Sweet Bitter Shadow

Last night he entered my dreams. We were in the same room, and I was glad of this. How many months had passed? How would he act? How should I act? Filled with uncertainty, I retreated to a window, and stood gazing out. He came to me. Stood behind me. Wrapped his arms around me. And together we wept.

We wept without resistance, held each other, unguarded. The heat of his neck, the scent of his skin, the familiar shape of his body. His hands and arms that I loved. Our bodies splitting open like hard crusts of earth over a deep red lava flow, the pain spilling out in hot pools.

Human again, whole again, ego obliterated by the touch of a hand.

Today, reading letters exactly one year old, I felt compassion for him that has long been absent. I felt a longing that made me remember the exact texture of skin and hair on every part of his body, the shape of his ankle and crooked breast bone, the look in his eyes when doing this, and this, and this. The muddy shades of his moods.

The way he went there, deep, to the center of my skull, to the darkest rooms behind my eyes, the doors we opened together that were petrifying but necessary, the silence, the acceptance. And how that all changed. And how, despite that, and myself,
I still love him.

Tag

Was cruising through some of the blogs I like to read a few moments ago, and in one of them someone had posted one of those tag things where it asks you to:

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence.
3. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog.
It only has 101 pages. The last page is one paragraph. It so happens to be beautiful, so I'll post the whole thing (C'mon, I could not leave out that last sentence!):

What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered, together. They are strewn there pell-mell. One of your ribs leans against my skull. A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower.) The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel. It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace. Yet it does. With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough.


4. Name of the book and the author
And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos
by John Berger
5. Tag three people.

At least three of you that read this have your own blogs... so, tag, you're it!

Guess What, I'm Not Feeling Charitable

I need to complain about this dude I sometimes have to work with. He's kind of a "regular" per diem worker at one of the group homes I work at. The collective evidence noted both today and on previous occasions forces me to draw one unavoidable conclusion: he's such a total fucktard.

The over-arching theme or quality that so frustrates me: Laziness. Of thought. Of action. Both are bad. I haven't decided yet which is worse. My first WTF moment with him came one day as I passed through the living room at the home and noticed that Jerry Springer was on. I didn't pay this much mind, assuming that it was a blip in someone's channel surfing. Several minutes later I passed through again, Jerry Springer is still on, and this ass-clown, along with several residents, is sitting there, transfixed by some white trash slut-fest fight.

In the crisis plan (a brief document describing the clinical diagnosis, warning signs, triggers etc. of a client) for two of the residents who were in the room when Jer-ry! was on, it states not only explicitly but repeatedly, and I paraphrase: Triggers for so-and-so include films and television shows with violent or sexual content and should be avoided. Since both of the residents I refer to have issues with anger management and are both technically sex offenders, one can understand the admonition to avoid violent, angry, or sexual content. As I said, this information is spelled out in black and white in their crisis plan, a simple document that everyone who works with these clients needs to read in order to, um, understand their behavior better and also to help them adopt healthier behaviors.

Are you picking up what I'm laying down here? What kind of bonehead would allow fucking Jerry Springer to stay on the tele for longer than 2 seconds with these guys in the room? The lazy, lazy fuck just felt like watching Jerry Springer. And he either didn't read their crisis plans, ever, OR he did, and either a. his mind is a fucking sieve, or b. he really, really doesn't care to think past his own impulsive desires.

Then today, he was making breakfast for the guys, cooking eggs on an electric skillet. I can forgive him for his inexperience with using one of those things, however, when the entire bottom floor of the house starts to fill up with a smoky haze, at some point, do you think you would take note of that? Perhaps also make a note of the burning butter turning all of the eggs brown? Grease is dripping off the skillet and onto the stove, so he wads up some paper towels and shoves them under the hot electric skillet to soak it up. And leaves them there as he continues to cook. Yuh, grease-soaked rags under a hot skillet. Mmmhmm.

The kicker in all of this is that later I see him "cleaning up" the stove area, in fact I see that he has lifted the burners off and removed this sort of shield/tray thing that they rest upon (it's a gas stove), so I'm thinking, well, good for him, cleaning the stove. Eventually I'm making lunch for the guys. I took out some stuff that looked like turkey and was sniffing it to make sure it was okay, and asked if he knew anything about it. He informed me it was only purchased yesterday. I said good, I'm going to make grilled cheese with turkey. He watches me buttering bread and laughingly mutters something to the effect of, "Oh, you might think it matters how you make it or present it, but they don't care." In other words, don't make me look bad by preparing a nice meal. Am I right? I am right. I should've said, "Oh, maybe we can try feeding them from a trough next time, since they don't care, right?" Fucker.

But back to the kicker - so after lunch when I start to clean up, I notice plenty of debris and grease that I know for a fact did not come from my lunch prep. I start to clean the stove, and decide to lift up the same tray I saw him industriously fucking around with earlier. The tray itself, and the stove top underneath were a complete mess. What was this guy doing all morning when he could have actually been cleaning instead of pretending to be? Well, I can tell you. He was watching TV. Oh, BUT!!! He was "hanging out" with the guys! Not talking. More or less staring. Just writing about his ass is exhausting me. I was hesitant to harsh on him as much as I did here, but you know what, if he was making honest mistakes and wasn't just fucking coasting while getting paid the same as me I really wouldn't care. But it's this simple: he's lazy and careless. If that makes me a judgemental jerk, I just can't say I care. Goodnight.

Some Enchanted-ish Evening

I had a strange night. First I swung by my parent's house to run mad circles around the neighbor's yard with the dog. Now that she's finally trained to not keep running like a gypsy, she's a complete joy to take outdoors unleashed. Man does that dog like to run. It's like it suddenly clicked with her, the trade-off for not running blocks away if she happened to become unleashed. She doesn't have to put up with the constriction of a leashed collar or harness, gets to run around like a hyena on crack, and gets a treat for running back home after staying within the confines of the two connected yards. I'm very proud of her, and I love to see her free as a jaybird.

After that visit I headed downstate a few miles to check out a new drinking establishment that a friend of mine just opened with his buddy. Here is where it starts to get weird. I jumped on the interstate, and even though my mood was just fine, save for having a few female cramps - at some point on the highway I started to feel really...dizzy. I was cruising along at around 70mph, and started feeling almost disconnected from the road. There was a lot of traffic, and it was dark. Bear in my mind, my actual mood was normal - but when this started happening, it was like this piercing pressure drop, adrenalin or something shot straight from my head to my gut and back again.

When the disconnected feeling started to subside mildly as I kept driving, trying to stay as focused as possible, I was socked with another feeling - sadness? - and then I began to realize that I had just had a panic attack. The reason it freaked me as much as it did is that it came completely out of the blue. I felt fine, and then I didn't feel fine. I was desperate to find where it was I was trying to get to (I was unsure of exactly how to get there) and to just sit the fuck down and come back to earth.

Thankfully, it didn't take long. My friend wasn't there when I arrived, but his buddy was, and I asked for a glass of water. That helped. I got a couple of phone calls and had a beer. That helped even more. The bar itself was fabulous, these guys did an awesome job setting it up, very metro but comfy, and surprisingly large. Also very easy to get to with good parking. That was a definite bonus for me, at least on this evening. I wasn't prepared to stay long, so I never ended up seeing my friend, still it was well worth checking out, and I felt satisfied that at least I will know exactly where I'm going next time.

I realized on the way back home that I really wanted another Corona. I decided that tonight was the night to check out the bar down the street, the one run by the K of C. That stands for Knights of Columbus, in case you weren't sure. And if you're still not sure what their deal is, google it, 'cause I'm not really sure myself. They have something to do with the Vatican, they have swords and costumes, no they are not Opus Dei or Priory of Scion or some shit, however they are somewhat secretive.

The main thing you need to know about them is that they have cheap, cheap drinks. We're talkin' dollar pilsners and Coronas for $2.50. Cheap. They also serve pickled eggs. I've never eaten one of those before tonight. Not recommended highly, however not outright condemned. They have a pool table. I also learned from a patron that they have killer seafood on Fridays. No sign-in and no dues, unlike another bar of similar heritage that shall remain unnamed.

It wasn't busy, and this older dude (he told me he was 55) came and sat next to me at the bar. He talked a lot lot lot lot and drank a lot lot lot lot. Ex-girlfriends, titty bars, motorcycles, motorcycles, surfing on the nude beach at 16 and teaching a bunch of (nude) teenaged girls to surf, having sex with them (not at the same time), seeing some of them even now on occasion (but not having sex with them), um let's see, motorcycles, beer, motorcycles, bonfires, motorcycles, ex-wife, daughter, his Cadillac, his truck, did I want to go for a ride on his bike, did I want to go to the topless beach next summer, motorcycles, vicious animals, um, beer. Motorcycles. He actually came across as a gentleman. Seriously. No, I'm not going to the topless beach with him. My sister showed up after I had been there for about an hour, and seemed to enjoy being scandalized by the topics of conversation that were in the air as she sipped her mixed drink.

The evening wasn't freaky-weird, just weird. The only troubling aspect was the highway panic attack. The fear was like that from a dream - breath-stealing and balance-fucking. The highway drive home was perfectly normal. Mr. Nude Beach dude was perfectly normal. The pickled egg was perfectly normal, for a pickled egg. The purring cat, my drowsy eyes, this sloppy post - perfectly normal.

On Not Making a Mess

"Stand by the stairway, you'll see something
certain to tell you confusion has its cost"

Standing still. I've said it before - perhaps I've missed my true calling. I think I'd make an alright monk. Once I got my license to drive and a car, I started visiting the monastery over the state line. It was a Trappist monastery, for men only. But I would visit the chapel in the afternoon, when it was time for vespers.

Visitors were allowed to access a small vestibule area to the left and right of the stark altar. There were several short rows of wooden pews on each side. From there you could peer into the almost complete darkness of the church, eyes straining to make out shapes in this cavernous space lit only by indigo blue stained glass and scattered candle flame.

At the appointed time, rows of monks in brown robes would file in silently and assemble towards the center of the space. On cue they would start their prayers, sung in a low chant. You could not see their faces, only faintly illumined silhouettes. This would continue for perhaps twenty minutes. At the end, they would trace their path back out, in the same silent fashion.

Peace. I felt this. In the silence, save for the creaking of the wooden pews, I felt solid. I felt whole. Exiting the chapel, the rending power of the outdoor air and light felt vaguely like an assault. You can't stay here. Back to the real world.

In truth, I know - I think - I belong in "The Real World", where people are involved in far messier occupations than splitting wood and making bread and jam and chanting prayers. In the real world I am not surrounded by vast open acreage, but rather by a fairly closely packed demographic of low-income families. On a whim, inspired by a work training I had attended last week, I looked up the sex-offender registry, correctly anticipating that I would find some registrants in my neighborhood. This is the real world.

The act of observing is the safe place I retreat to when I don't know how to act, when I worry about making a mess. Standing still. To be and not act. There is a value in this. Some might call it cowardice, and in my darkest places, I might, too. It's possible to philosophically debate this point to infinity. When does standing still constitute wisdom, when does it constitute cowardice?

A rash act cannot be undone; an impulse denied may result in death, or it may result in a more fully realized continuance of a far deeper pulse. I cannot place a superior value or judgement, moral or otherwise, on the decision to act or not act. I can only aspire to make decisions that are as thorough, careful, and wise as possible.

I gather myself to myself, in silence. A comb through my hair in the darkness. A sliver of light. My heart.

I Think I'm Drunk, Bitchiz

Why did I buy that bottle of vodka? Goddamn. Chaka Khan. I feel for you. WARNING: This post is gonna make a whole lot of nonsense. Just watched the movie "Dandelion", on the recommendation of a friend. I liked it. Made me cry a few times. I was horrified to discover that one of the leads, Taryn Manning, was also in the Britney Spears vanity piece "Roadtrip." As the character Danny in Dandelion she was very effective, not to mention stunning. There was a drug/drink fueled scene, set to the Cat Power version of the Velvet Underground's "I Found a Reason" that socked me in the nostalgic region of my gut, and, at least in my current state, was alone reason enough to make this movie worth watching. That particular version of that song has a special place in my heart, and that was before seeing this movie or "V for Vendetta."

Seeing yourself. Seeing yourself. The places we go to, the places we end up, where are we willing to go, why are we willing, when... there are times when I simply do not understand why I am still alive. I really don't. The fact that I am alive means I am not as selfish as I sometimes imagine.

What is sacrifice? It is not the strict domain of the victim, the martyr. It is being shocked into the world, the physical world. It is seeing and acknowledging the vastness, the connections, the inescapable realities of people and things and what they do and where they sit and live and love and die. When your familiar landscapes are internal, it is indeed a shock to witness and accept this. Wooden floors and chairs and soiled clothing and cigarette butts. Chicken stew in a bowl and a pendant of fake crystals. Yes, fake crystals.

The world spins and strews its debris in your backyard. You gather it, assemble it, observe it, study it, take it inside, house it. You don't own it. You house it.

Anger Management

Life is a long, winding, slippery, treacherous, booby-trapped path with no short cuts. No escape, little girl, no escape.
Listen to your blood as it pulses through your ears,
you cannot silence it.
Close the door hard, and lock it.
Sit now in solitude, rip seams and mend,
your heart is your own.

You scored as Dante Alighieri.

According to you most of humanity will spend at least some of their afterlife in hell. You have a high likelihood of being exiled, but anyone as bloody fucking romantic as you deserves what they get. You have an exceptional moral code, overshadowed by the fact that you yourself cannot uphold it. Your existence bears a definite irony; although of fairly Christian morality, many pagans, satanists, communists, and intellectuals admire you and your works for all the wrong reasons. Also, the brightest star in your sky is never going to be your lover... It takes a lot of grief to be the cartographer of hell.

Don't you want to know which pseudo historical figure best suits you?
http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=111334&first=yes
(sorry, you'll probably have to copy and paste that link)

Just thinking...

of this bar in Rhode Island that I'm not at all sure I could ever find again on my own, maybe it was Charlestown? It was on the coast, east of Misquamicut... I was drunk. I wasn't driving. Was it before or after stopping at some sex shop? Maybe before? It was in a basement. The floor was concrete. It seemed to have sea water on it. It was dark. The barmaid was Irish. I mean Irish with an accent. She was pretty, with a reserved but knowing attitude. If I lived around there she probably would have been my friend. We tumbled in there - was it before or after the other bar, where I'm pretty sure we ate some fish and chips? On the same road. They were on the same road. Outside the other bar was, of course, the Atlantic ocean. We ended up out on that beach at some point. Floodlights from the bar illuminated the choppy surf. What time was it? Dark. It was dark. Above the berm and crashing sea foam, appearing as almost an optical illusion, were - hundreds? Maybe hundreds - of seabirds, diving, rising, criss-crossing each other madly, as they picked away at the teeming schools of silver fish. The wind thrashed. The seabirds seemed hypnotized, unable to pull away from this bounty. He looked at me as if he were responsible for this spectacle, eyes clear and mischievous despite the drink. The blue piercing through me.
"Let's go."

I'm Banking on the Placebo Effect

I'm pretty much getting wicked sick of not sleeping. My cartoon fantasy is for my cat to have tranquilizing venom in her fangs, and for her to bite me like a tiny calico vampire every night. In a perfect world, that's how this problem might be solved. I mean, that would be a really funny way to be put to sleep. Tiny white paws kneading at my veins.

I know all about the things you're supposed to do: exercise regularly, avoid too much caffeine, avoid too much alcohol, practice deep relaxation, meditate or do some yoga, avoid too much stimulation before bedtime, such as using a computer, set a regular bedtime and schedule, and blah-bitty-blah-blah-blah. Ok, duh. Fucking as if to at least half of that shit.

I'm not going to start taking drugs, it's pathetic enough that I fall back on old Vicodin and Xanax scrips on occasion. And then you have "natural remedies" like valerian root. Have you ever smelled that shit? Kind of a combination of vomit and sweaty hockey skates filled with cheese. Seriously. Tonight I unearthed a homeopathic remedy called "Calm-u-Nat". I took two of them about 20 minutes ago, washed down with a beer. We'll see.

I've had other cartoon how-to-fall-asleep fantasies. One involves a pulley system with a miniature wrecking ball mounted on my bedroom ceiling. Another a mad-cap chase around the neighborhood ending with a tranquilizer dart in the neck. You get the picture. Extreme outside intervention.

Insomnia makes you feel like a machine with an electrical problem. Like somewhere there are wires that keep communicating even when they're not supposed to be, an active, droning power drain. Where is the motherfucking off switch?

Travis Bickle is Lonely

I feel like I've been way the fuck too serious in a lot of my recent posts. The thing is I can't help it. I get spiraled in pretty deep sometimes, it's just what happens. The new job has contributed to that, lately. Despite all that, there have been some really funny moments involving clients (and some staff, too), and I don't mean funny laughing at them - it has more to do with the utter frankness with which some of them address you. There is one guy at one of the homes who will say something along these lines to you several times a day: "Am I doing good with my boundaries? Am I setting good boundaries between us? Because you're not my girlfriend. So I can't hug you or touch you. I just want to make sure I'm doing a good job."

Another resident, who at first seemed very quiet and reluctant to talk to me, spent a good deal of time today telling me about her participation in the Olympics as a figure skater, her ability to do a seventeen minute aerial spin, a fleet of submarines, boats, and airplanes that she commands and the speed at which they travel (a zillion miles an hour), about Michael Dukakis being her father, and traveling to the moon and landing on it with one finger, among other things. Bear in mind that none of this came across as being funny when she was explaining it to me, and even thinking back on the conversation it's still not "funny" - but I was amazed at the successive layers of detailed information she shared with surprising clarity and enthusiasm.

I promise, I promise - I am not going to turn this into a blog about my job. It hasn't been my intention to mine my work experiences for novel little stories or quaint vignettes. It's just that I have been so immersed for the past two weeks and it's all quite new to me, so you're just going to have to put up with hearing about it now and then. I'll try to keep it to now and then.

Watched Taxi Driver tonight. I had never seen more than little parts of that movie. If anyone has an opinion about whether the ending is fantasy or fact I'd like to hear it. By ending I mean like after all the blood. But if you've seen it and have an opinion on that then it's a little silly for me to explain that, right? I mean, what I mean by "the ending"? Right. It's obviously a wonderful movie. I'm realizing I need to watch more movies starring Robert DeNiro. He is so not over-rated.

If it wasn't so effing cold tonight I'd walk down the street and get a drink at the bar I have yet to check out. But I don't even want to drive down the street. There are still some lone cans of PBR in the fridge. And they're gettin' lonely.

Homeslice

An interesting aspect of my new job is that many people who work there, as well as many of the clients we serve, have a greater than average interest in knowing what town you live in - more specifically they really want to know if you live in the same town the agency is based in - more to the point, did you grow up there?

There are some practical reasons for wanting this knowledge. The town has an extremely circuitous layout, with numerous one-way streets, rivers and bridges, squirrely short-cuts, and slightly sketchy neighborhoods. So the questions behind the question: Do you know how to get around? Will you be able to find a client’s house? Will you be afraid to be in a particular neighborhood or apartment complex at night?

Some of the deeper questions behind the question: Do you remember “The Dark Days”, when ex-patients from the State (mental) Hospital were released into the community with no support, ending up homeless, at a total loss, committing or falling victim to crimes? Do you therefore understand the importance of the agency?

Deeper yet: Is it in you? Were you steeped in this mixed-up brew of a city to a sufficient degree that you take the lingering presence of the ex-patients not only in stride, but practically as a point of pride? As in, “We weren’t afraid to take them on.” And I don’t mean that in a coarse or flippant sense. The dedication the staff has to the agency being a virtual stronghold, a fortress of support for the population they serve is at times astonishing.

I was thinking about this a lot today, as I was doing a training with a fellow native. It’s true of any place, I suppose - there are just certain things you can understand only by being a native. As she related a good portion of her life story to me, the second half in particular, I was just thinking, “Oh, I know this story,” not literally, but something about its essence. She totally got that too, from my listening and my responses. It was cool, actually. We’re gonna go dancing sometime.

Tonight the wind in my hometown sounds like ocean waves, it pushes in great, insistent swells against the window panes, making them rattle, this blue-lit stormy night makes me want to drink in a familiar place with a familar face. Hello mirror. You’re supposed to smile.

No, you, reader, are supposed to smile.

This is a test

OK, one new skill I've acquired at my new job is learning to remember people's names. You probably could do without the proof, but, in no particular order:

(edit: even though the long list of names that formerly existed here was first name only and w/ no distinction made between staff and clients, I have decided for privacy purposes to remove all names. Trust me - I can still list them. Only now it's like 100+ names...)

I feel this new skill is worth mentioning because I have always been one of those "I'm terrible with names" people, and I honestly have no idea how I have managed to remember at least 75 names after having spent basically these weird small blocks of time with everyone on this list. My point is that YES you can teach an old dog new tricks and I have kind of amazed myself. I mean, sure, it's not like I've taught myself to fly an airplane or something but still.

Last night I went to bed around 1:00, feeling very tired and slightly sauced on a coupla vodka drinks, and knowing I had to get up at 6:30 to go to work. I think I did fall asleep for an hour. Then I woke up. Then I tossed. I turned. Flip. Flip. Flip. Flip. Think. Think. Think. Think. Headache. Pill. Water. Flip. Think. Agitate. Cogitate. Alarm. "You've got to be fucking kidding me" I spoke aloud to the dark. Dragged my ass up and out of bed. Then...nausea. NO. Please no. Standing in the cold dark hallway I gag, it seems almost a near certainty. NO! I'm dizzy. Fuckfuckfuck. Not now. Head downstairs. Happy thoughts! Happy thoughts! The sight of glasses sticky with screwdriver residue, the slight trace smell of leftover pizza. Fuckfuckfuck. Bathroom. Dizzy, swimmy head. Shower. Need soap smells, clean smells. Digest, goddammitt! Settle! Settle! Step carefully into the steamy water. Calm, be calm. Soap. Nice. Clean. Happy.

Shower's over, still iffy, fast forward to coffee prep. Between the vibration of the coffee grinder, the heavy scent of the ground dark roast, having to wash out my last-used-days-before travel mug which had that soury, plasticy smell - I was back to square one, and rushing through the whole process to get away from the sight and smell of it all. I sat down and visualized my body dealing more conventionally with whatever noxiousness it seemed heavily inclined to expel via my esophagus. I should've explained at the start of this tale that I am deathly afraid of puking, because once I start it's very hard for me to stop. Last time it happened I ended up in the hospital, convinced I was going to die because I was so delirious from the dehydration. No, it's certainly not always that bad, but that is my most recent memory.

I didn't puke. I sipped my coffee like a soldier, "Coffee, you are welcome in my gut without fear of reprisal. At ease."

I need to do something, seriously, about this insomnia BS. Sleeping every other night is not enough! Lame post, I know, but that's what happens when you're running on vapor.

I meant to...

write a nice decent post tonight, but visitors and vodka have prevented that from happening, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I've been making an effort to make regular, almost daily posts, hence my very weak effort at this very moment. I actually had a few things I wanted to blab about, including the moon and a song, but it will have to wait, my bed beckons, sleepy sleep hopefully, yes sleepy sleepy sleep, please meet me, we'll hold hands and kiss goodnight and smile in silence.

Matter

The gas heater is making its hard little *pings*, a reassuring sound that lets me know it's throwing heat and the pilot hasn't mysteriously put itself out again. As I look in that direction, the new-old rose colored chair from Goodwill dominates my line of vision, set against the golden-ish wall. Resting atop the chair, and leaning against the wall is a picture, a striking but quiet image of a lone horse facing a tree, its head bowed down, a sweep of branches forming a delicate canopy above him. It's a reproduction of an old Chinese painting, I think. Could be Japanese, too, I suppose. It's almost monochromatic save for the horse and tree trunk.

I was thinking about the anchoring power of objects and images, and so I mention this picture, that has been such an object for me, and happens to be sitting before me like a muse. The friend that I went to visit this weekend down in Brooklyn happens to live in a house that is filled with such items, at least it appears that way to an outside observer. The house has been in his family for three generations, and when he bought it from family, it came stocked with a dizzying array of...well, stuff. He has made it his own in his own way, but has left much of what existed intact, with intention, I believe. It makes for creating an environment that you kinda just want to settle down in and do some sippin' and smokin'.

Whether or not it was due to the anchoring power of the objects within, we barely left the house this weekend, and that was perfectly alright with me. Italian take-out from New Corner, Pad Thai from Blue Ginger, lots of vodka drinks, a few borrowed drags of nicotine for me, other nice smoky things I abstained from bc of my new job, a lot of sleeping and just plain chillin' out. Even the Chinatown bus was extra kind, I had two whole seats to myself on the way back.

But objects, anchors, those things we touch and see. This weekend as I watched footage of a firestorm out west, a woman was interviewed whose house, along with her mother's, was overtaken and consumed in minutes. You could almost see the heat on her skin as her dry blond hair whipped across her face. Everything was gone, everything had disappeared, photographs and letters. I thought about the strangeness of losing those sorts of records, relatively new types of records as life on earth goes, but quite taken for granted. What would it be like to lose all record of your life, with the exception of your life itself, your physical presence? Imagine proving who you are. At that moment I imagine what would constitute the shape of, the proof of, the meaning of your life would be the people who are part of it. I imagine it would come down to that.

I often find myself torn, when it comes to the material presence and proof of life, between a sort of charged sentimentality and an austere indifference. Leaning towards the former more so than the latter. The austerity is simply a response to feeling overwhelmed by a thing's power. Mostly I find myself sitting in the middle of the two, smack dab in the middle of it, cradled and carried and bemused as I cast a backward then a forward glance, aware that matter matters but that our understanding of matter is quite incomplete. But I guess that gives us something to do. And on that note... it's time to tidy up.

I just liked this.

Brooklyn Bound...

It's approaching 1:30 a.m. and I'm s'posed to be getting up at 5:00 a.m. or thereabouts to catch the Chinatown express bus, it departs from one of the lovely casinos here in CT. There's a 7:00 and an 8:00, but if you're at all concerned about the certainty of catching one of them , you kind of hafta be there for the 7:00. Which really means you must be there by 6:30 at the latest. So why am I sitting here typing one of the most boring posts you'll ever read? 'Cause I'm wired. No good reason either. I had a couple of beers tonight. Coffee around 4:00. Last night I went to bed at 2:00 and had the most weird-ass sleep and dreams. Snoop Dogg was in one of them. We were just walking past each other and he gave me this look that seemed to ask why I wasn't doing more to help keep his ass out of jail. I have no idea what else happened in that dream except that I wished I had been able to actually talk to him and not just walk past. I think he was being escorted? And so many more dreams... my sleep felt drugged, even though it wasn't.

Brooklyn for the weekend! Food and insane Xmas light competitions and chillin' out and more food. Sauerkraut pierogies. Need those. Crap! That reminds me that my dad was making some of those the other day. I need to call over there in the morning to make sure at least one is saved for me. He doesn't usually make pierogies, so it'll be interesting to see how they turned out. He's more of a galobki guy.

Oh, Christ save my ass ... I gotta try to squeeze in three hours of shut-eye, starting now. Yes, I know this post sucked. See ya's next week!