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| sisyphus |
May 11, 2008 |
“And in the fog there appears an intimation of a figure. It disappears when I look at it directly, but then reappears in the corner of my vision when I turn my glance. I am about to say something, to call to it, to recognize it, but then do not, knowing that to recognize it by any gesture or action is to give it a reality which it must not have."
-Bob Pirsig
pirsig, of course, was referring to his own true self (or insanity if you prefer) which had been previously electro shocked away. not to be too real, but one of the reasons i’ve been gone is that my father committed suicide by cop. he held a gun to my sister’s head. an empty gun. they killed him.
i’ve dealt with it and i am completely fine. no sympathy please. but i was touched by the worry some of you expressed at my absence and i just wanted to let you know why i’ve been gone this time.
there was a lizard doing pushups in front of my truck this afternoon. i’ve never seen one do that before. so i caught the little fucker, got him high, and released him back into the parking lot. perhaps he learned a valuable lesson; if you work out in public, a giant person will drop a hat over you and blow smoke in your face.
este saber no sabiendo es de tan alto poder que los sabios arguyendo jamás le pueden vencer que no llega su saber a no entender entendiendo toda sciencia tracendiendo.
if you’ve ever walked through the desert backcountry, you will notice along the ancient pathways, piles of stones at certain intervals. usually only three to ten stones high, and most of them fist sized or smaller.
there has been much speculation as to the meaning of these stone piles. distance markers, or indications that one is still on the trail are two popular explanations. the third is that they are small offerings to the gods of the trail. i always add to the pile when i pass.
experimental measurements of elementary particle masses show their values to be quite stable over time, but if we look back to the earliest epochs following the big bang, even non-string based theories invoke periods during which elementary particle masses are capable of change over time. these periods could have involved the topology-changing tears that have curled and twisted space-time into the form we find today.
soon again will come
the summer storms
on days when the heat is
almost visible as it shimmers
around us and the air
is heavy as steam in our lungs
and then comes the storm
the temperature plummets
the wind flies
and off to the west the skies
darken and the darkness
rushes toward us
cooling the sweat on my forehead and
arms
cold drops of rain begin to land
skipping off the hot concrete
and thunder in the distance
moving closer
i spread my arms and turn
to face the wind and laugh
as the lightning begins to dance
and the thunder rolls toward us
you tell me to come back inside
but the storm is rejuvenation
although i cannot exactly explain
why this should be
and so i stand in the storm for
a few minutes more
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| unofficial noses |
February 24, 2008 |
"I looked up then, and what happened next I cannot describe without a considerable loss of words: I saw a drinking fountain." -Mary Ruefle
at midnight the clock on the wall doesn’t say 24:00. it says 0:00. i like that. always have zero hour. a beginning and an end.
i lost my keys and had to break into my own apartment the other night. unfortunately, i’d had a little to drink and had also forgotten where i lived, and thusly i broke into the place next to mine. although, to my credit, i did realize my mistake once i was inside. at that point i rapidly exited and then broke into my own. over the years i’ve gotten very good at b&e, and i doubt my neighbors even realized my mistake.
i’ve gotten back into real-estate and property management in a limited way. and to some extent it feels good to actually do work of some kind again. while gambling is immensely enjoyable and my favorite way to make money, i have been enjoying a few days of wiring, painting, drywalling, and stonework.
but i also like to sit down and write occasionally, and as arienette has given me a few questions to start me off, (best day and best dream). i will address those now.
best day is still the day i decided to take a year off from school and drive around the country. or more precisely, the day i actually left. at various times i have discussed various places i went and people i met, so i won’t go into that too much. but i will say that that year most definitely changed the course of my life and i am so glad it did. i still remember arriving at the decision to leave. i was driving down 90th and passed the Intel building where i was working. i lived a few blocks from there, and as i stopped for a light at western, i suddenly had an image of myself still living in the same apartment up the hill and still working at Intel and still living in that same city in 5 years. upon the advent of that image in my mind, the atmosphere simultaneously closed in on me and disappeared all together, leaving me crushed, compressed, and unable to breathe. within a week i sold the car, bought a jeep, gave away most of my things and told trinity i had to leave town for a while. and i started driving. for some reason i chose alaska as a my first arbitrary destination. not that destination was ever really a part of that year. i did go back and complete my last year and get my degrees, but i knew that i would never use them and would instead become a wanderer.
best dream is more difficult. i’m an insomniac and have been since i was a young kid. i’ve tried every sleep-aid on the market, and the few that have worked have also given me horrific dreams. so i usually go with alcohol, which pretty much annihilates rem sleep and eliminates dreams. when i do dream, the images are unpleasant. so, i would have to say that i have never had a dream that i regretted waking up from. i did have one dream that i would have liked to continue for a few more minutes, though. i dreamed that i was dead and experiencing the afterlife. i wandered for years through places i had been when i was a child. eventually i learned to exert a measure of control over the things around me, but i could never interact with the people i saw (and i saw them only as one sees a mirage on the highway. shimmering and out of reach). after a time that may have been days or months or years, i found myself walking at midnight down the brick main street of the town i lived in as a child. but at the end of the street where there used to be a hill, there was now an utterly black chasm. i walked to it’s edge and looked out. i could see nothing but darkness, but i faintly heard voices. i had just decided to step out from the edge and see what would happen when i woke up.
although i know that whatever happened next would only be a creation of my own mind, i’ve always been curious as to what would have happened if i had slept a little longer.
so now i ask you, arienette, what was the dream that you didn’t want to wake up from?
unfocused eyes observing
steel wheels spinning through
an impartial impression
and the shadows are everywhere
all circumlocution imitates
energy as we fall
and what lies behind closed doors
in infinities of sliding imposters
unfocused eyes smiling shades |
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| underground cactus |
January 26, 2008 |
Odd, though, all these dealings of mine with myself. First, I’ve agreed a principle with myself, now I’m making out a case to myself, and debating my own feelings and intentions with myself. Who is this self, this phantom internal partner, with whom I’m entering into all these arrangements? (I ask myself.)
-Michael Frayn
my fingers have been mute for some time. i have no explicit explanation for that, but instead offer a generalized one. women. also my right thumb doesn’t work anymore and i haven't felt like writing.
when i woke up this morning there was a bandage on my forehead and three orange traffic cones in my living room.
i have no idea how or why this transpired. gail claims ignorance as well, which is surprising.
in between over/under calculations, i have been pondering immaterialistic parallelism. personally, i think it’s bullshit. there’s a sledgehammer leaning against the coke machine in the lobby. i’m not sure if such proximity was intended as a suggestion or not, but i suspect that it is only a matter of time until i walk past it while drunk enough to use it as a means of expedient and cathartic beverage extraction. hell, maybe i already did. i should check on where i was last night.
in other news, i have mortal lock in the ninth race at gulfstream.
i find it amusing to mail random objects to random addresses. as with many of the things i do, it started as an accident, but i found it so hilarious that i’ve done it a few times since then. so if you ever get a single shoe or a refrigerator magnet or a singing fish, or perhaps even a can of beer fedexed to you with no explanation, it may well have come from me.
on a related note, i’m slightly more insane than i used to be and somewhat more drunk (hard to believe, isn’t it?).
[jess, i hope your brother is ok, and if i don’t talk to you tomorrow, i will be thinking of you.]
spinning satellites starving amidst an illusion of a lost
future
while below formulas of horses pass through the filings of a fallen gate.
circling darkness dropping stale and
rotting pages filled with burnt figures and
i could say these things, agreeing meanwhile as to the valuelessness and indeed wholly unnecessary state from which they must originate.
fall into the water falling over waterfalls
and overtaken by oysters wonder at the instruments
played in caves beneath the earth.
red neon and warning claxons and three figures in kneeling trenchcoats pass through the walls.
would it not be much simpler an exercise to merely close one’s eyes.
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