Chapter O, as in We All Have Layers on the Outside

It is especially warm outside.

One doesn’t realize the heat until it’s too late. It’s hot and the trend needs to be reversed, but by that point, it’s difficult. Maybe you’ve worn too many layers. It’s also a matter of what comprises each layer. Either way, it presents some difficulty. There are other things to think about, and only one thing commands attention: the heat.

You (not necessarily you — lets say, anyone) might consider this a normal day. And for all intensive purposes, it is. Normal. Yes, I think that. But I also think about what I have on. I’ve been wearing the same top, the same pants, the same shoes, the same hat since yesterday. And I’m going to wear that for the next thirty days. It’s like this: I may take a shower at some point. But even after a shower, and semi-intensive scrubbing, and washing, I’m going to put the same clothes back on again. I hate fashion. I think that, I really do.

Miami has presented me with many difficulties since I arrive some time ago. For one, the heat. It’s like this: it gets so hot here that I wish I didn’t have hair, or a hat, or a face. I really think that. It almost compels me to give someone the secret password, but then I realize, I’m smarter than that. I really am.

I’ve had this password now for at least a few months. Might be longer than that, even. Which presents me with some problems: I’ve had problems, in the past, with keeping secrets. It’s not something I’d like to admit. And as I’m walking back and forth across the hardwood floors in my socks with my layers on — too many layers, and not the right clothes comprising those layers — the heat drives me to weakness, to the point that I think I might give up the password. To the point I think one of my blustery roommates may knock on my door and, I don’t know, tempt me to give him the password in exchange for one month of free rent. I really think that might happen, and if it does, I am worried I will not have the moral fortitude at that very moment to make the correct decision, and for all intensive purposes, I know what the correct decision is, but at that very point in my life — and I really think this might happen — I may forget this decision, the correct one. But it’s, you know, one of those black/white situations right now, where I have a good idea of how things should play out.

I will say this: for better or worse, I will make a decision that will define my future, present and past in greater Miami. I really think that will happen.

It’s like this: never underestimate a man’s ability to compromise himself entirely in the face of danger. Because when danger rears it’s ugly behind — for one, it will, it really will — I guarantee things will get intense quickly. And when things get intense, all bets are off. I can’t see it happening any other way.

But lets get back to Miami. Who would want to live here, let alone live at some point no fewer than several miles from its core (if Miami has a core), and not feel at least obliged to comment about it? It’s what drives me to keep smoking, when I’m on the streets or when I’m in my room, thinking, not thinking, then and now. Things haven’t changed. I don’t like it here now and I didn’t then. I can’t peel off anymore layers — that won’t make it better. Better to sit here, wait, wait for something. I can’t travel, see. Not like this.

I have two roommates. I haven’t talked much about them. I don’t think they’re worth talking about. I mean, they talk to me, they really do, and I think they try. That’s what I think. One does something that he likes and the other does not, as far as how they’re living. No different than any of the rest of us. They have layers, maybe too many, like me, and if they take a layer off it doesn’t do much except expose another layer. I mean, it takes too long to get to the core. And it doesn’t really affect the heat anyway.

Did I mention it’s especially warm inside? I really think that, but maybe you don’t.

Interlude : Intensity

While I’m waiting, I wanted to take a minute to discuss “intensity”. It’s a word rarely discussed, and I think there’s a reason for that. I mean, I rarely discuss it, and there’s a reason for that. The dictionary says this about “intensity”, or it’s root, “intense” — it says this: extreme degree of strength, force, energy, or feeling. Now that can mean several things, and I am not above going into some amount of detail about any one of these things. But I won’t talk about each one of these things because it may or may not be a waste of breath, or paper.

But force, well, force is a force to be reckoned with. It reminds me of years ago, in my youth, when I was fledgling and fighting for every inch using, well, force, naturally. But it came out at strange times. At times I would force my parents and family members to pay attention to me by not wearing pants for long periods of time. It was most distracting at the dinner table. I mean, come on, my mom would say, I raised you to have some decency. I wouldn’t say anything with my head down in my plate, stirring my gravy with my fork or spooning it onto a knife with my spoon, then setting the knife down on my plate and letting the contents spill off, only to repeat. Now there I wouldn’t say I was forcing anyone to do anything. I mean, I would say to myself, I’m not forcing you to be anyone you don’t want to be. And I mean that. I really do.

So force came into play some time ago, at some time existing somewhere around the time I had just described, or even minutes before.

But even then I would think — no one really ASKED me, so I wouldn’t offer — that intensity was a product of force, and not the other way around. But the dictionary didn’t pick things up that way. It’s like this: if everyone in the world used intensity as a weapon, the natural byproduct would not be force. However, I would argue the other way around: if you (or anyone else like you, or me, for that matter) used force as a weapon, that would get some results, and as result the situation, and everyone involved, would be intense. That’s what happens when things escalate. And yes, there would be feeling, yes to strength, and yes once more to energy.

What does this mean, and what am I really thinking? I’m not saying the dictionary is wrong. It can be right, just not in the way things are currently constructed. I’m saying that the dictionary can be — it won’t, but it can, see — can be rewritten to substitute “force” and “intensity”. They are not equals, then. Neither, necessarily, is fashionable, and I’m OK with that because I don’t think fashion has a place much of anywhere, really.

Developing a character

*do more interlinking between posts

addendum — so two or three word phrase i mentioned in writing somewhere, fleshed out and described (this has not turned out this way — note to self? )
exceptional fascinations
exceptional paranoia
exceptional habits

*can change the above three to categories — Addendum can be fascinations, perhaps …

masked to get junk

live with his parents in the suburbs of miami, refers to them as roommates
doesn’t leave room

29 years old

interludes are conversations with dealer
relationship averse
drugs, smokes cigarettes? hates fashion

aloof
nice
no consequences or accountability