A week in the life

What a week here at BWB.

Sunday

BWB was in a celebratory mood on the 4th, reveling in another J-E-T-S victory. Once again, Mark Sanchize played well enough to not destroy his team’s chances against a weak opponent (the Redskins), putting New York firmly into the playoff picture. BWB celebrated with his friend by shotgunning beers well into the night.

The same friend then insisted, with some arm-wringing, on driving me home, promptly receiving a DUI moments after dropping me off. As terrible as that was, and it was, for I am still wrought with guilt, I also arrived home to my roommate’s dog looking sad and disappointed, expecting a furor over the fact she crapped all over the house due to her ever-increasing incontinence.

Monday

Bank statement comes online. I don’t pay attention to it, considering the fact I am lazy and practically illiterate with numbers.

Completely immersed in my self-loathing about harming my good, younger friend by my inactions (i.e. allowing him to drive), I forsake a party I was quite looking forward to and decide to smoke copious amounts of a controlled substance while chugging down Irish coffees with my Burner roommates. The combination of my over-burdening and the alcohol makes me shed a tear or two. “My inaction allowed someone to make a bad decision. It doesn’t matter if he insisted,” I insisted, “I could have prevented it all by making the proper choice. Since I didn’t, it is my fault.”

My friend, we will call her Reb, said, “It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. He was the one who made the choice. At the end of the day, you may have affected his decision that day, but he would have eventually made that decision and paid the price anyway.”

True, perhaps. Still, I can’t get rid of the feeling I ruined my friend and his family’s Christmas.

Tuesday

I have a really boring day at work. She (there is always a “She”) invites me to dinner at her house. She makes fajitas, they are really good. We drink a lot, getting super sloshed (my third day in a row) with another guy, a man I will call T. T isn’t a bad guy, but saying we are good friends is a far stretch. Though drunk, he offers me a ride home, and I accept, attempting to alleviate myself of the burden of his choice with some success. It sort of works. I wonder if it is because he slept with a woman I was at one point very attracted to, yet unable to date.

He’s built as I am built, though he has more hair, and wears it in a goofy faux-hawk. I hate that haircut. It seems I am jealous of every man who has one, but not because of the hair. There’s another with this haircut whom I won’t mention at this point, and if I could trade lives with one person for at least a day, it would be him. I come to this realization while pounding down drinks. Again, the self-loathing comes back, but I allow it to pass this time.

She is a great woman. I want to be with her, we will see.

Wednesday

Completely hung over, I use the last of my controlled substance and swear never to use any ever again. At least, I swear I will never buy any ever again. It doesn’t help my hangover, in fact it makes me feel worse. I avoid absolutely everybody I can—I don’t even go to the library.

I’m angry and irritable as I head to work and proceed to have the busiest Wednesday night I’ve ever had behind the bar. I hate it back there. I feel so disconnected to everybody and everything. The whole reason I enjoy my job is for the ability to float around, help people out and get some exercise by constantly moving. Behind the bar, I simply make fucking drinks and pretend to care about the lushes who I am compelled to serve.

Once I get home, just before midnight, I text one of my oldest friends, a woman who is my rock, so I will call her The Rock. I ask her opinion of my troubles about how I didn’t help my friend when he obviously couldn’t help himself. She insisted my compassion was a great thing, my willingness to love and help everybody I know, even those I hate, is my greatest asset. I ask, “I help everybody. I love everybody. I am concerned with everybody. And what has it gotten me?”

I’m not drunk, instead simply exhausted and hungry. I am complaining like a petulant child. She simply states, “Your problem is that you are concerned with what you will get out of it. You should do things for others, regardless of reward.”

I don’t buy it. I give to everybody I can, every time I can. Ok, not everybody. I don’t give to beggars. Fuck you. You have to work for it. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Nobody owes you anything at all. If you need help, I understand it. If you want help, I get it because I’ve been there. But instead of being a bottom feeding parasite leeching off those who work for a living, why not attempt to work for a living? There was a reason the lions hated the hyenas in “The Lion King.”

Thursday

Pretty quick morning at work, which was quite welcome. Then, came a text from my roommate, “Hey roomie. Landlord called, he said last month’s rent check bounced.”

That was November’s rent check—a check I gave him a month earlier. He didn’t even attempt to cash it until the 18th. I paid no attention. My online bank statement I had ever so blindly deleted without any thought apparently had been preceded by e-mails concerning this fact, which I had also disregarded as junk mail.

As terrible as this was, and it was, this pit in my stomach was the last thing on my mind. I attempted to do my laundry only to find that the toilet had regurgitated into the washing machine somehow, sending semi-solid floaters into the enclosed space I had planned on washing my whites. After a few runs of hot bleach and soap loads, I quickly washed my clothes with little to no long term effect thankfully.

I then went to another dinner at another friend’s house, that of Reb. Reb is Creamy’s sister. Creamy is the nickname of my good friend and former coworker who moved to California, and who is married to Chowder. Reb and I get together about once a month, probably because we both miss Creamy. She’s a tough, headstrong single mother, and a great positive influence on me. She tells me the things I need to hear, not want to hear. It was a good dinner.

Friday

I spend most of the day at the bank. Multiple withdrawals at varied casinos downtown during the month of November were the causation of my bounced rent check. I suspect who did it; my landlord is semi-understanding. I put in a fraud claim with my bank, though I’m confident I will probably never get that money back. I’m not sure what I am going to do about the money. I might have accidentally screwed the landlord. I resolve to not screw anybody over ever again, whether by my action, inaction, or trusting the wrong person.

Saturday

I sleep in until 2:30 in the afternoon. It is the happiest I’ve been in days and days.

Work sucks, but sometimes work sucks. All things being equal, I’m happy to have one, and I begin finding a supplemental income to make amends and hopefully cash.

Sunday

I wake early. I watch a lot of football. I drink a lot of beer. I get drunk again, though not as hardcore drunk as I would like. That’s ok, now I can write this blog. It isn’t great, but neither are the Jets (though they did win again). I just needed to write and vent again. I’m not sure if anybody will read this and enjoy this, but I didn’t write it for anybody to read. I wrote it because I needed to write it.

Is there an over-arching message to this entire week that I’ve had? Yes.

Is there any reason to be hopeful about the future? Yes.

Will I control my fate and do what is necessary to get the things I want without being overwhelmed with this crippling guilt I constantly feel? Will I ever get over my own self-doubt, myself martyrdom and my secret desire to be everybody’s best friend even without getting to know anybody? Yes.

Old BWB is gone. He was destroyed sometime in this past week. Between cleaning up shit, paying the price of my self-imposed victimization, having heart to hearts with my roommates, She, Reb, and The Rock, and attempting to crawl out of the hole that only booze and money can fill, BWB changed dramatically, hopefully for the better. Only time will tell.

I need a shot or something.