Free House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

clarification of the existential meaning of “Being-in” as distinguished from the categorical signification of ‘insideness’, Being-in was defined as “residing alongside . .. “, “Being-familiar with · · . “ This character of Being-in was then brought to view more concretely through the everyday publicness of the “they”, which brings tranquilized self-assurance——’Being-at-home’, with all its obviousness—into the average everydayness of Dasein. On the other hand, as Dasein falls, anxiety brings it back from its absorption in the ‘world’.
    Everyday familiarity collapses. Dasein has been individualized, but individualized Being-in-the- world. Being-in enters into the existential ‘mode’ of the “not-at-home”. Nothing else is meant by our talk about ‘uncanniness’.
    Which only goes to prove the existence of crack back in the early twentieth century. Certainly this geezer must of gotten hung up on a pretty wicked rock habit to start spouting such nonsense. Crazier still, I’ve just now been wondering if something about this passage may have actually affected me, which I know doesn’t exactly follow, especially since that would imply something in it really does make sense, and I just got finished calling it non-sense.
    I don’t know.
    The point is, when I copied down the German a week ago, I was fine. Then last night I found the translation and this morning, when I went into work, I didn’t feel at all myself. It’s probably just a coincidence—I mean that there’s some kind of connection between my state of mind and The Navidson Record or even a few arcane sentences on existence penned by a former Nazi tweaking on who knows what. More than likely, it’s something entirely else, the real root lying in my already strange mood fluctuations, though I guess those are pretty recent too, rocking back and forth between wishful thinking and some private agony until the bar breaks. I’ve no fucking clue.
     
     
     
    das Nicht-zuhause—sein
    [not-being-at-home.]
    That part’s definitely true.
    These days, I’m an apprentice at a tattoo shop on Sunset. I answer phones, schedule consultations and clean up. Any idiot could handle it. In fact the job’s reserved for idiots. This afternoon though, how do I explain it?, something’s really of f. I’m off. I can’t do a fucking thing. I just keep staring at all the ink we have, that wild variety of color, everything from rootbeer, midnight blue and cochineal to mauve, light doe, lilac, south sea green, maize, even pelican black, all lined up in these plastic caps, like tiny transparent thimbles—and needles too, my eyes catching on all those carefully preserved points and we have hundreds, mostly #12 sharps, many singles, though plenty in two, three, four, five, six and seven needle groups, even a fourteen round shader.
    It depends on what you need.
    I don’t know what I need but for no apparent reason I’m going terribly south. Nothing has happened, absolutely nothing, but I’m still having problems breathing. The air in the Shop is admittedly thick with the steady smell of sweat, isopropyl alcohol, Benz—all, all that solution for the ultrasonic cleaner, even solder and flux, but that’s not it either.
    Of course no one notices. My boss, a retinue of his friends, some new inductee who’s just put down $150 for a rose, keep up the chatter, pretty loud chatter too, though never quite enough to drown out the most important sound of all: the single, insistent buzz of an original “J” tattoo machine logging yet another hundred stabs a minute in the dimple of some chunky ass.
    I get a glass of water. I walk out into the hallway. That’s a mistake. I should of stayed near people. The comfort of company and all that. Instead I’m alone, running through a quick mental check list:
    food poisoning? (stomach’s fine) withdrawals? (haven’t been on a gak or Ecstasy diet for several months, and while I didn’t smoke any pot this