Damn good writing by Heather Minette. Took the words right out of my mouth.  Give it a read. You wont regret it. 

Wednesday

by Heather Minette.

Charlie’s here, talking about his story, about “how life’s an endless pit of chaotic bullshit, but every now and then it all makes sense, like there’s some kind of cosmic order, and that’s what makes life worth living, you know?” and Simon’s telling him, “it’s a substantial idea, but it’s already been done, man. It’s already been done.” It’s Wednesday so Joe and Chelsea are here – playing the same songs– she’s high on his guitar and he’s drunk on her voice and soon their composition will be careless and sloppy and they’ll leave as lovers and whoever is scheduled next, probably me, will be too plastered to perform, so the juke box will play Tom Waits. And there’s Alice, sitting by the piano again, that instrument she pretends to know how to play, wearing red high heels and matching lipstick, disguising her writer’s block and making herself available enough for another cheap story that will probably be published the same day she writes it. Michael’s on the patio with his legs crossed, rolling his own cigarettes, wearing that goddamn hat again like he’s some kind of fucking Hemingway in a French café. And Esmeralda’s pouring my drinks and I must say she’s damn good at her “transient position” and my disowned intemperance will miss her if she ever does make it to New York. Thank you, God. Here comes Olivia, being the ridiculously beautiful woman she is, dressed for a fucking Gatsby party, ignoring Michael, asking Charlie how his story is coming along, speaking Spanish to Esmeralda, pretending that she’s got somewhere better to go next. Jake and Allen stumbled in behind her, being assholes as usual. They’ve read so much existential and absurdist bullshit lately that now they’re convinced nothing matters, not even the fact that they’re fucking assholes. Jesus Christ, look at all these fucking assholes, all these goddamn beautiful fools. With their talents and critiques and theories and philosophies and hang-ups and bullshit. And I have to witness all of it. But really, I mean, really? Who am I to judge? I’m just some bastard, drunker than the rest of these bastards, sitting at the bar and scribbling about their lives on damp, used napkins. And in reality, now that I’m swaying on my bar stool, feeling all warm inside, and in such a state to choose my own reality, we’re no different from one another. We’re just a bunch of worried, hopeless, “starving,” artists and writers and musicians and fucking assholes that come to this wine bar for the exact same goddamn reason: it’s Wednesday.

Source:  http://www.backhandstories.com/fiction/

Dear Self,

The room that I grew up in, and the house that held it, are no longer familiar to me in the same way they once were.  It’s not to say that the home I grew up in no longer feels like home, or that I do not feel comfortable in it, or that I don’t enjoy visiting my parents here, I do, but home is different now.

I no longer have the ability to walk blindly across the dark rooms to reach the light switch effortlessly from my memory.  Rooms still sit where they always have, but are situated with different furniture, different smells, different memories.  I no longer find its cold tile, its worn wood grained floors, its drywall spots, or window treatments unmistakably familiar.  

Tonight when I got into my old shower, I recognized the small crack in the bottom right of the tile wall immediately, but I forgot that the temperature knobs work in reverse. That the hot knob is in fact cold, and the cold is hot… And this forgetfulness left me slightly surprised, maybe depressed, but mostly just freezing… I haven’t decided. 

I opened a small drawer that sits beneath my sink expecting to find a toothbrush, and instead discovered a comb that I haven’t used in 5 years.  And as I starred at a single strand of blonde hair still clinging to it, which must have been there since God knows when, I realized I haven’t retreated to this room in quite some time.

I have a room now just down Don Carlos Avenue that I have lived in for almost two years with my two friends. This is where I retreat, where I listen to vinyl records, and try to finish books, leaving my old room to the random guest and family members who visit my parents for holidays or business trips.  Before this room I had another, that sat only blocks from campus in a shabby apartment complex filled with blue collar families and exhausted engineering majors from India.  I had a second story patio attached to my room then, and I remember leaning on its railing, listening to the crickets, and stray cats that communed in the parking lot, and the echoes of voices and clattering glasses that came down the alley from the sleepless bar on 8th street.

I suppose what I’m getting at is that my room is where I make it. If that makes any sense?… I have always found something that flirts on the fence of uncomfortable and satisfied when changing my room, or moving it to a different street, city, or house.  I find moxie, I find pride, and I find uneasiness when conquering the many aspects of change, of life in transition, that seem so frequent in this turbulent yet exciting age.  I wonder how many more rooms wait for me in my life, and if there walls could creak and whisper to me all of the memories I will have within there presence.

Home is where you make it, and I heard somewhere that if you take the world easy, at times, it will take you the same. And somehow, I think these two statements go hand in hand.

Keep the faith and love deeply.

Yours,

Michael