It Is Finished. It Is Begun.

All this week, I worked on the sanding table at my job. Sanding is second nature to me at this point. So as I smooth out the wood, removing all the chatter marks and checking, my mind wanders free.

On Friday, two thoughts collided in my mind, like sailboats on a glassy lake. Simultaneously it seemed, I thought, "These guys keep dumping me," and, "I don't get calls from the resumes I send out." Neither of them was particularly new. And neither was accompanied by any hand-wringing or lamentation. Just things I already knew.

But coming together, a new idea took shape: I think I lost it.

"It" would be... what exactly? My charm. My sparkle. My charisma. My blessed life. The sure knowledge that all I had to do was knock and the door would open. The lights would always turn green. Things would go my way. I have good bone structure, captivating eyes, a way with words, tall stature and erect bearing, a good sense of humor and a quick wit. The world has always been my oyster. Ultimately.

But now, now...

Had this somehow departed? Has everyone seen my act too many times for it to have an impact? Have the lines become stale? What's up?

And, more importantly, what happens now?

I guess, if this is true, there are three possible alternatives.

1. I'll keep plugging away at it, trying all my old tricks, although with increasing desparation, doing my best to make them more and more dramatic, and watching with alarm as onlookers faces are frozen in a rictus smile, their eyes betraying how pathetic they think my performance is. End up bitter and alone, nursing my grudges, replaying the scenes that I didn't manage to bring off again and again and again in my head. We'll call this the "Nora Desmond Option." [g]

2. I'll reinvent myself! This is America, after all. Find some new game, some new persona to replace the old one. A brand, spanking new Twenty-First Century Me! I'm seeing tight rayon shirts and low-riding leather jeans, chunky boots with lots of straps, and a big chunky belt buckle that spells out the words BULLY. And maybe some more ink work.

(Although it has it's allure: I don't think so. Once you realize it's all a game, it's tough to continue to play the game.)

3. Perhaps it's time to put aside games and personae, to just strip myself naked. Know that I am only the breath that moves in and out of my lungs. Some flesh clinging to a bony armature.

On Wednesday, I'll take my place in line, hearing the murmuring of the priest in front of me, and when I get to the front, he'll dip is thumb in a crucible of ash, and with it, make the sign of the cross on my forehead, saying as he does so, "Remember O Man, that thou art dust, and to the dust thou shall return."

Perhaps something pure. Something solitary. Getting off the carousel for a time.

My life here in the Howling Wilderness is dissatisfactory in many ways. I'm lonely. I don't have money. I want so bad to get on a plane and go somewhere warm, lie on a beach or by a pool and let the sun bake me. Somewhere with a leather bar, where I can go out at night, meet men, and find someplace to f*ck.

But one thing is sure: I have my eyes open. I'm seeing things. Just seeing. Clearly.

That's one of the good things about winter: the leaves are off the trees. The colors are washed away to shades of gray and brown. The trees outside the window where I sit and write this are all vertical lines, some thick, some scrawny, but so dense they all but obscure the pale golden fallow field beyond.

And the sky is blue and cloudless today.

And I am me. Just me. Just a guy.

My sense of myself has been getting more and more vague. My leather was almost a skin that I slip into, as if it were complete with a face and voice and mind. The opportunities and inclination to don my leathers are farther and farther apart.

I work, I go to Starbucks, I hit the gym, I walk my dog, I make dinner for me and my father, I go to see movies, I do stuff around the house, I drive down to Philadelphia to see whose at the Bike Stop.

But my eyes are open. I see. I watch.

I don't know what's going to become of me. Where I'm going to go. Who I'm going to be. And for me, that's always been a very good thing. Being able to see myself far into the future has always made me squirrely.

Ash Wednesday.

What might rise out of the ashes?

---