One matter and another (an uninspired entry)

NOTE. I’ve run out of topics to write about: I’m sure I’m repeating myself in what follows; but I didn’t want to scrap this post because it took me a few moments to compose, and I desperately need to feel like I’ve accomplished something.

Dear diary,

I wish that I could paint portraits, because I’d like to paint a portrait of my sweetheart. It would be one of those masterworks, an enigma that you’d fall under the spell of: you can gaze at it for hours and never quite figure out its secret.

John the Baptist taught his followers that a photo merely captures a person’s exterior, whereas an oil painting reveals a person’s soul. This of course assumes that the painting is made by a poet not a hack; or that the hack gets lucky and stumbles into sublime results.

If I were to photograph my sweetheart, I would avail myself of tricks during pre-production. (I would not do any post-production touch-ups: those are for suckers.) For instance, by manipulating the lighting, I could achieve different effects – the nose is now thick, now thin; the eyebrows go from bushy to nonexistent – perchance I’d strike upon an outcome that would win first prize in one of those photo contests. Then I’d walk away with a check for ten thousand rubles, and I’d get my own portrait taken for the newspaper. (Why is the artist rewarded and not his subject? In this case, I think the subject should at least get more than fifty percent of the monetary reward. Yet even if it were double, twenty thousand rubles doesn’t go far nowadays – you’d be able to take a semester or two off from teaching robotics at Poemville, but then in late February it would be back to the grind.) But, rather than snap a photo, I would prefer to be able to illuminate my sweetheart’s spirit in a beautiful painting – one that becomes forever renowned like Leonardo’s Mona Lisa.

But the problem is that, as soon as you achieve the height of critical acclaim, the peanut gallery begins to dress you down. Some French genius who currently lives in New York City will draw a goatee on your masterpiece, insinuating that we’re all more or less facsimiles of the primeval androgyne; and reproductions of your work will appear on the Internet despoiled by speech-bubbles with humorous political captions.

I didn’t want to spend so much time on the pitfalls of painting – I actually intended to drop just a single sentence at the beginning of this essay, about how my sweetheart would make an excellent study and I’d be able to conjure her magic; then I planned on spending the bulk of space talking about my sleeping habits, how they’ve changed over the centuries… let me start that right now:

My sleeping habits have changed since I was an embryo. Back around high school, like ninth or tenth grade, I could fall asleep anywhere. I would be at my friend’s house, in his basement, on the couch, fast asleep: for I dozed off while waiting for him to get done talking to his mom. Or if my friend got a phone call, I’d instantly drift into dreamland and stay till awakened. Nowadays I could never fall asleep at someone else’s house in the middle of the day, especially if they only left the room for five minutes. In my old age, I find it much interestinger to snoop around the room. Open some drawers, maybe steal something.

For whatever reason, tho it was a supersized suburban house, my friend’s parents made him live in their unfinished basement rather than in one of the many bedrooms. My friend claimed that he liked it better this way, because this way he could smoke cigarettes without his parents knowing. (Presumably they would have caught him easier if he were to have committed this crime upstairs in a zone nearer them.) But whenever he lit a cigarette, his mom would always yell from the kitchen: It smells funny are you smoking!! And my friend would shout NO JEEZ MOM & then he’d spray this spray that promised on its label to neutralize all odors – and this “freshener” smelled much worse than smoke or pet stains.

But I’m supposed to be talking about sleep. When I worked second shift, which was from two in the afternoon till eleven at night, I would routinely go to sleep one hour past midnight and then wake up sometime after noon. And in my grade-school days I’d always have to get up around six or seven in the morning to catch the bus. I hated rising early; that’s why I didn’t mind working second shift at the factory, because at least I could sleep in. And the worst job in my life was when I worked for the company that does the professional photography for public-school yearbooks, because I had to get up at half past four in the morning.

I don’t like showering when it’s still dark outside. Even though I’m protected by the heated house, and the electric lighting is switched on in the bathroom, I still feel like there’s coldness and darkness in the air, like the interior air KNOWS the mood of the outdoor air—you can run but you can’t hide—the indoor lighting can’t mask the actual fact of sunlessness, and the heat is a fake heat that only serves to accent the freezing truth. When showering so early, it feels like you can never get the water warm enough. And then I can’t help but think how my current situation is nothing compared to what went on in the death camps.

As of 2018, I no longer sleep at night. I just writhe and fight my semi-dreams. Everything is bad when I lie there in bed. Half-conscious, I imagine all sorts of weird noises coming from my neighbors’ apartment. Then when the day strikes, I get up and feel organic-doom-heavy and tired. I spend the whole day sneaking little naps here and there. I try to prop my head with my arm on my desk at work so that it looks like I’m studying my computer screen when my eyes are shut. I end up drooling on my desk.