nowhere, really.

‘where do you go? ‘what do you mean, where do i go?’ ‘i mean where do you go when you’re not with me?’ ‘i don’t know… nowhere really.’ ‘that’s impossible. you must go somewhere.’ ‘jesus christ, bethany… i don’t know. sometimes i go to the grocery store and i pick through bins of rotting produce and i put the oldest stuff at the top where people will have to touch to get to the good stuff.’ ‘why would you do that?’ ‘because nobody wants it. that’s why.’ ‘that’s stupid.’ ‘i know. you wanted to know.’ ‘where else do you go?’ ‘nowhere interesting.’ ‘but i’m interested. i want you to tell me where you are when you leave where i am.’ ‘i go home to my apartment and i scrub the city off of my bare legs and my arms and my face and i scream until my throat is raw and the neighbours are banging on the wall and then i go to sleep on a bare mattress and i sleep all night and i don’t know if i dream because when i wake up i can’t remember a goddamn thing.’ ‘is it me?’ ‘no, it’s not you. it’s a void, it’s nothingness.’ ‘that’s impossible, it must be something’ ”it can’t be something if it can’t be named.’‘but even nothingness has been defined, given borders and parameters and definitive answers to predictible equations. your mistress is a disappointment.’ ‘well then, where do you go when you’re not right here where we are right now?’ ‘i go to sleep and i dream about math questions on lined paper and i carry the ones and the fives until i find you tangled up in sums of zero. nothing. zilch.’ ‘so i’m somewhere?’ ‘ you’re lost.’ ‘but you found me.’ ‘in nothingness. it could not be named. i cannot show my work.’  ‘where else do i go?’ ‘nowhere interesting. the supermarket, i think.’

rotten.

i’ll begin at the place where the relentless chainsaw inside my head had been reduced to just a dull roar- an after thought, a pile of firewood beside an empty jerry can.  a tolerable agony. the medications my doctor was administering had began to take effect,  and while i was finally able to trust that the inside of skull wasn’t infested with cranial termites- i couldn’t close my eyes at night without feeling them in my eyes and my ears and the bends of my knees. the fine print didn’t tell me these things,that the aches and the pains and the voices and the terminal too lates will take up residence somewhere else when the pills kick in.  ‘just a dull roar now, doc. i’m feeling much better now. i can hear myself think. couldn’t be better, really.’ and you lie through your wooden teeth because if you told the doctors the truth, they’d infest the hearts of every single thing you love- from your dog to your mother to your favorite childhood memories. so you’re asking for a definitive starting point?  i’ll suppose i’ll begin at the place where they started coming out of my shirt sleeves mid conversation while i counted back  three dollars and sixty five cents in change, my hands shaking the sickness off.

nikki armstrong offends the entire internet 2011.

oh hi! it’s been awhile, i know. (really!? 2 months!? jeeeeepers!) i will first start by admitting that i neglect this blog like crazy. it’s not that i’ve abandoned it or the novelty has worn off. the truth is, when i’m faced with the opportunity to say absolutely anything my little heart desires, i get stage fright.  there are few things more intimidating than a big, empty box and that smug, flashing cursor indicating you should be writing more.   i could fill this blog with the details of all the boring stuff i do on a daily basis and see how long it takes before even i unsubscribe. at the end of the day, everything i post in here is for my readers (and maybe a TEENSY bit for me) and if i don’t think i can entertain them with my random nonsense, i’m not going to waste their time or my own. so while i sat typing out everything you just read, i’d accidently stumbled upon something to talk about… and it’s probably going to be offensive as hell.

‘Maybe you should put that in your diary/’

my number one (sometimes enforced) rule for this blog: DO NOT LET IT BECOME A WWW.DEARDIARY/NOBODYGIVESASHIT.COM… i’m gunna be honest- i hate reading the play by play of another persons boring day. i have my own day full of my own mundane goings on’s, and the last thing i want to hear is the recap of someone elses. maybe somewhere out there, magical brains do exist that are ONLY stimulated by reading about ordinary days in ordinary lives, but i’d like to think that if they did exist, they’d have better things to do, like giant, magical brain stuff.  in case you  missed it; i started this blog as an exercise (of sorts) in hopes it would encourage me to start writing again. i’d consistently maintained online journals, but nothing beyond that. so i pushed myself to start writing entries in hopes that people would read through them and be able to relate, laugh, listen, learn, sing along or just read, at all. so it turns out it worked and people dig hearing what i’ve got to say (or so they tell me!) and that makes me feel like the cats pajamas.  and while i might have bitched about people who choose to blog/journal like it’s an intinerary, there is no right or wrong way to blog, really… (except for my blog, which is perfect in every single way!)

my grandmother has been keeping a daily planner since daily planners were invented. every single day she makes a short and sweet point form list of what she did that day as well as the weather conditions and temperature. why?  because it’s all stuff that is important to her and she probably knows nobody else would give a shit about it, otherwise she’d be a world famous author and you’d all know what she did on december 8th, 1976.  for the love of  god people, learn the difference between details that ONLY mean anything to YOU and the ones that everybody else finds relevant. sometimes i’ll stop myself mid-thought for re-evaluation and lose interest before i even finish thinking it over… crisis averted.

so- i want to talk about the facebook app foursquare. so, in case you don’t know, it’s basically some sort of an app (or something?) that you use to ‘check in’ to places (i’m assuming through your phone) meaning it automatically posts your location to your facebook wall with an alert that says  something along the lines of ‘bill cosby has just checked in at wrongbar’ as well as directions/a map. i personally have just under 500 people on my facebook, and i’ll be honest- i wouldn’t want 3/4 of them showing up outside my house or joining me for dinner.  if i wanted hangouts, i’d just get in touch with my friends. so,  AT THE RISK OF OFFENDING EVERYBODY ON MY FACEBOOK: do you REALLY think that anybody CARES that you just checked in at your friggin house or where ever else you happen to be?  do you check in places because you might forget where you are?  do you like random people showing up where ever you go?  … if there is a logical answer out there that i am unaware of, let me know. otherwise, i’d like to offer some advice: UNLESS YOU’RE FAMOUS, A MISSING PERSON, CARMEN SANDIEGO, WALDO OR POLKAROO-NOBODY CARES WHERE YOU ARE, kay?

so. there you have it. my first entry in 2 months and it’s probably pissed a few of you off. i have a habit of censoring what i intend to say for the sake of the people who might be reading and find myself left with absolutely nothing to say. perhaps i need to find some nice, safe chunk of middle ground where we can all hang out and talk nicely with one another? or maybe not. the sometimes questionable opinions that i have are a big part of what makes me who i am, and the people who love me do so despite the fact that at one point or another, i’ve probably made them cry (:P). so hurrah! here’s to the end of my hiatus, and the hope that the warmer weather is gunna give me some slightly less cynical inspiration.

<3nine.