We’re like patrons of the arts, sponsoring him, until he makes it. The other reason, I think, is loneliness. Sometimes it’s just nicer to wake up to Felix’s antics than to the terrible sadness that tends to come on huge after a night of furious drinking. Felix will tell jokes and goof around, and you’ll just be too busy laughing or trying not to laugh to review your own foolishness from the night before. Breakfasting with Felix allows you to put off that moment of reckoning, at least for a little while. Though lately I’ve been putting mine off for too long.
Felix has been here nearly a week. He’s on the couch right now trying to assemble four roaches into a pinner, while I’m at my computer with my feet up on my desk, ready to write but feeling overwhelmingly, unidentifiably sad. How can I write with Felix here? I type out an idea, something I decide I’ll have to get back to later because I can’t concentrate now what with Felix around. I close the document and update the “about me” section of my Friendster profile. I delete what I had before and type, “60% cotton, 40% acrylic.” Save.
I don’t share all of my ideas with Felix. Sometimes I won’t say anything but just write it down and make a note to implement the idea later, after Felix leaves. For example, the idea I just had is to create adult coloring books. Why not color in some porn or some scenes of East Village squatters sharing needles? Or romantic restaurant dinners between two consenting French adulterers feeding their dogs at the table directly from their spoons? Or scenes of coworkers gossiping around the watercooler about the intern’s terrible behavior at the holiday party, or a panel of you getting high with your college roommate in your parents’ backyard before Thanksgiving dinner, or a scene of you introducing your boyfriend to your parents, him awkwardly shaking your father’s hand in the garage, or a scene of the two of you at a diner two years later, you crying into your ice cream after deciding it’s best to split up, another of you in bed that night, trying to hide your tears from the man you just had sex with, whom you only just met and don’t love, or another of you cyber-stalking your ex on Friendster—a light blue crayon could fill in the light reflected off your face as you stare at the picture you’ve been cropped out of, the one he’s now using as his profile photo. Color it pink, where it says “single.”
Oh, I come up with lots of ideas and I start to wish Felix would leave in order that I get to them. And then I start to worry that he might leave and that I might have to get to them, and then I just get quiet and overwhelmingly, unidentifiably sad.
Usually Felix can sense these moments and he’ll rush to tell me a joke so as to curb me away from asking him to leave. I’ll resist for a while and then, eventually, I’ll laugh. But it won’t feel good because it’s terrible to laugh when you’re not happy. It feels like hell, which I imagine as a great party where everyone appears to be having a wonderful time. So I’ll mope around, trying to keep my face solemn in line with my mood while Felix blows straws from his nose.
Then he’ll decide to cook if he hasn’t already. While Felix gets into it in the kitchenette, I deal with my hangover by staring at the wall and smoking cigarettes. I’ll drink a can of warm beer that I opened last night before falling asleep, or I’ll put my feet up next to the computer and check my email again. I’m on all of these mailing lists so I get all sorts of junk. It’s kind of annoying, but I don’t take myself off the lists because I enjoy all the notifications telling me I have six new messages. If I didn’t get the junk mail, I would rarely get any mail and that would just be too depressing. This way, when I go online I’m never disappointed, but have all this stuff to do. All these Words of the Day to learn. All these ads for penis enlargement pills to
Felix has been here nearly a week. He’s on the couch right now trying to assemble four roaches into a pinner, while I’m at my computer with my feet up on my desk, ready to write but feeling overwhelmingly, unidentifiably sad. How can I write with Felix here? I type out an idea, something I decide I’ll have to get back to later because I can’t concentrate now what with Felix around. I close the document and update the “about me” section of my Friendster profile. I delete what I had before and type, “60% cotton, 40% acrylic.” Save.
I don’t share all of my ideas with Felix. Sometimes I won’t say anything but just write it down and make a note to implement the idea later, after Felix leaves. For example, the idea I just had is to create adult coloring books. Why not color in some porn or some scenes of East Village squatters sharing needles? Or romantic restaurant dinners between two consenting French adulterers feeding their dogs at the table directly from their spoons? Or scenes of coworkers gossiping around the watercooler about the intern’s terrible behavior at the holiday party, or a panel of you getting high with your college roommate in your parents’ backyard before Thanksgiving dinner, or a scene of you introducing your boyfriend to your parents, him awkwardly shaking your father’s hand in the garage, or a scene of the two of you at a diner two years later, you crying into your ice cream after deciding it’s best to split up, another of you in bed that night, trying to hide your tears from the man you just had sex with, whom you only just met and don’t love, or another of you cyber-stalking your ex on Friendster—a light blue crayon could fill in the light reflected off your face as you stare at the picture you’ve been cropped out of, the one he’s now using as his profile photo. Color it pink, where it says “single.”
Oh, I come up with lots of ideas and I start to wish Felix would leave in order that I get to them. And then I start to worry that he might leave and that I might have to get to them, and then I just get quiet and overwhelmingly, unidentifiably sad.
Usually Felix can sense these moments and he’ll rush to tell me a joke so as to curb me away from asking him to leave. I’ll resist for a while and then, eventually, I’ll laugh. But it won’t feel good because it’s terrible to laugh when you’re not happy. It feels like hell, which I imagine as a great party where everyone appears to be having a wonderful time. So I’ll mope around, trying to keep my face solemn in line with my mood while Felix blows straws from his nose.
Then he’ll decide to cook if he hasn’t already. While Felix gets into it in the kitchenette, I deal with my hangover by staring at the wall and smoking cigarettes. I’ll drink a can of warm beer that I opened last night before falling asleep, or I’ll put my feet up next to the computer and check my email again. I’m on all of these mailing lists so I get all sorts of junk. It’s kind of annoying, but I don’t take myself off the lists because I enjoy all the notifications telling me I have six new messages. If I didn’t get the junk mail, I would rarely get any mail and that would just be too depressing. This way, when I go online I’m never disappointed, but have all this stuff to do. All these Words of the Day to learn. All these ads for penis enlargement pills to
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