Sir William Welles’ Nocturnal Diary

Greetings my dear Gothlings!

While strolling to work yesterday I passed by the church of Scientology. Now, you and I know perfectly well those religious nut-jobs are confused at it is…but check out how they chose to decorate their church:

QUE? Why do they decorate for Xmas? Isn’t Xmas for the Xtians (tee hee) and Catholics?
Great! Now I’m confused!

See you in the Dark!
Sir William Welles

Greetings my dear Gothlings!

Usually on Sundays I go out to the Queens/Long Island area to my mother’s and grandmother’s house (those who have been to my Cannibal Zombie Luau know where it is) to Barbecue a meal for them and watch CSI (L.V./Miami/NYC) and NCIS on DVD with my mother…not that I spend enough time with them at their restaurant or anything, it’s just become sort of routine, unless I have to be somewhere else on that day.

This last Sunday, however, I found myself rather depressed over someone I hold dear moving away to Los Angeles that very day (not the friend I was having the heated conversation with as mentioned in my I loathe L.A. (take 2) blog post on August 18th). The only (evil) consolation I had was seeing a news segment that Southern California was having a tough time battling forest fires and that a couple, refusing to leave their home, sought refuge in  in their hot-tub in the backyard and were critically burned (boiled?)…life choices, my friends…life choices. I know I might come across as rather cruel right now, I don’t wish harm on those people and the fact that they lost their house to a forest fire is devastating indeed, but the thought of Los Angeles burning to the ground made me crack a smile. But back to the subject at hand:

Returning to the Wonderful City of New York, I take a subway from the 71st Street/Continental Avenue station in Forest Hills in Queens. The first, and only apparent, train available was the local “R” train. A tad slower than the express, but reliable. I enter the second to last car and I sit, awaiting to be transported. After several stops of borough-dwellers shuffling in and out, my reading all of the advertisements surrounding me several times over, and the loud door closing warning “BING-BONG!” sound tap-dancing on my eardrums, we arrived at the Roosevelt Avenue station.

Now, it was at this station that I caught a glimpse of a young Asian woman leaning on a subway station vertical girder thingy (what are those called, anyway? Pylon?). From the brief glimpse I caught of her face I determined she was either grimacing because she was laughing or crying. It’s funny how the two are somewhat the the same at first. An instant later and the Asian woman steps into the subway car and sits somewhat directly across from my in one of those backward facing orange bucket seats. It was clear to me by now that she was crying…openly. Let me take a moment to describe her: Asian (we already established that), I think from Japan, tall, slender, young –mid to early twenties, or maybe younger, not sure, blue shirt, blue jeans with a hole on the right knee, pink sneakers, a large(ish) green and clear jeweled ring on her left hand’s ring finger, and crying.

As she sat there, sniffing and sobbing uncontrollably as every wave of painful emotion and memory rolled over her frontal lobe, I couldn’t help but realize how beautiful she was at that particular instant! It even shocked me! It was nothing sexual or stalker-y or anything, just beautiful. You must understand that while a lot of Asian women are indeed very attractive, I do not tend to be especially attracted to them. Sure, the long and straight raven hair is a bonus, but I do not suffer from the so-called “Yellow Fever” (a pretty racist term, I know…I didn’t make it up) like some of my friends do. No, this was different, weird even…it was like I found her to be beautiful and attractive because she was crying. Weird, huh? I couldn’t help but keep glancing over at her from time to time, without coming across as some sort of subway cruising creep.

After a while of observing her (I tend to do quite a bit of observing of people…it helps with my writing) I deduced that she was crying because of heartache or a break-up, rather than, let’s say, the death of someone close to her. How do I know this? Two things. For one, if she just lost her mother in a tragic car crash, she wouldn’t be on a subway. No, the subway seemed to be more of a means of escape. Secondly, in between waves of sobs, when her eyes weren’t shut to holds back tears, she would look downward, sometimes focusing on her hands, the one with the ring on it. If she lost her mother as mentioned above she would be gazing upward. It’s not so much a religious thing as much as a reflex to look upward to ask “why?” Frowning downward indicates focus and memory, as in “How could this of happened?”/”Where did I go wrong?”/”Could this have been prevented?”

But back to the disturbing issue at hand: why did I find this young woman so appealing and beautiful at a moment where she was at her lowest point? Is this a new level of being Goth that I find the misery of others so appealing? YIPES!!! Her face was reddened by the blood filling the capillaries in her cheeks, her eyes, when opened, were moist with tears, and her body was scrunched in what was starting to form into a fetal position. Maybe it was the vulnerability, I convinced myself. Even though I spent the entire day depressed and in deep thought, I wanted to shift across the subway car and console her…tell her that everything will be all right…even though things might not be. But if I, dressed all in black looking like a devil spawn, did so, I think you can imagine that horrible outcome.

Then I started noticing the surreal surroundings that encapsulated us all in that particular instant, in that particular subway car, heading toward Manhattan. There was a guy sitting directly behind her in the front facing orange bucket seat and was blatantly ignoring her despite his poor choice of seating. To my left were two other guys pretending to be asleep…no one truly sleeps in a subway car, unless, of course, one is drunk, on drugs (the sleepy kind), homeless, or all of the above. But the best was another Asian girl (not from Japan, this I am sure of), sitting directly in front of me and one seat away from the crying girl to her left, was clearly ignoring her while reading: (I shit you not) “The Obligatory Prayers Of Islam.” (!!!!!!) All very surreal…only in New York!

Luckily for me, an instant later, the subway pulled into the 59th Street/Lexington Avenue station= my stop. I debated staying on to see where she was headed, but I quickly talked myself out of it for fear of even creeping myself out! Before the last “BING-BONG!” warning, I found myself out of the subway car and leaving the crying Asian girl behind, wallowing in her intense misery, and being carried away by the subway to her future. That’s it. No romantic ending, not even giving her a clichéd tissue to dry her tears. Nope. Just a normal New York City thing. If you see someone suffering emotionally you leave them be…you don’t interfere. It might be cold, but that’s how it is here. I just hope that this crying Asian woman on the subway mends her emotional wounds soon…just I try to mend mine.

See you in the Dark!
Sir William Welles

Greetings my dear Gothlings!

It was said of me, a few months ago (by whom I don’t know), to a friend of mine, that I was not at all spiritual and thus was considered “undatable.” Now, while it is true that I am not a very spiritual man, I am probably “undatable” for a whole other slew of reasons. LOL! But seriously, even though I lack spirituality, I do however respect it…contrary to say, religion. Moreover, I am certainly a fan of philosophy. That is why, in part, I respect spirituality, because it is grounded in philosophy, whereas (to me) religion is grounded in fairy tales created to reinforce rules and laws in order to keep a populace in check. With that said, I didn’t want to turn this blog post into an anti-religion rant (for those who must know: yes, I am an Atheist *gasp!*).

The reason for this post is to explain to you my “philosophy” behind the meaning of Life. That’s right! I said it! I’m going to explain to you the meaning of LIFE!!! And who better than an nonspiritual Goth, who romanticizes death is better qualified to do so? So, without further ado, here it is:

Life, from the moment you are born until the instant you expire is a series of choices. At first, when you are but a baby drooling all over yourself, you will have most of your decisions and choice handled for you by you parent(s)/guardian(s) as you basically run on genetically provided instincts: I’m hungry! I’m thirsty! I want to pee! I want to poo! I want to sleep! I want to put shiny thing in my mouth! And that’s about it for the next two years or so. Do you know why they call ”The Terrible Twos” the terrible twos? It’s because that is when infants start to make their own, albeit small, life choices…it’s that first spurt of independent thinking, thus making them terrible brats. Children are very, very selfish little beings. From that time on (and including the second spurt of independent thinking in the teen years — that’s when some Goths bloom), every micro-decision will domino effect onto other decisions that will ultimately map out every individual’s life. Choices as minute as: “Should I do the laundry today?” “Shall I look at my watch to see what time it is?” “Will I go to sleep at 11pm tonight to wake up early the next morning?” “How many cookies should I eat?” “Do I get out of bed now, or in 5 minutes?” all have significance and lead up to (either directly or indirectly) other decisions as the individual’s life progresses. Then there are major decisions to tackle, such as: “Should I ask her/him to marry me?” “Will I try cocaine for the first time?” “Should I move clear across the country and leave all of those who care for me behind for the sake of a career opportunity?” “Which college is best for me?” “Should I give into passion and have unprotected sex with him/her right now?” and so on.

What you have to understand here is that every decision, whether minute, major, of somewhere in between, takes you down a path from point A, to point B, to Point C, and onward until point Z, and thus each choice warrants its own consequence. The only real shame and kink in my philosophy is when others than yourself makes a decision for you in which you have no control over. For example: a drunk driver chose to drink “just one more beer/wine/shot,” chose to drive home, chose to start the car, chose what route he/she would take…and then plows into an oncoming car and kills other individuals whose choices that lead them up to that precise instant did not choose to end their lives.

At this point you are most likely scratching your heads and muttering to yourselves, “Uhh…this doesn’t explain the meaning of Life! What gives?!?” No. My philosophy of Life being a series of choices does not define it, it merely describes it. The actual “Meaning of Life” (I must warn you now that a majority of you will be quite disappointed in my very simple, yet quite realistic response) is to take all of the appropriate decisions, be they good or evil, successful or failed, selfish or selfless, and survive long enough (either in a modern urban environment, or in a mud-hut in the jungle) to pass along your genetic information to your potential offspring and thus keep your species going. Point blank.

Yup. That’s it. Nothing too mind blowing, huh? But in a nutshell, that is what every member of Flora and Fauna (yes, including you) instinctively strives for. Think about it…every choice you make, what to eat, when to cross the street, what to wear, what career path to take, who to ask out on a date, are all simply choices that allow you to survive long enough and to hopefully attract someone to which you can procreate with, and further the Life cycle. There is no “God’s Plan” or other coined term that conveniently shrugs off reality. Some of you are disagreeing with me right now, I can feel it. You are saying: “what about people who can’t or don’t want children, huh? I just found a flaw in your way of thinking.” No, no flaw. In the case of those who can’t have children because of reproductive organ issues or because they just physically can’t, as in the case of homosexuals, usually create other choices that lead them up to alternative routes such as adoption, surrogates, etc. to fulfill that instinctual need. As for those who CHOOSE to not have children (raising a child in this day in age gives me the shivers too!) did just that…chose not to have children…and that is perfectly ok, their genetic code ends with them.

For as far as you know (I mean truly know, any beliefs aside) you are in the “here and now,” and you will eventually die…like everyone and everything else that has DNA. So it is now up to you to make the best decisions and choices up until that point, and if being a spiritual or even religious person helps you along that path, so be it. Now, go out and play nice in the traffic!

See you in the Dark!
Sir William (didn’t mean to bum you out) Welles