Groundhog's Day

twelve, and I'm still drinking. The scenery changes but doesn't, the people do but don't, it's all the same with superficial differences. This bar might be watering down its whisky, but I can usually find one that doesn't. It might be a beer night instead. A lot of meetings regarding film projects take place in these bars, or else at an apartment under similar circumstances. If so, I try to buck people up and get them in line for whatever I'm going to ask of them, discussing conceptual details as well as very concrete ones. If not, I usually spit cryptic nonsense and mean-spirited quips; I'm a barroom poet and comedian. On an average day, this ends around two in the morning, so I'll ignore the many exceptions to this rule and say it ends there. I walk home if possible, drive if necessary.

When I get home I'm usually sober enough to get some writing done. Lately this is a screenplay, since my last project fell through and I don't want to sit around with no project. It might be any number of things, however. If I don't write, I watch a movie or read. Nothing too interesting here. Usually asleep by four.

At around eight in the morning, I'm woken by the sound of construction and aimless black people. The sun shines through my curtainless windows, directly onto my head and into my face, so that even if the noises didn't wake me, I'd have to do something now. The sun moves slowly and won't shine elsewhere for another hour and a half. Usually I spend this time thinking of how to kill somebody and trying to find a position in which I can sleep. Four hours, with your body processing alcohol, is not enough. I get some sleep around 9:30, though it's no longer solid.

Around noon I decide I'm not going to be able to get any sleep and start getting up. When I have class, I get ready and go to class. When I don't, I spend several hours writing, reading, watching movies, listening to music, or, alternately, go out and do something. Sometimes this isn't much more interesting; I spend a lot of free days in the basement of a building, editing. But sometimes I go out and start drinking after an hour or two of reading. Sometimes I actually have something interesting to look forward to doing. On an average day, though, I probably read, write, or edit.

My classes this quarter are light and uninteresting, and I'm really just passing time until I graduate. What I read, write, and do movie stuff with is more interesting, but I don't think that's the purpose of this exercise.

Around seven I usually start thinking about eating, though I might not get around to it until eleven. I tend to eat out because I don't like going home for anything but sleeping, and because I live fairly far away from where I do virtually anything else. I try to eat with something alcoholic but often don't have the opportunity. In any case, I do some reading or watch a movie during this period.

By nine or ten I'm almost always drinking somewhere. Somebody or other calls me up and I go to meet them somewhere and we start drinking. Or somebody doesn't call and I feel like drinking anyway. These hours pass slowly, unfortunately, and consist of a lot of silences over beer and whisky interspersed with clever bullshit of some sort or other, progressively either less and less or more or more clever, depending on the company and day. Still, the time does pass, and eventually the clock strikes