Syllabus

There’s no sex in your violence.  I love it.  Isolation is starting to become bearable.  What the hell then!  If we ever get divided, please let’s group according to our music taste. Aren’t you tired of sharing with people you just can’t connect with? Music, not only music, but seriously; music is, and I do abide it, the most proficient catalyst for mind connecting.  Our words flows around as the songs we play. Play me forward then! Play me all over. Let us become a song and forget about anything else… whatever that might mean!  Silence Management and the expectation to be heard; understood. Eyes on the phone. Life scrolling out our time. Songs from a musical.  Songs in my head again.

  

A carpet. An opened window during summertime.  Air conditioning down. The day looks pretty.  The beginning of the end seems to come, at least we hope for it. Cartoons.  I like cartoons, specially this Asian Anime: their vision, the places they explore, the future they foresee, I love it! Somehow Venezuela is turning into a post apocalyptic drama which is often told as a comedy when trying (abusing, in my opinion) sarcasm as a defense mechanism.  Everybody needs to be cool. There has to be something cool to post, to read. I have to repeat what I’ve just read on social media, only that my bitterness doesn’t let me. I can’t lose myself into scrolling.  I try but I can’t, and it’s a lonely life these days.

 

I’m about to forget this: edit, edition. I was wondering if this social media life is all for, not only to pretend;  to make believe; but also to have the chance of edition. Let’s say I woke up this morning, got ready for work, drove my wife and son, and then just arriving to my office I realized I left my headphones at home; what if we can just edit that; not changing the past, not changing the decisions we made, or the facts we had to face, or go through,  no, it’s not that, it’s just an edition; everything would go as planned, mistakes would be made, nothing would affect anything,  it’s just a simple retouch. Kind of like those we do all the time on social media. I took the same picture several time until I get to the pose that makes me look better, attractive; attractive to that one who seems to want me but we have to disguise it as friendship. Or maybe it’s just me who want it, and I’m making this whole thing up because I get bored of the life I have, and want another life for some moments. It is so hard for a girl to be faithful to one guy all the time, specially when she’s talking to several male friends. The telephone puts everything in different perspectives.  How do we run away from it? Would it be enough if I just move out again? How can I convince my habits to let me do this for my own good? I can’t.  I just can’t.  This pursuit of an alpha-male-type archetype is exhausting, and it seems I won’t get it after all. We’ll see. Debts are overwhelming enough. Halloween is coming. Tomorrow is another day, and another day that becomes yesterday, a yesterday of my today, because today it’s when I’m writing, and I’m writing because I can’t talk, and I can’t talk because I have no one to talk to, so I keep it as written words, it’s kind of like a code, a code to nothing, because there will be another tomorrow, and so many whispers and sighs going along with it, to nowhere, to nobody, I’m just alone and nonsense right now. It is hard not to be so, but here we stand, I stand, hoping, we never know…  and hope answered,  by the way. I guess I’m not alone after all. 

 

There’s a leak; the bathtub faucet does not shut entirely.  Fourth note tempo, I can sense. My mind is trying to sync with it; English helps, Spanish is less diverse when it comes to one syllabus words:

I

Am

Up

To

Think

That

This

Beat

May

Take

Me

To

You,

For example.  

Mindset brainstorm

I need focus.  I have spent too much time on social media. Time that won’t come back. Time I have just wasted. What will those apps do with that? It’s clear that we’re taken our time. Time we weren’t going to turn into money, to be honest, but now that I think about it, perhaps they do, I mean they can. They can get fueled up from our time and convert it into money. So when they say feed, that’s means we feed them. We feed the system with our time. I can’t remember last time I allowed myself to get lost in a book store,  in a library,  I’m actually forgetting the things I have read. I was trying to explain my brother what it’s going to happen with House Of The Dragon, since I have read Fire and Blood, but I just couldn’t, I remember nothing, only a couple of things.

 

What is happening to my memory? Am I not only giving my time away but my memory too? I have to think a lot about this. I hope you all help me out.

 

We need a character for this question. I have to come here. There’s no one to talk to, and I spend too much time on social media trying to get an unwanted answer that never comes. I haven’t found my way out. I guess I need to redirect my own attention. This time should not be wasted on people who don’t give a damn about me. I’m tired. I should take a little walk, or get a book, I guess. This spend-and-pose type of life is consuming me, and don’t even have to cut my hair. Let’s redirect.

 

The voice of my silence. The words that can’t say out loud. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. I’m sorry couldn’t do better. You were a gift from God. Your presence. Now I’m going to be alone again. Alone again between the social media and the smoke. That’s how we start to fade. That’s how we join the oblivion. Me and my memories. Me and my silent desires, watching how fat I look into the black mirror and the white screen; feeding myself with fantasies and vestiges of past glories.  Happy Halloween the whole year, the only good thing. Challenging,  but good. Good and worthy, like a glass of wine on a Monday night with no occasion,  with the voice that can’t be heard.

 

Those little light bulbs on electric devices, the ones that remain on and bright to let know the machine is off but also plugged, and plugged means it can be turned on at any time, at will. That’s how expectations decorate a living room nowadays; plugged machines on off, expecting to be used. Am I expecting to be used as well? I want something else. I want you!

 

We’re more everyday.  I’m not sure if that is actually a good thing. There is this dilemma: we don’t want to be alone but we want to feel ourselves exclusive.  We want to be more but we don’t want to tell any other story but ours. It’s kind of hard. It could be some sort of dialectical. The Venezuelan dialectical; we want to increase in population but without stop being the only Venezuelans in town. It’s not easy, we all feel it. Why can’t I stop eating for Christ sake!  

 

Maybe I’m tired of watching children videos. Not really.  It is what it is. The day has finally arrived. We cried. I cried. I cry every time I step into something; anything, that she use in the house. We’ll be missing her terribly.  I want to call this challenges from the poor; or poverty.  I’m not sure which one conveys the message I’m trying to send. So, poverty challenges: forced farewells among them, why? Because we never know when we’ll get to able and afford. Affordability is an issue, for sure. So, see you someday, when faith empowers us and not only over mindsets, but over pay capability as well.  

 

A new week comes, and it comes with the routines: the meetings, the documentation, the early breakfast, so we don’t have to spend on it. A new promise, a new expectations awaits…

Nothing awaits. It is just our need for illusions that tries hard to keep expectations,  so we think something must come up, or soon. We vow for a good surprise, for a blessing.  Only that the bless seems to be cursed.

 

I was waiting for the red light to turn green and pass but I opened my eyes and found myself watching tv with the baby on my side. I’m sleepy. Tomorrow it has to be great. Let the music flow around. It worked out, just for day, but it worked out. Now I have to get some rest and postpone this anxiety for having sex.  

Thirteenth Page (and last)

 

Cynicism has found shelter here too. Those who already knew this was coming and think themselves wiser for not having hope. All posers to me, to be honest. Believing is not a weakness… The banality of a disgrace. The need to see, post and comment on social media, and think you’re part of the solution by doing it. It must be some sort of celebrity-like effect: My opinion and angle must be posted too, or something like that. Also the criticism on others for what they are not saying. Everything is a matter of style now, even disappointments out of elections results. This is not the end. Venezuela is on its way to write more promising pages and it doesn’t have to me. In fact I can’t feel anything but respect and admiration for those who stay there and don’t give up. I am here, hoping, having faith and praying. It’s the only thing I can do now. Poor habits, poor stuffs! Wine is gone. Monday evening.  No money until next payday,  which is within eleven days. I have to work tomorrow,  and I have a lot to do. See you! You know what? Nothing. I forgot what I wanted to say. The opinion rally has begun. Everyone needs to say something,  Everyone needs to see something from Everyone else. Silence is confused with complicity. Everyone is a judge during these days.  I’m actually enjoying what the people are doing with Chavez statues all over the country. It feels like fresh air touching your face to get a smile from you. Why did they put them in the first place? I mean, I could get if there were something,  anything to hold on to, but there’s nothing, nothing but a split nation, nothing but separated families. This government has to fall…

 

Tuesday night. Time for bed. I’m thinking about my car’s leak. There’s always something going on to be busy besides work. I was going to take my boy to the dentist and I couldn’t.  It was a lose-lose day. Now I have to take care of this, but now will be tomorrow.  I have to get some sleep first. Wednesday morning. There is this thing I find it confusing: it is known that the taxi service is long gone, that we rely on apps for it. There are several options when it comes to pick a ride on these apps: comfort, time, pet friendly,  but no car seats. We are not from here. We have no friends, I asked everyone I know how do we get a ride with an infant, considering that there is a fine for not having the child on a car seat and, yes, nobody knows. An error in this matrix. An edition mistake in this movie. So the child has to stay while I figure out what I’m going to do with the car, because I can’t just go to the avenue with my boy, and pick a taxi to make the day easier. It seems that not having a car is another problem here…

 

There is a bus stop but I have never used it. Trying it didn’t come to my mind because even in circumstances like this one, we have this tendency of trying to beat time, when time is the only beating. Lapsus. Intelligence voids set up like tramps for this sort of feud between think and feel when it comes to act.  So we act wrong and realize it later.

 

The end is close and we will not have any outcome; nor for Venezuela, nor for our immigration living. The end is the routine, right when we become adults, right there, when we realize that we’ll be working until we can’t do it anymore, hoping our kids to be grown up enough, so they don’t have to depend on us. This is a parenthesis in any life, in any life as an immigrant: a suitcase with hope, and a routine to fade away into. Our thoughts become smoke in the air every time we sigh our despair, our sadness. To my people: keep the faith, to all of you: this is not the end. Viva Venezuela Libre!  Now It’s time to come bac to work. I haven’t been called yet about the car. Rats is sounding in my ear, that’s what Maduro and his acolytes are. Faith is sounding now while I finish this chapter,  finish this story.  

 

The night has come. It’s hot. We keep looking at the phone trying to get with the right answer, that the democracy has been restored after so long. A twenty years old Venezuelan doesn’t know what democracy is like, what diversity is like. I feel for them. I grew up in the eighties and, forgive me for what I’m going to state, but in my opinion, of the last fifty years of history,  the eighties were the best. At least in Venezuela.  That’s what my peers want to have back again. That’s why my peers want it back again. In the meantime,  I go back to my phone and keep spending my time looking who is saying what, and what it’s being said of whom! Coffee morning. I haven’t contemplated it for a while, I mean acknowledge it; taking some time to think while the sweet steam perfumes my face. One more Thursday, one more day. I wonder what have we learned, perhaps nothing, just perspective. I think we need to look ourselves into a mirror or words once in a while, at least to see the names and the sentences that floats around when we do it. Someone may need it for a new block chain, or for a new chain of blocks. I’m going to miss you all…

 

 

Twelfth page VI

 

Do you remember the smoke faith? Well, it has been here all the time. Now it’s worse, because it’s smoke combined with social networking, and perhaps things that I better not know for my own sake. Living and bearing. I’m tired. I’ve said it before. We rest when we are working, so we can stop thinking about those disappointments that we haven’t had time – and we’ll never will, by the way – to process, to understand,  and learn from them to carry on, and see what next. Next is an improvisation when we’re poor. We can see it as an endless adventure  but a boring one. Movies are not about real poor. When they are about poor, the poor are somehow successful at the end of the movie. We know that won’t be our end. If we’ll make it to the end, we’ll remain poor, or old. Old enough not to enjoy it, only to remember it, and tell others about when waiting at the hospital for a new prescription.  I’m close… of that life and of the eighty thousand words. My silent achievement… Good for me, I guess.

 

 

What is this I’ve just read? It feels like I just woke up from a miserable life tale. The only thing I enjoyed was the wine, and that’s a good reason to move out after all; one has to be in a place when we can drink. There’s no point to work – all kinds of work: work out, work in, work at, or work for – if there’s no drinking afterwards.  Thoughts and ideas need to gravitate,  to become part of the ether, and be there for whoever wants to grab such knowledge, and do something with it. That’s the purpose of any writing, in my opinion: be part of the future. Someone may need some, even these pathetic sort of confessions, anything will be useful,  a least as a reference, and to start flowing around, our body is going to need some fuel, and I don’t know what’s better than alcohol for such a purpose.  It’s Friday today, another reason to get a drink after these office hours. If I were in Venezuela, the Venezuela before Maduro era, I would be drinking right now and watching the Olympic Games, then I would be going to any social network to forget and keep drinking.  Those were the days, yes!  Actually the day didn’t end that bad. New versions from a live concert to amuse myself while listening. I also saw Celine Dion at the opening. It was great, just like these songs of Ghost.  Little victories to cheer me up. This story can’t be only a grief. It just can’t.

Saturday morning. I’m in the mood for an ice cream. Let’s see. Tomorrow it’s election day in Venezuela.  I wish us the best, we need the best to keep going, to know that we finally can consider a return. My hope is now there. I have been skeptical and cynical about it, just as many others, but the truth is that we are hoping for a change, our people need a change. Let’s at least have faith.  We all want our kids to at least have the chance to visit where their parents are from. The culture, the Caribbean culture. The mix, the fact that our skin comes from a variety of races and origins, that we are not just another Hispanic  community, and they need to get it first hand and not only from parents tales. Today is the day, by the way! Thousands of Venezuelans in the street trying this one last attempt to beat Maduro and mist of the chavismo off the government.  It’s election day. The only day the people believe – and are in fact, why not! – they can turn the path of the country by choosing different.  I know it has happened before,  and that the government is who does the count of the votes after all. I know that the forecast is not promising,  I know it has never been encouraging, but I choose to believe. I feel it different now. Perhaps because I’m far from my city, perhaps because Nostalgia grows stronger out if sadness,  I don’t know, but today I want to have faith my country will prevail. Our people will prevail. Venezuelans can’t have another period of darkness. It’s enough. It was enough since ten years ago.  It has to stop. We’ll see! Monday morning.  It’s raining. There’s a lot to do at work. I’m not sure if I know what they mean when they say close outs, but I have to do them, whatever they are. I thought this was going to be the happy ending of this tragedy,  that I could write some paragraphs of hope. I want to do it but I don’t feel like doing so. The government played with our faith once again, or perhaps they are trying one last move, who knows! The thing is that they have proclaimed themselves the winners of these elections. I mean Maduro won, according to them. One of the  most despised people alive, have been proclaimed a winner of a popularity based contest. No fiction tell more lies than these bunch of thugs. Truth is what power conquest, maybe, but they don’t have it enough to make the world believe them. Now they will waste the people’s hope in sustaining a lie. It’s kind of sadistic; mean and sadistic.  Whatever done on behalf of the equality, always turn out to be the most unfair. Now I have to rethink, we all have to rethink – and get back to work first, of course – Yes. I just forgot. Our sorrows always have to be delayed. Work comes first when you’re poor and needy. See you later!

 

 

Now the Orwellian forwarded allegedly news: I have a cousin, whose husband has a brother, whose father in law is in the army, and he said that there are rumors that many officers are displeased with such an attribution, that this is an insult to the people and to them, that a strike might be getting set, or even more, a coup from the inside of the army to take down the insolence of Maduro and have a free Venezuela at last. This is not a mock, and I’m not trying to make fun out of this tragedy. My country is grieving,  my people suffer, and these are the kind of news many are forwarding now. Since I read 1984, I started to believe all these rumors are made up from the very core of the government,  just to amuse their sadistic impulse, and see how faith is spread and fade into rumors, while they drink the finest whisky and sniff the highest quality of cocaine on earth. This must be happening now in a five star suite of one of those hotels they expropriated in the name of the greater good of the nation. 

Twelfth page V

 

Thursday, don’t throw me back again, please!  Saturday morning: nothing in my bank accounts… the hell with it, it's Sunday morning now. I couldn’t postpone the wills to sit on the water. Duty called. Cartoons are on, so I expect to finish what I started. I’m hearing some complaints. I guess I have to cut. I have to cut in some many ways; either literally and figuratively. Let’s start with this literal one first.  Hold the line, selected by me. It was rainy all day long.  Boundaries testing and its nonstop actions.  I’m alone now. I saw a couple of pictures, a couple of a set of pictures; both of them of vacation time; two different families, both living here, both Venezuelans. I’m not sure if this is just pure envy, or if I ever have a point, but it seemed kind of a show off, and up to this point, a show off is just vulgar. Only that vulgar provokes. Vulgar always provokes. So I’m not immune to other’s good times, and I have worked a lot not to be so. I am talking from my podium of poverty,  as usual of course. Poor envy although vulgar, specially when it’s vulgar. I want to be vulgar too, I just can’t afford it, and I haven’t been able to since so many years. I want to taste, we all do. Only that we can’t,  so we have to drown this feeling with wine and words, and a new chapter of House Of The Dragon. It’s Sunday night after all, but it’s hasn’t been easy, there’s so much going on, but this is always,  every time, anything is something to worry about, to think of, and to probable turn into something we will postpone to live one more day. It’s exhausting, and nobody cares.

 

Another week. I need to get the Alprazolam.  I’m worried.  It’s in moments of sudden that we feel we don’t belong, that we are forcing something is not meant to be, that we will never fit in. I guess it happens to all of us. I have to be better, to get equal treatment.  Did we know it before we came? May be we did, but verbs feels different in first person. The fiction is over, I have to get back to the reality and go to bed. Financial blessing,  I’m still waiting for you.  Only child syndrome for writing and only child syndrome for thinking. Well, not really. Perhaps for writing. I come here when I feel alone. The TV is on. I’m waiting for the CBD to replace the Alprazolam.  Nothing has happened yet. Yesterday was different,  I boosted it with wine. I even forgot about my debts for a while. The CPR course was fine. It was better than expected.  I really thought I was going to blow it. I should trust myself a little more. I would like to, it’s just that repercussions have been coming up and showing off, so now I realized they were all mistakes; missteps, wrong moves I made thinking they were going to bring me back to stability, and I can’t be more disappointed from these results. At least I can lecture myself through words.

 

Home made meat loaf, I love it. Wine is waiting for me, I need a partner in crime, my partner in crime. I don’t feel like taking a shower. Desire is suffering,  I just read.  What if you don’t like what you see? What about it? Coexist is paramount when lacking resources, specially when you just want to be left alone. It’s a space not everyone can afford. So Time then it’s not the greatest asset but Space as well.  Wednesday.  Wednesday I’m in love. Let’s see for how long.  It’s Thursday now,  both countdowns have started; the first one will reach zero next Sunday.  The election day. A good part of the diaspora remains skeptical, specially those who have made a family abroad already, those no longer work  in factories or production lines. Those ones who are not waiting for an asylum interview or a court hearing anymore. Those ones have moved on, or so we can presume. The hearts have their own reason, so nothing is settled yet, but what I do presume is that the skeptical ones are not the majority.  The majority is waiting, expecting,  and basing their next moves upon election’s results. My heart is beating harder every time I think about it. We have one month left. That’s the drama of us; the uncertainty of the next encounters. When? Where? How? And ‘if’, especially if…  If and Why with a bunch of becauses; becauses with no solid reasons. I only followed my heart, and my heart likes to play. I don’t.  Not when it comes to feelings. So I guess that either you play or be played.  I need more wine. Not really, I’m just tired, and I will never get when people drown themselves inside the phone. I’m tired of being this way alone. Something is broken. I don’t know what. I’m just tired and tiredness makes you make up things to keep yourself uncomfortable.  I am uncomfortable, and tomorrow I have to work.  The future is a foreign land. What a title, Ghost! You really got me. Sadness needs space and time; two assets in this life. Two assets not everyone can afford, so being sad can be kind of a luxury sometimes, this time at least, and even more than being happy. Happiness can be found sometimes,  sadness needs a momentum to acknowledge it. I’m not in the mood to acknowledge.  I want to have Sex and forget, but even sex needs time, space, and an interested partner: interesting,  indeed. 

 

I would like your opinion, but you wouldn’t dare. Maybe I wouldn’t dare. I just want to get the hell out and move on with all my complexes. The air conditioning is off. The bill was extremely high. Poor happenings, as usual. When will this stop? I don’t know. Bearing: a verb for the poor. I hate this sort of poverty.  Maybe I hate the company,  who knows! I don’t even know myself anymore.  I just want to keep on drinking. I’m getting  close… despite of the routine, despite of all these disappointments. Disappointment is not for poor either. We have to keep going. Our survival depends on that. So why do we want to survive? That’s a good question, as a matter of fact. How do we say in English when a fruit is not ripe? I don’t know  in Spanish we say verde, yes, green, and maduro, or madura, when it's ripe. In Spanish fruits have gender, the mongo is male, for example, the banana (in Venezuela; cambur, and only in Venezuela) is male too.  The strawberry is female, and we use it when it comes to pretty girls. Again, only in Venezuela,  as far as I know. 

Twelfth page IV

 

A glass was broken. That’s always an impact. Like a gun shot. Everyone stops, freezes.  Are you ok? I’m not but I’m not talking about that. See you later. I wonder if you’re going to be into rocket ships when you get to this lines. I love when you say blast off. I love the spaceships you build with your tiles. It’s a beautiful hobby. Outer space. Inner being. The floor is lava. Countdown. Countdown to cheer me up. Boobs on TV. I’m sitting on the floor.  Temperature is fine now. It was terrible yesterday. Procrustean Syndrome, or our intolerance against all these statements. My idea is the one that must prevail. I have seen it a lot, including on myself. I think I’ve said it; we want an audience,  we want to be flattered,  we don’t want consensus or debate… not really though. We’re developing somewhat intolerance to the curiosity born out by getting to the bottom of something. Some of us call it overthinking,  or include it to the habit to overthink. So, it is conceived as a flaw: not trendy one, therefore it can’t be used on Instagram. Financial aid: here I am. Don’t be afraid to come. I’ll be grateful.  I am always grateful.  Let me welcome you to my world, to my outer, to my inner and to my most. Join me in my quest to uniqueness. It has been a lonely road. We must find the path to stability; we are in the right time and at the right age. Give me a chance, I don’t want anymore breaks.

 

Until the end of the world in my ears, yes, in both, why not? I’m in the bathroom alone and nobody needs me right now. A Friday Wednesday, a third third indeed. La parole lontane or the words from the distance. Most of our Spanish is distant now, mostly enclosed by technology, and all the subjective burden it carries with it. Temper tantrum, carried within only. If I could just be back a few steps… who knows!

 

Monday morning. I need coffee. Not a good holyday to celebrate, au contraire, it would have been better to come to work. No music, faster breathing, feeling desperate, let’s just wish for a happy day! Be more in my ear now, and we were more indeed. Now, parenting time.  Tuesday morning.  One of those video answers from a potential second job. I keep applying hoping to get something I don’t have time for. Need pushes in so many different ways. It’s kind of like a damaged feature of the car for which you’re forced to change the way you drive entirely.  There’s no money for a new car, for a new life. We’ll see. Hope has power indeed. Here I’m still standing.  Saturday morning.  Several days have gone by. Geometry,  the Geometry of things. Understanding the shapes to get a sense of limitations of one thing from another.  The spiral and the feeling of living everything again from some distance. How is the shape of the map? Our map, our distance. Layers and planes: platforms; what shape should it be? It’s fascinating seeing such developments, I read it helps understand our place where we get to be. Perhaps I wasn’t that good with geometry, I’m not sure I understand my place here, and I’m kind of sure you aren’t either. Yet, here we are, figuring out. Sunday morning. Air conditioning at its maximum due to this summer heat. We can’t rest like we think we should under such circumstances.  Motor town: Motown, I’m getting it. I started getting it: thirty minutes drive to take us to the pool and thirty minutes to get back home to pick what we missed, then thirty more minutes to go back to the pool but not before stopping by and get some chips to finally chill two ours and a half later, and only for a couple of hours to go back home again. Just a day of during summer. I’m not complaining.  It could be worse. We can always add a sudden event and spoil the whole plan. At least we could chill for a couple of hours. So it was a good Saturday after all. Not for everyone,  of course. The poor, when trying to please, they have to let someone down. I guess this is because of money and time equation in life. Poverty is about struggling more for having a little of both. I failed.  My plans failed. My heart failed. It was so full of hope, so full of faith but it turned out an impossible. It was just a delay. I borrow money to buy some time. The poor don’t get to buy time. The poor can barely buy brands, TV brands,  social media brands, and live under the illusion that self realization will emerge from money spent on things that don’t worth time.  Eighteen years on Alprazolam and I can’t just get a prescription in this town. It seems that I have to get along with my anxiety like it were some sort of hot chick horny for myself with all my overweight included. My belly grows as big as my disappointment. I guess I have to keep on failing…. Until I stop. If I ever stop. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m just thinking about In the end: I tried so hard…

 

Wednesday night. A flat tire during the day and some money I don’t  have just spent. What the hell! By the way, what are you doing in Hong Kong? It is Hong Kong, right? How about Israel? Best regards for you both. I appreciate you. I try to hold you both with my words. Not everything has to be grief.  I try not to, and I know it looks like I don’t, but I do. I do. I do wish, I do desire. I do hope and expect, and I’m still waiting. I got this scar on one of my finger toes but it’s healing now. I’m looking at some places of Belgrade; some images before a Rammstein concert I’m about to watch. I think it’s not a good quality sound but the images were worth it. I can see they are coming down from some sort of elevator on stage. Belgrade gave me hope. Good night now. Tomorrow will be another battle. One battle per day. I have lost today’s but I can listen to rock music now, and I’m drinking my wine as usual. Hopelessness here tastes better. That’s perhaps one of the differences between both countries. 

Twelfth page III

 

Some people: not lawyers ones, tend to make these jokes about lawyers,  about how greedy they are and things like that. It sounds funny among lawyers with jobs and money, for those who remain poor and working on something else, it doesn’t make any sense.  I would like that greed for myself but I stand on the side of the ones with no money. So, jokes about lawyers, not on me. Sunday afternoon.  Soccer game: fútbol,  the way we call it. A beer in my hand, not now, of course. I a writing.  I have some headache and the pain in my ear is coming back again. I’m worried. I can’t help feeling worried. Let’s make a pause.

 

To please. How hard is to please! Perhaps it’s not hard, it’s more like subjective, changing. Pleasing has a lot to do with mood, and mood has some to do with money. We will end up complaining about lack of money in every single idea of this text. I’m trying to avoid it, but this comes from the heart, what can I do? I’m trying to keep it as organic as it can be, but organic is mostly monotonous, and truth is often boring rather than uncomfortable. We want it to be exciting,  outrageous,  but life is more a constant phase. Constancy is what we seek, even when thinking about adventures. We wish a place to find shelter in storming times. Safe scenarios to make opinions. We want our life to be a theme park, with unlimited time and turns for every attraction.

 

Life. How I remember it, Gabo, how am I telling everyone about it? My wife’s uncle said: every poor has a story to tell, only no one cares. So, here I am, serving this nonsense as an interesting story. I can’t hold my impulse back. I just put words as some sort of necessity.  Monday morning.  A little behind, from what I see. Enrollment blast. Blast off indeed. Problems are making me lose focus on my job. I need to drink. I need to drink to avoid this overthinking.  I’m nervous and the day hasn’t come yet. What if it does? It will come, what I don’t know is how soon. I need enlightenment,  enlightenment for the extra money that doesn’t come. Too much adrenaline for a quiet life. Oh son! I hope we can laugh together by the time you get to read these words. I hope to much. I’m a hamster in a cage; showing my desperation for others’ amusement.  Like a circus freak show. Sorrows to entertain. Sick time. Tim off. I have to cry this out. I need a moment alone. See you later!

 

Confessions from a toilet.  That should be the name of this text. Afternoon is going by. It’s still sunny and it’s quiet too. The noise lies within my head like wearing headphones. Nobody else can tell what I’m up to. I am just contemplating, thinking about women perfume and women skin. How my tongue wants to take a walk over your body. Caracas again. Tense news. What an English to describe things, right! I wonder how you guys will get this. We meet halfway, as at work. I say something and they take one part and discard the rest. Which rest, sometimes I wonder. I laugh. Let’s just take a bath.

 

Cancel culture,  not on Maduro. I mean,  who has accepted him as a legitimate president? According to the public opinion and particularly  on social media, he has no popularity at all. We have to remember that the only thing that made him a candidate was when Chávez said on that December, that if something happened to him (he died a few days later and was declared dead three month after that) followers should support  Maduro, and just like that, the man has been ruling the country for ten years so far.

 

Why the internet service is this expensive? Are those messages for me? I’m not sure if we’re changing platforms,  if we meet in another reality. I’m only conscious of this one; where La Vinotinto made it to quaters of final of this Copa América. It’s good to share this joy. It’s our symbol nowadays.  Who knows! Maybe we’ll see Venezuela on the next world cup. I mean, why not, right?  Thursday night. A night before getting paid. Let’s project something good. Faith is powerful,  Faith is beautiful, I just watch; contemplate. There’s nothing else but focus. Debate night. I don’t know. I’m still hungry. Let’s just get some rest. 

 

Sunday afternoon. Pasticho de berenjena for lunch. Home made meals gets me. That’s how I know I’m old. I was trying to come back and start correcting this and I couldn’t.  At first I felt bored since I realized that it’s too much work, and I have no choice but doing it. You might get lost or tired just trying to understand me. It’s not fair. Then I got scared. Scared of going back again to those words, to that world. The world of the back and forth, of the push and pull, of the in and out.

 

By the way.  I believe I got my answer.  I’m not sure if that’s fine with you. My generation became adults following the propaganda of the uniqueness and originality. I’m not sure how good was that to the market, but it seems it worked out for the governments and political movements. Social media has been used to turn such conception back down, and they succeeded.  Nobody wants to be unique anymore. Nobody wants to set a path to go somewhere anymore. Everyone is eager for results. All my Venezuelans are hopeful thanks to La Vinotinto,  especially those who usually don’t watch the games. The sense of victory is more important than watching and believing a process of development.  If the team had lost, the comments would have been like: the same shit, the same disappointment,  but in none of the cases the support came from the beginning.  I’m fine with it. I’m not despising it. Popularity has a lot to do with it. What I want to say is that the concept of uniqueness is now shaped by social media insights (Some could claim TV used to be just like it). We talk about sports only if it’s trendy. We talk about jobs only if it’s happening on social media. The people don’t want to read but have read it already. That means, the process has lost its charm. Siddhartha might have no point in this era. Not even Coelho’s Alchemist. It seems there is no time for any attempt of a journey. Even advertisements aren’t as they were. Branding. We all want brand ourselves and become assets for how we look, or what we say, even for what we ignore, and we believe we might get paid for it since this wave of influencers all over. I don’t know any of them yet. I won’t change my mind until then. I guess if it's happens, I will have to rewrite this. So be it! But for now this is what it is. The kids aren’t alright in my ear. Simulation theory, go for it! Let’s get physical is Dua Lipa singing now. I agree, by the way. 

Twelfth page II

 

But there has to be a momentum when the idea can be embraced. That momentum may arrive when understanding the texture of the music; when we learn how to touch with words. The power, the political power, that power has imposed its way of recreation. There are people in Venezuela who still believe this is not Chávez fault. It wasn’t only his fault, but the political class of the country understood the extend of the then technological progress, and combined it with the complexity of the human mind, thus recreating a nonexistent stereotype that many took as pose and want-to-be-like, and by doing it so upset  the fact of our  history,  and putting personal views of the happenings, and unfortunately many people bought it. Some bought it for a while, some others still believe it. The thing is that it was done, and it was done because it could be done, and it could be done because power has always understood how malleable convictions are, to the point of adjusting them at will. Recreating from music, or poetry, or whatever source of inspiration,  equals our tiny little personal version of it. Let’s all agree on that.

 

Sex can’t be recreated by simple imagination.  We need the actual texture. I need the actual texture. Crisis affects sex as well. Sex is my favorite guests in my gatherings but in order to gather one must be a good host. Hosting became impossible in the Venezuela I left. New culture, new life. Hosting has changed. It has turned into something else. Sex is more like a roommate than a guest now. It has its moments.  Moments of glory, and I think of Scorpions. Night time.  Bed time. TV off.

 

A day before the holiday. A holiday with no money works out for getting  some  rest, instead of going out. A mind with no money can’t afford it.  Rest seems like a luxury for the wealthy. The poor are always thinking, and that’s the irony. That’s time being time: abstract, cynical, controller. Let’s call it Cronos, like the Greeks. Cronos imposes you that your portion of time will be attached to your thoughts, and life imposes you to attach such thoughts to your wallet. That’s why, when you get somewhat lucky, like, let’s say supposing you get a bonus at your job, for example. You don’t know what to do. You go out, eat in a restaurant,  buy some clothes, take a short trip. The money is gone in a single bit. You knew you could have done better, but your thoughts,  used to poverty, went crazy at the fact that you got some money you were not expecting.  We had such a feeling when we first came here. All those brands, milks, bread, coffee, eggs by size, eggs by color. Ham, cheese, meat, salmon; oh boy; salmon. Shrimps, not for me, I’m allergic but, the access, the access we stopped being used to. It was overwhelming.  It felt like going back when it was better then, when it was better there. That feeling stays inside you for a while, a long a while sometimes. Even when having an exhausting poorly paid job. The feeling is there, inside you, putting everything in perspective: I would be worse, or dead, if I had stayed.  It becomes a mantra eventually, the mantra you need to keep going everyday,  every morning. So we start talking to God, or end up an atheist. I chose God. Fuck existentialism.  I don’t care. God manifests through action your mind is so far able to understand.  The more, the better. Obviously,  the less, the more fictional. So, be careful thinking your atheism is knowledge.  It could be a variation of your ignorance.  Make sure you cynicism is based on  your own research and not on social media… please!

 

Grill time. It was good. Tasty.  Now it’s time to remember and wonder but I should take a shower first. Duty calls. Let’s hope for a better tomorrow meanwhile. Purpose. Is this a purpose? I was thinking about it. I heard someone claim that there are people who still choose to stay in Venezuela as it is now, even after traveling outside.  The claim surges after a statement of a person who said in an interview, that those who remain in Venezuela don’t know anything else, and that’s why they hold on to it. Maybe, they are both right. I think that people who have chosen to leave, did it because of personal (and life-threatening) reasons. Only politicians want to make us believe there are other reasons such as better quality of life,  or things like that. We have broken this down more than once already during this journey.  Financial blessing: yeah! That’s what we are hoping for. I’m trying to figure out if the need to deserve it obeys to the way we were raised. I mean, as children, we believed that studying hard, and get some good grades, had to be somehow rewarded. Whose idea was that, whose ideal was that? Now we are almost eight million people around the world, thinking we should get more, because of all that effort we put in the past. Past is gone. Gone we will be someday.

 

Thursday to throw but I need to work. It’s Friday now. Not a word from yesterday,  from yesterdays. Rosy retrospection, idyllic retrospection. I wonder now how much of that is written in history, news and printed in our memories, to come up here and  spit it out, cray for it, yell because of it and even laugh at it. We gather to enhance it, to selectively agree and state, and even feel the illusion of belonging, by what I think it may be a fictional narrative: mostly professionals, let’s be proud of… and great jobs still not found.  I found one. Yeah! But it won’t get me out of my situation. Why? Because that’s the way it is. Let’s think about those who made it, what do they all have in common? Help. Financial blessings. I’m having financial curses. I will never forget all this budget full of hope and expectations I based it on an extra work that – oh, boy! – it was taken away for almost two years. Two years falling down expecting to climb up.  I’m older and tired now. I had to reject the second job I found. What am I going to do? I’m your private dancer in my ear. Testosterone levels fighting to survive. Let’s get back to work.

 

Saturday morning. Dirty clothes all over the floor. It’s laundry time. Seven days left to get paid. Days to suffer. To pray for nothing bad to happen, for nothing unexpected.  Let’s see. We survived it. It’s Sunday now. La Vinotinto won yesterday. I checked on some pictures of myself; I’m not only fat, estoy pure también.  Financial blessing,  please come now! I have to do some work on the computer, obviously,  unpaid. Wealthy people get money from anything they do, sometimes even from spending.  We have to spend money even by trying to save it. What a system! Revenue is the wrong word for such offices.

 

Today is The Day of the Lawyer in Venezuela.  We are a lot, as a matter of fact. We are so many that even in our less worse time, there never were enough jobs for all of us. Many lawyers in Venezuela ended up working in a different field and that was then, now it’s even worse. Laws have been subjected to change as dictator’s desires. It’s actually ironic that he has passed a lot of bills that he has to change later because in time, the laws don’t work out for his plans. I have said more than once that we were raised convinced that self realization passes through the academy, which is why a day like today glorifies the effort – despite the crossed feelings I may have for it – of getting a college degree. In a population of almost eight million Venezuelans spread all over the world, probably half of them have a degree, and probably the majority of those have gone to law school.  So, happy lawyers day, I guess! 

Twelfth Page

 

Back to el Silsa; the Silse in my made up English, and the Golphiliah, also in my made up English. Nothing else to add, really. It’s just that I felt like I wanted to talk more about them, since I’m in good mood now, but mood plays tricks with words, and I got left with nothing as I was trying here. Let’s take a mental trip to another memory from another time.

 

Back again where I can serve a few words. I have music with me. I don’t know why but since I started trying – mostly unsuccessfully – to do fasting, I’ve been coming to the restroom more. We can’t afford such a privilege in most of the jobs here. I’m lucky and blessed in that specific matter. Far behind in my ear.  Sarcasm. I think it only works when you have a strong base of what you’re talking about, otherwise it is just a charlatan bringing up a sort of untreated narcissism, mostly derived from some resentment caught up during teen years. I saw it a lot in chavistas and their pointless persistence of looking clever, specially with those empty speeches and low quality verbiage. Like atheists, which, by the way, in order to deny, you must have questioned the arguments that accept, and you get there by reading a lot,  by studying at lot. Not by asshole-like poses. Lago en el cielo once again. What a song! I praise my silence and all that I’ve been shut in of.  Not a promising weekend for what I see.  Voy enarbolar un poco en mi idioma: Trajimos la esperanza de equipaje, creyendo que el adverbio era de lugar y no de tiempo. Los nunca y los siempre se vistieron de desespeadamente, y desesperadamente llegamos, seguimos, aun sin poder desempacar  e instalarnos como quisiéramos. Querer es un verbo duro, diverso, trae mucho consigo y a veces hace combustión con facilidad. Nos encendemos de tanto quedar queriendo, y ya yo queriendo no quiero seguir más.  It’s time to leave. It’s time to welcome the weekend. Let’s see.

 

Wine is gone too early. Sun will be outside at least for one more hour. There’s no work tomorrow.  I got paid today. And we just stayed home. Animal is in my ear now but I’m not relaxed. I have this feeling I’m not going to bed in good terms. What the hell! As humans, as member of a society, we take too little part in sharing, and I’m not talking about myself only. Nobody wants to share, but everyone wants to be heard. So we want audience, that’s it. Sharing has been deconstructed.  I believe I have already talked about this. At some point of these words. I better not going into details again. Let’s just say that we love new sharing, we’re addicted to the new sharing. To be honest, I’m kind of sleepy too. I don’t know how am I going to accept a second job with this lack of energy and this overtime with the phone. Addiction is depressive. The spiral trap: short pleasures to procure sadness, or  anger more time in our body. We spend about two or three seconds on each video on Instagram. May be more. Let’s say 10 seconds each. Every video has either a dialog, or a song, or a sound in general. In a period of addiction; an hour, for example, we might watch more than a hundred short videos. Our brain does not get that, we’re just damaging it by an immediate sense of satisfaction. The price is high but, who cares? I guess it’s better to be distracted than sorry for not having any money. At least the phone rent is paid, and the phone is in good conditions as well. Crying is the other option, or take it on the spouse, which is what usually happens in most families. That could be why people don’t want to hang out. It’s better to keep that bitterness indoors.

 

I should gran a book if I’m not going to sleep early. I guess I’ll see you later. By the way, five days in a row having wine. At least I can drink everyday. That’s something.  In Venezuela not even that.  Saturday morning. Air conditioning at its best. Sunny day from our windows. We can see how the wind is gently touching the branches of the trees. Tomorrow is father’s day.  Día del G, like my dad likes to call it. One of my dreams is to celebrate it together by next year.  We haven’t had a mutual father’s day yet. Let’s smile. Hope has been around despite of the news. Today it will be beers day, and we’re going to start early. I actually spent a lo and it’s not even the food for the week. It will be funny. Let’s see. Why do we have to ask for sex, I wonder. Sex should be more natural than it actually is. Having a son is the best. Chimay, oh boy! I forgot how strong it was. Sun is at its best. I need more money.  Was Michael misunderstood? I want to think that way. Don’t stop ‘till get enough indeed. Proud. Pride sometimes makes you stand for, and against, on situations worthless for a fight, and yet we insist, we persist, because at some point it becomes more important an argument to win than a reality to face. My brothers, my friends, people I care about and still remains in Venezuela,  they can even stop writing to me, stop talking to me, out of pride, just because they would never admit that they are having a bad time. This is happening in many families.  The spoils of a pride, a pride only to deny a present, a present that forced almost the third part of the population to leave, to find a new home, to start over, to move their own misery elsewhere. 

 

I understand them, but I can’t share their thoughts of it. I decided what I decided, so them. We must find a ground of mutual acceptance,  and start to bring up respect. It is not easy, I know, but as years go by I just wish them well and hope someday we can all meet again… but in the meantime,  this is what we have. This is what we have to work on and out. Sunday. I had too much to drink yesterday. It went pretty well so far. A good soup and good beers to make company.  Let’s go back where we started. Back to the airport, back in time. Let’s rewind our life from there, up to 2010. We started out as some sort of yuppies, Caribbean yuppies. That meant then: young,  professional,  allegedly middle class – which turned out to be an illusion, but you all must know that by now – and no rules. Well, it’s a way to put it. It wasn’t exactly like, hey, no rules. It’s just that it seemed so when compared to this system.  I mean we drink while driving. Just be careful not get any drunk and don’t break anything. If you could that you were fine enjoying your glass of vodka while driving to the beach.  We go to the beach to drink. Drink and listen to good music. If you invited a girl then, you went prepared to stop by a hotel and have Sex. She was aware of that the moment she accepted the invitation to the beach. Those were the days. Sex was implicit in every attempt and we used to have the means to get it done.

 

Lack of money then started compromising such endeavors.  We began to stay at home for not having enough. As time went on, the chances decreased. The basic commenced becoming unaffordable.  So we had to prioritize; change habits, stay home, do nothing, get angry, remain horny, sad, tired, desperate. Until we finally understood we had to go.

 

That wasn’t then. That came later. Like six or seven years later. 2010 was still promising. The first hit was in 2009. I believe it was our break point. From there, everything fell apart.  Bu it didn’t happen fast enough to realize it was happening indeed. From 2010 to 2013 many of us saw it normal. Then the second hit 2014. 2013 was the year when Chávez died. The year of the disappointment. Some of us still have some on our pockets.  It would have been a great moment to run away, but we were too proud, to naïve seeing ourselves as skeptical. We never were skeptical,  we were fooled by a promise, a promise from politicians… until we lost it all. Time played an important role then. I see everything  clearer now. I didn’t feel it that way back in those days. We were inside a bubble that prevented us from understanding the circumstances on timely matter. We saw it as setbacks that were going to improve. We were ripped out of perspective.  We learned by becoming poor and miserable. Now I think about it and I still try to find if things could have been different but I get lost in my thoughts, and my thoughts have lost track of time over many events. There is no correlation thereinafter, so I just get delusional and cynical by trying to bring answers I need to serve for clarification. 

 

I can hear the blender in the kitchen. It’s like a punk rock band giving it all on garage festival. I amuse myself sometimes imagining what kind of bands the noises of our routines would be. I have already said it on the blender, and now that it’s off, it is the air conditioning’s turn. This one is more industrial, kind of like this cover of Blue Monday from Orgy. The darkness in the room has its own sound. If it were a band, it would be playing Time from Pink Floyd. The light coming from the bathroom could be In The Court of The Crimson King.  I just burped.  I’m not sure if I just got more weight or it’s that I’m just gassy of too much drinking. Either way, it’s Monday.  Time to get ready for work. 

 

The drum filling provides any music song with texture. You feel like you can touch the melody by understanding its drum beat. Your mind actually helps you get in context if you try. The mimicking on drums works different from the guitar or keyboard’s. The bass provides you with width. When a person understands the base line and the drum beat by hearing, that person has been enabled to walk through the music, and thus get the idea that perhaps,  and only perhaps, this life could be actually a simulation performed by someone else, and we might be those avatars to live such a life, since they don’t have bodies to inhabit, so they have to do it through us. The sole idea sounds ridiculous on closed minds, but once understood that the perception is subjective, and subjectivity is a multiple way road, we start assimilating that we all can recreate, and there might be a point in which our recreations get to merge, in a way  that what I see may not be entirely mine… yours as well.  

Eleventh page VII

 

The quietness of the window.  How the sky looks from here. The clouds touching the trees. Green and blue and white. Are those trees near or far? Why am I curious about the space and dimensions, where I can’t even take my wife to a simple concert? Why do I have to keep prioritizing needs, I mean, aren’t they ever going to be fulfilled for once and for all? How long does it take?  Second day with wine. I need it more than yesterday.  The bitterness has to be tamed somehow. I don’t know what to talk about to avoid the discomfort.  What the hell! This is what we are living now.  I guess our choices brought us here, and despite I hate it with all my heart, I have to face it and accept it.

 

Let the music play inside my head. I was thinking about Prayer, from Disturbed.  It’s kind of accurate for this part of the tale. I think it’s time to confess that this is not about myself but about my best friend.  I have three best friend as a matter of fact.  Three brothers I chose to love. One of them is the main character of this story, or perhaps this is about the four of us. I haven’t decided yet. One of them went through this very moment around twenty years ago. The same bitterness,  but we all were in Venezuela then,  now we are spread in four different countries, and we haven’t met since more or less five years ago. Our children don’t know each other. In another present, in our beloved Venezuela, our kids would have been raised as cousins. This what makes me sad above other things; that we were forced to part and start new lives away from one another. In addition to it, the poverty, the judgmental daily basis. We look like savages here, like primitives from the third world.  Columbus found us first, by the way, and certainly on his third trip, but no one should ever refer to us as third world. Caracas is older than half of this country. Miranda and Hamilton were friends. There are letters that prove it. I think Paez died in United Stated but I’m not really sure of that.

 

One more glass. Sorrows must be put to sleep. We need alcohol for such an endeavor. The silent husband syndrome: could it be that? Could all this be just a testosterone dropping? I can accept it if it is so, but what about the pushing; the pushing man has to bear. I don’t think it's solely about testosterone,  it’s actually more than that. So we’re back again where we started complaining,  where we wanted these words to be served. Let’s just get one last glass for the night; this night. El del estribo, like we say in Caracas.

 

Purse ups: I heard they are good. I've just done some, just a little but. I’m too fat to work out on a regular basis. I was thinking about some expressions we used to say and, given the features of the language, they didn’t need any explanation as they were used. For example, ístico; ístico is a suffix that, when added to an adjective, it indicates relation or belonging. Arte, artístico. So it belongs to art. We used to say  cuchillo as an adjective,  not subject,  when referring to danger; dangerous,  insecure, like walking on the street at night in Caracas. We added the suffix, and it became one of our words: cuchillístico. Something, somewhere was cuchillístico when it wasn’t safe. I remember it. I just remember it like something my head needs as distraction. Some memories remain here only for this purpose: when my mind needs a break from the worries. You’ll see, being worried is exhausting. I’m tired. Estoy pure, si, but I’m also tired. Whoever wanted me beaten, I salute you, you’ve made it. I am beaten. Thanks for the fight, fir the challenge. I don’t want to keep with the fight. That’s it. I lost. I give up. Get another one, this one is done.

 

Wednesday night. Wine night. This week, the whole week. Failure is here beside me watching TV.  I should go to the bathroom and get ready for bed. See you tomorrow! Car waiting.  It looks like a quiet morning. Wine was fine last night. Belly is still growing.  No soundtrack for the moment.  I haven’t turned on the radio yet. I love the fact that there are actually a couple of rock music radio stations here. By the time I left Venezuela, everything was about Reggaeton,  or reguetón, I’m not really interested in writing it well, so I guess I don’t care how is it written. I believe we may use this type of music to get an idea of our society nowadays.  There are a couple of says I would like to bring on for context. The first one goes as You are what you eat, and the other one if translated; as you talk, you think. I want to merge them like this: the music you listen determines, along with your words, and the food you have, the way you think and who you are…  Who are you then? Well let’s see.

 

Thursday night. Everything is dark. I got a nice picture of the moon. Taking a look at the moon is always a good thing to do. It sort of gets you in the mood. Now I’m going to bed with a smile on my face. I was also remembering those characters I used to make out at my friends’ expenses: Sebulba: taken from Star Wars. Los Popumbos: Le Grand Popumbo and Le Petit Popumbo. El Silsa, Golfilia el Innajatse. These are like some sort of characters from my own version of Dungeons and Dragons, but Caribbean, and with all that comes with it. Maracaibo, which is an actual city in Venezuela,  is often taken (by myself, of course) as the battlefield of any of the adventures I can come up with. I used to think about the alliance between el Innajatse and el Silsa, against Los Popumbos, who later took separate ways, then Sebulba came in and joined Silsa and Golfilia, and ended up trying a garage band in an apartment in Caracas. Le Grand Popumbo opted the exile, an imaginary exile, of course, not like me, I took a real one. Le Petit Popumbo inherited all the weapons left behind by Le Grand Popumbo.  All that vibe  and joke was left along with books and other belongings in my old bedroom; they are more like old toys from a childish era. I kind of miss that era but the lack of money has a lot to do with melancholy. So I’m not really sure if it’s that I miss those days or it’s just my mind taking me there as a defense mechanism.  I don’t know. A Friday morning away from smiles. I have to take a second job. I really do. I’m getting closer.