4:00 AM: There's no road that ain't a hard road to travel alone

I could use an ear to hear me tonight. Fortunately, I have a little slice of the internet called SWP where a small group of people (some I know, some in Korea and the Philippines,) are somehow eager to hear my ramblings.

I know it's hard to believe from recent entries, but as it turns out I am not always a gigantic morose melancholy melodramatic motherfucker (the quadruple M for misery... perhaps that makes it quintuplet.) Circumstances seem to have gotten me down, however, and put me in that role these days. Rather, I put myself there, perhaps out of boredom.

Well... no more? Not tonight anyway. Can't guarantee I'll wake up tomorrow and feel the same way, but for the remainder of this evening I believe I will be upbeat. As in, holy shit Scott isn't whining about everything in life tonight.

I started out bitter as usual. Yet another Friday night. No social interaction, nobody to hang with., Yet suddenly I sit here, content with all that, completely of my own accord.

So why this sea-change? What happened to change my temperament so? Perhaps it's the beer I'm drinking, a Stella cooling in the back of my fridge since early June. Maybe it's because last night I actually did some writing for a change. Maybe it's because I've been looking at old photos. This sounds incorrect, because usually when I look at old photos I get nostalgic for the times when I didn't realize how good I had it (and how far it was from being just about perfect.) When we had large groups of people to be around in good cheer. When the sky was bluer and roses smelled prettier. 2005-2006. And this was the case - it really at first only made me mad at the kind of life I'm living now. Here I was, ready to spend another night crying in my beer (not literally, as far as I'm willing to admit,) when I come across a photo I never knew existed.

I won't post it - because I don't do that - but I'll describe it and try to explain why it affected me. It was taken on prom night at Conorton's. While everyone else had come from the prom, I had come from home because I was and am cheap like that. I can't remember drinking too much that night, but I appear visibly inebriated. And I say visibly inebriated - fuck, drunk - because in the picture I am upside-down, ass-over-ankles on the couch totally mugging for the camera, while blood rushes to my head making it look like I am going to explode. In the background sits Robyn - whom I barely knew and wasn't really friends with at the time (shocking I know) - totally ignoring what's going on behind her, oblivious to and unaffected by my jackassery. So there presents a classic tableau of anything-for-attention Scotto and a girl who clearly couldn't care less. And it made me laugh, because I didn't realize such a picture existed or that I'd ever exhibited my flexibility in such a way in public. I clearly had never been drunk before (I didn't even realize I was, on that night.) and to drive the point home, this was during my mercifully brief necklace-wearing phase, so you've got this little pendant dangling from my scrawny throat.

And you know what? I was delighted when I decided I still was that guy. He's not made-up, he's still me, as much as I try to bury him in angst. It still seems much more natural for me to be that guy. I can't fight it and I don't wanna. I feel like this tremendous weight has vanished from my shoulders. Sorta.

I mean, okay; my life still sucks. I'm still trapped in a maze of bureaucratic nonsense that is preventing me from registering for school. I'm still unemployed and lonely and bored. I still can't get ahold of many of my best friends. But there's no reason for me to be a little bitch about it, I don't think. It seemed so justified when I was down and out and yet now all I can think is, "Buddy, be a man." and that's the kind of stuff I need to be telling myself. First order of business: stand up straight, be proud of yourself, man!

I feel like I've gotten a second wind. Yes, my situation is lame, I've been depressed for most of the summer and things aren't set to change until school starts (if it starts.) But life is not without it's joys. A cold beer and a funny memory, for instance. The Clash still sound good on my iPod. I actually feel like writing again. I might get those wheels turning yet.

Eric may or may not get a temp job doing shipping at IMAX. We both sent in resumes, and he was the only one they called; mind you, they called at 5:00 on a Friday, so they maybe are saving me for Monday. He doesn't seem to want to do it, but I would jump at the chance to earn a little more dough and have something to do all day.

I think it's going to be another night where I'm up until 3:30 AM writing (fuck YEAH I'm gonna be writing~! Go enthusiasm!)

I can make the world work for me, if I try hard enough. I fuckin' know it.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott (the one I like being.)