Journals : 1988
Introduction:
Guess life just got too busy and too complicated for me to go on with the journal. Either that or I was just too drunk and bored most of the time to bother writing. I was drunk alot in 1988. There are actually many more lengthy "self-analysis" entries this year, which (mercifully) I've spared you.
Editorial comments in grey.
SOME NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED.
The Soundtrack:
Sonic Youth, Flaming Lips, Lime Spiders, Ministry, Cure, Depeche Mode, Sloppy Joe, Psychic TV, Love and Rockets, Frogs, Alien Sex Fiend, Specimen, Misfits, Iggy Pop, Jane's Addiction.
2 January 1988:
Another year...I still long for a better job and maybe a better city...Work is OK...My sexual/romantic contacts are down, although I had two while on vacation -- one good and one sleazy.
4 January 1988:
Post-Christmas vacation: I met an interesting character at CC's in Raleigh...Ken...from Durham...school in Baltimore. Blond hair shaved to 1/3 inch length. Blond bang in front...We hit it off quite well...we had to end up at a very strange man's house (Jeff provided strange man) and couldn't really get into things as strange man kept wanting to watch/join. Exchange of addresses, and I did call him the next night. We talked for an hour or so...
William is obviously gone. He went home for the holidays...I came out to him...and told him I kind of wanted him. He didn't freak; he was as cool as I knew he'd be...Visit from Sarah last week. She's so remarkably sane in her unstable way...The store has already bottomed out to almost nothing after a decidedly lackluster Christmas...
11 January 1988:
I've been stricken once again with an intense sensation of impending doom...I bounced God knows how many checks over the weekend, due to my immobility during the major snowstorm, costing me a lot of money and painting my financial picture bleaker than ever before...The store sucks...
I feel so incredibly trapped and it seems to be due, almost entirely to this stupid job...I'm going out of my mind sitting around this stupid empty surf shop...This is a fucking waste of my life. i should be a college graduate with a real job and no money anxiety, or at least a grad student with a reason for money anxiety...
16 January 1988:
Stan's in sunny southern California. Shane's living in Orlando where Disney World welcomes visitors in short sleeves year round...Why is it that I'm in Charlotte looking for the tenth straight day at this stupid damned snow...Sitting in a motherfucking surf shop?...I love being yelled at and called a "punk kid" by a man who's all of three years older than me (he just looks 35). He also informed me that he probably makes a little more money than I do. That makes him instantly superior, right? (Stan and I remained friends and we visited each other once or twice a year until his death in 2001...)
19 January 1988:
Thom started it by reintroducing me to Eddie...My circles are converging again and I'm getting an even more pronounced sense of "everyone I've ever known knows everyone else I've ever known"...Too many social circles and cliques. It's been so long since I've dealt with them...I'm not honestly sure how to react...
Phone call from Ken (shaved head, Durham). he's coming for a visit on Thursday. Now I'm all excited. House with Lori and Drew soon?
24 January 1988:
Friday night brought the Flaming Lips at the Milestone...almost did me in. Fucking great show...Pterodactyl; afterward...to Lyn: "It's like every time I walk out there, I get into another strange conversation."...The skate rats I knew at 16 are now 18 and doing clubs. Just serves to remind me how long I've been here...Ken came Thursday...We fucked like mad for hours, slept a while, woke up, and fucked like mad for many more hours, and got up. Weird visit.
27 January 1988:
(Skip the very strange, whiny, babbling self-analysis. Thank me for not sharing...)
29 January 1988:
Randomly at work: I decided last night it's time to seriously curtail the drinking...It's getting to be too much of a habit for me to kill off several every night...I'm still seriously considering going back to school...A big regret is that I let Britt screw things up so badly for me. He was a real shit and I'm pretty sure I won't ever forgive him...The new K&W Cafeteria opens in Charlotte within a couple of weeks...No Goddammit, we don't airbrush things on license plates...I'll sign off now and try to do something constructive to the surf shop.
3 February 1988:
Got to see Duncan and Jeff with Duncan doing drag along with Todd: Boy George and Helen Terry with harmonica, no less...Ed's coming down tonight and we're going to hit Scorpio. It'll be my first time since October or November.
13 February 1988:
Wrote to Art with an almost completely honest assessment of our relationship/friendship...what harm could it do?
15 February 1988:
Letter from Ken: "Don't know how to write what I want to say. Don't really know what to say exactly...I was thinking about you a lot. Intensely. I guess I miss you. I think that was hard to say. But I thought I better say it 'cause I felt it...It is very hard for me to express my feelings...I had a fantastic time when I was with you. I am cowardly sometimes. I have thought a lot of being with you...In cadence with you, Ken"
23 February 1988:
Jimmy Swaggart implicated in sex-prostitution scandal. Pat Robertson claims it was timed to embarrass him before the Super Tuesday primaries.
9 March 1988:
My God, why will this man not LEAVE. He's been to the door three times, after agonizing 20 minutes over a stupid five dollar T-shirt. And why did he feel so compelled to tell me that he didn't even listen to Suicidal Tendencies and just wanted an outrageous T-shirt? And why is there nothing on the radio today except "Faith: by George Michael? Constantly. On every station...
Back to the surfer grind after my relatively romantic weekend with Ken...Had an extremely wonderful Saturday night through Sunday evening. Then we got out of bed...Dead Milkmen show tonight.
22 March 1988:
And now the story of David's return to Atlanta after almost four years...Duncan and I decided to hit Columbia Saturday. As we drove into town, Duncan said "We should go to Atlanta." Though we made a pretense of discussion, both of us knew we were going as soon as he said it...We made it to Weekends and I saw Pete shortly thereafter. We hugged and he told me how freaked he was to see my face...He was working. we agreed to see each other the next day...About 2:30, we left to tour the city for a few minutes. Duncan was wilting and I basically drove around Atlanta as I saw fit. We returned for one final drink, said goodbye to Pete, had a Krystal, and went home...
Breakfast at Waffle House, where I avoided lots of songs on the jukebox, including "When Doves Cry" and "Time After Time", which had no doubt remained there, unplayed, since 1984, waiting for me to come back and get suicidal...I spent two hours avoiding the call to Pete, which I finally got Duncan to make from Macy's.
Actually the visit was kinda nice...I loved seeing Pete and Lily being happy but things seemed odd; Duncan even noticed...Pete dragged out a tape I'd made him at the Music 106...and I knew there was a conspiracy against me, involving him and the Waffle House jukebox...and a DJ on WRAS who played "This Charming Man" by the Smiths. (Duncan and I have been doing strange road trips ever since and he remains one of my best friends. Pete's still in Atlanta. We haven't kept in touch...)
7 April 1988:
Finally got my reply from Art (I'm now a little sketchy about just what the letter said): "offensive, scary and revealing". He also mentioned one "deliberate offhand reference" asking me what I meant and if I'd ever thought about communicating my feelings. I'm not sure which comment he meant. Tone of the letter was conciliatory, but I realize now that he writes between the lines just as much as I do. I think that's part of the fascination we have with each other. We both enjoy trying to figure out what the other is talking about... (Got Art's new address at Christmas. He gets a less intense letter very soon...)
Ken came down last Monday...I somehow love being the first person he sees, even to the detriment of his family...Vacation coming for David very soon. Richmond maybe. Baltimore possible. Boston remains a remote possibility. (Lost touch with Ken when we both moved. Ran into him right before I moved to SF; he became the last person I had sex with in North Carolina before moving west. Haven't heard from him since...)
22 June 1988:
It seems I never take the time to sit down and write these days. So much has been going on. I'm now fairly well set in my new home...I love my porch more than anything, and I love being within walking distance of so many things..The "moving in" bash is set for 3 July and should include an interesting cast of characters.
21 July 1988:
Can it really be nearly two years that I've been in Charlotte? Almost two years since I watched this convenience store become a surf shop? Time flies by so damned fast. Charlotte held so much promise for me back then, when I didn't know my way around (both literally and figuratively). There have been so many changes...The days of Kroger ham on Buttercrust bread in the kitchen on Vail Avenue (without a trace of furniture, nothing but the "fresh paint" smell of the place when I moved in) seem so long gone.
I suppose actually that my life has gotten better since then.
29 Sepetmber 1988:
David's first written ramblings in months. This could mean one thing and one thing only. A rotten mood... Ever since returning from vacation, I haven't been happy. Driving to New York and Boston just about did me in.. It's so much everthing I want out of life to live up north in a real city -- one with something going on all day and most of the night...nothing's looked the same here since.
I've been really down on myself lately. It's as if most other people -- my friends included -- don't interest me anymore. I go to work and go home. I never call anyone and it just sort of seems everyone irritates me....I guess I need a few new people to socialize with...I've been meeting very few new people. Almost none. But where exactly do I go about meeting these new people? I've gotten in such a funk about Charlotte that even if anyone here WAS someone I needed to know, I wouldn't let myself see it...I've talked myself ionto forming negative opinions I probably can't change no matter how positive any of these people migh prove to be.
It all goes back to my famous lack of knowledge about just what I want. I don't know what I want todo wth my life and even if I did, I'm not sure I'd be willing to work for it... I just get so complacent and lazy. If I have enough money to eat, sleep, and occasionally drink to excess, I settle... I'm just not doing anything. Life itself -- or a real, meaningful challenging version of it -- just seems too much work for me...
I've got to find a way to get out my life out of my own head and into the real world...and I'm losing time to do so. It just amazes me that I've spent two years in Charlotte accomplishing nothing more than running up my Visa bill... In an earlier two year period (say 1982-1984) the whole world opened up to me; I experienced new sensations on a daily basis... What is there in my life now that is new? I went to Gold Circle on Monday and tried a new brand of paper towels.
I'm too damned young to become a negative-minded cantankerous old man.