by Tomorrow's Man

Current entries

February 2001

But I put straightener in my hair this morning, an old bottle of a nice smelling Jheri Redding lotion that I found behind the O.B.s I keep handy for female visitors, so I have no idea why I've got this brillo pad trying to run away from my scalp right now. And I splashed on a little bit of Nautica for the first time in a year and I bought a hazelnut coffee for the first time in a year, so I have no idea why this morning all I can smell in Harvard Station is my roommate's cologne mixed with a burning bookstore. And I realized that I have more of a spring in my step when I don't light up a Djarum Black Clove cigarette as soon as my face hits the open air in the morning, so I have no idea how this one in my left hand burned down so quickly and I have to light this new one in my right hand off of the smoldering filter of the one in my left hand. And I have never spoken Spanish before, even though I was plied with drink all night by a beautiful Mexican woman, but she did not speak a word of Spanish over her red wine and my pints of Old Speckled Hen, so I have no idea why the question A quiÈn le puedo preguntar quÈ vine a hacer en este mundo? has been running like an excited little mouse through my mind all morning. And though I feel like I know I knew a lot of things at one time even very recently I feel like I know nothing right now - but at least I have an idea, this morning, that I must still have plenty of neat stuff to learn.

Friday, 2 February 2001

A bright Imbolc I wish to you all.

I send you fine cheer on this day, the Festival of Light, in honor of Brigit, the Goddess of healing and poetry; two things we could all tap into a bit more deeply than we do, for ourselves, and for each other.

See, I can cheer up sometimes.

Saturday, 3 February 2001

"Darling, you really have to cut down."

"I donít like cutting down." Her words slipped from her mouth betweenphantoms veils of smoke.

"It will only kill you, in the end."

"Nothing can kill you in the end," she said, "Thatís why they call it The End." She sippedher alcohol, proof unknown but it was straight.

"Fine. Then live your life the way you want."

"And is there any other way to live?" She sat up on the couch, red fishnet topfallingclear ofright breast,left stiletto boot clanging againstmetal frame ofcoffee table. "This is the only way I know how to live. This, thisis the only waythere is to live, thewayyou were born, born to live. Tell me, how do you live any other way if you are not living for yourself? I donít consider anything else ëliving.í"

She took a drag from her long cigarette.

I sipped my drink. I lit one of my own.

I raised my glass. "A toast to living."

"My way? Or yours?" She said.

It was to hers.

Sunday, 4 February 2001

I was just told a story of a woman who licked an envelope, got a paper-cut, then a few weeks later had a live cockroach burst from her tongue. The glue on the envelope had been rife with dormant roach's eggs, and one grew and hatched in her warm, moist muscle.

Okay, some nasty things have come out of my mouth, but I'll be damned if that is not at least one thousand times worse.

Monday, 5 February 2001

I could be wrong. I could be right. I could be a slightly more milky shade of blue. I could be a bit less aroused. I could be taller, but I'm more likely to live just this height. I could jump, or skip, or even roll, right now. I could be laughing. I am laughing! I could stop...but I do not want to. (Laughing!) I could twist, I could turn, I could kiss, I could lick, oh boy, could I ever lick. Lick lick lick. I want to lick. More fun than laughing, don't you agree? If not, well, you could be wrong. And I could be right. Oh about that, trust me, my tiny falcon, I am right right right.

Truuzdahyee, 6 Fibbyyeryee 2001

Wazzl when wawkin zhore needid da bred, makin sammich got za meeyo, got za cheezin evaa de musstird, baht ya, eeevin da meetits, meetits uv hahmmmn ah bloonyah ah praascyootO ah riil riil leeeen treekeeyen, ya bo needin de bred hahd to wawkin zhore en sriip! srip! boom! raht meen arse ahn ahce, dat dar ahce, she koal koal an friitzin ma boddicks!! So's ya, jezz pikkun ahp en go innewah, gaht bred, en medda men semmich, ya yom yom, sa semmich vatz guutah!

W5dn5sday, 7 F5bruary 2001

9 / 14 5 22 5 18 / 23 1 14 20 5 4 / 20 15 / 12 9 22 5 / 13 25 / 12 9 6 5 / 4 9 7 9 20 1 12 12 25.

2 21 20 / 9 14 / 8 5 18 5, / 9 20 / 9 19 / 23 1 18 13 12 25 / 19 8 1 18 16.

9 / 1 13 / 23 1 20 3 8 9 14 7 / 25 15 21, / 20 8 18 15 21 7 8 / 20 8 9 19 / 19 3 18 5 5 14.

9 / 13 1 25 / 12 5 1 16 / 15 21 20, / 2 21 20 / 9 / 23 9 12 12 / 14 15 20 / 2 9 20 5.

9 / 23 9 12 12 / 15 14 12 25 / 5 14 20 5 18 / 25 15 21 18 / 2 18 1 9 14.

13 5, / 20 8 9 19 / 3 15 21 18 19 5 / 15 6 / 14 21 13 2 5 18 19, / 26 5 18 15 5 19 / 1 14 4 / 15 14 5 19 / 1 14 4 / 5 22 5 18 25 20 8 9 14 7 / 5 12 19 5.

9 / 1 13 / 2 21 9 12 4 9 14 7 / 2 12 15 3 11 19.

9 / 1 13 / 16 15 19 20 8 21 13 1 14.

9 / 1 13 / 22 5 18 25, / 22 5 18 25 / 4 5 5 16 / 9 14 19 9 4 5 / 25 15 21.

9 / 1 13 / 22 5 18 25 / 4 5 5 16 / 9 14 19 9 4 5 / 25 15 21.

Thursday, 8 February 2001

Tee-shirt and a knee pinch, love how it falls from her shoulder, watch those muscles that bind calf to thigh stretch out from her shorts, surround the hint of down, her tawny vale, closer and closer I must catch that tide than blows into my vein, I'm on my knees, her tee-shirt rips, her heartbeats fall free, free, and I swallow them with long gulps of her boom, boom, I am alive, I am living, I can smell you my princess, here, on my fingertips, here, yes, I swallow.

Friday, 9 February 2001

Does anybody else ever feel like there are constant cock-wars going on in every vagina on the planet? Maybe it's just my crowd.... Most of the women around me never seem to be filled, never seem to be happy with one, or two, or or or. Amazing that I sit here hurting for them all, longing for none; they have all burned me into celibacy with their desperate insatiabilities.

Aye, it seems I have lost some of the sparkle of my younger edge; and voluntarily pine for her, her, the fair lady who still holds my heart. Come back to me, please. I am waiting for you. I have no choice but to wait for you.

Saturday, 10 February 2001

2:46 AM

After a day or two of insanity for everyone within 277,405 million miles of Mercury going into retrograde, I find myself, now, at the cusp of a relaxed and bashful Saturday, whose early morning hours so far have brought me nothing but pleasure in the form of tight friends, thirsty acquaintences, and barely-clad young women. (I have no desire to look up the spelling of "acquaintences" right now. I'll fix it later.)

There is a water pump under the floor beneath the head of my bed, where shortly I will lay my head to possible dreams. The clock is ticking onward toward a lightening dawn, a feeling I loathe most. There is little I can tolerate less than being awake and trying to get to sleep as the sun comes bullying its ubiquitous way through my thin eyelids. All I can think about is the light light light.

Tonight was good. I was informed I was beautiful by two black women and one smashingly beautiful white man. He looks just like Daniel Ash, the lead singer of Love and Rockets (and so much more), and his smile is enough to make you wonder where your crotch has been. He is pure. He is filthy. He is beautiful. I drank absinthe, watched him smile, and rubbed myself into mahogany skin. Sometimes, life is indeed beautiful.

I found myself between layers of human. I found myself between voices and warm sweat. I found myself suffocating in wigs, leather, whip-snaps and strobe-lightning, and I found myself smiling for the first time. For the first time since I felt love. There is love out there, everywhere, and maybe not everyone is a cannibal. Maybe you all are. The important thing is, tonight, I do not care. I ate you. A change - because typically, I just hate you. Alongside loving you. Dichotomy, Yum-Yang, Bi-Polar, The Drink, then Sleep.

Plenty of the Drink tonight. Must be time to try to sleep. Last night, I dreamt of my wife. (You know who you are - you know the true color of your hair.)

The sun the sun the sun is coming. "The sun machine is coming down, and we're gonna have a party." Yeah; yah. I must run and hide now.

Good night, my beautiful wife; I still hold your ring - it awaits your tiny finger. Good night, Man who looks like Daniel Ash, sleep well in your unique beauty - I blow you a tender kiss. Good night my foreign princess, you sprite, you angel, you bizarre One - I am always writing about you - you just don't know it. Good night Brett, I will soon dream beside you. Good night Mike, and Hank - I have always skipped my stones across your same seas. Good night Michelle and Valerie, you do not realize that They owe it all to you - you both, without knowing, kept me alive at the exactly the right times. Good night you redheads; so close you had come to killing me, so much you forced me to learn - so I could love. So I could live.

It's simple. Death is the Illusion - life is just funky mirrors, and we are all holding one. Well - I am holding a window.

So tonight, if I die, I will die clear.

3:18 AM. End Transmission.

Sunday, 11 February 2001

3:55AM.

"Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith is on. I almost forgot how much I effing love this song, thought I hate the end of the album version.

Life's turned around lately. No, really; like a dog you thought was gonna bite you on the left leg does a splendid whirl and bites you on the right. But at least my face smells good, but don't tell anybody - the rabbit done died, and there is no proof of the pride of my pleasure.

No one understands that these - their - illusions are so real. I learned this the hard way, especially last (this) night. No one - trust me, no one - believes what you do. Especially not the people who say they, absolutely, do.

No one believes what you do. Hah, and no one - absolutely no one - believes what you say.

I don't even believe that this is me...but it must be, because my fingers are moving, and it is late-early early-late, and my existence is floating pleasantly through a miasma of rum-soaked inhebriation, and maybe it is time for me to accept this thin plastic illusion for the night and collapse myself down to the branch of this tree where you humans keep your store labeled "dreams" and purchase maybe one, or maybe two, or maybe just the jumbo-super-family-end-of-the-world-could-be-soon-so-better-stock-up-sized drink of what there is to offer, and me and my tiny tin cup will go wait over here for the end of the everything, beneath this last willow tree;

we are the only two things in existence left in bloom.

4:17AM transmission

over.

Monday, 12 February 2001

I know you. Better than you think I do. I know all the secrets you told me, and I know they were all lies. I know that your reality is mirage; and I know that you are lost in it. I am talking just to you - you, who could never offer proof of your sanity, you who who tore out such tender hearts as if they were your given right to consume - I am talking just to you.

Do you fear, do any of your personalities fear? Do you know what a person is capable of doing when pushed too hard, too far? Maybe a person (we'll call her "L" in here) will create friends from thin air to do her sick bidding. Maybe L will dupe the ones she alleges to love with lies of vicious horror, too terrible to question, just because she can. Maybe L will invent a millionaire who lives near Washington, D.C. to stir fear into the blood of those who trusted her. Or, maybe L will just pretend to know a famous rock superstar, a guitarist perhaps - another bogus minion of her truest evil.

Do you fear, L? Do you know what happens when you push someone too hard, too far? Do you know how loud - when you tear out a person's heart - someone might scream?

Loud enough for demons to hear. Loud enough to turn the cheek of the moon. Loud enough to bring the sharpness of the stars down upon you, L. Loud enough to be heard from the shores of Boston to Washington, D. C. Loud enough to make a god take notice and decide where to place his large, angry Thumb.

Deuteronomy 32:35.

Splat.

Tuessday, 13 February 2001

Today I make the days complete as the dawn creeps across my computer screen.

I do remember the feeling of wind before it would scour my face; I remember when it was a kiss's breath.

In June, the mornings will arrive in soft fur. I must remember that, standing here in this lingering cusp of the worst winter in New England history. I must remember that life sometimes does feel like death, but I will be sweating to the oldies, newies, and everything in between soon enough. The hot sun on the skin of your face is a fine reason to survive.

The dawn is sliding across my computer screen, blocking these words from my sight even as I preserve them in the blankness of this ether. The sun, right now, leaves less a residue than a happy slug on pavement, I'm afraid; but soon enough, sure, it will imprint me with its warmth, soon enough, yes.

Time to go to work. Goddamn and Hell-to-Ride, it is frigging cold outside.

Wednesday, 14 February 2001

12:17 AM. Valentine's Day. This Texticity will take a while.

Let me say, first of all, that I never tried to believe in this sham, this shameful Hallmark Holiday; but when romantic hearts are connected they're connected at every level, even blind consumerism. I have been suckered. Often.

So, the rest of this day, I will post Valentine's Wishes to those in my life who right now deserve absolutely everything they have got coming. Sort of a lurid Texticity version of the book (and excellent movie) High Fidelity. {I look like John Cusak in Being John Malkovich, for better or for worse, by the way; just an fyi.}

Streams of consciousness, as these come to me:

10:17 AM. Hellmice. Thanks for years of open heart surgery. You are my doctor. You have made the rest of this list possible. Erleichda, my friend.

*

11:34 AM. Jen. Yeah, you, all in black with me today - but with the pink shirt and Jeffrey Osborne Valentine's Day card. Sarcastic wench...but all heart. I smile in this uncomfy seat each day because you are awful at being just a co-worker. Thanks for your months of sincerity.

*

11:55 AM. Valerie. For the peace, for the space, for the caring, for the compassion, for the understanding, for the advice, and for the patience, I will toast you with every Guinness sip this day.

*

2:52 PM. Annie Vox. Dark angel, dark angel, slide that voice into me. She is the long, wet essssssssss in the word slish.

And they wonder why Tampa is so muggy....

*

3:54 PM. Busy day. Time to catch up here.

Carrie. You're right, girl, you are not all bad out there. Without women, I would be nothing and nobody; unlearned, a boor, hubristic (even more than I am), and lost. Thank you for the intelligence whack.

(Not to mention, you taught me what oxytocin is.)

*

Marianne. Yes, dear, I know, you think I don't write about you enough. I don't write about anybody enough - I need that benefactor to come riding out of the dusk on her great white horse (or in a 2001 Civic, hmmmm???). Be good to Louis tonight; I love you, yes; but he loves you 1,000 times more.

*

Jess, R.I. Good friend, good friend, where has time taken you? Don't lose sight of the line of donuts, my dear. Wheels within wheels will carry you so quickly away. Soon both of our lives will be changed for the drastic better, and I'd like to jitter with you over coffee at the wonder of it all.

*

Nieve, a voice from Dublin. Ah, thank you thank you, my sweet my sweet, for reminding me of my purpose in here; to bring you the reflection of the moon on our mirrors; to bring you the sound of the sea in our ears, whispering our dreams. I promise you more lilt than a zephyr in the warming months to come, my dear; I promise you.

*

Tara. Okay, Dragonbait. Remember what I told you - it is possible to make love stay, and never, ever forget to be a child. Take care of that bear of yours; but take care of you you you, too. Trust an outlaw - he's never got a thing to lose by making change out of boom boom. Catch me, Red? And stop complaining about the rain...it washes things clean.

*

Kitty Kat. Thanks for the hug when I touched down so long ago, March was never so close and never so close, never so close, it's here again. You are more than a friend to me, more than the simple words of 'friend' 'mother' 'wife' hold. You are a giver, one of the finest I have ever known. This hat is tipped to you, Goddess, and our soon reunion.

*

Ryel. Brother Wolf, Sister Moon; kiss to your wrist, my sister my sister. I know the color of your eyes. I know the softness of the salt on your skin. I know your sly smile. And I know, at this moment, that only eleven feet separate me from that cork, that afternoon's sunlight, and our communion.

*

Lex. Or Liz. Or whomever you are/were. Karma has its own way of reckoning, my dear. And without exception, I would hate to be beneath the big K's gaze if I were you. Good luck.

*

I have not been changing names, but I'll protect yours, N. You caused enough turmoil with your lies and selfishness in January to last Texticity a lifetime.

To try to maintain a good mood today, I will say thank you - for inspiration; and for Chapter two of my new book. And thank you for some beauty, for some incredible beauty, as well, much of it yours. A shame you can not see it, and are slowly, and surely, killing it away. Good luck in your perpetual run from yourself, N. I hope you lose breath soon, and someone worthy enough catches you.

*

Karla-la-la! What better way to get back into the swing of this joyous mood than by paying my tribute to the most joyous fairy of them all. Well, woman, you do wear wings to the supermarket...don't deny it...everyone's seen you.

Karla, I'm back in the swing of this shadow-game, hitting at the walls and winning (like Rufus Sewell in Dark City, yum yum), because you have always admonished me for lacking the secret of joy. Between you and Alice Walker, I've re-discovered my spring-heels. Keep that dust blowing, K. - got to bring dreams in on moonbeams, and they need glittery limousines.

*

Jannine, ye Gaia of this site...I still have the first email from you re: Texticity; 6/28, I think it was. It was my first communiquÈ ever about this...this...Place. (This Place. There's more to be said here; but back to this point first.) You were a spark, my dear. A toast to you, for being a crucial part of this birth.

*

Caroline. You know where you are in here. In This Place. You are my friend, never, ever grow far from that. I have spent the last year watching you stray toward the darkness. There is light, and, as you can see above, it is in the bind of friendship, and love. I am here; I am always in here.

*

5:18 PM. Time for me to go home. Those of you not listed still rest in my mind; and I will make amends (and amendments). This last thought must, of course, go across the oceans, past the moon, soar around Argonian ships and talking spoons, up the skirts of Salome and down the throat of my latest dream, this one goes to the Orient, this one goes to a deeper shade of Seoul, this one heads to you my dear, the one and only, you, who have never pressed a finger too hard into my tender heart. Me, the frogs, the bunnies, and the moonlight, await your return.

Happy Valentine's Day.

There is hope boys and girls, hope beyond the drugs and alcohol and depression and darkness and this bleak, bleak cold of February. With Valentine's Day safely slain, the signs of Spring are budding long before the birches and maples are peeking out their pods. I am talking about Squirrels.

Have you ever seen a squirrel mating dance? Today, February 15, with the temperature teasing 30 like a virgin schoolgirl with a ticklish tongue, I got to see for the first time just that very thing. Crossing the campus, I saw first one, then two, then the third come running from the bulrushes along the frozen Charles R. In spirals and whorls, in figure eights and zeros and even sixty-sweet-nines they pranced after each other - the female, then the male, then a precocious adolescent boy-beastie - three animals at play on the shore's dirty ice. The female would stop and lift her bushy winter-thick tail, and the male would nose in with a single beat, placing what must have been a quite chilly snout to her warmest spot, that pheromonal megaphone beneath her seat. He would sit there sniffing for a second before she would dart on again, her suitors in tow. The adolescent - lighter grey fur, smaller build, thinner coat - never got contact with the girl, but instead pranced with himself in hops and jigs whenever the older male nosed in. I passed them in under a minute, but they were far from done and they were damning the cold, knowing knowing that Spring is soon to come.

A few minutes later, just before I crossed into my building, a pigeon set down before me, grabbing at a thick-barked stick not a foot from my feet. Clasped quickly to beak, it soared its rainbowed throat back to the trees, back to its burgeoning nest.

February 2001 has got us in its thicket, my friends, and coats us in lies of warming winds then shattering cold; but February's bite will not outlast its short bark. Spring is on the way. Warmth is coming. Laughter and play. Hold tight, my friends, hang on in here; Spring is on the way.

Friday, 16 February 2001

We heard it first, the patter, then the rattle. Frantic. A thousand tiny footsteps, jitterbugging on the glass roof above us. She glanced left, me right - We Ran!

In two stumbling shots we were at the downstairs glass door with smiles like Christmas as the heart of the storm opened and dropped from the sky; the hailstones that were beating tympani on the roof were the size of angel's eyes and glowed just the same in the silvery light gripping to the colors beneath the roil and choke of grays swarming just beneath the stars. I glanced left, she right - We Ran!

We did not get hurt much in the 20-yard dash to the bicycle rack across from the doors, and we squeezed in between the cycles and peered out at the shimmering world from beneath the leaking green tarp that served as the protective roof. The smaller, Trix-sized balls of hail bounced across the pavement, the tennis courts, the concrete walkway that separated us from the high chain link fence surrounding the courts.

The sky heaved again, the trees collapsed into prayer, and the hail became a swarm of furious bees as they hit us sideways, upwards, everywhere. We were butterflies in an air popper. The sky went out, cowering somewhere above the dropping black dusk.

I glanced at her. Her cobalt eyes sparkled in mid-afternoon, tweaking-life glory. She looked into mine and we smiled, embarrassed a bit to be such children, to be so free, standing soaked for no explainable reason at all in the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of the week, in the midst of all of our storms.

We ran back, carefully, the ground a carpet of cavorting spheres of ice. The twenty yards were enough to soak us.

Back in the office, we still wore our smiles.

Saturday, 17 February 2001

Some of my recurring dreams don't bother me anymore; like the one in which I wake up bound and gagged in the trunk of a car as three scary men with guns open the lid. They take me out into bright sunlight and carry me into a decrepit tenement building where an inner city gangster is going to shoot me in the head three times. I haven't had that one in a while and hope it was simply symbolic of some great, now-past change in my life.

But since I've moved into my home by the sea, my latest recurring dream leaves me shaking in the sunrise the mornings after:

I walk out of my bedroom and through my long livingroom. When I roll up the shade covering the big front picture window, the ocean is crashing in the thrashes of a storm, and has risen over the stone break-tide that normally holds it back, just twenty steps from my home. The surface of the roiling water is at the lower jamb, the waves washing up across the glass. As I watch in mortal paralysis, the fear of pending death by drowning icing my spine, a huge breaker begins to foam far across the harbor, building as it churns closer, seconds away from contact with the thin, fragile glass separating me from the airless undertow.

I have not yet seen it crash through; I always awake first, shaking in the sunrise.

Maybe it just means I have to pee?

Sunday, 18 February 2001

Would you like to know the strangest thing I have ever done with my barbell? Yes, yes, the stainless steel shaft I have pireced through my tongue. It is about an inch long, 12-gauge, and I have had it for almost four years.

I have done many things with it. Yes, those things. But once, I was on a cross-country bus ride to Seattle. I had just suffered a bad break-up, and needed to leave the area for a while; some mental healing time. I decided to hop a bus cross-country.

I could not sleep at all. It was my first ever bout with insomnia. About half-way to Seattle, I found myself at 3AM at a truck stop in North Dakota, the bus and its 40 or so passengers getting a smoke'em if you got 'em and quick breakfast stop. I had been awake for about 40 hours at that point.

I got off the bus. It was August. The sky was a spiderweb of lightning. Little thunder; it was far away, but it was huge, and it was coming.

Ten minutes to eat a hot dog, swallow a quick beer, attempt to use the bathroom. Greyhound leads to constipation. So does eating hot dogs and corn chips for forty hours.

I stepped outside the diner ahead of most of the other riders. Fat drops were just beginning to fall. It would have been possible to read by the lightning; it had become ubiquitous. Thunder was a constant roll.

I stepped around to the back of the bus. No one in sight. I tilted my head to the fracturing sky. Raindrops so big they dropped shadows; falling seas. I opened my mouth, got a drink. Lifted tongue toward lightning. Barbell, not six months in my mouth then, was extended.

I watched death dance over me. I waited. Three minutes and I was getting too wet, my neck hurting. I counted to three, closed my eyes, dared God.

What hit my barbell was more shocking than I could ever describe. A tiny frog, just like you hear about falling from the sky. He landed right in my mouth, bounced off my barbell. Ribbit. I spit him out.

Driver came running from the diner, ordering people into the bus. Dozens of tiny frogs were raining down, hopping away. I learned something then: when it rains tiny frogs, tornadoes are nearby and swirling.

I could still taste the frog. And what happened next, after we got on the bus, I will tell you on another day.

Monday, 19 February 2001

"If you touch me one more time, I'm going to rip off your arm and beat you with the wet end." I said.

He was in a deep-gray business suit, nicely tailored, Wall Street Journal folded under left arm, leather handle of dark blue-black Armani sachet gripped in left hand, thinning hair Pomaded to scalp. He was about thirty-six years old.

In his right hand he held a pencil, which he kept sticking in my ear. It is annoying enough to have to ride the Green Line without my walkman for the first time in 13 years, but to have this maniac with a drooling smile in a $700 suit poking the eraser of a pencil into my one good ear ever few minutes then whip his head away, drool flying, chuckling to himself and staring at the roof of the trolley like it wasn't him was just too much.

I turned back to the book I was trying to read. Soft Maniacs, by Maggie Estep. She'd commiserate, I was sure of it; she's commuted in NYC.

I was not reading, I was waiting, and sure enough, out of the corner of my eye, I saw that wet grin turn back toward me, the right hand rise, and the pencil start floating slowly through the air toward the left side of my head. Only this time he held it pointy-end out. He was not grinning the same way he had been before.

I hate being underestimated. My book fell. I grabbed his wrist and twisted...

Sorry, kiddies, bad news. I saw a "shrink" today for the first time ever (well, the second, but the last time was about 10 years ago and we were interrupted by H. Lechter, who had with him a bottle of '97 Felsina Riserva Cru Rancia (an incredible Tuscan Chianti) and well, y'know how that goes). Today's brain-pan dancer determined that I am, indeed, sane as a beehive [my metaphor, not hers].

It seems I am, however, surrounded by Borderline Personalities, maniacs-in-waiting, and malcontents who can not distinguish reality (or simply don't care about living in it), and who would like to do anything to make me out to be the crazy, paranoid person that they know they are.

With this, I give you three basic rules of the trade o' life I've learned lately:

1. Be careful to whom you try to give anything, i.e., presents, joy, happiness, even just a piece of your heart; there are those out there who see your attempts to bring them joy as threats to their pathos, and they will turn on you, inevitably, and violently. Back away from the ingracious, and let them tear their own selves down.

2. Be careful whom you confide in - your closest friend, neighbor, or roommate may be your worst enemy...and they might not even know it themselves.

3. And of course, the cardinal rule of dealing with Others: Be careful whom you trust. If you've known them under two years and can not name their mother, father, eye color, sexual preference, whether or not they smoke, etc., etc., then you are not in their confidence. Remember the simplest things of human interaction; those who want to be a part of you - for your love, your caring, your friendship - will inevitably annoy the hell out of you. Those who want to possess you or destroy you will try hard to be always perfect - or always inaccessible.

I may amend these...but if I do, it is only because I am watching you. And you...and you.

Call me paranoid. But I'm happy.

Anyone for a glass of Chianti? I possess a bottle of the finest vintage at home; Tuscan, of course....

Wednesday, 21 February 2001

This one is for the woman I see on the train while commuting; I see her at least four times a week.

She, like most commuters, does not smile, does not glow, does not shine, does not even blink or swallow or sigh much while she rides herself to and from her own grinding wheel. She is average height, dark eyes, straight brown hair, quietly luminescent skin; yet another of the masses, really...until you notice her just a bit more (you can't help it). She's got a different aura than most; where the commuters around her are bland, flaccid, cardboard excuses for humanity, she has a sweet melancholy to her; in all these months and months of commuting together, I have never seen her smile. She carries her sorrow brightly.

Yesterday, she sat with a young man for about three stops down the Blue Line. She was laughing, animated, enjoying conversation. Her dark eyes were wide, sparkling. Her smile puckered and grinned and never left her face until he got off at his stop. Left alone, her energy visibly recoiled, and she leaned to the side of her seat and closed her eyes. Her face, however, had less of the melancholy sheen that I had spied through these passing weeks. And her hair...streaked into the brown were stripes of orange, lively, colorful, vivid.

She, like the rest, sat on the train each day looking like she was awaiting the tap tap tap from death. Yesterday, her smile lit the train as her hair glowed like the birthing sun.

Not really much to say here, not a very exciting story...but inspiration can be as sublime as it is subtle, and your own joy can indeed be found in the turning of your spirit to the vicarious tap tap tapping in of the swelling hearts of others.

Thursday, 22 February 2001

Overheard on the Red Line last night, rush hour, older woman with cell phone speaking:

"Hi, Janis? Yeah. Yes...uh huh, I just left. No, nope, it isn't. Well, they don't think so. Oh, I can't even talk about it, I can't even talk about it. No; no, not that; the infection. No, that, they have no idea. 'Not 'til Thursday,' they said. Oh God, a million of them. Yeah, mostly blood but a few others. Oh, God, I hope not either. Yeah, I'd miss weeks. No, they don't know, but I shouldn't be in work. Yeah. Oh, Janis, we're going into a tunnel. Yeah. the coughing, too...look, I can't even talk about it now, so I'll call you later, okay? Janis...?"

She was cuter the last time that I saw her, that blurry one on the dance floor moving like a corpse with crayon eyes. Though, to her credit (?), I was definitely drunker. I must have had my beer-eyeliner on, making every smeared goth princess look like an archangel the previous instance of my visit to this underworld.

Tonight I simply could not slow down...I ran through the crowd at top speed, never tripping myself though apparently whizzing a few others to the floor, and inevitably the bouncers had to reign me in. They did let me go to the bathroom before ejecting me, which I thought was very nice of them. And the bartender who gave me that last drink was a sweetheart, pure goodness, which she added to my gin instead of tonic. Bless you, child.

I respect any woman with a sharp silver bottle opener tucked tightly into her skin-gripping denim back pocket.

Cheers, from the lips of melting beeswax; it hurts a little, yes; but it's waaaaaarrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmm.

Saturday, 24 February 2001

I'm tired today, hungover, too much gin not enough tonic last night. The backseat of this car isn't too bad. I'm comfortable on the outside. Music could be a little better, but it could be a lot worse.

Red light. Bus Stop. Glance to my right. Older man, fifties, not too much of anything between good and evil going on within him; soft face. Scratching a lottery ticket...at the bus stop? Four other people waiting there, too. A few walking down the sidewalk. Me, here, in the car, watching him scratch scratch scratch.

What is he going to do if it's worth a million?

What will I do when he looks up from that ticket, eyes wide and pale with joy?

Light changes. Green means go, we go. He slowly lifts his eyes from the revealed cardboard and glittery falling shards of silver as we pull away...

"Some consider it an unfair advantage, but it isn't my fault I can read minds. I vowed to myself a long time ago that when I found out that at a cetain point of blood:alcohol ratio I can actually read the minds of anyone within ten feet of me, I would only let the 'Thought Gravitation Embrace' stretch from my mind to those of the others around me during games of Scrabble. Since I usually hit my third beer by my fourth turn, it generally should not be much of an advantage. And after all, a large vocabulary is always more important - it does not matter what you know about which letters are where if you can't make a fifth-grade level word, eh? And besdies, those vowels! It always seems to be feast or famine with those things, doesn't it?"

I know a secret...there is an angel speeding from Purgatory, speeding her love to me. I hold for her a bed by Heavenside, kept thirsty by the salt of the sea.

Can you hear that, that sound, that high whisper keening through the slipstream? It is the sound of Heaven's Joy.

Here she comes.

6:17 A.M. I can't sleep.

I've been going to bed at 11, falling asleep between 1-3. Waking up earlier and earlier (and muddier and muddier). My mind has never been so occupied in my entire life. Take every Christmas you've ever anticipated, every birthday, every graduation, every party, every anything that's ever sped your heart to the point of slowing down time...take the hours before the first time you made love, the clock that ticked time by so so slowly. That is this feeling. Hyper-anticipation. Ultra-wait. My foot is Job-tapping (as in da Bible dude). This caffeine is moving too slowly through my bloodstream...even my coffee has been bought off by time.

Okay. It's close. 60 hours away. Destiny. The anticipation is tickling me on a cellular level. Savor. I need to savor the seconds. Every hour-long moment of them.

Wednesday, 28 February 2001

Quickly, quickly, it all happens. Drive on with me toward the coming Spring. Soon, soon, Ostara, Lady Day, will arrive on the warm breath of the Sun; to you, this, I vow. (March is here, and she is rushing toward us through the slipstream.)

I have found my heart. Spread your lips, show your teeth, smile for me. Smile for me.

Smile with me.

This is happening.

Words, images and sounds
© 2008 by the respective authors.

Happily hosted by beHosting since 2000.