Aliza novel excerpt, 500 words

Aliza for Colts Neck, first 500 or so words

"So, would you like to see my place? I'm just a few blocks away."

"Uh, okay."

"Just follow me. You'll see how easy it is."

She followed me through the parking lot of Clancy's. A right, a left and another right and we were at my place. I parked in the driveway and she parked next to the sidewalk.

I got out of my car, oh so nervous. Something one way or another was going to happen. I - toughguy that I am - have always been made nervously nauseous by confrontation. Some toughguy.

Odd. She was staying in her car. I approached her window. What kind of a lunatic did she think I was? She hadn't even turned off the engine!

She was afraid of someone as gentle as me? I'm not kidding. Someone in my writers group compared my "character" to one of the droogs in "A Clockwork Orange". I do not agree with that particular criticism. I was victimized by people like Malcolm MacDowell's character. I was the victim and they were the socially accepted victimizers. The droogs in "A Clockwork Orange" were not just conformists - they were uber-conformists. The entire film was about the conformity of postmodern youth culture. In fact, it's safe to say that Aliza was more in league with the droog-types that I ever was. She hung out with the boys who liked to torture cats. I was the one crying for hours because one of them stoned a bird to death in my presence. I was always the kind, the gentle, the sensitive, the saintly, the weak. Like Nietzsche I was too tender and fragile to play pranks with the rough boys. All of my violence and viciousness is just a compensation. Even all of my "perversion" was in love.

"Would you like to come inside for a little while?"

"No. I have to get going."

I leaned in the window.

"Can I get a kiss?"

"What? No!"

I think of the Budd Hopkins book Sight Unseen, which is basically about the ways alien abductors manipulate abductees. By the way, "The Fourth Kind" is coming to a theater near you - all of my interests eventually become popular. Damn biters.

Sometimes aliens use humans and alien-human hybrids to seduce females for their breeding programs, etc... Many of the "men" the aliens use are noticeably awkward in a seduction. For example, an abductee may be called to a phony job interview. Her interviewer, within the first three minutes, will attempt to seduce her with an awkward hug and an even more awkward attempt at a French Kiss. Being raised in what is literally an alien environment, these stooges will not know or understand adult human mating rituals or the nuances of a social interaction. These stories are creepy, bizarre or unbelievable to the average person. To me they are home. That's how "alien" I've felt when among most others. I've been "alien"ated my entire life.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! It wasn't even like that for me! I just thought I was meeting an old friend."

"Why not? I'm sure you fucked a lot of guys in college!"

Bavarian Christmas Scene

Night thoughts. Lately I've been plagued by insomnia. I twitch. I fidget. I sigh. I sigh deeply. I sigh obsessively and compulsively. Last night I sighed so much that I must have inhaled ten pounds of dust into my lungs. Now my lungs hurt like I've smoked three packs. All I want is to be TIRED every night at the right time, the coziest time. They say Nabokov was a chronic insomniac, so at least I'm in good company and at least I can get a lot of reading done. My ignorant ass read "Tristan und Isolde" last night and my ignorant ass was like: "Wow, this is like a Wagner opera!"

Last night I had a writer's group meeting. They all liked my piece. My work was compared to "A Clockwork Orange", the violence, cynicism and nihilism. But see the droogs were not victims, but victimizers. My "character" (who is really just myself) was victimized by people like the droogs. So, that's how my character is NOT like them.

My character (me) what do I want?

What I want is a Bavarian Christmas scene - a warm, happy loving family around a table full of meats and sweets. Snow on the ground outside. Warmth around family and hearth. Maybe a special young lady. Love. Tradition.

Perhaps I was too sheltered. I've come to realize that the world is not just a horrible place now. It has always been rough. Life has always been hard for everyone.

Maybe I really did grow up on too many 80s movies.

And too many European fairytales.

Another Case of Sundayitis

Sundayitis - the worst of Sunday depression: I was driving home from from Wegman's when it hit me like a ton of bricks just how much I hate everything. I feel trapped in this terrible reality of strip malls and Applebee's chains. I hate everything around me: the people, the stores, the restaurants, the shitty bubblegum pop songs on the radio, the cars around me, the gloomy weather. I just hate everything and loneliness eats me alive. I am profoundly alienated from whatever the hell is going on here and now. Some I think more should be like me and see the truth, but then how would I be special? Somebody has to be alienated in this nightmare of a dark ages - it might as well be me. Mediocrity permeates everything and the Herd rules the world - I just live in it. And this was a better Sunday than most because I actually had more than enough money to eat!

Then I woke up this morning feeling incredibly nauseous. I thought I was going to throw up. Was it the tzatziki? Did I have food poisoning?

Sitting on the toilet in the wee hours I realized all that I do have (the people I love and the people who love me) and that I need to start focusing on them.

My depression has been steadily getting better. It is crumbling now and so many pebbles, rocks and boulders are falling loose. None of it was chemical - it was all hurt, regret, failure and frustration.

The depression feels isolated now, almost like I have the luxury to indulge it. I still sleep 12 hours a night and getting out of bed is still the most burdensome task of the entire day, but at least the pain is no longer completely overwhelming.

A song that matches the mood of my depression is Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt", but when I listen to it I feel like a teenage goth kid - "let me cut myself so I can feel!"

One of the most poignant songs is Pink Floyd's "High Hopes". That song is one of the few that chokes me up every time. I think of the video for that song, particularly when an old man and an old woman are sleepwalking backwards across an open field. They bump into each other from behind, turn around, act as if they have not seen each other in years and hug. That part always gets me.

If that doesn't describe the human condition, what does?

A Good Man

Around this time last year the State of New Jersey was nice enough to send me into counseling with a psychologist.

I was enrolled in a job program for the mentally ill. The fact of the matter is that I am mentally ill, but I am also much saner than the average person. At least I can see the whole frightening and dehumanizing picture. The only cure, the only obvious answer is Freud's prescription: love, sex, work. But most people nowadays hate all three.

My psychologist, Dr. E, was a nice older gentleman, about 60 years of age.

What's odd about age is that age is often devoid of wisdom. Those maxims don't hold true. I knew more at 28 than he did at 60. I'm not even 30 yet and I just know so damn much.

Through 20 sessions I intellectually beat this man from pillar to post. He couldn't get a grip on me.

He had a rather narrow reality tunnel. He was locked in a modern bourgeois perspective. He was a Harvard graduate, NYU graduate and Rhodes scholar who knew nothing about any of my favorite philosophers. He was out of his league because I knew myself better than he did. He tried squeezing me into some kind of box and he just couldn't do it. He liked SOY because soy is very popular among what Zizek would call "liberal communists" - those who want to have their capitalist cake and eat it too. Are "liberal communists" out of style yet? They might be.

As New Age as some of his accouterments were he had never even heard of Aleister Crowley, a man who contributed so much to "New Age" thought in general. How could you pass through so many educational institutions without ever having heard of Crowley.

So I told him to look up Aleister Crowley online.

When I saw him the next week he started: "I looked up that Aleister Crowley guy."

"Oh yeah?" Let's see what Dr. E had to say.

"Weird stuff, man! Crazy stuff! The stuff he was doing with the Golden Dawn was just insane! They had all sorts of weird stuff on the page I checked out. All sorts of weird hieroglyphics and stuff. Honestly I was afraid to even look at it." He was serious.

After that Dr. E started to realize that I was merely a sane man in an insane world. What was insane? Everything he took for normal!

Dr. E was a ver good and kind man though I intellectually bested him. Yes, I pulled a bit of Guerilla Ontology on him, but just the fact that he was open to my Guerilla Ontology says something about his character. A very nice man.

Now that I have health insurance I'll go back to him just to hang out and chill once a week.

PsychoSolipsist

I like all the members of my writer's group. They're all nice people.

When I first started attending the meetings, many of the group members did not realize that I was the "character" in my stories.

Virtually everything I write is autobiographical or semi-autobiographical. Invariably I am the main character, the arch-villain or sympathetic hero.

I am a narcissist and solipsist. I find myself to be intensely interesting and utterly fascinating.

The other members of the group, not knowing that my "character" was me, would say things like "This guy is a psychopath!" or "He's certainly a sociopath!" or "This is one sick individual - he's practically schizophrenic!" or even "What an asshole!"

I would sit there, trying to suppress a grin, loving every minute of it.

Am I any of these things? Yes and no. I'm very far from being a psychopath - I love, care and have sympathy for way too many people to be even remotely close to psychopathy.

I may be a mild sociopath, but I'm usually far less sociopathic than many of the people who have accused me of being a sociopath! And considering some of the defining moments in my young life it would be surprising it I were not mildly sociopathic.

I have been sick with debilitating mental illnesses, but I'm not a schizophrenic. I simply enjoy a different, often inverted view of consensual reality, but it's still consensual.

And am I an asshole? Well, sometimes, but my problem is mostly that I'm too nice to people, even to those who aren't deserving of my kindness. Maybe I'm more of a doormat!

Basically I am like Jim Morrison: a sensitive, intelligent individual, but with the soul of a clown. I'm the nicest guy in the world - nothing but a big marshmallow!

My "character" is just a better, bolder, braver version of myself.

And who doesn't sympathize with the Columbine shooters every now and again?

aum mani padme hum

Lately I have been meditating 30 minutes a day. As of yesterday my schedule was upped to 30 minutes of mantra yoga (aum mani padme hum) and 5 minutes of dharana (concentrating on a single object, in this case a red triangle.) Eventually I will add pranayama.

Yes, I am once again practicing magick and mysticism. I do think I got myself into some small trouble last time. I was reading an amateurish book and I think I either unbalanced or unleashed certain energies that were responsible for my recent eating disorder. The writer of this book was a rather amateurish writer. One can't trust a mediocrity when it comes to magick. One literally has to die to oneself 1,000 times over (and not out of cowardice.) To take things halfway (or too far at first) against the massive forces that course through the universe can be very dangerous when one is unprepared. Especially if one, like me, suffers from mental illness. Yes, it is well-documented that I suffer from OCD, anxiety and depression among a host of lesser ailments. I cannot delve too deeply into magick until I tame or eliminate these problems through extensive training in basic yoga.

This time I'm going with Aleister Crowley. Crowley, to be fair, must be the most misunderstood figure to have ever lived. The Ozzy Osbourne song adds to the confusion (though it is a pretty good metal song.) Crowley made everything challenging. Nothing happens without hard work. I needed to read the amateur to understand much of what Crowley writes, but now that it comes time for practice again I only want to follow the real magician, the one who makes true "star children" work for it. Anybody can screw up their karma with an amateur.

So, I have been practicing asana, mantra-yoga and dharana under the guidance of Crowley's "Equinox". Like a good Thelemite I have been keeping a daily magickal diary recording the thoughts and experiences that occur while I am meditating.

Most of what is in this diary is not my best writing. Mostly I describe the discomfort felt while holding one position for an half hour. Sometimes I'll describe the mental junk that will float to the surface and I will occasionally philosophize on what all of this (life and practice) means. I believe I went on a good riff about Hegel and mysticism the other day. I was meditating and a sexual thought came up. Then I thought that the same impulse I have to commit a sexual act is in dialectical opposition to the force telling me NOT to commit a certain sexual act and that I must transcend this dialectic. Not necessarily with a synthesis (though syntheses sometimes do work), but through transcending the whole argument, the whole conflict, and then transcending that and then transcending THAT until everything becomes like some kind of Chinese box and then transcending THAT until I've transcended everything.

So, yes, I will philosophize in my magickal journal (and because I'm so original in general I am sure I crowded it with at least enough original thoughts), but for the most part I come across as sounding like a rather dogmatic Thelemite (though I'm not dogmatic in general.) But at least I SOUND like nothing more than a teenager star-struck by Crowley.

It's good my best work was not in that magickal journal. And here's why:

I think I may have lost that journal on a New Jersey Transit train. This is my worst nightmare. Strangers reading thoughts that did not go through my (sometimes) stringent editing process. Or people reading something they are NOT supposed to read. Or me giving something sacred away. Or me giving my writing away for free.

Let's face it: I'm a brilliant writer and almost everything I do is very creative and original. ORIGINAL. My talent as a writer was inborn but it did not develop overnight. It took a lot of HARD WORK and SACRIFICE! I had to miss out on a lot to think and write like this! For instance, while other people were partying and getting laid I was studying Hegel!!! So whatever I write that was inspired by Hegel was earned! I earned it! Despite the American compulsion to work, most people do not know what it is to really EARN something.

But then think of Hegel again... Isn't one often defined by one's own opposition, by one's own antithesis?

Instead of OCDing about someone on the train ripping off my ideas I could use this spur to my OCDs (and yes the thought of losing even one of my journals is highly bothersome to me - it makes my OCD feel like a groundhog on steroids flipping out in the middle of my brain) to attain a certain liberation.

aum mani padme hum

Now I'm writing like one of those loathsome Beat assholes.

But, really, doesn't everyone already know that I'm brilliant? Each day I work harder, but with less to prove.

aum mani padme hum

The mantra of the Rosy Cross; of all the rituals that one helped me to feel most comforted.

I just finished reading Julius Evola recently. He was describing the differentiated man and the man who makes his home at the center of his own being. If I do this, what do I have to fear - that someone will rip off some of my most dogmatic thoughts?

aum mani padme hum

I'm liberating myself. I'm going to use this mishap to my advantage.

Maybe it happened for a reason?