by Tomorrow's Man
Wednesday 1 May, 2002
Mayday! Mayday!
I still haven't figured it out...is that good or bad?
Thursday 2 May, 2002
I feel no sympathy for that guy at the bottom of the stairs, the one burned all over his face with his left leg twisted underneath him as he painfully tries to turn over; I have no sympathy, because I watched him as he walked backwards up the big staircase in the middle of the building holding a large bowl of steaming hot chicken noodle soup, walking backwards so that he could get a last word or glance in at a cute little coed before he tried turning around and wrapped his legs around themselves and took his stupid, stupid tumble.
I watched a person two months from getting their MBA at Harvard, we're talking the cream of the American genetic crop, walk backwards up a staircase with a bowl of hot soup then fall and spill it all over himself.
I felt no sympathy for him. Instead, I walked over and kicked him.
Friday 3 May, 2002
It is one of those days...maybe it's going to be one of those months...when I simply won't be held nearly enough; and I'm not sure what's worse -- the fact, or knowing it.
Saturday 4 May, 2002
4:25 P.M.
Drying my tears.
I just spent five minutes bawling my eyes out...to the song 'Picture,' by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow.
Okay, I like Kid Rock. And Sheryl Crow is nifty. But I've never turned to either of them for emotional catharsis. They record one cheesy country/pop ballad, and I'm a gushy wad of used tissue warping my emotional floorboards.
More a testament to the magic of music...it doesn't just matter who, it matters where, and when, and how the planets are aligned, or something similar.
I listen to Kid Rock and smoke lots and drink cheap beer and Jim Beam and write poems and stories, cocky. Today, he made me cry.
Bastard.
Sunday 5 May, 2002
I woke up at 10. I fell asleep at 7. I guarantee, no one's ever fallen asleep the way I did this morning, I mean, I fell the way rocks fall from planes, the way love falls in value, the way everyday folks doing what makes them happiest fall from God's graces.
I awoke covered in ants. But it was okay, because hovering above me was a beautiful friend, all honeybee buzz and firehair, handing me coffee. And reminding me I had a video shoot in under two hours, at a place three hours away.
I was quickly awake.
It took me one hour, fifty-five minutes to get there. I got to the location, where 1,000 people were doing their noble/guilty/quizzical duty of performing the Walk for Hunger, a twenty-mile traipse through greater Boston.
My film crew, deterred by walkers and policemen alike, had not arrived, and would not do so. Luckily, I had pajamas.
The party the night before was a pajama party. So, I changed out of my video-required goth-clothes (many sore-footed folks enjoyed my sloppy flashes of brief nudity), put my pajamas back on, and walked with them.
Part of my outfit from the night before was my treasured pair of Homer Simpson slippers. Not all of him -- just his head, with his gaping, "wwwwooouugghhh...." mouth the place for my feet. I put my feet in Homer's mouths. I walked seven and one-half miles. In my Homer Simpson slippers.
I was nice being filmed by FOX-25 television. It was nicer walking past thousands of supporters and on-lookers, all of whom shouted "Whoo-hoo!" or "Doh!" without pausing for clearer thought.
Yes, a maniac was walking the last third of the 20-mile Walk for Hunger in slippers; yes, the slippers were in the shape of Homer Simpson's head; but, truly, how many sneakers can you watch stumble by, and still stay excited?
Monday 6 May, 2002
She's a willow and wild, got the width of a wolf's smile, she treasures me with nothing more than thoughts I can't read, in accidental touches and glances in trenches, I watch over the rim of full-moon black that she knows I can't read what she's thinking.
Tuesday 7 May, 2002
I had a bed bug he lived on my red rug he fell in with a bad slug who made him take big drugs he fled to Ohio on cinquo de mayo where he dreams of dancing with crawfish back in the bayou but he misses my kisses while he washes the dishes at a place where the fishes are served with a mish-mash of potatoes and beef hash, and I hope he knows now that the slug sold him bowlderdash and my windows is open because I am hoping he will come home to where he is loved and upon his red rug he will once again be my friend, my bed bug.
Wednesday 8 May, 2002
You are reserved for the likes of me. You are rarefied, until the rains come, heavy. You are a salt lick, I am a cougar behind the thirsty deer. You are a smile away from swallowing. You are going to where I will be coming, as you are everywhere I will have been. You have left music in the sugar bowl, causing sweet lumps that attract dragonflies. You were the color white, but now you are a deep, warm pink. You are rarefied and reserved, and you don't yet know that you are waiting for the likes of me.
Thursday 9 May, 2002
My submission to the Boston Beer Summit [Submitted to win four $25 passes; answer, in 200-300 words, 'why you drink.']:
The alarm clock drone wakes you up again Friday morning, at the same time as Thursday and Wednesday and every other weekday morning, 6:18 A.M. Even the roosters are still snoring. Walk to the bathroom with your eyes closed, twist the shower knob to 'boil.' Climb in. Doze for a few minutes as the hot water defrosts the night's sleep from your bloodstream. Open your eyes, smile at the soap, say "Good morning, Ivory. Good morning, Prell. Thank Gillette it's Friday."
Hit the commute, guzzle down the daily gallon of coffee. Pass through those glass doors and enter the eight-hour epic full of the flash and glory of copy machines whirring, fax machines grinding, cell phones ringing, pagers buzzing; your boss tracks you down waving a list of panics; your co-workers have all called in "sick" to hit the weekend early; your tie has been mauled by the CD-ROM drive you are convinced is possessed.
Finally, the metaphorical 'whistle' blows, as clocks and computers all over the office display "5:00" in plain, digital numbers that have no idea what joy they bring.
You run out of the office like it is the last day of high school, the summer ahead of you, the dry, tingly feeling at the back of your throat calling out for something cold, something crisp, something that begins the weekend with that tangy rush that plays jazz with your blood, plants funk in your booty, and tells you don't worry, Monday is a million years away.
Friday 10 May, 2002
Fourteen days is all it will take. Your eyes will expand like universes, your smile will see-saw with laughter, your hands will create the din of hot, heavy rainfall on a thin tin roof.
Fourteen days. We'll see you then.
Saturday 11 May, 2002
I think that seagull just might be smarter than me...nope, nope, maybe it's just he's got me thinking he's smarter than me, trying to psyche me out...flapping his wings like that...who's he think he is, the Pope? The President? Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise with big white wings, or Art Garfunkel sitting there like that, singing about a river or something? Thinks he's Art Garfunkel. Or Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise with those big white wings, all feathers and bone. Look at him staring...yeah I see you, Tom, I see you sitting right there, Art old boy...but I ain't coming outside...nope, you can go find someone else to bring back to your young, I ain't no Tom Cruise food, I ain't no Art Garfunkel baby-gull food, no way I don't think so you crazybird...
Sunday 12 May, 2002
"So, if my head had turned into a fly's, you know, like the way Al Hedison's did in "The Fly" (not like Jeff Goldblum's didn't in the remake), the first thing I would have done would've been to set up two big mirrors, facing each other, so they had that infinity effect going on, then I would've sat right down between them with my big ol' fly eyes wide open."
"Whoah......."
Monday 13 May, 2002
Forthcoming for all you patriotic fans who still can't get enough of supporting Big Business and its Americanized gouging of 9/11:
Ameripons: Kotex will release a line of tampons in all absorbencies striped from top to bottom in red, white, and blue (for those of you who enjoyed the ice cream trucks in the seventies and eighties, they will remind you of those huge flag-colored popsicles called Bomb Pops -- a name and meaning I won't get into right now). Don't fret about the top being red and throwing you off, however; due to fantastic advances in modern chemistry, as the tampon becomes saturated the colors will actually change to the flag of France, with blue at the top and red at the bottom; so, when you see red, shout "Sacrebleu!" and hit the lavvy for a change.
All-American Pizza: Using chemically altered extra-white cheese, blue dye in the crust, and beet juice in the sauce, pizzas will from now on be red, white, and blue, for all of you gastrointenstinal patriots. And don't fret, because the colors won't break down! So, when it is time to poop it out the other end, you can stand and salute before you flush.
U.S.Anal: Henceforth, all butt plugs sold in the United States will come in either red, white, or blue. The Korean outfit, LBP (Love Bum Pretty), manufacturers of three sizes of very popular plugs known as the Space Needle (8 inches, with a revolving vibrator at the top), the Sears Tower (15 inches long and whip-thin), and the King Dong (14 inches long with a seven-inch circumference, self-lubricating), has begun back-ordering the new plugs, and they should be available in stores by the end of the month. For those out there who can not wait for these shipments to arrive, retailers are honoring a 10%-off raincheck, as well as distributing coupons for the produce department at most of your local groceries.
Stay tuned for forthcoming product updates. USA! U< >S< >A!
Tuesday 14 May, 2002
Okay, ladies, gentlemen, it is time for me to share a revelation. I am going to finally lift the veil on the age-old question of why She always ends up in the wet spot.
Ladies, it's all your fault. Do you know why you always end up in the wet spot? Because we have to do the rolling-over to get anything done.
Let's face it now -- on those rare occasions when your slick pink Gates of Ecstasy are thrown open to our lust lumber's frantic loverly ministrations, it is up to us to revolve 180, plop over onto you where you lay firmly planted on your side of the bed, and get jiggy wit it.
Disneyworld does not come to the tourist.
Even Mohammed had to go to the mountain, elephants and all.
I await your ripostes, at chris@snowofbutterflies.com.
If you get to the computer before the shower, make sure you put a towel down on your chair first. (But hey, at least the bed will be dry by the time you return!)
From the dry spot,
Chris.
Wednesday 15 May, 2002
My god...this thing has gotten bigger...
Thursday 16 May, 2002
"You are all I've ever wanted. You pierce me. Your smell. Your teeth. Your thoughts I can't read. I will never know what you're thinking. The color of storm and sky in your eyes. The way you pronounce a word. Your laughter. Your thoughts I can't read. I will never know what you're thinking. Your height, weight, girth, breadth. Your chest, your breathing. Your attention to detail. Your mind, sometimes like a kitten. Your energy. Your thoughts, your thoughts I can't read. I'll always wonder if you're thinking of me, and what you're thinking, if you are imagining how I would feel moving atop you, or if you wonder why I smile like a star-struck buffoon. You have such power over me that you do not know controls me from breath to heartbeat to blink to sigh. I wish I knew your thoughts...the thoughts I can't read."
Friday 17 May, 2002
Sometimes the only feeling you need, regardless of where you are, is knowing that you've remembered a pen and a single, dry piece of paper.
Saturday 18 May, 2002
Wake up. Check clock. 7:04 A.M. Check computer. Distracted by window...it's snowing. Check clock. 7:11 A.M. Check calendar. May 18. Check window. Snow. Check temperature. 34. Wind chill, 26.
Go right the hell back to bed.
Sunday 19 May, 2002
"Boy, did you see that? That guy really wanted that soap..."
Monday 20 May, 2002
Teddy bear, typewriter keys. Love poem, tears at night. Full moon, skinny dip. Warm towel, naked skin. Lover's touch, fantasy of flying. 1200 miles of travel, a single crisp beer. Warmed blood, tongue kiss. Shortened breath, flesh release. Laughing memories, desire to please. Cash exchange, package sent. Open mail, teddy bear.
Tuesday 21 May, 2002
Stop time. Hold. Look back, feel it, nostalgia. Two years gone by, seven hundred memories. A daily trickle of life from my veins, a gentle, voluntary bloodletting. I am here today.
I will be here for you.
Wednesday 22 May, 2002
Need to take to the roads soon...I can feel my butt tingling with the desire for Greyhound's mind-loosening, jagged ride. Need to run, need to hide in the open. Need to open my mouth to the stars and swallow.
Expect a call...I will not warn you, I will just suddenly appear, closer than you know.
Thursday 23 May, 2002
"I want to be inside you."
It is very strange when the guy on the other side of the drive-through speaker at the McDonald's says that after I order my Big Mac Value Meal.
I wonder if it means he likes me.
Friday 24 May, 2002
What? Where was I? Ah, yes, finding filler. Not fodder, or flatter, no filter or finger. Filler, not Flipper. No flanger, no frapper, no fork, plate, spoon, or deep-fryer. Just some filler.
Saturday 25 May, 2002
I JUMP ON YOU!! YES!! WITH THEES, THEES MY SNEAKERS!! JUMPING YES YOU SEE HAA AH HA, YOU ARE MY TRAMPOLINE NOW, YES!! GIVE ME BACK MY TAMBORINE!!!!
Sunday 26 May, 2002
Dreamt about more planes crashing into buildings last night. Woke up at dawn to check the airport, which was silent, of course, at 5 AM.
Got a bad feeling.
Monday 27 May, 2002
Y'ever have those days when you feel like you've spent a year in the botom of a fruit bowl, that little brown nubbin on the bottom of a banana poking you in the lower back the whole time, a leaf of a strawberry tickling your nose and making you sneeze while the stem of an apple keeps making you left forearm itch? Yep, having one of those days.
Tuesday 28 May, 2002
...? Did you say something? That rumble, that shift in the tectonic plates beneath my feet, was that you? That, yes, that there...was that a secret whisper, or is it time to run...?
Wednesday 29 May, 2002
I turn down the brightness of my monitor. Three small, vibrant blue lights are circling the beach outside my second-floor window. I watch from behind the glow of my pink, female-musky candle as they bob and swerve, cavorting like puppies in the midnight black.
They halt, and I know they 'see' me watching from the darkness of my window. One shoots toward me, fast as lightning, and I flinch.
Up close, it looks like the top of a dandelion in bloom, just before a breeze blows the fluff-umbrella'd seeds away. Between the wiggling stems, which are shafts of neon-blue light, millions of tiny creatures teem on the porous, skin-like surface of the orb. The millions of tiny creatures, vaguely bear-like in appearance with white fur and large sapphire eyes that take up most of their tiny heads, are all looking up to the sky...watching me. I wave. They wave back, white-furred paws sending a gentle breeze toward my face through my closed screen. The air smells of coriander and honey.
The orb shoots away as quickly as it arrived, and the three reunite in a few clockwise twirls before shooting off into the deep, dark sky.
I turned back to my computer screen, turn up the brightness, and write this down.
Thursday 30 May, 2002
I took an apple and I squashed it flat and I dried it out and now I can do this with many apples and oranges and cherries and make a layer of sticky fruit clothing. Limes will be my tie.
Why would I do this?
Because it is easier to create my own fruit rollup suit than to explain to someone why Count Chocula -- a sweetened cereal that happens to have a vampire theme -- is one of the oddest creations in humankind.
Thanks to Sarah Vowell for inspiring the conversation that inspired this texticity...six degrees of inspiration?
Friday 31 May, 2002 Jacksonville Notes
4:00 PM: Somewhere Over the Bible Belt
The very, very old woman seated in front of us has developed gas the likes of which has not been smelled since dinoaurs with very poorly developed digestive systems walked the Earth, or about when she was hitting puberty. It's got thickness a Louisiana bog crawfish could dance across, and the tenacity of the velcro on Chucky [the Muderous Horror Movie Doll's] sneakers coupled with a waft of liver left in the sun, overcooked cabbage, and a trigger-happy skunk. I'm seated in the Emergency Exit Row, and its all I can do not to turn the red lever and throw the cabin door into the 535 MPH wind to air out this plane. I watch her as she slowly shifts a buttock upward for a second salvo, and I can't imagine a greater emergency, terrorists be damned.
9:02 PM: Jacksonville, Florida
The four of us stop at a railroad crossing as a freight train just begins to trundle by. My Northeasterner inner alarm, which was designed by Lewis Carroll's Wonderland rabbit, begins jangling when I notice that the end of the train is lost down the distant darkness of the tracks...
9:05 PM:
The train cars continue to congeal out of nothing more than the black, deep-fried, 87-degree night, as if the horizon were a giant Play-Doh Factory, the great yellow lever being squeezed down by the hands of Carnegie and Scott and Rockefeller, an infinitely full can of dirty gray metal being forced through a freight train stencil as boxcar after boxcar is extruded down the tracks. I'm living a hobo's dream, a cornucopia of choicest, slow-moving travel accomodations.
9:08 PM:
We are in the left lane, the second car from the flashing turnstile. As the traffic collects around us, I quickly throw together a petition to the city planners to construct a whacky invention we Northerners call a "bridge." I am met with the kind of gentle head-shakings reserved for children who 'just don't understand' why they can not have candy before bed. I walk up and down the line of automobiles, still shorter than the line of boxcars, determined to make a difference.
9:42 PM:
72 signatures later and I'm convinced that the Greek thinker Thales was right after all, and that this train must stretch right to the end of the flat Earth. Orange-haired clowns now walk up and down the line of automobiles pushing carts laden with hot dogs, balloons, and "I Saw A Train" T-shirts, obviously enterprising verterans of this phenomena.
9:56 PM:
I begin digging a tunnel under the tracks with my pen and cigarette case. I get two inches down before I hit Florida's water table. Ah, I see. No tunnels.
10:01 PM:
Clown-cart hot dogs are not bad. I swallow my last bite and experience a Zen-like epiphany as I realize that the freight train stretches across Florida, up through Georgia, and back through Alabama and Mississippi, before reconnecting with itself, endlessly. I must have died in the plane (perhaps from old-lady-fart asphyxiation) as this is my Hell. Well, at least Hell has hot dogs.
10:30 PM:
The last car is in sight! Only 30 more seconds and Florida's secession from the Union will be back to mere rumour status. As the last car bounces by and the turnstiles begin to lift, we slowly begin to motor ahead -- only to be cut off by a car that had pulled up illegally on our left not ten seconds before. As that car speeds by, leaving us screeched to a stop on the tracks, I can't help notice that car has Massachusetts plates. Ah, irony, you jocular bastard.