Monday, November 06, 2006

Debating

Stay or go?

Stay.

Why?

It's safer.

I hate safer. Safer is the whole problem I've been having.

You hate it there.

No I don't. I liked it. It was a nice place, just sort of hot and dusty. But gun oil, desert skies, men and women who live life, the way the derricks lit up the sky at night, that was beautiful.

It will be another year of school postponed.

True. I don't want to be in school till I'm thirty.

Another year of your life gone.

What life? The life where I scrape and scramble for every little two cent income I can grab and spend every night in my house watching PBS? Is that really something that shouldn't be interrupted?

You could die there.


I could die here.

Why do you even want to go?

I don't. But I have this part of me that needs to go. Besides, they want me. No one else does. They could give me some people who think like me and walk like me. What would that be called, a yearning?

Insanity?

The pay is good. I could really use the money.

Do you remember the ache of being away from all of it?

Away from all of what? I had something to come home to. I had a wife, a dog, a house. I had a life. I had something that drew me home. All that's gone, now. I have no reason to live here and do this anymore. I hate it. I hate the day in, day out bullshit and the Home Depot orange. I hate school and I hate that the really cool people I know are all so far away. I would be able to see Jim, and VA again. I could reclaim that place from Her, and make it mine. I could erase everything and just lose myself in the sand. Again.

This is a terrible idea.

I know. It's only a year. It's only one year.

So, stay or go?

7 comments:

JillWrites said...

If I thought I could talk you out of it, I might try, just out of selfishness and totally against my belief about the importance of self-definition. But I think you're going to do what you're going to do, for whatever reasons you feel compelled to do it. And I respect that. If I were the praying sort of person, I'd pray for you. But I'm not, so I'll just think about you a lot and wish you safe. And hope fervently you decide it's best for you to stay.

JillWrites said...

Oh, and I just looked up the new title of your blog. Thanks for the chemistry lesson.

Sefton said...

I think this is one of your best entries, Casey. Wish I had some words of encouragement... Or, at the very least, something worthwhile to say in response.

Rock Hammer said...

Jill: Well, you got me going on chemistry and I think it is very, very cool. I use it for pretty benign stuff anymore, but somewhere, I still remember what a ton of RDX, aluminium, and a polymerizer or parafin can do.

It can make me very, very aroused.

Anyway, the way I figure it, this timezone, that timezone, it doesn't really matter much, most of the cool people I know will still live thousands of miles away.

Jedi: Yeah, I wish I had something worthwhile to say about it, too. I don't. I think I still got a lot of rambling left in me.

Rock Hammer said...

By the way, Jill, please tell me you didn't just plug that into Google. If anyone asks, you didn't hear about this stuff from me.

JillWrites said...

I did Google it. Do I look like a walking directory of organic chemistry? Though, I know enough of it to have had a clear idea of what I would find. So I don't know why I would search it, except for the fact that I like to be exact in my knowledge.

Don't worry. I'm sure the Feds won't blame you, what with my previous obsession with photographing bridges, my pattern of cyber-comments that seem to disguise darker motives than merely sexually harassing my male friends, and my established love of JD Salinger.

Rock Hammer said...

Nad yet I never harrass back. I apologize.

I'll try something like...

No, the moments over.