And I Want Life In Every Word, To The Extent That It’s Absurd –
I’m just gonna go ahead and take this one on the chin, friend. Take this on the chin, and know that you believe that you have been wronged.
What do I owe thee? What occurred in actuality and what is projected? What have you afforded me that I can use to conjur literal obligatation?
Oh bother – just more words. And a little missing.
This Feeling
It creeps in and out but I’m never on top of it. Never. I have trouble letting go, I think. And there’s trouble staying motivated, or even mildly interested. And I have trouble saying things that I don’t know how to say, or even if there’s the need, so I choose not to and just see what plays out. Then, what plays out is a comedy of errors, sometimes a tragedy, that could have been avoided had I addressed the issue candidly.
I hate, I’ve always hated though I understand, finality. Wish I was more black-and-white, solid-distinct-lines-and-limitations, but I’m not. I live in the gray, in the fray, most definitely. Things are relative and subject to change. So although I understand the purpose, I hate that you actually have to say “bye” to people you care about for technical reasons. Of course, in my logic of relativity, this only means that “bye” is potentially temporary….but I hate the technicality all the same. I think love is complicated and fragile, and that close connections are almost rare. I always just want to keep them around me.
*sigh*
And this is the feeling I’m never on top of: I seriously dislike working. I don’t want a job, but I definitely don’t want money troubles. I have never been fulfilled by any work that I’ve taken up and moreso, I silently, internally, rage against the time and life restrictions that working requires that I bear. At the same time, I need the structure. I need to feel productive and awake… So enter, of course, the argument that I should find rewarding work, that I should figure out what would be fulfilling to me and launch my efforts there…yes, yes…of course. So easy.
I think I’m trying to accomplish that, I think. I just have no desire for this. Every single day is a tiny battle to get out of bed and steer my car downtown. Every single day is a figuring out of whether or not I can call in. I don’t know how people do it; I really don’t. I understand the pulls of responsibility, providing for family, paying the mortgage. I guess the motivation comes from there….
nowhere.
Helpful Resource Site
“Navigator is the home page used by the newsroom of The New York Times for forays into the Web. Its primary intent is to give reporters and editors new to the Web a solid starting point for a wide range of journalistic functions without forcing all of them to spend time wandering around blindly to find a useful set of links of their own. Its secondary purpose is to show people that there’s still a lot of fun and useful stuff going on out there. (Free registration required). ”
Listening, Not Working
It’s old now, but the Lost In Translation soundrack is killer. 566 discovered the best radio streaming ever (excepting, I imagine, whatever you’re pulling out of France these days, SOE). I am madly loving it right now, better than any CMJ compilation. I used to be a connesoir of the Village Voice whose best attribute is its randomness, how you’d hear a sweet Chet Baker followed by Spiritualized and then the Eels and Interpol, then once you got your groove started, their randomness hit a snag with the addition of some grating Tim McGraw song, leaving you thinking that someone had hijacked the station and had both the webmaster and on-air dj in a life-threatening choke hold because certainly no thinking person intended to play nashville country and force crap onto the airwaves….but nope, they did it all the time. Groove, then snag. Sweetass groove, then SNAG. Ooh, but then an old school Run DMC “Christmastime in Hollis, Queens”, but then another snag.
This beats it, hands down. New Air? New Pixies (fkking back together??!!!!!!!!!!), New Modest Mouse, Chemical Bros., Beth Orton, Stills? I have found my newest shiny.
Confession
I haven’t called because I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to tell you, even in it’s lightest sense. I don’t know how to say it. I don’t even know how to explain.
Can I just take it all back? Can I rewind and return to the before? Come over and squint my eyes shut and hug hard and pretend?
I know, I know.
Erase and rewind, erase and rewind -
I’ll give myself ’til 9
On the drive in this morning, I was transported to the me of 5 years ago – good years – as this feeling of familiar entered through my eyes, crept through the receptors in my skin. It’s the weather, I determined. This beautiful, mild-day weather that has kicked the ass out of this week and hastily flung it to the netting of the soft outfielder glove of the weekend. We are here; we have arrived.
At Artista on Monday, leaving the view and walking back to my building, I remember thinking, “Hmm, what a great day. Hmm.” I rued the subsequent confinement within the office until nightfall, but was still enamored with the surprise of the sunshine, viewable through my window, over my left shoulder, to the outside. Enamored with the rain being gone. Of the return of light.
I imagine Austin is phenomenal right now.
At Berryhill, it literally felt like California. California All Around Me. Thought I was in San D again, or at the beach, cart-wheeling in the sand to the chuckles of the one watching me. It was delicious to be out in for an hour. I almost didn’t mind watching it pass until I could escape again after the sun set.
Today is another beautiful morning. The familiarity, yes, is all around me. I remember this feeling, of being out in the day and always in the weather and feeling sunshine and being young and excited…it feels like college. Because damn, there were some fabulous times in college.
But now that I’m back in the office writing this, pouring hot caffeinated coffee onto the leftover remnants of last night’s Heinekens instead of the safe, comfortable padding of a food-filled stomach, I know why I have this familiar feeling. Yes it’s the day. Yes it’s beauty. But it’s mainly, interestingly, the perfume I walked through that still lingers, a last-minute decision to wear on a whim before heading out the door this morning….it’s what I used to wear as a girl. And I had no idea it would strike me this way – had no intention of it striking me in any sort of way for that matter.
Things aren’t getting written so much anymore. I’d call it a trend but it’s more like nature and the “there’s a time for everything” resignation line of thought. Partly, it’s the desire – we’ve all lost it I guess – partly it’s the time, partly it’s the sea change and the loss of belief in the grandeur, the grand idea. I find it interesting that a year ago the addiction was so strong that I didn’t consider myself up to the projected caliber. Nine months ago we were mutually entranced – constantly updating, constantly changing templates and editing posts, manicly checking site meter, maniacally reading each other’s and our list of link’s posts for gratifying references and content for banter. We had a communal addiction. We placed too much importance in it, in our writing, in our thought expulsion. We brought more into the fold. We sent forth and prospered. We burned. We burned our own lights out.
Ripped off by unoriginal thieves.
That’s a joke, people. Self importance is a virtue of sarcasm.
You can parlay intention only so far. But then again, you can only delay gratification for so long… and then you have to go forward and gratify –
Unrelated thought. No connection. But still, no writing either.
Move it on down the screen, dear.
Pssssst
darling, already read it and itching to respond. you need comments, dammit.
