Rest My Chemistry

I rose to another morning in the Box.

I slept late, getting up at a quarter to Eight.
I'm rising, not aching, but tired. I'm knocking over shit: papers, bottles of water, pens and pencils. It seems like a never ending flow of fucking debris raining around me from movement to movement. It's fucking annoying. For some reason I just couldn't stop knocking shit over trying to get up. I stop and wonder if this shit isn't some bad sign, you know? I say to myself, maybe I shouldn't do my calisthenics like this, my dick might fall off.

Yeah, right. I cranked out my pushups and situps and then I added two more, both back exercises. Now I do twenty of four things instead of Forty of Two things. I have no problem in exercising today. I am full of vim and vigor. That's what those two words mean! I clean up, fix up and pack up, ready to get the fuck out of the dorm before anyone else gets up. I wanted out and I wanted out in the worst way. I hit the bricks, and the Way, and before I know it, I'm walking down 34th Street and Madison.

I reach into my pocket and come away with a wad of money. Because of the crumpled condition of some of the bills, it feels like a WAD of money, but as I flatten it out, it's just money. Lots of ones and fives, some tens, a few twenties. All totaling some one hundred and twenty dollars. Pocket change for you maybe, but it's a king's fortune for me. I wonder, whenever I get from this life, this existence, and move up the monetary ladder...if and when such a thing might happen...I wonder if I'll be a skin flint. Some tightfisted miser sitting in a dark room in his apartment with stacks of money neatly arranged before him. Counting, counting, counting.

That's a humorous thought as I get up and head to the Madison Avenue Starbucks and cop a squat. The place is practically empty for a Sunday morning, and I find a table off to the side, next to a power plug and jack into the Internet. I'm online in seconds, mainlining data into my body, feeling the rush of electrons through my eyes. I am enraptured.

I'm busy with emailing, and have not yet blogged before Oz and James pop up in IM. I bullshit with them for hours. Soon, my brother joins me and together we set off for the uptown libraries. My brother is heading for the 40th Street library, while I'm heading for the Big House. I quickly head upstairs and straight to the men's bathroom. I ease into one of the stalls and take a nice, leisurely shit. If there is one thing that I like to do, and that is take a shit in a public library, since there aren't people waiting for you to get out of the toilet like in the Box, or at a Starbucks. You can take your time and rest and relax.

Yeah, I know it's crude toilet humor, but that's what it is.

But it's not as funny as trying to flush the toilet. I push the lever and nothing happens. I usually use a lot of toilet paper. I just do. I hate a shitty ass. So in between wipes and a shit I flush the toilet. Well guess what? This fucker doesn't flush. You've gotta be shittin' me. But no, the shitter doesn't flush. I sit stunned for a moment. I'm in like one of those: What he fuck do I do now moments. I decide, well Fuck It Then. I finish wiping my ass, put on my slacks and walk out of the stall. The bathroom is empty, but I don't care and quickly put some distance between myself and my offending handiwork before someone can witness me escaping the scene of the crime.

I walk down the hall to the sinks, go to the soap dispenser and cover my hands with liquid soap. After scrubbing them down for awhile until they're nice and sudsy, I turn the faucet....

...and nothing comes out. I hit the hot, then the cold. Nothing. I sidestep, hit the hot at the next sink, and then the cold. Nothing. I work my way down four sinks. Nothing. Fuck!! I look around, there are no paper towels. It's one of those paperless bathrooms. There are only air dryers. I hit one and put my hands underneath the air flow and it dries the soap but doesn't remove it. Now I'm in a panic. The only source of water that I know of at this point is in the toilet bowls. I go into one of the stalls, stop and look down. I just can't do it. I'm standing there like the Handcuffed Dummy and then I noticed the toilet paper. I roll out a wad and strike my hands like match heads, knocking off the semi-dried soap and cleaning my hands. It took several wads to get them clean.

I filled up another toilet, and this one would not flush either. I left that madhouse and headed into the Rose Reading Room.

I get back online and still do not blog. I don't know what my problem is. Oz and James are soon on and I'm bullshitting again. I'm also addicted to INTERPOL, listening to their songs over and over again on YOUTUBE. I'm going to see if I can get their albums through the public library. I'd love to hear their latest one. I'm in love with too many of the songs from it. Time seems to melt. In no time it's time to leave the public library. Electra and my brother are there too. We leave.

I reluctantly return to the bathroom to check out the water supply. Somewhere, over the hours that I have been in the library, they fixed the water issue and there was water from the faucets. I re-washed my hands and left for the Madison Avenue Starbucks, via the Duane Reade Store where I bought bottles of San Pellegrino water.

Then we retired the evening in the Madison Starbucks, my brother and I going over chapter ten of the screenplay, editing and changing scenes and dialogue. It doesn't take us long. I also blog, getting the job done that should have been done earlier in the day.

This time melts away also, leaving me to head for the Box.

It's a quiet evening because of the football game. It appears that such pacifies Skeks. I go to my bed, and open a bottle of San Pellegrino. It feels like drinking champagne from the bottle. I sit on the edge of my bed, after a full day. It is cold. Very cold in the Box. As if they are trying to make Frosty Skeks. A new kiddie pop. I'm not in the best of humor about this. I hate the cold, and it's been cold in this fucking dorm for too many days now. Oz and James appear on IM again. I tool around with them, but I'm lost in INTERPOL. It makes me think of my life right now. It makes me think just what it is that I'm doing? I'm I defiant just for the sake of striking out at the wind? I say that I have a plan, but do I?

Is that why I chafe so when thinking of plans? Interpol's song, REST MY CHEMISTRY, says:

"I haven't slept for two days
I've bathed in nothing but sweat
And I've made hallways scenes for things to regret.
My friends they come.
And the lines they go by

Tonight I'm gonna rest my chemistry
Tonight I'm gonna rest my chemistry."

I think that tonight....I'm gonna rest my chemistry.

Spare me the suspense.

Hobobob