Friendly People, Friendly Poker

DEGEN (In Paris) PART 10

March 30. 2008

Sitting in a cafe reading Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Bitch. I can only take it in small doses. It makes my head spin. It makes me think. It makes me feel. It terrifies me. It humbles me. It saddens me. It enlightens me. It makes me feel like an asshole. It brings me closer, not just to her, not just to women, closer to everyone, everything. I first picked it up a couple months ago. I fought it. Hard. I picked apart anything I could. I ravaged her writing style. Harped on her associative logic. I was for some reason angry, indignant, hateful about it. The anger that comes from shame. From not wanting to see. From wanting things to be easy even though you think you like them complicated. The anger that come from thinking that you are sensitive, wise, thoughtful- but you’re not. The anger that comes from fear. The anger that comes not from being wronged, but having a sense that you are the one who has wronged before. The flippant comments you have made, the disregard, the arrogant assumptions that you understand. The terror that entails knowing a woman, truly knowing. But there is a horizon, a distant horizon that must be something like what love should be like. But it takes work, and more than work, a letting go, or maybe just a downright demolition of certain parts of the cerebral cortex, destroy the highways and build new ones- SEE.

Every man should read this book, every woman too...

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Comment by Conzy91 on July 30, 2010 at 11:49pm: "Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you." A quote from The Catcher in the Rye, studied and enjoyed it massively at School and the memory of that quote came back to me while reading your blog. Thank you for sharing it with us. You've said that this is taken directly from a journal you wrote at the time, do you still feel the same way now as you did then after a couple of years? Looking forward to more entries.

Comment by Ry on July 31, 2010 at 2:34am: That is a difficult, and broad question to answer Conzy. I was in a strange state then. I had plenty of money and I knew that I didn't just want to play poker. I wanted to create something, hence the fact that I began keeping a journal then. I was also drinking A LOT, until the barefoot girl gets me to stop. Often I think that I should have stayed, made something with her. I was still stubbornly stuck on Ducky then, and she is an odd duck. Rereading these entries from two years ago is interesting to me. I've done a lot of stupid things since then, besides going Busto twice, and had some weird crazy shit happen around me. And I did even end up moving in with Ducky in NYC. I'm not sure how I feel now. I think I know more of what I want though. I'm happy you appreciate the blog.

Comment by Conzy91 on July 31, 2010 at 4:00pm: So did you create what you wanted to? I suppose I need to wait until later in the journal to find out. Did you know what it was you wanted to create? Was it a life with Ducky? Or maybe inspiration for writing?
The impression from reading the blog seems to from a man who, while looking for answers only finds more questions. In any case it's both uplifting and heartbreaking to read. Thank you again.

Comment by Conzy91 on August 3, 2010 at 11:39am: Just re-read some of the earlier entries. Adaption of KTSD into a film. That's what you were trying to create. Don't know if you did or didn't do it, but it seems you were looking for something else at the same time as this.

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