As You Are

Pissing your life away is an art form. And for what it's worth, I consider myself an artist.

I spent the latter half of the 1990s reasoning with myself about why I may or may not have been a contributing factor in the death of Kurt Cobain. I used my evenings to conjure up flow charts, Venn diagrams, and idea trees about my whereabouts with relation to those of Kurt's on various nights leading up to his Nirvana Unplugged performance. Having said that, it should be noted that my VHS copy of that performance is now unwatchable after playing it 427 times. Not a bad lifespan for a VHS, but its death was what sparked my realization in my worthlessness.

While burying the tape in the backyard (and yes, of course I made a treasure map should I want to find the little time capsule that is evidence of my wasted time some 60 years from now), I remembered the Spring Fling dance I missed the night Cobain died. I sat in my room--on the floor--with the innumerable bottles of red wine that I had scammed from my uncle's cellar, and I didn't move. Not to turn the air conditioning on in the sweltering heat of the night. Not to open the window for some fresh air. Not to open the door when my mother brought me a grilled cheese on rye. I moved only when I could smell the stench of my own hair getting oily--and taking its first jab at my sense of self worth--festering there--lingering--reminding me to get off my ass. And so I did. And thus begun my obsession with blame.

Blame is a magnetic thing. It draws you in, asking you to take it and ignore it all at the same time. As it turns out, there's nothing easier to flesh out, to clarify, to explain in a chart than blame. It had been me all along. Sucking all the air left out of his scrappy sweater and keeping it to myself.

I was an old enemy. But no, I didn't have a gun.