NEEDLING

THE RUNNING AWAY TEMPTATION

Difficult week so far. Been getting ready for my trip to Texas. Lift-off from Charles de Gaule on Saturday morning.

So many things to take care of, to decide upon. Mostly dealing with money and its distribution. The problem with this tiresome never-ending process, this touch-and-go science – because when one doesn’t have any money its distribution becomes a science, sometimes a painful one, sometimes a cruel one, and always a creative one – is that one is often enticed, or at least minutely tempted, to run away. An act, a cowardly one no doubt, in which I’ve never found lasting relief, but in which I have sometimes found temporary repose and the false sense that I am headed off on a new journey.

To pay or not to pay the rent, that is the eternal question, the one question which seems to always pop up on a regular basis around the same period every month, whatever country one might find himself in – except of course when one is couch-hopping, another troublesome inexact science reserved for those young at heart with little material possessions if any, preferably none, and a general lack of social ambition.

And so, as every month, I procrastinated and acted as if I didn’t have rent to pay, as if I didn’t have bills on my desk, as if I didn’t have in-existent money in my bank to worry about, as if I didn’t already owe money to just about every single one of my family members, some friends (who don't talk to me anymore), and certain ex-employers. Today is TOO LATE, today will always be too late, forever. When today becomes tomorrow and we will all be dead, it will still be too late for me to be forgiven my debts. So why pay? So why not pay? So why not get a decent job and pay yesterday? So why not? So why not?

I used to be a such responsible young man. What happened? Already a third of the month has flown by, and I’ve only today sent off my rent to my landlord (one month out of two months I owe him… I sent two checks however. One for this month and one for the following month. The first one for one month’s rent and the second for two months’ rent to prove my willingness to take care of what I owe. Honorable?)

I am one of the most honest persons I know, one of the most reliable... just don't lend me any money if you want to ever see it again... but that has nothing to do with reliability and honesty. Money is meaningless. Why do people put such intense value on it? It's much easier to live with oneself, whenever one is poorer than a doorknob and can't seem to get a job for which one thinks he's intellectually, emotionally, and temperamentally designed and/ or qualified for, if one just lives whimsically with the little money one has and with everybody else's money that might cross one's fingers. Especially the government's money. That's the kind of money one calls Free Money.

I'm lost. What was I talking about?

Oh yeah... I just paid part of my rent and my bills and on Saturday I'm flying off to Texas for a few days... and I was thinking : why the hell should I come back to France? Why can't I accidentally forget to get back on the plane? This would by default annul all my debts in Europe... right? This would force me to start all over again, to be a newborn once more, a thirty two year old new born. I'll be thirty three soon enough, the magical reborn age. The age where we die and rise again on the third day... (I'm not gonna go any further with this... for fear of... [choose] ...)

I haven't lived in Texas since 1995... arrh... I left that place for a reason, I just can't remember what exactly. It’s like cottage cheese. I don’t like cottage cheese, but every few years or so, I have to eat some to remind me WHY I don’t like cottage cheese.

I owe over five hundred dollars in parking tickets in Los Angeles... that's nowhere close to Austin, though… the temptation to run away, to fake ourselves into believing the grass is greener on the other side of the ocean… or on the other side of wherever you want… on the other side of my brains, next door to the outhouse of my soul…

(And I started this Blog to talk about my work... 42 hours a week... I've hardly said a word about it yet.)