by Tomorrow's Man
November 2001
Thursday 1 November, 2001
I just found out that my wife has said, "Oh, my ass knows 'Tom's Diner'." on more than one occasion.
?????
...
!!!!!
Friday 2 November, 2001
Crossing Anderson Bridge on my way from Boston into Cambridge, a stunning 65 degrees on this early November day, "Everything In Its Right Place" by Radiohead in the headphones, the sun comes out and the tiny deciduous leaves of the American Elms that line the Charles River, all changed from green to gold, fluster from their brittle branches in a sudden gust of warm wind and swoop and swerve over the bridge, to the shore, across the sidewalk, into my hair and eyes, spattering the cars in their crawl toward the city, "a million bright ambassadors of morning...."
Beauty. Perfection. Peace.
Saturday 3 November, 2001
Sometimes it's nice to just stand quietly with parts of your body hanging from your clothing, thinking.
Sunday 4 November, 2001
We pass each other and nod and I know that he's thinking what I'm thinking, and I know that he's thinking that I don't know shit, and I know that I'm thinking that I don't know shit, and the thing is that we're both right, but neither one of us knows it, yet.
Monday 5 November, 2001
The heart racing, feeling like a hammer trying to blast from the chest, is at least the heart moving; a bomb-blast way of life, yeah, at least you're living it.
Tuesday 6 November, 2001
Longer legs. I want longer legs. I don't mean a few inches, I mean altered-human-genetics longer. I want to be 10 feet tall, with seven-foot legs.
I have small feet. Short legs. Take little steps. Each one of my steps covers about three feet if I'm lucky. That's 1,760 steps to cover a mile. That's waaay too many. I need to do it in a few hundred steps. Hell, it would take me 42 million steps to walk around the planet. Come on, who has time for that? My walkman batteries would die. They last about four hours. Two AA's. I walk quickly for a short guy, but still, I only cover about six feet per second, tops. 244 straight days to circle the planet, and a walkman that only gets four hours out of two AAs. I'd have to carry 2,934 batteries with me. At an ounce and a half each, that's 275 pounds of AA batteries. That's pretty heavy. And would probably slow me down, which would mean more steps, etc., etc.
See, I need longer legs. Much, much longer.
Wednesday 7 November, 2001
It was a murder, I know because I tasted the blood, but it was the laughter, her laughter, that could have fooled God, could have fooled Him into doing exactly what I did, worship, worship her, as a perfect, fallen idol, a delicious human female, fallable and engraved in her own blood.
She made me pray.
Thursday 8 November, 2001
I'm a collapsing vein, blow me up, I'm a collapsing vein, blow me up, I'm spilling seed, buttercup, lick it lick it lap it up, fill up fill up fill my vein, I've collapsed, won't rise again, take my seed, plant me in the rain, I'm acid, I'm lucid, I'm locust-pist on grain, I'm acid, I'm rancid, I'm sane.
Friday 9 November, 2001
In the dream last night we entered the snake as it was carried away by the eagle, we lay warm and tight in the inside coil of its muscle, its body became a replay of our birth, then as twins with me moments older we left the snake as it fell from the bird's beak and we three tumbled together, only gravity and the snake hearing us scream. The snake turned to a leaf the colors of a Monarch butterfly and floated away above us as we sped toward the moutains, naked, newborn, and back-first, screaming.
Saturday 10 November, 2001
Stolen resolve, lost to the sea, float your choices free on glitter dusting in the cold, give your last wish to the empty, it will carry you away from those who are selling you piecemeal.
Sunday 11 November, 2001
Grey falls, blue hides, bombs come, lovers die, flesh begins in a sobbing womb, flags smolder as tears dry, veils lift to hide the sun, we're a crazy race, we're all human, we're all very doomed; fetus falls breathless and numb, we'll die, they'll die, all gone.
Monday 12 November, 2001
Dance on the edge of the platter. Kiss the corner of an elbow. Laugh at stop sign after stop sign. Flash yourself in the mirror. Send undies unclean with a snicker. Tell her what you really feel. Spin. Cry. Laugh at sunrise after sunrise, laugh into the sun.
Tuesday 13 November, 2001
I rocked the boat, oh yeah, rocked the boat, spilled brine on her reality shoes, it matched her scent and she spread, licked it all clean tasting the ocean again, baked her in the sun for a while, caked beneath a salty smile, rocked her boat again and again, shooting love into her sea.
Wedneday 14 November, 2001
Under the thinnest layer of loam smell the earth cold rise to the surface worm to dragon, unfurl, rise, red wings patterns of gold, languages remember you in haiku ignore time drop eggs of future promises we eat as omelettes for our past we sleep we dream of you arisen above our beds, red tongue hot breath dragon wings our sheets, cover us in fantasy, deliver us from doom though down your throat it may be, eat us eat us eat us, devour us down all whole, save us.
Thursday 15 November, 2001
The next person who says to me, "Haay, issnit fun to be in an airport in Kentucky when the alarms go off and people run from the evacuating terminals in tears, issnit exciting???" well, I'm gonna pop 'em one.
Friday 16 November, 2001
One of those days when I feel like the difference between a serving and a dose...
Saturday 17 November, 2001
She is midwest pornography, she is the Holy Groin, she is God's Whore's toothy smile, she is a murder-secret wrapped in black, she is the one-winged crow looping through the bloodied air, she is shortness of shark's breath, she is the devil's #1 wet dream, and I kissed her hello.
Sunday 18 November, 2001
On the planeride home today, Round Two of this damnable cold I've been fighting developed like a thunderhead as I spent 5 hours airport-hopping from Madison to Boston. I was handling it until, on the landing approach to Logan International, the pressure in the cabin decided to pop my head like bubblegum between its lips. My eyes bulged, my ears went deafer than they've ever been, my blood throbbed purple in my neck as tears were forced from their ducts being hammered shut by my pulse. As I curled in my seat cringing and crying, I couldn't hear the flight attendant trying to console me.
After 15 minutes of this torture, as I left the plane, she said, "It's awful to fly with a cold. I know." I could see in her fearful, blood-rimmed eyes that she was also soaring while sick, her head nearly exploding, and it made me feel not a jot better to know she had suffered, too.
Monday 19 November, 2001
"Thrubble throm," he said, as he grampled with his gridder, and I shonked him away forst he could spelum burot me; dosnit medder thet ah'ym knowed so long, ah'ym naeiyit be wahtn soe grampler thwuzzing ets throm burot me'en sprok!
Tuesday 20 November, 2001
There are seven...at least...tiny feces monsters...dark grey...with big, sweeping wings...dotting the walls and mirrors of the men's room...up to no good...hungry, I can tell...monkeyshines in their beady, faceted eyes...these fellers ain't going far without a fight...
Wednesday 21 November, 2001
6:18 P.M. Put on the glove. Raise the metal, bristling. Approach the animal. Swiftly I grab its neck - and with teeth and claws swarming the air in a desperate attempt to spill my hot blood, I proceed to brush my cat.
It is late fall - his summer coat is shedding, leaving a mildew of fur across my glasses of beer, a prickle on every plate of food, a thick web of snuff and dander on my face - impenetrable and unable to be removed - when I kiss his belly. I must do this, then: move in close, Navy Seal-style, and run the brush through his hairy static of black, white, and silver. He twists and bolts, and I may as well be using a camera to catch a Comanche (I wonder - what if a cat's soul is in his fur??? That would explain things...about all cats).
Arm clawed, brow sweat-sticky and matted with HIS fur, I give up the chase. Instead, I clear the bristles of the brush and begin stalking my other cat...the slower, more docile one...
...uh oh...he's on the bed...watching me approach...big green eyes slit...and he's got my whip...
Thursday 22 November, 2001
My friend? Yah, my friend, he’s dead. involved in a sore, sorry accident with a saint and a sieve. But, but; they, do, both have blood, good, healthy blood, stored in my fridge.
Friday 23 November, 2001
He ran 'round the platter 'til he lost his footing at the edge of a taco; it wasn't a wheel, like they'd said they'd invented, but a semi-pie, a half-sweet just itching to evolve, but with no revolve in sight of its wee half-closed (half-open?) eye. Such is the way of the half-wheel, he who'd since been made of sugar and stuck together with nothing more than a flick of a centrifugally-forced yawn.
Saturday 24 November, 2001
1.5 litres of wine. Open mouth, insert 1.5 oz. at a time. It took me about 40 sips. Doesn't seem like a lot.
I can't walk. Spin, and the world spins with you. Who left me here...here, with these pictures of torn birds and fish? Go to Germany, have fun, drink the wine; go to Korea, have fun, bark back a belch of the dog.
One sip left in the glass. Who knew what a belly could hold.
I'm done.
Sunday 25 November, 2001
63, ah, now, that's the way to live. 63 on a November Sunday. Warmth and a way to age. I'd like that. Age with the temperature. Wake up 48 years old, on a day like this. By 2:30, you're 63. In the Summer, when it's harder to handle the heat, you spend your days in your 80s, chilly from the bones on out. In the winter, when you need your energy, you spend your life in your 30s and 20s, sometimes even harking back to the hard-on heaven of the teens.
In Metric cultures, would they live Centigrade lives? Too much to think - how's one act at 3 below?
Heh - hey, act your temperature!
Monday 26 November, 2001
Skinny Hispanic guy, ugly. Ten feet away down the car of the train. I'm ears in walkman, face in book, Tommying at the world. I can feel him staring. Glance up, yep, sunken dark eyes, buck teeth dry, Elvis-bouf sticky sheen, staring at me.
Fucking Mondays.
He gets off at State Street, one stop before me. Exits, walks four steps to the side of the car - stares through the glass, at me. Skinny hand moves, grabs slowly, kneads small bulge in tight jeans on skinny brown body, eyes staring, at me. I bare teeth, fume. His white tongue exits his ugly mouth, licks at his dry teeth. Big ugly lips, open.
The train pulls away. I'm left feeling like I've found out that there was feces in my coffee. Good morning.
Fucking Mondays.
Tuesday 27 November, 2001
Begin around noon on Saturday.
1. Mix one half-cup sugar in one quart warm water.
2. Paint solution liberally across walls, surfaces, and mirrors of bathroom.
3. Close bathroom door.
4. Remove clothing.
5. Open large box of South American insects.
6. Kick box three times, hard.
7. Stand until dusk.
You win.
[Recommended during the winter, when the days are shorter and the insects are more sluggish.]
Wednesday 28 November, 2001
I have one cat who likes to chew on computer components from firewire to mouse cord while purring Ave Maria, one cat who thinks he's the black tip of a literal ebony iceberg, and a stuffed platypus convinced she's the reincarnation of Nixon (do NOT call her Dick).
Our new teddy bear has not exposed his idiosyncrasies quite yet, but I'm sure they are soon arriving. I just hope that this time they don't have to do with washing machines.
(Fiasco.)
Lord God damn our last incursion with washing machines and prevent its repeat.
Amen.
Thursday 29 November, 2001
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Friday 30 November, 2001
Pierced my tongue. Pierced my ears, seven places total. Pierced my eyebrows, my nose, two spots on my lips. Pierced my cheeks. Pierced my cock with a 1/4-inch thick Prince Albert. Pierced the bridge of my nose, my eyelids, my lower gums. Pierced the webbings between my fingers, all 8 of them. Pierced my scrotum, four places, and my pinky toenails (those hurt). Pierced both wrists, cross-wise, above the veins.
It was a rough morning; so, sitting in the bathroom, I made the best of my lunch hour. Took just patience and safety pins. If Monday's rough too, I might just rip 'em all out.
Modify the day. Confuse the future.