as to why I run the old baseball games in the daytime

i have this thing. where i turn on the tv and don’t watch it. . .i don’t know why but recently i’ve started putting old baseball games on in my roommates room. this is because my roommate’s room has a tv, not because i’m weird. and yes there is a tv in the ‘shared living space’, but my roommate has apple tv and amazon fire tv. his tv is also the rather large and better quality tv, so you tell me what you would do. anyways, I put the old baseball games on the tv.

why do you think you do this?

well, it kind of feels like there’s someone there. with me.

someone, like who?

well, not who, really. .

. . .

. . .

than, what?

just, ive been lonely. lately. ive been lonely. somehow this always happens to me this time of year. i get lonely.

so the baseball is like having someone around?

*nodds*

why baseball?

*shrugs* i find it the most peaceful of american sports.

why did you start watching it in the first place?

my roommate started watching it once he got that tv, well it’s not his tv, but right now it is i guess.

who’s tv is it?

his girlfriend’s.

and why is it at your place and not his girlfriend’s?

well, *laughs* he has it for the world series.

okay so he’s a baseball fan.

a bit. he wanted to see the braves on the big screen, they’re out now, but. .

does he play baseball on the tv a lot when the two of you are home together?

yeah.

do you think that could be why you play the old baseball games? . . . because it’s like he’s there?

. . . *nodds*

(2)

when i smoke too much weed, and when i say too much i mean TOO MUCH, it’s really too much.

how much would you say?

in a day? i dunno. i dunnevenno when i got up this morning.

do you smoke everyday?

yes, the light days are when I only smoke one time in one day, the heavy days are when I burn through so much weed I forget my name.

you’ve forgotten your name?

yea, not proud of it, but yea. not that it matters much to me, but yea.

what doesn’t matter to you? your name or the act of forgetting your name?

both. all. names are just utterances like any other word. it's only us that thinks they’re special. like our names individualize us. make us a person. but that’s not true. a name like john or katie, mark or sarah. there’s nothing there, really. that’s why my name doesn’t matter much to me, nor the act of forgetting it.

but it is your name,

not really. I guess my name’s more my name than most peoples because I chose it when I was 19. did you chose your name?

no.

so how is it yours?

well, it was given to me. does something somebody gives to you not make it yours?

. . . i guess it does. and i don’t know about the nature of things, i don’t know if a name is independent or real or just nonsense, but what i do know is that when i changed my name, it seemed to affect people more so than it did me. that is what made me think that my name isn’t my name, that nothing is mine. other people own me. they tell me what i was and who i am to be. and when i didn’t do it anymore, when i stopped, threw down my hands and shouted let me go! let me go! all they thought was that i was being dramatic. that i was more a girl than a boy. when they told me those things that was how i knew they were wrong. girl and boy don’t exist in the same way your name doesn’t. it’s just what people call you. they don’t care how you view yourself, how you understand your gender or your name or anything for that matter. they see you and call you and you have no option but to oblige because you were already trapped. born trapped. die trapped.

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

well. . .let’s go back to the weed smoking. why do you smoke weed everyday?

i don’t know if i have a choice, anymore. but i started when i was 15 because it was risky at the time and i wanted to be a risky adolescent. i thought it would make me something like the way a skateboard makes someone a skater...i don’t know who exactly I was wanting it to make me...and anyways it wasn’t until college when i -unknowingly- became a dopey, wake-n-bake stoner.

why do you joke?

if i took things seriously all the time i’d probably not be a dopey stoner then, would i?

*burp-chuckle* guess not. why do you call yourself a dopey stoner?

’cuz it’s true.

is it?

it would seem so.

…

…

do you want to stop? smoking weed, i mean?

uhhhhhh *stretches* no. no, no.

do you think you should stop?

wouldn’t matter either way. i should stop doing a lot of things. humanity should stop doing a lot of things. you should probably stop doing a lot of things.

what stops you from stopping?

oooooohhh, i don’t know. myself? fear? fear of never feeling high again. not too many things out there that can make you feel high without also making you feel low. weed seems to be something that i can do and also participate.

participate?

socially. like do school and work and go to family gatherings. pay for my rent. dog food. if i took to something like heroin i probably wouldn’t be able to participate.

do you want to participate?

sometimes.

what does it feel like when you’re participating?

it feels normal. like any other day because i’ve been participating forever. i’m participating right now and so are you.

what does it feel like when you’re not participating then?

i don’t know. you’d have to ask someone who’s done that. maybe a prisoner. a homeless person. or maybe it’s not that they’ve done that, but that it has been done to them.

as to why i think of somebody there with me when there is nobody there with me,

someone stalks the night, alone, in my room, and i think of them constantly, of who they could be, how they could take me out.

take you out?

of myself. i’m a nuisance to myself and sometimes i need someone to clear the world’s fumes from the tips of my nostrils.

what is it that somebody can give you that you cannot give to yourself now?

company.

. . .