From A basement On The Hill in Questions

I decided that I wanted to hurt tonight, apparently…I sat down and willfully put on the album, “From A Basement On The Hill” by Elliott Smith.

I’m one track in right now and I’m already feeling the hurt…the world lost Elliott something like 16 years ago…I guess that’s about right, because that’s about when this album came out…I remember spending so many hours at a time in my room (which was in the basement) in the first house I ever lived in on my own, and I would just stay up all night smoking weed and listening to this album…sometimes doing art, and sometimes just sitting there listening.

It freaked me out back then, how he died in the middle of making this thing…and people finished it for him…and by the time it was released he was already gone…so I couldn’t get over this fact that I was listening to the voice of a ghost…a man who was about to perish…every word on this album was going to be a part of the last message he would ever relay to the world.

I’m listening right now…and it’s still freaking me out…and now it’s all of those feelings compounded with nostalgia.

Everything seems so much more plausible 16 years ago…all of my hopes and dreams seemed achievable.

Now…what?

I hate all of the things that I never became.

…

Tonight has been a night for hurt and nostalgia…
…I have been communicating with my ex fiance over the last handful of months…since about February, I suppose…but the communication has become more and more frequent over the last couple of months.

Tonight she sent me a video from the Murder By Death show that she’s at.
I should have put that album on…
…too late, I’m stuck now.

Anyway, it was a weird feeling…we’ve been talking over Instagram and it’s seemed a lot like clearing the air…we were both drug addicts and we both have “mental health” issues and so our relationship was HIGHLY volatile…and when it ended there was a lot unsaid, and a lot of confusion and pain and anger on both sides…and for the last few months it seems like we’ve been able to address some of that, and both hopefully do a little healing and maybe even a little bit of growth to move past it?

But the last few weeks it’s just seemed…really friendly.

I mean, tonight she sent me a video from a concert…I feel like that’s something you send to a friend.

Or like, maybe that’s something she should be sending to her husband…or maybe I shouldn’t be talking to her because she has a husband and they have a kid.

But she has told me she cheats on her husband all the time.

I don’t even know what to do with that information…like, she’s already cheated on him with me once before they were married…and at this point she’s a muggle and I’m not and I don’t date muggles, and I sure as hell don’t fuck muggles…so like…what? What is going on here?

…

Elliott Smith is really hurting my feelings right now.

…

I had class tonight, and we are working on group projects, and I have been feeling so bad about myself until tonight…I showed our group leader what I had been working on, and he seemed impressed.

It’s so funny how I have never really given a fuck about leadership or respecting people in a position of power and authority…and yet with this group project, I have a shitload of respect for this Ray guy, and he’s like five or six years younger than me…but he just totally has his life together and he’s one of the smarter people I’ve ever met in my life and he’s ALL ABOUT IT so I’m just like…alright man, you got it.

…

“A little less than a happy high,
A little less than a suicide.”

…

I have decided that I want to quit drinking again…like, for an extended period of time, but I also want it to not be a big deal. I mean, these last couple of months I’ve been able to go a few days here and there without drinking....but mostly, I drink every day.

I just don’t want to sit and make my entire life about not drinking, I think that’s the dumbest fucking thing in the world…I didn’t do that last time I stopped for two years…and I feel like I’m just getting over it and I’m ready to go dry again.

I had so much resolve today…I had so much.
Then the night fell.
Then the fear set in.
Now I’m finishing up my first bottle of wine and I’m thinking about getting a second.

Fuck me, right?

I wish I wasn’t so afraid of death so I could just kill myself already…and I wish I wasn’t so afraid of killing myself.

I’m never going to stop.
This is just the rest of my life, isn’t it?

…

“I can’t prepare for death anymore than I already have…”

…

You know, they try to say that Elliott Smith was so fucked up on drugs that he stabbed himself in the torso multiple times…and that’s how he killed himself?

A lot of people don’t believe he killed himself at all…and honestly, who stabs themselves more than once in the torso? Like, after the first stabbing you’re going to be like, “Oh fuck! That was such a bad idea! Oh god, how do I undo that?”
You don’t go in for more…

…

“Give me one good reason not to do it
(because we love you) “

…

Or maybe you do…maybe you go in for as many as you can get because you’re really so fucking sick of this life…I have no idea. I don’t know anything…I am just this scared little thing, that’s all I know…I am just scared…and I am little…and most of the time I understand that I am a thing.

…

*Note to self, learn how to play “Twilight” again.

…

I wish I was already somebodies baby.
I wish I belonged to somebody.

I belong to this very special website, it’s a dating website…it’s for other poison people like me, no muggles allowed, and I feel like I’ve gotten to this point to where I’ve already seen all the profiles in my area…I already know what it’s all about and I don’t want anyone there and they don’t want me…I’m about to deactivate my account.

It’s kind of sad, really.

It’s like…my last hope…and my last hope is pretty much trashed.
I’m seriously going to be alone forever.
Or maybe I just need to lower my standards.
I can just be with someone who I don’t really want to be with for the sake of not being lonely…that sounds wonderful.

…and then, I sit and really think about it, and it’s like…who the fuck do I really even want to be with?

I’ve never left a relationship and thought to myself, “Damn, I wish I was still with that person.”

Holy shit I wish I could kill myself.

…

I love how depressing all of these get towards the end…it’s like, I try to push out all of my good news at the beginning and then the rest of it is just left to my actual devices and that’s just a bunch of bad feelings and regrets and I end up wanting to kill myself by the end of it all.

Cool, Dane…real cool. You’re such a cool guy. Good job dude.

…

Thanks again for listening…I need to go now…I need to go and lay down and hold myself.
Sometimes I wish you were here.
Sometimes I wonder if you’re even real?
I love you, even if I made you up.
…sometimes I wish I made you up because loving you still means I would love some part of myself…and I’ve never done that before.
huh.
Can you be unreal for me?
Ha.
Yeah.
It’s time for me to watch something and pretend I’m not alone now.
Thanks for everything you do.
Really.
I mean it.
-Dane