Tropic of Capricorn is pretty much the only thing keeping me from totally flipping out right now. That and the prospect of The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder and The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, which I think might be especially interesting accompanied by Steinbeck’s America and Americans.

I didn’t get the job. Shit. What the fuck. It was perfect for me. I wanted it too much, though. Which is why Henry Miller is such a big help right now. How is it that I always seem to end up reading exactly what I need to be reading at exactly the time I need to be reading it? All this time I thought I was just following my appetites, I guess I’ve developed some kind of intuition for it.

Either that or I am incredibly lucky, in some weird way. Either way the result is the same, which is this:

You ever see an Urban Outfitters application? I recommend going in and asking for one just for the sake of reading the goddamned thing. What kind of music do you like?, they want to know. What were the last books you bought? What are your favorite bands? Are you sure you’re cool enough to work here?

And I strolled in there like I was on a fucking runway, with my high-waisted skinny jeans and hobo bag and near-sheer tight white t-shirt. My gigantic sunglasses keeping my home-cut shag out of my face. I splashed Sonic Youth and Hunter Thompson and Explosions in the Sky all over the damned thing. I considered mentioning Deerhoof but couldn’t stomach it. Thinking yeah, I know your dress code and your passwords, and fuck you. You’re probably stupid enough to think it’s cool that I worked in Manhattan, to think it means anything other than what it is.

I guess it’s at least decent they’re being so outfront about the way they judge the hell out of you. But I can’t square it with the epiphany I had in March, Scott driving us all over the place upstate, it’s quiet for once, I can think for once, the road curving and him following, knowing it so well that I feel like we’re not even driving but rather gliding. My mind cleared enough to realize very sharply that none of that shit matters. None of it is anything close to what makes a person who they are. What makes us individuals are things that it’s nearly impossible for one human being to share with another. Most of it is impossible for us to even know about ourselves. I’d thought it before, vaguely, or just noticed that certain little things — like the UO application or Lang kids judging you solely on what you’d read up to then — were bullshit, but this was the first time I saw it all at once and was absolutely sure of it.

And I said all this to him, and he agreed. Kind of like we were talking about the weather. “It looks like it might rain later.” / “Yeah, it looks like it.” Some universal, uncomplicated thing. And that was all we said for a while and I feel like my survival depends partly on remembering this every minute of every day from now on. Pretend when I have to, I guess, since I’m sure there are plenty of other people who do the same. And if they can take it, well, fuck. I can take it better.

This brings me to Henry Miller, too, I suppose. Well it actually brings me to the fact that I was looking at their book rack on the way out and found I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. A friend I stayed with when I first got here had it, suggested I read it.

What can I say? I didn’t have a very good sense of his tastes, so I borrowed it. About 50 pages into it I got bored and stopped. It’s the same two stories over and over again. He gets totally shithammered, acts like a brainless, inbred moron, and either does or does not get some ass because of it. None of it is really shocking, not even his vapid, gratuitous stupidity (or that of the girls he picks up). He is a frat boy. This is how things are in his world. Why is this crap here and Henry Miller isn’t? Henry Miller’s shriveled, decomposing dick could write more intelligently and engagingly on any subject, but especially social depravity and sex, than Tucker Max.

Tucker Max says, “OHMYGAWD! I totally can’t believe I got away with that!! Can you believe I did that?! Wasn’t that totally badass??”

Henry Miller holds up a mirror and shows us who we are and what our society is made of. Honestly and completely. He is surrounded by shit and he knows it, and he knows why it is shit and he is trying to explain. Every once in a while he sees a glimmer of good in someone. He tries to dig it up and show us while still minding the shit. It is a delicate business.

And he tries to shed some light on the inexplicable center of all of our existence, which is sex, also honestly and completely, which means saying a lot of true things people don’t want to hear, and trying to explain things that no one has ever been able to explain. Not just the physicality of it, but the psychological aspects. And the love and the hate and the loneliness and the complete and desperate anguish where the two (I mean, society and sex) meet and overlap and start to eat each other. This is where the supposed “surrealism” comes in. I don’t think it’s stylistic. I think it’s the only way he could figure to get anywhere trying to talk about it. Of course sometimes he fails. But the failures are glorious too because they are sincere and as transparent as possible.

Anyway, it is this that is saving me right now. That he wrote about learning to live with loneliness and shit and just letting it take him and that I am fortunate enough to be reading it. My new mission, I think, is to find a copy of this book that I can buy, because the one I’m reading is from the library and I want to have this book in my house at all times, to reread and pencil in what Holly calls ‘marginalia’ and leave Post-Its sticking out all over the place. . . well you get the idea.

I highly recommend it.