"Smile"

           

I feel like I could write forever tonight. I could, but I won’t. Nor do I know where to begin.

I suppose I’ll begin with what I just did—arrive home from work and eat dinner while watching the beginning of Californication season three. I really do love the show. It’s so crudely and shockingly hilarious while being one of the saddest shows I have ever seen, and I have a bizarre fondness for sad things: see all of my favorite books and movies. Plus, it has, by far, my favorite quote ever from any form of media. I even wrote a blog about it, as you may remember: A Quote I Didn’t Write. It still gets to me. A lot a lot. Even after watching the scene near twenty times.

Speaking of sad things, I guess I appear very sad to people, or at least strangers…and my mother who keeps pestering me for some reason. At first I thought it was just an aberration: a woman telling me I have sad eyes awhile ago, my boss routinely asking me what’s wrong when I should be the one asking him that question. But today was sort of an eye opener, and maybe not a good one.

I was getting dressed for work in the gym’s locker-room as I do every day. Today a much older man, probably in his 70’s, who I’ve seen many times comes up to me and says, “Where’s your smile? Why don’t you ever smile? Is something wrong?”

I’m immediately taken off guard for multiple reasons. One, that he thinks I never smile, and maybe I don’t at the gym, I don’t know, and two, that he actually cares enough to ask if something is wrong. And I really didn’t make matters better, since I told him “I don’t know where my smile is, I guess it’s missing.” I’m aware that I’m not a smiley person. He cracked a few jokes, and eventually I did smile, which he promptly pointed out. Still, it unnerved me. My lack of smiles doesn’t mean something is wrong or that I’m horribly depressed or something along those lines—I certainly don’t act in such a way. It’s just, really…I suppose I don’t truly know. I don’t think I was ever the sort of person who went around smiling to begin with. When I think, and I tend to think constantly, I don’t do so while smiling like a moron. Maybe I frown when I’m deep within my thoughts, and considering my nature, that’s just about always.

Then my boss’s sister asked me why I wasn’t smiling, which annoyed me. I know it shouldn’t have, since she just wanted to know if something was wrong, but still. I’m not explaining myself well, I know. I think that’s because the entire situation confuses me to no end. I act happy enough and am extremely conversational. I mean, this weekend I had very long conversations with complete strangers, and tonight, working, I sparked up more conversations, since I like to converse, especially with attractive customers who come in the store. Now that I think about it, another guy at the gym has asked me multiple times why I look so unhappy…but he’s creepy, very creepy, and doesn’t matter.

And yet, while I say all of this, while I proclaim my ignorance, I’m entirely conscious that something is wrong. Well, maybe not wrong. Not to the point of concern, I think, but I’m aware that I’ve changed in ways that cannot be unchanged. I’m a different person from who I once was…at some point? But that’s just life. Things happen. People change.

As an anecdote, I’d like to explain how my boss has been introducing me to strangers at work. “This is Mike Schrage, he graduated from UConn with honors, he’s written seven novels so he’s just here waiting to get published and when he’s famous he’ll toss me a bone, he’s on creatine, that’s why he’s so jacked and massive.” This, more or less, has been his spiel to his friends lately. I then have to explain my writing and also insist that I am not quite jacked, though I am getting there! Sometimes my boss goes on to tell people how I’m fucked up and will one day  go postal and kill him. One day he talked me up to a female customer who I’m somewhat of friends with…he just kept going on and on about how great I am. Great, and insane. He always makes sure to add insane. I’m rather certain that he’s afraid of me, for some reason. At least it’s apparent that I’ve gained muscle.

On another note, I like this weather. Not the constant downpours, but the temperatures. Since I have no one to go to the beach with, I don’t care that summer is over. Now I get to drive at night with my windows down and a hoody on, with the hood up, which is what I did tonight and will continue to do through winter, since that’s how I drive.

Tonight on the way home from work I did all these things, listening to Christina Perri’s CD. It really is so good, so depressing, but I skipped the happier songs. Three, six, and eight, I think, the one about the “penguin”, as I haven’t liked that song lately. I got home before the CD finished, so I just kept driving and driving, trying but failing to get lost, thinking about how everything reminds me of something else, and I how I hate it…but sort of enjoy it.