thanksgiving, 1986

After watching myself last night in an old home video, circa 1986, I am left feeling totally disgusted and ashamed of who I was at age 15. Talk about a person with an identity crisis. I was a mock-person, a mimic and a fraud with a bad temper, terrible acne and on top of that I thought I was funny, but my humor was only a cheap form of escapism & a tool used to hide my true feelings. Well, I guess some things never change.

"You can drive out nature with a pitchfork, but she keeps on coming back" -- Horace.

But at least now my acne is gone, and I don't think I'm so much of a fraud. One thing I can say for myself is that at least I've always been willing to step outside of myself and form an semi-objective critique. Some people never truly see themselves, but I've always seen myself perhaps a little too deeply, and a little too self-consciously, which is probably why I drink and why I write and why I feel the horrors of life so much that I'm not afraid of dying. I am afraid of death though. Which was pretty much me back in 1986, when all of the forces of the world were just beginning to align themselves against me, and me just laughing (at everything and everyone but myself). I still do that sometimes, but at least now I know the final joke will always be the one that's on myself. The one that no one else tells better than me & which trumps death (and sorrow) (and you) (and me) every time.