So I'm At the Truck Stop At Three in the Morning...

...and, as if by magic, I'm smarter and more interesting than anyone I've seen in here yet.

Everything here is tacky. Everything.

It's hard for me to believe that this is a way of life, with rituals, customs, ideas, jokes, and proceedures. These people aren't that different. We're both members of cultures. My leisurly intellectual class is the standard by which I judge these people's class.

The main difference between "us" and "them" is there seems to be a lack of hunger here. A sense of defeat. A sense of getting along just to get along. The pamphlets here reach out to people without identity. There's one for mail order brides. Some horribly unbalanced "information" about Islam. Some for getting on the fast track to a better career.

What pride is shown in trucking here is phony. There's tacky, poorly made clothing about "American" truckers and pills and drinks and tablets for keeping you awake, alert, and on the road.

I found it particularly odd that there is a pill here one can use to stop urnating for up to eight hours. How this got by the FDA is astounding to me (assuming it actually works, of course). They watch made for TV movies and actually get so emotionally involved that they shout at the characters to do whatever.

I'm looking at a guy right now who's staring at the TV, his mouth gaping open. Now granted, he may be tripping or tweaking or high, but judging from my view he seems to have the awestruck intensity usually reserved for somebody watching 2001 or Citizen Kane.

What a wretched life, I think to myself. What a dismal state of being. Driving a truck full of whatever town to town to town popping pills and listening to James Earl Jones read the Bible just because it's the Bible. Sitting for entire days in a daze. Each blood pressure machine showing a higher and higher number. TBS at five a.m. Chick publications. And nothing to look forward to at the end but doing it again, only older, sicker, and more alone than the last time.

I Don't Want to Graduate...

I wonder: if James Joyce was alive, would we get along?

He seems like the kind of psuedo-degenrate I am.

The kind of guy who sits around a laundry mat after it closes. Looking at porn and writing sappy stream-of-thought musings out of some twisted sense of self-imposed poverty.

I wonder if this is how he started.

Hi...My name is Dan, and I'm an underachiever.

He said to himself, he said to her.

Frazier, Fresh Prince, Family Guy, Futurama.

Over and over and over again. Mildly dizzy from the scrolling screen.

Am I the James Joyce of my generation? God I hope not.

Another stop by the Barnes and Noble. Another visit to the coffee shop. Frayed nerves, fried mind. Why the hell not?

Since school ended I haven't gone to bed before sunrise, and I wonder what kind of damage I'm doing to myself, but I get a new sense of self out of these all nighters.

What did the third shift clerk say to me last night, or was it last week?

Something like "All of us just want a place to sit still for a while and converse with someone else. Everything's closed and everyone's asleep. If it wasn't for this job I'd go stir crazy"

and I said:
"Whaddaya wanna hack for, Bickle?"

And I think:
"I won't able to do this forever, I'll enjoy it while I can.

And I do.

I never appreciate someone more than in the last thirty seconds before saying good night. The awkwardness of trying to justify being awake. The basic want for social contact outweighing the basic need for sleep. The good time can't end yet.

Dark City, Taxi Driver.

Night.