October Drift

By late October I realized I’d missed the monthly update. Just gone, completely forgotten. When I don’t have a schedule, when work is mostly theoretical and days blur together, I can lose an entire month without noticing.

But October left traces. Some things worked: anatidaephobia—that real anxiety that ducks are watching you. A band called Teenage Mutant Ninja Noses. Someone made strawberry-scented cologne for penises and someone’s buying it. Hero Hitler in Love exists as an actual film. Hair that looks exactly like Son-Goku’s when you wake up. Living on nothing but red wine. That character Tessa from some show I watched. A bathtub full of bubble tea. Charlie Sheen, genuinely missed. The fantasy of clearing your bank account and just leaving. Even the casual urge to punch a vegetarian in the mouth had appeal, especially one who won’t stop picking at their own lip during dinner.

Everything else was bad. Oasis. Android phones. Social media. Sex that only happens in beds. Sand in your eye. Coffee addiction. Reading the news and wanting to scream. Old men adding you on Google+. Bands already announcing 2012 festival lineups when it’s still 2011, knowing nobody will care in a year. Zooey Deschanel. Die Ärzte, Germany’s best punk band, and even they couldn’t fix October. Not being able to whistle Beauty and the Beast. The neighbors. Loud ones. Drunk ones. Especially the ones you could hear fucking at 3 AM. People tweeting during sex. Seventeen-megabyte press releases that say nothing. Running out of cold medicine exactly when you need it. Most people.

October just evaporated. You miss the deadlines. You notice the wrong things. The month keeps going.