Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
One of my favorite things about blogging is that I can get inspiration from fellow bloggers. Some days, the creative juices just don’t flow and a read of a great post by someone else can give me the kick start I need to get my own fingers working. Since I saw Florida Girl In Sydney’s dodgy old photo and the dodgy love story that accompanied it, I’ve been looking for an excuse to break out some of my photo archives. I found a vehicle for that desire in Arizaphale’s recent NaBlowSomethingorOther posts featuring excerpts from her diaries of the mid 90’s.
Regrettably, I’ve got some diaries from the mid-90’s as well, but while Arizaphale was cooking up a beautiful baby girl in Britain, I was wandering the streets of Seattle pretty much aimlessly. I pulled out one of my diaries from the Spring of ‘95 just to have a little trip down memory lane. Let me set the stage for you. I was 23 years old, in the previous winter my life had taken an ugly turn. My brief and unfortunate marriage (one day I’ll give y’all the goods on this) had fallen apart sending me into a spiral of self-pity, self-destruction and substance abuse. I had quit a stable, but boring, job to pursue a “career” as a freelance photographer.
Things start off inauspiciously…
27 March 1995
…I guess what I’m trying to do is come to terms with what is either the long awaited achievement of happiness and success that I’ve been striving for or the complete loss of touch with reality that I’ve expected for years…
(Spoiler: It’s the latter)
30 March 1995
I think that the last 48 hours have been some of the happiest of my life – beginning Wenesday morning – woke up early – downtown to drop of film with KK at 11 – got a little work through him. Ran into NW in Westlake Park and sat in the sun with him for a while – watched women and talked shit…
(I’ll spare you the details – booze, drugs, work, women, delusions of grandeur. And then, two days later…)
1 April – Bauhaus*
Trying to stay up while things are falling apart around me. Money – there is none – work – there is little. I’ve got to stay on it somehow – I’m not sure how to stay sane?
And then…
2 April -Bauhaus
Seattle is gray and drizzly – still short(er) of money – survival in question I’m not unhappy – frightened, unhappy and somehow depressed – a general disdain for people again – the unadulterated adoration for life has, not surprisingly, disappeared. God is dead and noone cares.
So, we’ve learned that I was an unstable, self-important yet self-loathing, misanthropic dickhead. Let’s see what else we can glean from the lost diaries of A Free Man*. What was a typical day like in the Spring of ‘95?
4 June 1995
Another fucking hangover – smoke to cure it – went out last night with P and M – drank shitloads of beer at Linda’ – talked shit about philosophy and literature – Henry Miller, suicide, bullshit. We drank way to much at Linda’s and then more at Beatnix later on. Blew a shitload of money. Ate ecstasy, which did not work – went to the Re-bar for a while – took half a tab of acid which did work. I spotted a waitress who was just a dream, slicked back hair, collar, translucent clothes – so I tore my ad out of The Stranger and said “Hi. My name is Chris. This is who I am. I’d like to take you out for a drink.” She, of course, didn’t jump on the Chris-wagon (cringe) but she told me her name and to come back and see her. On the way somewhere, I found half a bottle of Jim Beam which we drank in the bushes near City Market with a drunken Indian bum. We needed food and went up to Broadway – M bought Taco Bell…
The glamorous life of the American hipster. There are days and days of entries like this, recollections of nights of drinking, drugs and failing to pick up women. It should come as no surprise, then, that there are nearly an equal number of entries like this:
6 June 95 – #7 Bus
Just when I think my life might be under control, I am even further gone – more bounced checks – head in space. M wants to go to NYC, I may go with him. I think that it’s definitely time to get out of Seattle. Things are closing in around me – a noose of sorts (drama queen). Escape seems the only option. At the studio, things began to deteriorate – cancelled shoot, someone who was supposed to pick up some prints and pay didn’t. K broke my lamp. God damn. God damn. I’m plastic I’m a smokescreen. I need to be saved. I’m shaking like a speed freak. I’m at fucking Bauhaus of all goddamned places. I’m not in control of my life.
And repeat. Repeatedly. Every now and again, there are moments of surprising clarity:
3 May ‘95 – Volunteer Park
…the practical purpose of this journal is an effective surrogate memory. Something I can refer to in the future that will define this period of my life – I know that change is inevitable – I feel it all around me all the time – I don’t know, however, if the change is going to be good…I think I may have already forgotten some of the lessons I’ve learned. That is what I need to remember – what I learn. Right now I’m learning:
- Pot and bourbon are bad for motivation.
- I treat women badly.
- Money is the most destructive, consuming factor for my soul.
- What feels good is not always what is best for you.
Not particularly groundbreaking, but surprisingly clearheaded. Of course, the following day:
…bought more pot, got drunk with rednecks in Tukwila on a Friday night, blew off the only woman I’ve had sex with in a while…
I’ll spare you the rest of the gory details. But let’s take a look at how it ends, the last entry:
23 June 95 – Bauhaus
Is new hope, renewed hope, the key to my survival, my evolution, my success? I don’t know. Three months ago: “I’m excited to see where things lead…” two days ago “no more now.”
I guess what needs to happen is salvation. But salvation tends to not come when you call it. Have to work for it. Salvation lies within oneself. I want to find it. I’m going to find it.
I’m going to go home. Listen to Jane’s Addiction. Work.
————————–
It didn’t quite work that way. It took me another decade to find what I was looking for and it wasn’t within me.
When I write a post like I did the other day, I’m still flabbergasted that they are my words. I spent so much of my teens and twenties being erratic, depressed, manic, drunk, high and, above all, unhappy. Sometimes I wish I could go back to Seattle in 1995 and smack my 23 year old self in the head and say, “It’s not that hard, dumb ass. You put one foot in front of the other and get the hell on with it. Live in the day.”
I will take one piece of advice from a 1995 not-so-free man. I’m going to listen to Jane’s Addiction and do some work.
———————-
*I apparently spent an incredible amount of time in this Capitol Hill coffee shop.
** With apologies to Sue Townsend.
———————-
With the erratically enforced no major label music here, I thought that Chris Smither’s cover of the song that inspired this post’s title was a better choice. Smither is a Florida born finger pickin’ folkie and this Dylan cover is nearly as good as the original. Buy his latest, “Leaving the Light On” here.
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Boy, I’m glad I didn’t meet you until ‘01. I was an impressionable teen in 1995, and it sounds like you would have been a bad influence.
On the plus side, though, it looks like you were rockin’ a pretty righteous mullet.
Nicholes last blog post..A very quick review
Wow. What a beautiful post.
I guess we all cringe to varying extents when we look at ourselves in the past. I’m glad you escaped the parts of your former self you wanted to escape from and found the people that make you happy.
I assume you’re talking about Dr. O’C when you say you found what you were looking for and it wasn’t within you, but remember: You had to get yourself to a point where you were ready for her. Surely you deserve a little credit for pulling yourself out of that hole.
courtneys last blog post..Lazy Sunday
Great post! I find it amazing to see from this post the incredible personal, professional, emotional and spiritual journey you’ve taken over the last 13 years. I bet if someone were to have told you back then that you’d be at this point in your life now, you would have laughed in their face. You’re story is actually very inspirational. No matter where you are in life, no matter how low, you can achieve great things. I’m glad you’ve found what you were looking for.
Erins last blog post..Happy 30th Jennifer!
Please excuse my grammatical error in my previous post.
Erins last blog post..Happy 30th Jennifer!
Nichole – It wasn’t a mullet! It was in an intermediate stage. Damn it. Looks from the top picture, though, that I still wear the same kind of clothes as I did 13 years ago – linen shirts in earth tones.
Courtney – I don’t really know what I meant by that line, but I don’t think I meant what I think you thought I meant. I think.
Erin – Grammatical mistakes are unforgiveable.
I can see from the first photo why Mr. Stipe was interested.
Great post, man. I read my old journals sometimes and cringe from the self-important drama of it all. Keeps us grounded, I think. I mean, yes this was the journey that got us where we are today, but who the hell wants to go back to that kind of existence? Not permanently, at any rate.
NATUIs last blog post..All of the Excitement, Minus the Erection
Glad to know our parallel lives go back to the nineties.
Cigarettes, ecstasy, drinking, angry obsession with the meaning of life, random and confrontational use of swear words.
Thank God I met my wife.
People in the Suns last blog post..I’m looking for a book
“Sometimes I wish I could go back to Seattle in 1995 and smack my 23 year old self in the head and say, “It’s not that hard, dumb ass. You put one foot in front of the other and get the hell on with it. Live in the day.”
My friend, I’m afraid it IS that hard. Perhaps the hardest lesson we will ever learn. I suspect a smack in the head wouldn’t have magically made everything clear to the 23-year-old Free Man.
That’s why learning the lesson starts early, in childhood.
We love our children, unconditionally. That’s how they learn that life is good, no matter what setbacks we encounter along the way.
If you didn’t learn that lesson when you were a kid–most addicts and holics didn’t–then you need to learn it as an adult. You have to teach it to yourself, one small step at a time. It doesn’t happen overnight.
Those who have an active intellectual intelligence sometimes think emotional intelligence works in the same way. They don’t. Emotions are instincts, not intellectual processes. You need to feel it before you believe it. You learn how to love, and be loved, by doing it.
Sometimes you make a hash of it–if you didn’t learn how to love in the bosom of your family, then you won’t do it well when your first real love comes along as an adult.
Maybe your short first marriage was a good thing–it helped you start to feel love. Perhaps you had no idea what to do with it, or how to love someone back. Perhaps, in attempting to love, you learned a lesson in what love is not. Perhaps, it just might have been the first step.
Go easy on that 23 year-old man. He’s you.
headbang8s last blog post..Photo Friday: Sharp
great post. hmmm…. though imagine if you’d never done any of that shit… would you regret it? if you had grown up all suburban and happy? your life makes you who you are and I like you. but sometimes people never get out of that state of mind, so well done that you’re no longer an “unstable, self-important yet self-loathing, misanthropic dickhead”.
THCS
SSGs last blog post..FAIL
PS you still have hair in these photos so it wasnt all bad.
SSGs last blog post..FAIL
and check out http://failblog.org/2008/10/17/mascot-fail-2/
SSGs last blog post..FAIL
NATUI – Are you saying I look gay? Or hot? If the latter, thanks. Hell, even if the former, thanks.
PIS – Gratuitous cursing. Haven’t quite gotten that out of my system. I used to try to do anything to offend, actually. I used to have a T-shirt that said “Fuck Christians” that I wore proudly around the Pacific Northwest.
Headbang8 – Yeah, I know. If time travel was sorted out and I did go smack my 23 year old self it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. Mostly because I would have been too stoned to pay attention…
SSG – Yeah, I’d pay for the hair. I don’t regret any of it really, nor do I wish to repeat it. It’s all part of figuring it out. I do laugh at the melodrama of it all.
Great link, by the way.
You have so much more courage than I do; I have completely sanitised my journals. At the same time that you were trying to find the meaning of life I was going through a gut wrenching divorce and the birth of my child 12 000 miles away from her father and all my friends, back in the bosom of a family with whom I had unresolved issues. But I thought I’d skip all that stuff. Does that make me a coward? Or superficial? Or just sensitive to my audience? Who knows.
Had I written journals ten years prior to my daughter’s birth, they would have sounded a little more like yours; with a massive amount of self pity thrown in. Would I have had the guts to share them? Dunno……
You’re right though. Even with time travel, we were so sure we knew it all back then. Some frumpy school teacher on her second marriage and with minimal financial security would not have impressed me with her advice and assurances. Maybe that’s why the kids at school don’t listen either……..
Great post and love the photos. Took me awhile to recognise you in the first one!!
arizaphales last blog post..Grrrrrrrr
I think we’ve all had to go through some version of finding ourselves and growing up, it’s just that some of us took the more scenic route. It’s pretty amazing to see how far you’ve come.
I love this post. I find the entry from May 3, 1995 so endearing and the subsequent post where you write you´ve done just the opposite of what you should.
“It’s not that hard, dumb ass. You put one foot in front of the other and get the hell on with it. Live in the day.” This is great advice. I´m gonna try to take it now. In retrospect, my self from ten years ago seems more with it than my current self.
This post has inspired me to try to rummage through some old journals when I´m home for Xmas.
Thanks for sharing.
Bluestreaks last blog post..Warning
Personally, I find the the sensitive dysfunctional type kind of sexy. And the first photo–kind of sexy, kind of of gay.
But as for smacking your 23-year old self in the head, could you have gotten to where you are and WHO you are another way? Probably not.
This is a great post and you’ve shown a lot of courage. Now, tell us about wife #1.
AWESOME post. I actually burned a lot of my dairies from my late teens to early twenties because its just painful to read them. I was a wanker, only I thought I was angst ridden and on a quest for truth. CRINGE again.
But I guess all the awesome people go through that.
Fab pics.
Sherries last blog post..Special Is Out
What’s that familiar quote? Something along the lines of, ‘We don’t wish to live in the past, nor do we wish to shut the door on it.’ You know I get it. And you know, in the end, we can find ourselves amazingly at ease with THE. WHOLE. THING.
Nice!
P.S. I’ve been out of town. Have you taken the advice of the Greek yet? If so, please lead me there. If not, get typing my friend.
mongoliangirls last blog post..Properly Welcoming New Family & A Messy Minded Guest Post
Wow. I knew I shouldn’t have given up pot so soon. Just imagine all the diary entries I’d have had if I’d continued into my twenties.
KathyFs last blog post..Too Hot To Be Preznit
God, this is why I wish I’d been better at journaling way back when. Bullshit navel gazing at its finest.
Gypsys last blog post..I think I will enjoy very much serving under you!*
Oh my, it’s a good thing I didn’t know you back then either! I was a sucker for a rebel of any kind, but a rebel who was pursuing a career as an artist? Whoa.
I don’t have any actual journals saved, but my friends and I had shared diaries that we would write in and pass along, and I do have a few of those. It’s so funny what was important then compared to now. The poetry from that era was the best though (ahem).
I can’t wait for the dish on this mysterious first wife…
Jessica Ks last blog post..Deckin’ the Halls
In that first picture you look like the epitome of the mid-90’s to me. I, too, was still in high school then, but some of my best friends embraced the grunge culture hard-core, I think they were all dreaming of moving to Seattle and living the life you describe.
Aprils last blog post..Local Craziness in the News
Ariza – Not bravery, just no pride
I left out some particularly damning material, though. I wouldn’t call you frumpy, though, at least you dress better now than you did in 1995 
Angel – Scenic route about sums it up.
Bluestreak – Do it. It puts things in perspective. You’ve been quiet lately?
Prefers – I think I’ll get to it this week. I’m thinking of dedicating this week to the ’90s
Sherrie – Most of mine are gone for the same reason. But I’m glad I have a couple left.
Mongola – I thought you might recognize that lifted quote. I haven’t done the Greek thing yet, will get there. Still coming to terms with humility and false modesty.
Kathy – Yeah, but not very good ones…
Gypsy – Bullshit navel gazing is right!
JK – Pull them out, let’s see some self-inflicted humiliation.
April – The thing is that by the time I got to Seattle in ‘93 it was pretty much done as a “scene” and it was kind of hard and druggy and depressing. I really missed out on the prime of that short lived renaissance.
I LOVE this post. I love the photos. I love the peek. I love the dichotomy.
Question: Was the stuff in parens added by you now? Or was it in the original?
maggie, dammits last blog post..CommentLuv needs updating on this site. Please download the latest version and install it on your site. This message will apear during the first 10 minutes of each hour. This remote script will cease returning posts in 7 days
So, on 2 April, were you quoting Nietzsche or Reznor?
I sometimes quote from my childhood journals on my blog, but never the ones from college or the early 20s. Probably because being unhappy while in sales with IBM isn’t nearly as cool as being unhappy taking photographs in Seattle.
muskrats last blog post..a princess needs a prince like a fish needs a bicycle
If the choice is mullet or bald, I’m picking bald every time.
Have you heard of Cringe? Maybe you should try to set up an Australian event.
Nicholes last blog post..I still can’t believe she likes the ravioli
Whoa.
“didn’t jump on the Chris-wagon (cringe)”
No cringe here! Great line, if you ask me.
mickeys last blog post..There were bananas
Maggie – Parens is me now.
Muskrat – Reznor definitely. And unhappy anywhere is more or less the same thing, I think.
Nichole – It wasn’t a frickin’ mullet. Intermediate stage, dammit! Cringe sounds like good fun.
Mickey – It’s really not.
Fantastic post. What a trip to get a peek at 23-year-old Free Man!
That was so awesome, I love the glimpses into the past!
The whole put one foot in front of the other and get on with things was very Dr. Phil of you… something I’m trying to do here everyday– I think he says “Fake it till you make it.”
My friend is here from the U.S. (arrived 2 days ago) and we all fly to Florida on Tuesday, you’ve inspired me to dig out some old journals and re-live my chaos!
As I can predict from my being out of touch with everyone this entire week, I’m sure the whirlwind is just starting. My first trip home… I can’t believe it.
Forgot to mention, that photo is awesome.
NS – Thanks.
FGIS – Enjoy the trip. WIll look forward to the old diaries!
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