 6 or so hours it will take to fly to Utah, I could drive to Plattsburgh, I could drive to Boston and back, I could fly to Orlando and back and then back to Orlando again. I could do a lot of things.
The one thing I tried to do was sleep.
But on the waters of Hewlett Harbor, by the docks of a yacht club shoved behind humungous houses, I kicked my feet above the water and just thought for a while, really just kind of laid everything out in my head and tried to make some sense of it all. Am I doing well? Am I healthy and happy? Or am I just getting unhappier faster, running around accomplishing things with reckless abandon and not getting anywhere but older? Where am I going with all this, meaning my choices and my decisions right now?
I'm going nowhere with THIS, meaning this entry. Just thinking on my feet. Literally. I'm typing in Utah, in Salt Lake City, in Mormon country, in a convention, on a computer put up for people to look at a company's stats and programs. The city is gorgeous. There is hardly any litter or graffiti, NO traffic, beautiful background of the Rocky Mountains all around you and my hotel room from the 15th floor spans over the whole city.
It's gorgeous. Did I say th...yeah. I did. It needs to be said twice. Hell, three times.
Gorgeous.
I got a good night's sleep in, falling asleep on top of my covers while watching TV around 11 PM only to wake up at 5AM to find that I was still in the same pose I was in at 11 only the room was dark and my roomate Eric was tossing around in his bed. I didn't even roll on my side - it was as if someone shut the power switch to off and just hit it back on at 5:17 AM. The whole day has been work and I'm not even exhausted like I have been so much lately. I think it's from too much leisure activities. I did, however, quit drinking. Haven't had a drop for almost a month today. Well ok, 3 weeks. But this is the longest I've gone without a single drop of a single drink of alcohol since I've had my first drop of alcohol. Ever. There has never been a time where I have been so sober before and I can't say I enjoy it all that much. You NEED that release. You NEED to shut off reality and go on autopilot. You just don't need to do it all the time. And it helps when you stay healthy about it and don't kill yourself with alcohol poisoning. Other than that, I don't see anything wrong with drinking just like I don't see anything wrong with a lot of things that will slowly kill you if you do them too long. You will get cirrhosis of the liver if you drink too much like you'll get a heart attack from cholesterol due to too much fast food. You can kill yourself drinking too much water if you wanted to. I find there is very little in the world you can do to make it so that by the end of your life, you don't have to take a pill of this for that or you can't do this or that because it hurts. The only way you can get old and not have to do this is if you take gooooood care of yourself and eat right and exercise daily and deprive yourself of the toxins of life.
But then you miss out on all of the fun.
These Mormons, they won't have much to worry about. I had to quit eating shitty and I have to exercise because I have high cholesterol. I have to quit smoking or I will get cancer and die. I have to keep my drinking down to maintain good blood pressure and so on. These people can't even drink coffee. They aren't really even allowed to dance. And I'm not too sure, but I'm pretty sure that Mormons are on the list of people who fuck through a hole in a sheet so as to keep it as an act of procreation instead of recreation.
But in running around this city, all I've found is a beautiful town stripped down to it's barest forms with very little going for a night life. Not that it bothers me, but there is one strip club in all of Salt Lake City. ONE. And they are trying to close it. There are clubs here with no people in them, you have to become a member of the bars here in order to drink in them and you won't find too much in open late night stores.
Today is Sunday. Ever see the beginning to 28 Days Later? It felt like that.
Everywhere around me is a reminder that while I'm abstaining from alcohol and terrible living right now, that I'd be best to forget about it from time to time and just enjoy myself, even if it will kill me. I'm here on business and despite it being beautiful here, I can't really go out and enjoy things and even if I did, there's nothing here to enjoy really.
What's the point of making things better for yourself if you can't enjoy them?
BMC
What did you just say? - What's he gonna say next?
