2001-09-24 - 6:15 p.m.

I�ve started talking to myself. It seems strange, creepy even, if there are people around, so you try to do it when you�re alone. Then you realize you�re always talking to yourself in some way. You realize that talking to yourself is just like thinking to yourself, only louder. And when you�ve been mentally telling yourself the same things again and again and you still don�t seem to get the message, you start to think maybe you just aren�t saying it loud enough.

I decide to take up talking to myself after an evening at a coffee shop, sitting near a girl and telling myself I should find some way to say hello. Nothing in particular draws me to her. She�s just the person sitting opposite me, reading her book on her cushioned coffee shop chair.

It seems like I should say something. But I can�t do it, of course. For an hour I just keep on reading and writing, looking up from time to time to see what she�s doing, and imagining what I might say.

Then she takes off, and a while later I leave, too, and scold myself. I tell myself that I should seize these moments, you only get so many of them, you must learn to not get so hung up on fears and regrets, on the past and the future, you must believe that all that matters is the moment. But these little games I play in my head fail time and again, and I, having taken the train all the way down to Belmont to discover a new coffee shop, will return a failure once again, an utter failure.

As I walk to the train, I see this woman next to me is holding a train pass.

�Excuse me, do you know which way it is to the El?� I ask her.

She�s an older woman in her thirties, turns out she�s from Germany, and now she�s living in Detroit. We chat for a few minutes about her visit to Chicago, about Detroit, about the Blue Man Group, which she just saw. When we get to the train we wish one another luck and part ways � she�s heading south, I north. No need to take it any further, she�s old and from out of town. I just needed her to prove to me that I�m not a ghost.

But I am a ghost, a ghost that pounds on the glass wall of life unable to get through to the living on the other side. That�s why I need to chant. I need to keep reminding myself, pound it into my head that I must live for the moment, that there is no past and no future. There is only today, there is only this moment.

If I am a ghost, I should start behaving like one. A ghost has nothing to worry about, no consequences past or future. Like the samurai, I must behave as if I am already dead. I must accept death and conquer it, a death that could come at any moment and make any of these opportunities which you squander your last. So to remind myself that there is no past to get hung up on and no future to fear, I talk to myself. When I�m riding the train, or walking down the sidewalk to work, I repeat: today is the only day of my life. There is no tomorrow. There is no yesterday. There is only today. Today is the only day of my life.

I should know better, of course. I should know that repeating such things to myself will only get me worked up, will only increase my heartrate at the moment of opportunities and take me no closer to seizing my moments. But it�s worth a try. Anything, any time, is worth a try.

-

So it�s the only day of my life. Who better than to spend the only day of my life with than Marius Wilson, my own personal live-for-the-moment mentor and cautionary tale. I show up at his place all smiles, because this chanting is getting to me. Somehow it�s managed to make me excited. He bounds down the stairs as usual, shirtless, hair tied back.

�All right! You made it!� he says. We load the videos into the eggplant and drive off into the oblivion of each coming moment, because tonight is the night, it is the only night.

We can be sure it�s going to be a good night because Marius is supplying the music. None of my boring Bob Dylan and Bedhead dubs; he�s been aching to play something that really rocks. I sometimes play my music, only he gets all anxious and says, �It�s cool that you like to hear your music, but man, can we put on the radio or something?�

This time he pops in his tape and cranks it up. It�s Dreamtheater, his favorite band. Once he met a member of the band at random on the street and just freaked out, gave him three videos right there as thanks for making such earth-crunching music.

�These guys went to some big music school in New York,� he tells me.

�Oh yeah,� I say, all skeptical. �Which one?�

�I don�t know; a big one. At least that�s what everyone tells me.�

We go flying out along Route 88 heading west, bopping along the highway, music pumping. Marius rolls down the window and sticks his head out to feel the wind blow back his hair, close his eyes and feel the moment, that moment that keeps coming back as long as he can keep closing his eyes, that moment that crystallized long ago but can still be recaptured, or remembered, or relived, if you just pump up the dreamtheater at high volume and roll along a highway, wail away on that air guitar and pound your hands against the dashboard � �Listen to this � right � there!� Dadala dadala dadala bah bah nah! I try to get caught up in the moment while still weaving among traffic and keeping my eye on the road, turning one eye to him and smiling, Yeah, man, cool, now which exit do we want, and he takes a brief pause from his air guitar riff to say, number 27, right there, at the last moment possible moment before we miss the exit, as we careen off the highway, but we don�t care because we are living for the moment.

We land at a tattoo parlor out in the suburbs and set up shop, set up our videos right there in the parlor. It�s the first of two tattoo places to hit tonight. There used to be just one parlor in town, where Marius was a regular until the owners had a falling out and one set off to open his own place down the road. Now he goes to both, sets up the videos right inside as the kids mill about as they wait for their tattoos and piercing or just hang out. While Marius pushes the videos, I sit back on the couch, browse through tattoo patterns and watch the kids. They stand around the parking lot of this otherwise empty strip mall, sit around waiting for a piercing, make plans on their cell phones and pop pills in the back room. This is their hangout, their life, where the drama of their lives plays out. And today, as luck would have it, is a day for drama.

A woman in her thirties comes out from the back, cell phone in her hands.

�If he thinks he can come in here whenever he wants and act like that, I�� she says in a huff.

A bit later, a blonde-haired guy comes by with his cell phone. A woman just called up, saying she was going to come in to get a piercing but one of the guys outside was saying things to her and making her feel uncomfortable. There�s a whole gang of them hanging out right by the door, and it looks like one of them isn�t quite welcome.

There�s rumblings about, people coming in and out, the voices getting louder, the voices of reason competing with the voices of frustration in the heat of the August night. The blonde guy with the cell phone is getting pissed, he comes back in and then tries to go out, but the door is being held shut by the man outside, who is vocally jousting with another outside. I get uncomfortable; I move away from the couch which is right by the door and over behind the tattoo rack a safe distance away.

And then things get out of hand. The guy outside is disrupting life here, souring the atmosphere for the customers and hitting on the blonde guy�s girlfriend, and now preventing him from going outside. He pulls a knife out of his pocket and the place erupts.

�Woah, dude, put the knife away,� one guy says,

�Somebody�s gonna die, man, somebody�s gonna get killed,� he says, motioning out the glass door at his tormentor outside.

�He�s hitting on my girlfriend, man, I�ll fuckin kill him,� he says. He takes the knife, a blade a few inches long like a wilderness knife, and stabs it into the wall right by the door.

I hide back behind the tattoos and peek out, trying to keep in the distance as much as possible, hoping to God that nobody has a gun and wishing there was someplace else I could be but behind these tattoos in the middle of suburban gang battles.

But the knife is put away and the place calms down, the troublemaker leaves and the rest of us just stop and take a breath, the blond guy smiling insanely and laughing and saying, �I�ll do it man, you know me. I�ll be down in the basement with organs and shit.� He giggles this mad laugh to himself, the first time I�ve ever seen someone actually laugh like he�s insane. He smiles like you�ll think he�s said something funny, that it�s just an interesting thing that he could kill you, but his eyes are alone and scared, he�s such a little kid who has no concept of what he�s doing that you want to avert your eyes.

It�s the second time this week I�ve been around crazy people with knives. If I don�t believe that this could be the last day of my life, if I�m not ready to behave as if already dead, then I may as well give up now, I tell myself. I wonder if I�m convinced.

-

The second place is a whole different scene. If the first place got all the crazy kids, this next place got all the good kids whose parents help them pick out their tattoos. Tonight, in fact, it�s mom who will be getting the tattoos.

Mom is feeling powerful today, like she can do anything. Because she�s made a decision to do something crazy, to embrace the I-can-do-anything mentality of her daughters. The girls follow her as she searches for the perfect pattern, muttering �Our Mom is awesome,� under their breath. They hang off her and wonder if she�s really gonna do it, if she�ll realize a tattoo�s forever and get cold feet. But she�s not.

�I�d better pick this out before my buzz wears off,� she says.

�You gonna put it someplace where people can�t see it?� a daughter asks.

�I don�t really care if people do see it,� Mom says without turning her eyes from the wall of patterns. �Do you like the big hummingbird or the little hummingbird better?�

�Oh no no, don�t get that,� one daughter says.

But Mom isn�t really listening. She�s made up her mind to do this, and do it her way. It�s something she�s wanted to do for years, but it just wasn�t feminine, wasn�t acceptable. The kids these days, they�re all getting tattoos like it�s nothing, and just cause she�s older and a Mom doesn�t mean she can�t do what she wants. It doesn�t mean she can�t run out and get a hummingbird on her arm after a glass or two of wine.

She doesn�t know if she�s doing it because she wants a tattoo, or if it�s to get closer to her younger self, or to get closer to her kids. Maybe it�s all three. But you can�t worry about motivations when you�re staring down a tattoo needle. You only get so many chances to get a tattoo, so many chances to be young again. You only get one body to decorate so you might as well throw a hummingbird on there. There is no tomorrow, only today. Get the hummingbird while you still have the buzz.

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