Black Tea

I got the hotel job.
I believe I've mentioned this?

No?

I don't remember. 

Time is out of joint.

I'm actually typing it out at work right now, from behind a desk that wasn't built for chairs. 
My girlfriend somehow still awake, ever-present and lovely as can be, 
And yet there's a form of ghastly tension smoking out the otherwise comforting atmosphere in the lobby. 

I checked in a woman hours ago, I'll be here until 6AM.
It's 12:30AM. 

I've seen less than 5 people, and I liked only one wholeheartedly. 
An unusually tall woman, maybe 6'2. 
Nothing about her stood out, it's just rare for me to find a neutral or positive tone in people anymore. 

My friends' lives are quickly going down the shitter, due primarily to troubled family lives, lack of discipline when it comes to schooling or job hunting/work and spiraling mental disorders that have been plaguing my unofficial posse for our entire lives. 

Suppose between being nearly kicked out of the house by two family outlets, a drunken father abusing a sister who then pulls a gun and a house tense as the seconds before dynamite goes off my solitary melancholy woes are nothing. 
I feel more weary and wary than paranoid or depressed, more beat-down than smothered. 

My spirals of thought don't wrap around my throat anymore, they fixate solely on grim details I don't like to think about revolving largely about what I was thinking about before the intrusive thought. I don't wish to go into what, it's a broken record paradigm.

See? Even the format of the text I type now is fragmented and spaced out, somewhere between the limbo of dissociation and the hyper sensitivity of mania. 
I can't tell what my mental state is. Or how long this has been going on.
My mind has been more about dealing with the next day and keeping my head on straight than speculating on the future, deep philosophical notions or political adages. 

It's hazy, everything's been a bit hazy.
At this new job, allow me to digress along the cruel irony of BEING at work.
Cameras, I solemnly hope you pick up my typing.
I hope they check the security and see that I spent most of the night writing this and reading articles and browsing 4Chan and talking to my sleepyheaded girl
Instead of meticulously cleaning nothing and staring off into space or watching late-night programming and television.

This building's design is odd.
Modernist, sleek, colorful but in a way that clashes rather than compliments. 
None of the furniture goes together, it's minimalist but with a minimalist color scheme.
It's interesting but quite ugly, in an odd way that makes it cute again. 
It's tidy, precise, mechanical and very homely. 
Somehow they stole the comfort of a 50's household and threw it into the new age of cheap produce and postmodern decor.
It's bizarre, besides De Stijl I have no idea what the goal or theme was. 
The atmosphere is clean and open, but beyond that I am not sure.
Perhaps the minimalism was all that's there to look into?

The tiles along the floor curve around the two not-connected desks here, I'm the only one who prefers the older and fuller terminal to the right.
Here, like the left one, lie the key card maker, manilla folders below me upon shelves, the printer to my left foot and loose papers, the schedules, a lint roller, a speaker and the supplies for the card maker. 

To the left, my checklist.
To the edge, a journal shared by staff and a note to confirm to the next one to pick up my shift that there is a wake-up call set an hour behind.
No one knew how to set the clock right on the older-timey phone.
I prefer it. 
It has a strip that's exactly what to say across it as an intro, due mainly to my utter inability to speak when I don't have a script unless I'm supposed to be freeform.
It hurt my mic skills at McDonald's as well.

"Thank you for calling the Holiday Inn Express and Suites in _________, this is Trevor, how may I help you?"
After a sigh and disheartened grimace.
Hopefully they'll ask a question, simply and quickly. 
Hopefully they won't want a reservation, or have an issue.
Hopefully they won't ask a question I don't know, I mean, I'm here alone right now.
Hopefully no one else calls off.
Hopefully no one calls.
And I'm left alone to my "work"
I have nothing to even start until 2AM.
Then I do one thing and start the audit.
Which will be done in an hour, tops, 
And I'll have about 2 hours before helping the breakfast woman start her day. 
Talking to her, not necessarily in a flirty way but in a friendly, "you're one of the only people here I genuinely like" kind of way.

Rita's a lazy, older black woman with crazy short but stylish hair, who trained me early on but also makes the most mistakes of anyone here. 
I liked her at first, but her method of simply throwing me to the dogs made me develop severe anxiety and produced enough suicidal thoughts to resent her by proxy. Now the very sight of her gives me extensive anxiety, and I can feel her venomous judgement seeping into every pore. 
She's taken nearly every morning shift, the only shift I like besides the night's like tonight, which ruins the entire concept of my transportation.

I get rides from my dear mother, who's been gracious enough to take me to a fro.
Partly out of guilt for "not being there for me enough and failing (me) as a mother."
I fail to see it, Mom
You're fantastic and I love you tender.
Her new boyfriend means well, but he has a past as troubled as his slurred speech.
He indulges in an implied plethora of drugs, overdosing on heroin a fair few weeks ago.
It shocked the family.
My younger sister tells me he has a warrant. 
I'm hardly surprised. 
He's extremely awkward, this Ralph man, and while I like him personally...he's not a great candidate for someone for my mother to be with.
She's not the best at choosing men, but at least this one isn't abusive this time.
I hope it goes well.
I worry about her often, and her shit dead-end job life. 
She needs a new one, quickly, she's running out of money for rent and her hours are being cut.
She's trying to capitalize on her business degree but, like me, has a hard time dealing with the existentialism of the rat-race, detachment from normal people in society and the scheduling. 

Alexis is extremely comforting to be around, we've traded personal tales on more than one occasion that boiled down to 
"Our lives are a mess but we have love and a great head on our shoulders at least."
I have family, she has a car. 
She's either incredibly warm or coldly dissociative, and has an impermeable fog of misery about her.
I feel for her.

God, I love black tea.
I feel like I can think again.
Or is it getting back to writing?
It blurs so quickly in my head, this is the only time I can actually do anything more than worry or vibe anymore.
When I'm not with Mia, I'm just caught in this fog that either bursts into manic cleaning/working out/writing and reading fits or I socialize to get out of the house.
I'm falling more and more out of favor with society, as per usual.

Someone just showed up.
Please leave me alone, use the other entrance.
Don't look at me, don't ask me anything,
Please accept my hello and walk on past as if I'm a sideplot character with nothing going on
Like I'll do to you.

Brandon is the only one who knows what he's doing, having worked at another hotel before,
And he's ballbustingly direct and honest.
He recently thought I just quit and I'm currently annoyed at his constant trying to sucker me into helping him or work his days,
But besides being apparently manipulative and obviously judgmental beneath a chill tongue he's an incredibly helpful and cool guy.
He dresses sharp as fuck, the only one to do so, here, and is more aware of the staff politics than anyone else.
I enjoy him, but he rubs me the wrong way.

Jordanne, the temporary GM, left a few days ago.
She was the pure definition of a corporate, professional manager, with a varying hot and cold style of leadership that was extremely aggressive in terms of rapid development but personally investing. I could tell that her buying me 2 shirts and a tie as a form of roundabout punishment for my lax dress (I often dress business casual, untucked and hair a large, curly mess), but it's a nice sentiment.
I'm not sure if she's used to buying into people's favor or if she sees us as anything more than digits, but I appreciated her efforts at running this shitshow and getting my shit together.
Even if it was condescending and felt disingenuine. 
(Weird word, is it even one?).
She is a heavy retail fan, obviously an aspiring fashionista/amateur BBW and has reportedly been collecting mass quantities of clothing articles from extremely specific brands.
She's been here since the property opened, and bobs and weaves around underperforming hotels to save them from extinction until an actual permanent manager arrives following the wake of another leaving.
She's a master fit in.
I envy her, but also don't.
She apparently lived her, in a top floor.
Alone.

Renee, the new GM, is short and has a porcupine italian-slicked hair style.
Down to earth, practical, sarcastic and cold to a stern motherly extent. 
Apparently I've fucked up enough around her that I'm being put back on days working with Rita and even her herself.
Fun times.

April, the forced-insomniac woman of legend who's been the night auditor following the firing or the last guy,
She's out of touch with modern technology and...really the world, entirely.
She seems to drift in and out of consciousness, somehow.
It's hard to explain, but she reminds me of myself. 
You can't tell if she's lame or secretly a genius. I'll guess the former for now.
She's been thrown into this, trained extensive amounts but poorly (Brandon said she was difficult...),
She works as an assistant manager somewhere else and had a business, a husband, and has a child.
She lost the business and husband, but holds 2.5 jobs (One is 2 times a month).
Between working everyday and caring for her kids, she seems miserable and as lost in her position/life as me,
And I fear for further philosophical digging in fear I'd cause her a crisis.
I've talked to her about personal things as well, confiding in my frustrations. 

The maintenance man is funny as hell and lost as I am, we make jokes constantly about the shit state of the hotel, massive turnover rate and poor construction.
I forget his name every time.

The housekeepers, I know little about.
All but one are older women.

Rose, is sweet as a button. Glasses, the eldest I bet. The newest. 
Jessica seems awkward but in a cute way. 
One is introverted as fuck, don't know her name. She's the not-old one, also new.
Jessina or something like that has apparently been around the longest, and looks cranky and sassy but is also nice and frustrated.
They all have an aura of despair and dread about them, like taxed out Cinderellas. 

Amanda is my favorite person here, currently, and is the breakfast woman every day but one (When the other Amanda, black and goofy, works).
I recently had a stupid day, where I was so convinced that I had lost my check that I came into the work, freaked out in a passive way (I planned to cash my check at Wal-Mart before realizing it'd take an ID (Which I don't have (At the heeding of advice from Mia that her exes cashed them there and never needed it (Which sickens me, they had jobs and didn't spoil her? Their bare mention hijacks my brain and sends it into a panicked spiral of intrusive thoughts and violent solutions...) ) before she called out to me, offered a ride home (I declined, at the time the bus was 15 minutes sooner...she might have been coming onto me, now that I comprehend this, although I'm seen more as a new kid here probably) and I got a nice bull session.
This was after meeting her with April during a training night, where I learned she's chill as fuck, and then her being a delightful soul in my early morning last shift which was spent cleaning up after drunks and staving of suicidal tendencies directly at my self-loathing for once. 
So I'll be seeing her in a few hours.
I'm somewhat excited. 

She reminds me of Mia, I think that's why I find her so cool.
I love Mia so much that she blurs the lines between normal people and representations of her in an indirect, abstract way.
Like, I hope she doesn't think I think anything of her sisters when I try and entertain them.
She's the only girl for me and she knows this, I just enjoy the notion that I'm well-liked and respected in households. 
I want to be a warm household name and champion of the masses.
And her personal guardian and angel.
Mostly angel
I mean, 
She's mine.
I'd ramble about this glorious being who I gave a speaker to, bought a game for, and have been spending most of my willing moments with, but it'd take up the next 45 minutes.
She'd love to read it, but I'd rather tell her to her face how much of a darling she is
And how much I appreciate her, and how lucky I am to have her despite her anxieties becoming mine. 
I wish I could calm her achy bones and nerves. 
I'll try my best for you, love, 
I'll get us out of this place and be the best man I can 
For you.

(I almost teared up.
God I love her
Mia, if you're reading this right now
You're all I think about
Everything else is an abyssal concave structure constantly warping and spiraling out of a control and confusing me to the point of asphyxiation

And
     then
           there's
                                       You.
          You.
                                                       You. 
                         You. 
You.            You.                 You. 
                                                                                                                                You.                 
                                                                                      You. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                              You, dear.

So you, being a constant good influence, warm guiding light and motivation to breathe deeply and ingest the morning air, 
You're why I wake up in the morning with a smile, if I don't wake to you by me directly. 
I love sleeping together more than anything, and I mean that.
I don't need the light of the sun, I have you and that's all I really want anymore.
You're sleeping soundly, now, you've fallen asleep on me.
You'll apologize when you get up, and hope I come over after work.
I plan on doing so, to make sure you're okay.
You had a bad day, yesterday, and are staying home on this one.
I'll help you get back together.
I'll help you heal, I'll help you in any way I can and will fight off your ghosts for you so you have time to think about and build your art and future and obsessions and aesthetics and fascinations and loves. 
And I'll spoil you like a princess until the day I die.
I love you, Mia.)

.
.
.
Anywho...

The rat race. 
Her.
Friends' lives.
Family causing paranoia.
Work being shit, due to influxes of not knowing what to do/say/think/feel and feeling varying levels of comfortable/competent.
I haven't had much time for anything.
For myself, especially.
I bought a drop-deck longboard, it eats hills alive and I love it. I named it Fly Pirate, after the new M.I.A. song.
I got a yearly PS4 Gold subscription, I'm doing poorly in Overwatch. Mia's good, she wins much more than I do somehow. It irks me but makes me proud.
She figures things out, puzzle and situation-wise, much more quickly than I ever could. 
I guess I overthink situations to much.
I'm best at pure reflex or strategy, she's got a nice mind of both. It's her background in adventure, action, stealth and shooting games.
Mine was in survival horror, fighting, beat-em-up, and strategy. 
It shows, but we meet in the middle a lot and it's awesome.
I bought her the Last Guardian, she has a thing for large, cute creatures and robots. 
Like Bastion, or the Iron Giant.
Her aesthetic is nature in technology. 
Similar to Daniel's overgrown theme. 
It's pretty. 

1:30.
I have to move soon. 
My back hurts from sitting so oddly, but wow.
3 hours have passed already?
I love nights. 
I wish they'd stop putting me on those anxiety-inducing afternoons, I love mornings and I LOVE nights. 
They're so comfortable.
Less people, more time to organize the environment and my thoughts. 
More time to analyze.
That's been my problem, no time to analyze.

I haven't even writ up my next month's goal chart, or saw how poorly I did with March. 
I started it a history buff and am coming out a detached slacker who barely feels alive, sometimes. 

If it wasn't for her, I likely would be morbidly depressed.
Just being honest. 
There's nothing else really GOOD happening, nothing to look forward to or do but the infinite media I can distract myself with for days to a week 
But I always burn myself out and have to switch.
I haven't written in months, I haven't read in about a month either.
I haven't done anything artistic of merit, kept up with most friends or made music beyond a few throwaway songs.
No contact with musical project potentials, nothing with poetry, no new friends, no connections, 
Nothing.

Work.
Girlfriend.
Some media.
Friends.
Family.

That's it.
Note the lack of working out,
Eating healthy, sleeping well,
Note the lack of anything more meaningful than loving her.

I hate to say it, but it's the most defeating yet beautiful statement to say

She's all I really have.

Don't get me wrong, I love my family and friends, 
But one circumstance and they're gone like the wind.
I don't want her to blow away like that.
I'm not really scared, but
You never know. 
And I hate never really knowing.
My insecurities creep out at the dumbest things, giving me inflated pride that breaks when money, past loves or my job comes into mention.
I hate myself more than I let on to most people.
Because it comes and goes in waves.

When I sit back and look at my situation, how it unfolded, and realized it's entirely my fault that I didn't organize and do more in the time I've had
Rather than simply trying to cope and face tomorrow on a day by day basis, 
It hurts me somewhere deep to think I'm my own worst enemy in every single sense
Because I love myself and understand.
It's like watching a lovable fuck up from any other media, where I'm rooting for myself but can't help but hate the situations retroactively.
It gets meta, like

I control my head, my emotions, and my body.
So what the fuck am I, what is my self-concept?
Who am I, what is being beyond emotions
Which are biological, wave-like colorations in otherwise mundane psychological programming neuron to cells, 
Existence is fucking bizarre, and so is life. 
Life is bizarre and dark, and while I'm less suicidal than I've been in a minute, 
I want out. 
Of...whatever funk this is.
I just want to help my friends and family and then dip with Mia.
Anywhere but here.
Any other jobs, any other house, any other Overwatch record and set of better-tuned instruments I rarely touch or think about...

I feel like I'm moving from cage to cage with only Mia as some Elizabeth stand-in akin to Bioshock: Infinite. 

Absurdism usually wins, but not this night.
No, tonight I'm thinking logically
And I currently am not happy with my life in any facet beyond my wonderful girlfriend and support of select people. 

Huh.
Guess I'll get to fixing that soon, maybe?
Maybe building weapons and tools will satisfy me, making art, 
Maybe completion of my book, publishing of poetry, 
Maybe I'll become important one day. 

Till then, I feel like I'm a genius that has no way of showing it.
Maybe I'm not so smart or talented after all, I'm not good with people or a very fun or funny guy.
I'm barely charming, maybe I'm not who I think I am at all and am playing the wrong actor in the wrong genre 
And have been all along.

I'm not sure.

I haven't hunted for new music in a bit, I've mostly been bumping the amazing new Gorillaz tracks. 
No anime, almost done with the Tarantino movies.
Hateful 8's the only one left. 
I half-watched Reservoir Dogs with Mia. 
We interrupted it.

I've taken up a habit of putting incense in my mouth and lighting in, resembling smoking but without the inhalation past accidental whiffs of pure death in my lungs.
4 hours left, soon.

I need to clean.
Do laundry, get my head and life back in order.
Do the permit test already, stop thinking about such trivial shit. 
I'm devolving into a normal, average person who doesn't think or do much.

My own worst nightmare, but with the extra danger of dissociative sociopathy/psychopathy bleeding in as more than mere buzzwords now.

My solutions to the darker problems in my life more often than not involve...worse dealings than the problem.
Nihilism is empowering, when it all goes dark.

I haven't been splitting my personality into colors or personas very much, I've felt more stable than I ever have.
err...than I have in a while?
Which is really fucking sad.

I'm gonna drink more black tea now.
And hope I find something else to entertain myself with.
Maybe a movie.

Toodles.